How to Buy Minimalist Art https://ift.tt/jxraD2T

Geometric shapes. Limited color palettes. Repetition. Although the principles of Minimalist art are rooted in reduction, the broader movement encompasses a rich collection of works—from the austere brick sculptures of Carl Andre to the vibrant velvet floor installations of Polly Apfelbaum—that continues to resonate with art lovers.

At its heart, Minimalism involves stripping a work down to its material essence. “It’s less about the artist’s talent, but rather the idea behind it and how these forms take up space,” explained Isabella Lauria, senior vice president and specialist in the post-war and contemporary art department at Christie’s. “It’s a departure from putting all the onus on the artist’s hand and more so on putting the onus on the viewer and how they inhabit the space these works take up.”

15 x 15 napoli square, 2010
Carl Andre
Alfonso Artiaco

In a world of information overload, and where the very phrase “minimalism” has been commercialized to sell everything from fashion trends to holidays, Minimalist art offers collectors a unique prospect: an object that strips away distraction, inviting the viewer to reconsider how they engage with the world around them.

Indeed, the power of Minimalist artworks can make them deceptively demanding to collect and display. The impact of Minimalism often depends on space, restraint, and precision. That means that scale, sightlines, lighting, installation, and surrounding objects can all affect whether the work feels powerful or merely plain.

For collectors curious about the movement, here’s Artsy’s guide to buying minimalist art.

What is Minimalist art?

Jill, 1967
Frank Stella
Gemini G.E.L.

Minimalism first emerged in 1950s New York in reaction to the gestural art of the previous generation. It rejected the emotionally expressive work of Abstract Expressionist artists such as Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning in favor of a radical simplification of forms. “What you see is what you see,” explained the painter Frank Stella, whose black stripe paintings, which began in 1958, became among the first works associated with the movement.

Although the artists who pioneered the movement in the 1960s—Donald Judd, Carl Andre, Robert Morris, Dan Flavin, Agnes Martin, Anne Truitt, and Sol LeWitt—distanced themselves from labels, they were unified in their intentions. To create these “specific objects,” as Judd described them in a 1965 essay, they sought to erase traces of the “artist’s hand” from their work. Some did this by replacing the brushstrokes of painting with printing and industrial materials such as fiberglass and aluminium. Others employed mathematical systems to determine the composition of their works.

Night Sea, 1963
Agnes Martin
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA)

Untitled, 1961-1963
Donald Judd
Susan Sheehan Gallery

This group of artists was consolidated as the “canon” of Minimal art by the art philosopher Richard Wollheim’s eponymous essay in 1965 and the “Primary Structures” exhibition the following year at the Jewish Museum in New York. However, this show set out a narrow definition: almost all the artists were from the U.S. or the U.K., working in sculpture, and men.

In the years since, the movement has undergone a sweeping re-evaluation, and in 2014 the follow-up exhibition “Other Primary Structures” at the Jewish Museum retrospectively acknowledged women, a greater diversity of mediums, and global artists including Alejandro Puente, Noemi Escandell, and Edward Krasinski as pioneers of the movement.

Vector, 1966
Noemi Escandell
Herlitzka & Co.

Today, a new generation of artists is making the tenets of Minimalism their own. Virginia Overton puts a sensual spin on the stark geometries of Flavin’s neon sculptures by wrapping them with translucent scans of her hair; Michelle Grabner and Katja Strunz are experimenting with more organic forms; and artists including Eric Butcher, Lydia Okumura, and Cordy Ryman are branching out into materials including graphite, recycled textiles, and industrial glass.

But with this broad range, where should collectors looking to get into Minimalism start?

Back to basics: Where new collectors should start with Minimalism

Irregular Wavy Horizontal Color Bands, 1992
Sol LeWitt
Hollis Taggart

Emily Chun of New York’s Hollis Taggart gallery recommends hitting the books: “It’s important to educate yourself historically and ask a lot of questions.” She singles out chapter seven, “The Double Negative: A New Syntax for Sculpture,” in Rosalind Krauss’s book Passages in Modern Sculpture as a thought-provoking primer on the philosophical context of Minimalism and how the movement upended traditional sculpture.

The next logical step is to “anchor your expectations,” she said, by visiting great examples of Minimalist work in museums. The Guggenheim Museum and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Kunstmuseum Den Haag in the Netherlands, and Tate Modern in London are strong starting points for the “canon.”

