Millions of dollars may not sound like too much to pay for a golden throne - but what about a flushable one? An 18-karat gold toilet sold for$12.1 million with fees at a Sotheby's auction on Tuesday. The sculpture, made by the Italian visual artist Maurizio Cattelan, is titled "America" and is flushable. The toilet, which debuted in 2016, consists of 101.2 kg, or about 223 pounds, of 18-karat gold and comes with a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist, according to Sotheby's.
Tom Hanks is a star who's always had one foot squarely in the past. As an actor he's forever been likened to James Stewart, a reincarnation of the charming, essentially good American everyman, a from-another-era lead who's increasingly been more comfortable in period fare (in the last decade, he's appeared in just four present-day films). As a producer, he's gravitated toward historical shows such as Band of Brothers, John Adams and The Pacific;
Chinyere Neale sits patiently at Detroit Public Theatre waiting for the evening's play to commence. It seems it is by fate that we both ended up here - two Black women with graying locs sitting next to each other in the theater, striking up a conversation about Black art in Detroit in between acts. "I really should see that exhibit. One of my Dad's pieces is in [it]," she tells me begrudgingly about the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History's 60th anniversary exhibition, Luminosity: A Detroit Arts Gathering. When I ask who her dad is, and she replies "Harold Neal," I'm flabbergasted. Harold Neal, the Detroit painter who cofounded one of the city's earliest Black-led arts organizations in the 1960s? Yes, that Harold Neal.
Three months before yesterday's announcement that Sperone Westwater would close after 50 years in business, dealer Gian Enzo Sperone sued his cofounder, Angela Westwater, claiming he was in a "parasitic deadlock" with her after she wrested control of a corporation that has a 50 percent stake in the gallery. The suit also accuses Westwater of mishandling funds, withholding records from Sperone and gallery stockholders, and mismanaging rent payments for the gallery.
The museum will merge its current location on 19 South 22nd Street with the adjacent Swedenborgian Church and Parish House on 2129 Chestnut Street. This plan has been in the works for awhile, with the Mütter having purchased the property for $9.3 million in 2023. So far, the museum has raised $27 million through an initial phase of fundraising "to support plans to create a cohesive campus," the release indicated.
this is one of the most remarkable archaeological discoveries in this region for decades. Semiyarka changes the way we think about steppe societies. It shows that mobile communities could build and sustain permanent, organized settlements centered on a likely large-scale industry-a true 'urban hub' of the steppe.
From thousands of colorful hair beads, Felandus Thames conjures vibrant patterns and portraits. He takes historical photographs as a starting point, focusing especially on Black and Indigenous figures whose stories have largely been underrepresented in American historical narrative. These include dancer and choreographer Alvin Ailey and Amos Haskins, a 19th-century Wampanoag man who became a master mariner—one of the few Indigenous people to do so.
He has spent the last decade or so thinking about the land as a witness to history and politics. Boundaries shift, places are named and renamed, and maps are redrawn. Land is bought, sold, worked, exhausted, and fought over. It remembers everything and the events that unfold at a particular site become part of its permanent record, even if that record is unseen and mute.
What is the ArtsWatch community? Last fiscal year ... It's the 91 staff, contributors, board, contractors, and volunteers who had a hand in its operations. It's the 72 people it economically supported. It's the 94% of its budget that went to pay people. It's the 634,376 people who visited the site. It's the 76 sponsors. It's the 265 donors and funders. It's the collaborations with community partners.
The International Fine Print Dealers Association will rebrand to become the International Fine Prints and Drawings Association (IFPDA) following a vote to expand membership to dealers working with drawings. The next IFPDA Print Fair (9 April 2026-12 April 2026) at the Park Avenue Armory in New York will reflect the shift. "This is an historic moment for the IFPDA," David Tunick, the president of the organisation's board, said in a statement. "In welcoming drawing dealers, we're honouring the shared lineage and scholarly connection between prints and drawings. It's an expansion that both strengthens our community and aligns with how museums and collectors engage with works on paper today."
With so many of the exhibitions in Art & Science Collide focused on climate change, environmental justice and Indigenous knowledge systems, much of the initial impetus [for climate action] came from our partners," Joan Weinstein, the director of the Getty Foundation, tells The Art Newspaper. "It also came at a moment when Getty was embracing sustainability as an institutional priority. Once we realised that the appetite was there to address these issues as a larger community, we set about providing some of the infrastructure to make it happen.
Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging. At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
Then we segue into meeting Waverly (Emily Eisele), a young advertising exec, nervously bouncing around her Minneapolis apartment. Her shy, diffident date, Andrew (Ben Tissell) arrives, holding a book and a bottle of wine. In the scene's background, ongoing newscasts play unceasingly. Distracted, Waverly is phoning her mother and not receiving a response-both are frightened for family living in Manhattan.
