Visitors to a major JMW Turner exhibition may well be surprised to see the opening work is by Jeff Koons, and Damien Hirst sharks, a Bridget Riley stripe painting and some Doc Marten boots supplied by the curator herself are also on display. Surprised? That's what we're hoping, said Melissa Gustin, the curator of British art at National Museums Liverpool. But by the end it will all make perfect sense, she hopes. That is the vibe we are after.
Japan is an island nation rich in timber, from cypress (Hinoki) to cedar (Sugi) to larch (Karamatsu). Its renowned woodworking heritage dates back centuries, taking the form of immaculately carved wooden beams in houses, ornate storage boxes, and revered religious statuary. For some artists working today, this timeless tradition translates perfectly into contemporary expressions. Hand-hewn from timber, expressive faces and dynamic motifs emerge in the sculptures of Kigaku - Re(a)lize - at FUMA Contemporary Tokyo.
Downtown San Jose welcomed a new cultural gem with the opening of the Silicon Valley Asian Art Center at 150 East Santa Clara Street on October 17. The midday ribbon-cutting ceremony featured remarks from Mayor Matt Mahan, Councilmember Anthony Tordillos, Assemblymember Ash Kalra, representatives from the San Jose Downtown Association, and owner Jianhua Shu. This event marked the expansion of the center from its original Santa Clara location, established in 2004, which has long showcased modern and ancient artworks.
"You'll also find a primer for the exhibitions," Monetta White, the director and chief executive of MoAD, tells The Art Newspaper. "You'll find a framework, some vocabulary, some definitions of the themes." Meanwhile, she points out, much of the rest of the $500,000 renovation has gone into critical infrastructure improvements visitors will hardly notice, such as lighting upgrades and a new heating, ventilation and air-conditioning system.
Once a London district made up of neon-lit sex shops and late-night clubs, King's Cross has been polished by regeneration, yet here, the curators draw on the history of the space to choreograph a dialogue between art, architecture, and the city, attempting to explore how contemporary artistic practices might inhabit, and even provoke, the residues of urban change and regeneration.
The gallery has been on a solid run in recent months, with a well-received edition of its annual from young British artist and video game designer Serpentine Pavilion designed by Bangladeshi artist and architect Marina Tabassum, and two buzzy autumn shows in the first major solo exhibition Danielle Brathwaite Shirley and the latest show from Peter Doig - famed for being the most expensive living artist in Europe - inspired by sound system culture.
This is the market laid bare, with all of its champagne, ludicrous outfits and obscene excess on brazen display for anyone willing to fork out a wodge on a ticket. That's what reviews of Frieze generally complain about, all the greedy capitalistic knives being stabbed into the heart of their beloved, pure art. But Frieze, and the more refined Frieze Masters, isn't really about art.
On Sunday (12 October), Jefferson Hack hosted a special dinner to celebrate the opening of new exhibition Paradigm Shift: New Dimensions in Moving Image, presented by 180 Studios in partnership with Ray-Ban Meta. Kicking off Frieze week, the dinner took place at 180 Strand, and welcomed featured artists from the exhibition, including Gillian Wearing, Mark Leckey, Julianknxx, Josefa Ntjam, Arthur Jafa, Sophia Al Maria and Babak Radboy.
Whether portraying families at play, people walking along urban streets, or portraits of individuals, Derrick Adams celebrates Black identity and experience. His collage-like compositions evoke West African masks, reliquary figures, and other carved sculptures, highlighting contemporary, everyday scenes and leisure activities of Black Americans. A new monograph from Monicelli surveys more than two decades of Adams' geometric paintings, made in his signature multihued, faceted style. Derrick Adams is the first monograph to survey the artist's entire career, tracing his stylistic evolution and the themes that recur throughout his paintings.
Down in Vauxhall in London, three artists have mashed themselves together to create the most revolting visual soup imaginable, an exhibition that isn't so much the sum of its parts as a total negation of anything good any of them has ever done. Whatever qualities YBA kingpin Damien Hirst and street artists Shepard Fairey and Invader might have, none of them are on display in this staggeringly vast exhibition
As the exhibition title suggests, Stark plays with painting and sculpture by adding or accentuating the dimensions of her work, often transforming two-dimensional objects into three-dimensional ones," the gallery said. "'Squared,' which is composed of thirty-five square sheets of powder coated aluminum, inhabits the wall like a painting. Each sheet is painted a different color and has a concentric square fold that extends outside the picture plane towards the viewer.
The morning before this year's Aichi Triennale officially opened, I was unexpectedly caught in what meteorologists later declared the most ferocious thunderstorm to strike Tokyo all summer. The trains ceased operation in near unison-first my local commuter line, then the entire Tokaido Shinkansen. Having endured another of Tokyo's "hottest summers on record" (a refrain that seems to repeat every year), I stood under the flickering departure board at the Tokyo Station Shinkansen gate, watching delayed announcements as they came in.
I find them so alluring, almost like perfume bottles or snow globes, but so grotesque, she explains as we handle the etched and sculpted objects, which each have a precious drop of crude oil at their centre. They have these shiny, dazzling exteriors, but when you get close you see the death mulch inside. All presentations of power are fragile; they collapse once you get close enough.
SILENT AUCTION! A silent Art Auction, featuring works from Open Studios artists! This is a great way to preview a cross-section of the participating artists, discover your favorites, and plan which studios to visit. Free reception October 3, 6-8 PM. Shipyard Gallery in Building 101. needed. Live music - Enjoy jazz by Guitar Trifecta and classical music with Charith Premawardhana performances throughout the weekend.
A soundtrack of a 16th-century Lutheran hymn and peals of church bells create an unresolvable conflict with the small photographs trapped behind glass on a low shelf in Rene Matic's installation. The voices of Nina Simone and bell hooks are dragged from the ether, along with the chants of trans rights activists and commuters calling for a free Palestine. Rihanna sings Lift Me Up a cappella
Though born into wealth, which she used in part to establish an unparalleled private art collection, Gund gave and gave and gave some more, promising many works to institutions, where they might be enjoyed by all, and selling others to raise money for political and social initiatives. By the time of her death, noted the New York Times, the first publication to report her passing, the cupboard was bare.
Hong Kong's beloved cultural destination Duddell's is stepping into a new chapter with a refreshed look and a powerful curatorial statement. Following an extensive redesign by the award-winning Andre Fu Studio, the restaurant and gallery hybrid has reopened its doors and is marking the occasion with Let's start over, a solo exhibition by Vietnamese-Danish artist Danh Võ. The exhibition, curated by William Zhao, runs from September 17, 2025, through April 6, 2026, and serves as both a celebration of Duddell's revival and a retrospective of Võ's acclaimed practice.
Madrid has long been celebrated as a sanctuary for the Old Masters, a city where works by Picasso, Goya, and Bosch are revered in world-class museums. Yet over the past decade, the Spanish capital has been reshaping its artistic identity, carving out space in the global conversation around contemporary art. The latest - and perhaps most ambitious - development in this evolution is SOLO CSV, a new arts and culture space from the internationally renowned Madrileño project, SOLO.
London already boasts a formidable art and gallery scene - and soon it's getting three more arty institutions. Even more intriguingly, they'll be inside one of the most aesthetically controversial buildings in the city (and City): No 1 Poultry. The new galleries have been launched by art charity Hypha Studios, and they'll open next week (on September 24). The venues will then be open to the public for 12 months and totally free to access.