Horatio Heart, 2021
Gregor Hildebrandt
Saenger Galería

Visiting the work in person is particularly important when it comes to Minimalism. “It’s more silent. It may not have as much information as a figurative artwork where you can see something and understand the work better,” said Bernardo Saenger, founder of Saenger Galería. “I would say it is more about the feelings. How does that work move you?”

Once you’ve identified your personal tastes, there’s a world of opportunity.

At the highest level, works by the “founding fathers” of Minimalism come to market consistently and regularly command blue-chip price tags. An upcoming Christie’s sale of the late Henry S. McNeil Jr.’s groundbreaking Minimalism collection is expected to exceed $30 million, led by a Judd copper and red fluorescent Plexiglas stack estimated at $10 to $15 million.

These works demonstrate everything that makes a minimalist work valuable: provenance, scarcity, pristine conservation, and history. But even within this collection, there are more accessible price points in the day sales.

The Way, 2018
Carmen Herrera
Baldwin

Untitled NRW, 2017
Carmen Herrera
Baldwin

Saenger suggests that new collectors ease themselves in with multiples. “A lot of people who cannot buy fine art or unique works can buy an edition, and that’s their stepping stone.”

For example, while the Cuban artist Carmen Herrera’s auction record is $2.9 million, achieved for her painting Blanco y Verde at a Sotheby’s auction in 2019, editions of her work on fine bone china are available from around $1,000.

Key practical considerations for buying Minimalist artworks

“With Minimalism, we always think of white-box gallery spaces and cement floors,” said Lauria. But displays don’t have to be cold and detached.

The Christie’s sale is a perfect example of this. “He curated this collection in a way that felt very domestic, very warm, almost very cozy, which is a weird word to use alongside Minimalism,” she explained.

One of the things to consider is the lighting. McNeil’s placement of a Fred Sandback orange-thread work on a sunlit wooden staircase in his Philadelphia home imbued a warmth to the work, while placing a reflective Judd stack opposite one of Tuttle’s wood slats at the top of the staircase put the works in conversation with one another. “It really is this balance between not letting the design overpower the fine art, and rather having them work in tandem,” said Lauria.

Untitled ( Sculptural Study, Mikado), 1999
Fred Sandback
Galerie Greta Meert

Scale is also important. While pieces like the larger Judd stacks and bullnoses might be better suited to a gallery, there are plenty of smaller formats that work well in a domestic space—it just takes a little planning.

“It’s important to think about what happens after the purchase,” Saenger said. “Many times, collectors stay just on the very edge of the purchase. The second layer of it is: ‘How am I going to move that home?’ ‘Who’s going to install it?’ or ‘Do I have the space?’”

When looking to buy a Minimalist artwork, consider the space, lighting, installation support, and architectural restraint that it will be around.

Embrace conservation

Untitled (for Ad Reinhardt) 2e, 1990
Dan Flavin
Paul Stolper Gallery

Many of the objects are delicate and require great attention to detail when it comes to installation and aftercare. Flavin’s neon sculptures need to have the fluorescent tubes replaced by a conservator; the Judd stacks need to be repolished; and LeWitt’s wall paintings require the estate’s input every time they are installed.

“There is a real long-term commitment surrounding the way these works are brought to life, and that’s what’s so exciting about them,” Lauria said.

“Every so often, you do address the works and continue to—as the future custodian—make sure they are exhibited in the artist’s intent.”

If you’re unsure, it’s always wise to ask.

Three tips for first-time buyers of Minimalist art

Untitled (from Paintings and Drawings: 1974-1990), 1991
Agnes Martin
Composition.Gallery

• Look beyond the canon. If you want to collect works from the first wave of Minimalism, your options are far broader than Flavin or Morris. “There are so many lesser-known artists who were working in the Minimalist tradition in the 1960s and 1970s whose approaches provide a fuller picture of the movement,” said Chun. “I’m thinking of artists like Karen Carson who builds Minimalist geometric compositions out of fabric bound together by zippers, allowing the viewer to open and close zippers, and thus change the composition itself.”
• Don’t dismiss design. McNeil’s engagement with Minimalism extended beyond fine art, and Lauria encourages new collectors to follow suit. His selection of George Nakashima furniture brought balance to his home collection and will be on the block at the Christie’s design auction in June.
• Seek inspiration. The best way to figure out how Minimalism might work in your own home, Lauria said, is to observe how different institutions and collectors live with these objects and juxtapose them with the rest of their art. “The works take on a different life every time that they’re installed, which is really quite special.”