My last week in overlapped with the first week of rehearsals for . I've done that before, but I'm 45 now, and it's harder than it was even two years ago when I did it for . And that was really hard: two musicals. So I'm a little tired. But it's good. This bounty of work is something I've always been trying to get; being able to go between varying roles was the dream when I was getting out of school.
Stranger Things actress Sadie Sink will make her West End debut in a new production of Romeo & Juliet. British actor Noah Jupe, best known for his role in horror series A Quiet Place, will play the Romeo to her Juliet. They will portray the star-crossed lovers on stage at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London from March 2026, as first reported by US outlet Deadline. Award-winning writer and director Robert Icke, who has previously adapted George Orwell's 1984 and Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, will direct the project.
I was a Broadway kid, so I've always dreamed about doing a show in the West End, she said. To get to do that in one of Shakespeares's most famous plays under Rob's direction with Noah will be such an exciting challenge. London theatre has this incredible energy, and I can't wait to be a part of it.
"Other structural and mission changes are happening as well," Colley wrote in an email that was posted to social media. "I have heard that there will be no acquisitions or programming." Colley said that the school had made these decisions "without the knowledge or input of VDB staff," and that the organization's future was "uncertain." Colley concluded his note by writing, "We sincerely want to find a way forward for the Video Data Bank."
Guy Cogeval, who was director of Paris's Musée d'Orsay from 2008 to 2017, died on November 13 at the age of 70. His death, after a long illness, was reported by on November 17. An iconoclastic, and at times controversial, figure in the museum world, Cogeval was an impassioned scholar of 19th-century art whose specialty was the Nabis, a group of French Post-Impressionist painters active in the late 1800s.
The Louvre 's horrible, no good, very bad autumn continues. On Monday, the museum announced that it was temporarily closing some offices and one public gallery after a recent audit found structural weaknesses in some beams in the building. In a statement, the museum said that a technical report submitted last week found "particular fragility of certain beams holding up the floors" of the second level of the the Louvre's southern Sully wing because of "recent and unforeseen developments." Experts are currently assessing the damage.
Titled simply Costume Art, the exhibition will reportedly pair 200 artworks from the museum's various collections with 200 garments and accessories. But the most important information about the show in The Met's announcement appears below the description, in bigger and bolder font: "The exhibition is made possible by Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos," with additional support provided by Saint Laurent and Condé Nast.
I define feminine energy as the urge to connect and nurture, which everybody exhibits. If we disconnect from feminine energy, we lose the ability to connect deeply to ourselves in a meaningful way. We lose the ability to really nurture ourselves in a healthy way. We lose community because we lose the ability to connect to one another and nurture one another.
Americans will likely face higher prices on items for their Thanksgiving dinners this year. Turkey, typically the centerpiece of the Thanksgiving meal, will be one of the biggest sticker shocks for consumers. Wholesale prices for a turkey have jumped 40% from a year ago, according to the Department of Agriculture. Outbreaks of avian influenza, or bird flu, and increased demand have contributed to these higher prices. Those opting for beef instead of turkey should also prepare to pay more.
NBC late night host Seth Meyers has consistently made President Trump the target of his jokes. The latest bits include Meyers teasing about a recent decline in Republican support of the president and his recent comments to Fox News host Laura Ingraham that America doesn't have enough skilled workers for certain jobs. Trump seems to have had enough with Meyers, as he had with late night hosts Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel.
The face's features-"deep-set eye sockets, a flat nose, and lips marked by a cleft that also emphasizes the chin"-suggest that the face belongs to "an elderly man." The INAH statement describes that when the 18-inch-tall carving was uncovered, it was attached to the remains of the foundation of a building with an ovoid floor plan and an entrance facing west, to maximize sunlight.
In 1959, about 1% of American women were divorced; about 9% of children were raised by single mothers. Imagine how daring it was for three divorced single moms to move into a three-story house and raise their kids together. Now imagine that these women are also accomplished, ambitious artists who convert each floor into its own separate studio. Finally, consider that the house is in New York's (then) gritty Bowery district.
Comprising painting, drawing, murals, mosaic, sculpture, and glass, her work is rooted in the tangibility of color and the transportive power of images. Shaped by memories, dreams, and the constant flux of life around her, Uman's visual language is intuitive and multilayered, adaptable and free; it is neither exclusively abstract nor metaphorical - it grows out of what is indeterminate and into the transcendent.
For the second year in a row, Abu Dhabi 's Department of Culture and Tourism has organized a sprawling public art event focusing on sculptures, installations, and projections that incorporate light. The 2025-26 edition, called "The Light Compass," has a four-person curatorial team: artistic director Khai Hori (based in Singapore), and Alia Zaal Lootah, Munira Al Sayegh, and Mariam Alshehhi (all based in the UAE).
