Glenn Ligon in Cambridge, new Gauguin biography, Teresa Margolles’s Fourth Plinth commission

This week, three major international shows: Claude Monet’s Thames views in London, the Henri Matisse retrospective in Basel and Helen Frankenthaler in Florence. An exhibition that Claude Monet hoped to see in his lifetime but which never happened has at last become a reality. A gathering of Monet’s views of the Thames—looking from his hotel room at the Savoy and from across the river on a private terrace of St Thomas’s hospital—has just opened at the Courtauld Gallery in London. Monet had hoped to stage such an event in London soon after the paintings were exhibited to acclaim in Paris in 1904, but so quickly had they dispersed, he was unable to do so. Ben Luke spoke to the curator of the show, Karen Serres, first in the very room at the Savoy Hotel where he made many of the paintings, and then in the exhibition itself. Meanwhile, a rare European retrospective of Henri Matisse’s work has opened at the Beyeler Foundation in Basel. Matisse: Invitation to the Voyage focuses on the artist’s travels, in the world and also in his imagination, through paintings, sculptures and cut-outs made over more than 50 years. Ben Luke went to Basel and spoke to Raphaël Bouvier, the curator. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Mediterranean Thoughts (1960) one of the paintings in Helen Frankenthaler: Painting without Rules, a new exhibition at the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence. The Art Newspaper’s associate digital editor, Alexander Morrison, spoke to Douglas Dreishpoon, who organised the show.Monet and London: Views of the Thames, Courtauld Gallery, London, until 19 January 2025.Matisse – Invitation to the Voyage, Beyeler Foundation, Basel, Switzerland, until 26 January 2025.Helen Frankenthaler: Painting Without Rules, Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, until 26 January 2025.Subscription offer: get the perfect start to the new academic year with 50% off a student subscription to The Art Newspaper—that’s £28, or the equivalent in your currency, for one year. Visit theartnewspaper.com to find out more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week: the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, UK, has invited the US artist Glenn Ligon to explore its history and collections, and his interventions are revealed this week. Ben Luke goes to Cambridge to talk to Ligon about the project. Few artists’ lives prompt as much discussion as that of Paul Gauguin, and a new biography of the French artist by Sue Prideaux has just been published. We talk to Sue about the book. And this episode’s Work of the Week is the piece that has just been unveiled on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square. Mil Veces un Instante or (A Thousand Times in an Instant) by Teresa Margolles is made up of plaster casts of the faces of 726 trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming people. Ekow Eshun, the chair of the group that commissions the projects for the Fourth Plinth, speaks to our associate digital editor, Alexander Morrison, about the work.Glenn Ligon: All Over The Place, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK, until 2 March 2025. Distinguishing Piss from Rain: Writings and Interviews by Glenn Ligon, Hauser & Wirth Publishers, £32 or $38. Untitled (America/Me), High Line, New York, until November 2024. Listen to our in-depth interview, A brush with… Glenn Ligon from 18 August 2021.Wild Thing: A Life of Paul Gauguin, by Sue Prideaux, Faber, £30; published in the US next year, by WW Norton, $39.99.Teresa Margolles: Mil Veces un Instante (A Thousand Times in an Instant), Fourth Plinth, Trafalgar Square, until 2026.Subscription offer: you can get the perfect start to the new academic year with 50% off a student subscription to The Art Newspaper—that’s £28, or the equivalent in your currency, for one year. Visit theartnewspaper.com to find out more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week: the Van Gogh blockbuster in London, a new book on the birth of Impressionism, and Juan Pablo Echeverri’s performative self-portraits. As the exhibition Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers opens at the National Gallery in London as part of its bicentenary celebrations, The Art Newspaper’s special correspondent and resident expert in the Dutch painter, Martin Bailey, takes a tour of the exhibition with our associate digital editor, Alexander Morrison. The National Gallery of Art in Washington, meanwhile, has just opened the exhibition Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment, its iteration of the show marking 150 years since the first Impressionist exhibition, which began earlier this year at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. Coinciding with the show is the publication of the book Paris in Ruins: Love, War, and the Birth of Impressionism, by the Washington Post art critic, Sebastian Smee. Ben Luke speaks to Sebastian about the book. And this episode’s Work of the Week is MUTIlady (2003) by Juan Pablo Echeverri. The photographic piece features nine photographs in which the late Colombian artist pictures himself with an apparently flayed body and wildly different haircuts seemingly reflecting a multitude of identities. The work is part of the exhibition GROW IT, SHOW IT! A look at hair from Diane Arbus to TikTok, which opened this week at the Museum Folkwang in Essen, Germany. The show’s curator, Miriam Bettin, tells Ben more about the artist and the work.Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers, The National Gallery, London, 14 September-19 January 2025; The Sunflowers are Mine: The Story of Van Gogh’s Masterpiece and Van Gogh’s Finale: Auvers and the Artist’s Rise to Fame by Martin Bailey, Frances Lincoln, each £10.99/$14.99 (pb), from 17 October, but available now at the National Gallery.Paris in Ruins: Love, War, and the Birth of Impressionism is published by W. W. Norton & Company in US and out now, priced $35. In the UK it’s published by Oneworld, out on 17 October and priced £25; Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment, National Gallery of Art, Washington, until 19 January 2025.GROW IT, SHOW IT! A look at hair from Diane Arbus to TikTok, Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany, until 12 January 2025.Subscription offer: you can get the perfect start to the new academic year with 50% off a student subscription to The Art Newspaper—that’s £28, or the equivalent in your currency, for one year. Visit theartnewspaper.com to find out more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Week in Art is back. In this first episode of the season: on Tuesday it was reported in the Financial Times that Sotheby’s core earnings are down 88% in the first half of this year. This is the latest evidence to suggest that the art market may be in a far more serious economic rut than its major players have previously indicated, after disappointing sales and job cuts at the major auction houses, as well as closures and layoffs in the world of commercial galleries. In the September issue of The Art Newspaper, Scott Reyburn suggests that the art market could be entering a new era, and he joins our host Ben Luke to explain why. We then talk to Sasha Skochilenko, the artist who was freed in the prisoner exchange between Russia and the US in August, about her activism, arrest and incarceration as well as her experience of the swap and the art she has made since. And this episode’s Work of the Week is The Angel of Hearth and Home, made by Max Ernst in 1937, and later renamed by the artist as The Triumph of Surrealism. The painting is part of the major travelling show marking the 100th anniversary of the first Surrealist manifesto, which makes its stop from this week at the Centre Pompidou, in Paris. Our associate digital editor, Alexander Morrison, went to Paris to talk to Didier Ottinger, the co-curator of the exhibition.Sasha Skochilenko: skochilenko.ru.Surrealism, Centre Pompidou, Paris, until 13 January 2025; Fundación MAPFRE, Madrid, Spain; 4 February-11 May 2025; Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany, 12 June-12 October 2025; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, US, end of 2025-beginning of 2026. You can hear our discussion about the centenary of the first Surrealist manifesto with the Surrealism expert Alyce Mahon on the episode of this podcast from 23 February this year. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On Thursday 4 July, the UK will hold a general election, with the Labour party currently far ahead in the opinion polls. Dale Berning Sawa, a contributor to The Art Newspaper who is also commissioning editor at the online news site The Conversation, joins Ben Luke to reflect on the effects on culture of 14 years of Conservative or Conservative-led governments, and what they and the other parties are promising regarding culture in their manifestos. In Florence, Italy, the former director of the Uffizi galleries, the German Eike Schmidt, has lost the race to be mayor of the city. We speak to our correspondent in Italy, James Imam, to find out what happened. And this episode’s Work of the Week is All Power to All People by Hank Willis Thomas. This huge public sculpture depicting an Afro pick with a Black Power salute is at the Glastonbury festival, in a new initiative organised by the non-profit Level Ground, and we talk to Thomas about it.Hank Willis Thomas: All Power to All People, West Holts Stage, Glastonbury Festival, until 30 June. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week: Just Stop Oil’s Stonehenge protest. On Wednesday, two activists sprayed orange powder paint made from cornflour on to three of the boulders at Stonehenge, prompting outrage and some support. Before this latest action, in an article for the July/August print edition of The Art Newspaper, John Paul Stonard had argued that Just Stop Oil’s museum-based protests add up to “one of the most successful campaigns of civil disobedience in history”. He reflects on whether the latest protests reinforce this conviction. At the Hayward Gallery in London, the Bahamian-born, US-based artist Tavares Strachan has just opened his first major survey exhibition. We go to the gallery to talk to him. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Janus Fleuri by Louise Bourgeois, made in 1968. It is one of the highlights of Unconscious Memories, a show in which Bourgeois’s sculptures and installations are installed alongside the historic works in the Galleria Borghese in Rome. We speak to Cloé Perrone, the co-curator of the exhibition.Tavares Strachan: There Is Light Somewhere, Hayward Gallery, London, until 1 September.Louise Bourgeois: Unconscious memories, Galleria Borghese, Rome, 21 June-15 September.Subscription offer: a free eight-week trial of a digital subscription to The Art Newspaper. Visit theartnewspaper.com to find out more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week: it’s arguably the best loved of the major art fairs among collectors and dealers, but what have we learned about the art market at this year’s Art Basel, in its original Swiss home? The Art Newspaper’s acting art market editor, Tim Schneider, tells us about the big sales in Switzerland amid the wider market picture. The journalist Lynn Barber has a new book out, called A Little Art Education, in which she reflects on her encounters with artists from Salvador Dalí to Tracey Emin. We talk to her about the highs and lows of several decades of artist interviews. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Woman Leaning on a Portfolio (1799) by Guillaume Lethière. Lethiére was born in Guadeloupe in the Caribbean to a plantation-owner father and an enslaved mother, but eventually became one of the most notable painters of his period in France and beyond. We talk to Esther Bell and Olivier Meslay, the curators of a major survey of Lethière’s work opening this week at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts, US, and travelling later in the year to the Louvre in Paris.Art Basel, Basel, Switzerland, until Sunday, 16 June.A Little Art Education by Lynn Barber, Cheerio, £15 (hb).Guillaume Lethière, Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts, US,15 June-14 October; Musée du Louvre, Paris, 13 November-17 February 2025 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week: we explore the Art Institute of Chicago’s exhibition dedicated to what Georgia O’Keeffe called her New Yorks—paintings of skyscrapers and views from one of them across the East River, which marked a turning point in her career. Sarah Kelly Oehler, one of the curators of the show, tells us more. One of the most distinctive of all London’s contemporary art spaces, Studio Voltaire, is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, and has begun a fundraising drive to consolidate its future, with a gala dinner this week and a Christie’s auction later this month. We talk to the chair of Studio Voltaire’s trustees and a non-executive director of Frieze, Victoria Siddall, about the anniversary and the precarious funding landscape, even for the UK’s most dynamic non-profits. And this episode’s Work of the Week is an untitled painting from the Austrian painter Martha Jungwirth’s 2022 series Francisco de Goya, Still Life with Ribs and Lamb’s Head. Based on a work by the Spanish master in the Louvre in Paris, Jungwirth’s painting features in a new survey of her work that has just opened at the Guggenheim Bilbao in Spain. We speak to its curator, Lekha Hileman Waitoller.Georgia O’Keeffe: My New Yorks, Art Institute of Chicago, until 22 September; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, from 25 October-16 February 2025.The date of XXX, as the sale of works to benefit Studio Voltaire at Christie’s is called, is yet to be confirmed. Check the organisations’ websites for updates; Beryl Cook/Tom of Finland, Studio Voltaire, London, until 25 August.Martha Jungwirth, Guggenheim Bilbao, until 22 September. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The publication in April of Stanford University’s Artificial Intelligence Index Annual Report has provided the art world with much food for thought. We look at the implications for artists and institutions with Louis Jebb, the managing editor of The Art Newspaper and our technology specialist. As the Centre Pompidou in Paris is taken over on all its floors by what it calls the “ninth art”—graphic novels and comics—we talk to Joel Meadows, the editor-in-chief of Tripwire magazine and a comics aficionado, about the rise of this subculture in museums and the market. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Edgar Degas’ Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando (1879), which depicts a Black circus performer, Anna Albertine Olga Brown, who was briefly known as Miss La La. She and the painting are the subject of a new exhibition at the National Gallery in London opening next week. We talk to Anne Robbins, the curator of paintings at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, and external curator of the exhibition, and Sterre Overmars, the curatorial fellow for post-1800 paintings at the National Gallery, about the painting.Comics on Every Floor, Centre Pompidou, Paris, until 4 November.Discover Degas & Miss La La, National Gallery, London, 6 June-1 September.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As the Louvre’s director admits that the Paris museum wants to move its most famous painting away from the crowded gallery in which it is currently displayed, we ask the Leonardo specialist Martin Kemp: does the museum have a Mona Lisa problem? We also talk about the painting’s continuing allure and the ongoing efforts to explain its mysteries. In London, remarkably, Judy Chicago has just opened her first major multidisciplinary survey in a British public gallery, at the Serpentine North. We talk to her about the show. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Christian Schad’s Self-Portrait with Model (1927). The painting features in Splendour and Misery: New Objectivity in Germany at the Leopold Museum in Vienna. Hans-Peter Wipplinger, the director of the museum and co-curator of the show, tells us more.Judy Chicago: Revelations, Serpentine North, London, until 1 September.Splendour and Misery: New Objectivity in Germany, Leopold Museum, Vienna, until 29 September. Subscription offer: get a free six-week trial of a digital subscription to The Art Newspaper. Visit theartnewspaper.com to find out more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.