The small artworks are the calling cards of San Francisco artist DraINvader, who's on a mission to cover sewer drain holes with something worth noticing. "The idea is, every piece solves a real problem while adding something beautiful," he said. For the past several months, DraINvader has been steadily installing his pieces on city sidewalks. Each customized square plate features a 3-D printed image, such as a butterfly, a Day of the Dead skull or Star Wars' R2-D2.
That arresting image was made from a tiny portrait of the artist's brother, expanded to monumental public proportions, that announced the Met's "Witnessing Humanity" exhibit, a Wilson retrospective that continues through February 8. In the picture, the brother's brow is steadfast, his gaze grave and alert, mouth and chin resolutely composed; perhaps no Black face has ever so effectively stared down the self-regard of Manhattan's Museum Mile.
In a new letter, the Trump White House has reignited its threat to pull funding from the Smithsonian Institution amid a probe of the federally funded organization's programming, budgets, and forthcoming commemorations for the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. Dated December 18, the letter addressed to Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III underscored that the institution has yet to provide the majority of the documents requested in August, including "current exhibition descriptions, draft plans for upcoming shows, upcoming programming materials, and internal guidelines used in exhibition development."
In fact, the Chilean artist even believed she would die in obscurity, although she told EL PAIS that the lack of external recognition never deterred her from dedicating her life to art. I remember reading a children's biography of Mozart, a genius who reached the point of despair out of going hungry, and the idea stuck with me that sublime art wasn't related to recognition, value, or money, she confessed.
Outside an abandoned building in New Zealand's second-biggest city, a sign reads slightly haunted but manageable. In the middle of a busy shopping strip, pedestrians are warned to keep to a 2.83km/h walking speed. In another part of the Christchurch, one piece of signage declares simply don't. The baffling boards are not an overzealous new council initiative, but a piece of art designed to play with the way we take authority and signage so seriously.
His exhibitions were titled 'Normal Life' and his paintings were titled 'Untitled'. There were a few exceptions with small subtitles, but the pattern was mostly consistent. This may seem simple at rst glance, but it comes from his intention to step back and keep a certain distance from his work. This attitude also appears in the way he paints gures without tying them to specic people, allowing anyone to see themselves in them.
I Can Do That! Performing Arts Center begins 2026 with the high-energy show Newsies, the Musical, Jan. 16-25 at Walnut Creek's Del Valle Theatre on 1963 Tice Valley Blvd. Inspired by the real-life newsboys' strike of 1899, Newsies features music by Alan Menken, lyrics by Jack Feldman and book by Harvey Fierstein. Set in turn-of-the-century New York City, the show follows Jack Kelly and a band of young newspaper sellers who rally together to stand up against powerful publishers and fight for what's right.
Tony Hawk, the skateboarding legend synonymous with daring tricks and modern skate culture, over the weekend faced an experience "WAY outside" his comfort zone: performing in a ballet. The San Diego native and "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater" namesake, 57, made his ballet debut Saturday skating on stage for Golden State Ballet's production of "The Nutcracker." During the one-of-a-kind showing at San Diego's Civic Theatre, Hawk appeared in multiple scenes of the beloved holiday ballet, entertaining audiences with tricks while in costume.
I started dancing when I was three years old, after asking my mom for ballet lessons as we walked past a studio. From then on, all I wanted to do was dance. That love eventually led me somewhere I, as an introvert, never expected: Hong Kong Disneyland. It started in 2017, when Hong Kong Disneyland held an audition at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts in Singapore, where I was studying for my diploma in dance.
MarieEve Proteau is a Canadian painter based in Austria, known for dreamy, surreal portraits of women whose faces and bodies are partially hidden by plants, hair, veils or patterned shadows. After earlier experiments painting on unconventional supports like retro TV sets, she now focuses on acrylic on canvas and wood panels, using soft gradients, tropical foliage, snakes, tattoos and reflections to explore identity, vulnerability and the parts of ourselves we conceal.
When Marjorie Prime premiered a decade ago, its technology felt abstract and futuristic. Today, it feels incremental. Artificial intelligence is no longer a novelty; it is fluent, responsive, and embedded in daily life. What once played as a cautionary what if now lands as a question of habit: not whether we would use such technology, but why we already do.
The returns, announced by the Manhattan District Attorney's office, follow multiple criminal investigations into international trafficking networks. According to the DA's office, traffickers exploited periods of instability and weak oversight to plunder sites such as Bubon, routing objects through Switzerland, the UK and the US. Once in New York, prosecutors say, dealers allegedly fabricated provenance records that allowed looted artefacts to be exhibited, published, and sold.
Based in France, Roberto Ricci is a self-taught comic artist who works in publishing, video games and movies, as well as in teaching. He's particularly inspired by Metal Hurlant authors, and his latest clients include Dark Horse Comics and Activision. He works in a wide variety of mediums, but particularly likes traditional mediums like ink, watercolour, acrylic and gouache. Below he shares three examples of his work.
Walking along the quayside and crossing the Gateshead Millennium Bridge, they pointed out landmarks to Phoebe as they went: the Tyne Bridge, the Glasshouse International Centre for Music. They arrived, eventually, at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, where Harold Offeh's exhibition The Mothership Collective 2.0 was showing (it's on until 18 January). The show is described as a sci-fi playscape for collaborative encounters and made up of different zones.
Deep in the forest of Salta, Argentina, I watch a group of women in long floral skirts expertly wield machetes. Metal blades as long as my torso whizz through the dry air to make a clearing among the treacherous spiked palo borracho trees, and colossal cacti with finger-length needles. Slowly, methodically, they wrangle the chaguar, another perilous plant, and peel the sharp spines from its sword-shaped leaves with their bare hands.
It was a white-glove Christmas auction of singer and actor Bing Crosby's personal collection, which made a 100% sell-through rate and $6.7m at Sotheby's in New York last night against an estimate of $3.9m to $6.3m (totals include buyer's premium; estimates do not). Among the most festive lots were the musical arrangements for Crosby's 1954 hit musical film, White Christmas, which flew six times over the low estimate to fetch $19,050.
As you remake New York into a better home for all those forgotten by the politics of our city, a place where working people and immigrants truly feel the power that belongs in their hands, remember this: Arts and culture are the very vehicles through which we express the power to shape our destinies. We must ensure that every member of our communities can actively participate in artistic and cultural creation and access affordable, local arts programs.
The Italian-born, London-based artist Enrico David first attracted attention in the late 1990s with his large-scale, immaculately executed embroideries featuring masked figures striking extravagant poses. Many of these works were bought by Charles Saatchi and exhibited at the collector's eponymous gallery in a 2001 group show titled New Labour. Soon afterwards, though, David changed direction and began producing the enigmatic, psychologically charged sculptures of mutated humanoid forms for which he is now better known.
When considering Miguel Arzabe 's bold, woven works, it's unsurprising that he begins by painting two abstract pieces. Vibrant fields of acrylic spread across his canvases before they're sliced into long strips and reconfigured. Resulting are dynamic compositions that meld art historical traditions with Arzabe's Bolivian heritage, drawing on longstanding Andean imagery and weaving practices.
How do you map time in three dimensions? Cannupa Hanska-Luger's new exhibition at the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, Nebraska asks that question in a choir of material tones, locating both harmony and discordance in Indigenous futurity. Dripping Earth (until 8 March 2026) is an ambitious undertaking, ushering viewers under water, over land and through the magma-hot center of historical turmoil.
Using only her memory and a hyper-vivid imagination, Laura Footes paints intuitively when conjuring complex, dreamy scenes from her life. There are no photographic source materials or preliminary sketches when working in the studio; instead, she relies on the raw emotions and mental images that spring forth when recalling her past. The artist's paintings are rendered fluidly in oil paint to depict extremely personal spaces and scenes, all smartly softened and blurred to let viewers enter her life and mind.
Every year sees increasing interest in Vincent van Gogh, and this is a truly global phenomenon. The Dutch artist is now a megastar in East Asia-in China, Korea and Japan. Here, we review the Van Gogh year in 2025. The big surprise of the year was news that the Van Gogh Museum may have to close its doors unless the Dutch state provides more money to help look after its buildings.
For the 321st anniversary celebrations of the founding of Chiayi City in Taiwan, MVRDV has completed a temporary timber pavilion housing an exhibition on manufacture, craft, and construction with wood. Located across from Chiayi's city hall, the Wooden Wonders pavilion encloses a square courtyard, with the shape of its perimeter structure informed by deep research into the city's timber construction heritage.