Ultimately, collecting Minimalist art is not about living with less, but looking closely. These works ask for patience, precision, and a willingness to consider the object in relation to the space, light, architecture, and care that allow it to come alive. For collectors, that can make Minimalism both challenging and deeply rewarding: a field where restraint opens up feeling, and where the simplest forms can transform the way we inhabit a room.

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Jon Batiste, Troye Sivan, and Amy Sherald lead a Met Gala rooted in art-historical homage. https://ift.tt/v4IP7Y3

Is fashion art? Last night's Met Gala returned to the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art to make that case. The annual convergence of fashion, art, entertainment, and high society marked the opening of the Costume Institute's spring exhibition, "Costume Art," with a dress code that made its position explicit: "Fashion Is Art."

On the red carpet, that proposition unfolded through citation, homage, and self-reference. Singer Troye Sivan, in Prada, channeled Robert Mapplethorpe, echoing the late photographer's 1980 self-portrait in a fur coat. Amy Sherald, arriving on the heels of her "American Sublime" solo show opening at the High Museum of Art next week, turned inward, referencing her own Miss Everything (Unsuppressed Deliverance) (2014) in collaboration with designer Thom Browne. Actor Luke Evans leaned into the coded eroticism of Tom of Finland with a full brown leather look, while singer Sam Smith's embellished robe by Christian Cowan nodded to the glamour of Erté illustrations.

Elsewhere, singer Gracie Abrams in Chanel and actor Hunter Schafer in Prada played with interpretations of Gustav Klimt paintings, while Jon Batiste offered one of the evening's most direct tributes to Barkley L. Hendricks. The singer began in a blue Superman T-shirt and shades, evoking Icon for My Man Superman (Superman Never Saved Any Black People—Bobby Seale) (1969). He later changed into an all-white puffer coat, pants, and cummerbund, bringing to mind Hendricks's Steve (1976). Actor Angela Bassett, meanwhile, paid homage to Laura Wheeler Waring's Girl in Pink Dress (1927), a painting in the Met's permanent collection.

If the red carpet made the argument outwardly, "Costume Art" brings it into focus within the galleries. Organized around thematic "body types"—the Classic Body, the Pregnant Body, the Anatomical Body, and so on—the exhibition examines the dressed figure as both subject and surface. It traces the interplay between clothing and the body, revealing how representations of the figure are shaped by what it wears, and how garments, in turn, construct the body they adorn.

The show also inaugurates the Costume Institute's new Condé M. Nast galleries, tucked just beyond the museum's Byzantine displays. It opens with a meditation on the nude and the naked body: Adam-and-Eve–like garments by designers Lùchen and Walter Van Beirendonck placed in dialogue with sixteenth-century engravings by Marcantonio Raimondi and Heinrich Aldegrever. This curatorial strategy, pairing dress with objects across the museum's encyclopedic collection, sets the tone for the exhibition. A veiled silk dress by Maison Margiela is positioned alongside Raffaello Monti's The Veiled Woman (1854). Duran Lantink's bulbous "Morphing Suit" sits near a Polaroid by Lucas Samaras. Miriam Beerman's painting Bloody Heads Number 39 (1969) is paired with a red crocheted dress by Yuma Nakazato, both evoking the anatomical.

This is an exhibition designed for immersion. Mirrored mannequin heads fold the viewer into the display, reflecting the body into fashion's frame. What emerges is both a survey and a reframing: a concise history of dress. Early twentieth-century couturiers Madame Grès, Madeleine Vionnet, and Mariano Fortuny stretch through to contemporary designers like Richard Quinn, Batsheva, and Vetements—set in dialogue with a broader history of art. From Cycladic marble figures and ancient Egyptian limestone busts to Yayoi Kusama's Red and White Pumpkin (2011) and Jane Hammond's Tabula Rosa (2001), the exhibition moves fluidly across disciplines and centuries.

In doing so, "Costume Art" reframes the premise it sets out to test. Fashion is not merely adjacent to art, nor is it borrowing its language—it is operating within the same lineage. The exhibition opens May 10 and runs through January 10, 2027.

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The Story Behind Tschabalala Self’s Met Gala Dress by Brandon Blackwood https://ift.tt/lBH9cMa

Tonight, the 2026 Met Gala kicks off “Costume Art,” the newest exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute (the show officially opens on May 10). For artist Tschabalala Self, it’s a major milestone: She serves as a gala co-chair and will attend the fete for the first time. To celebrate one of the most important moments on the global fashion calendar, Self enlisted her friend, designer Brandon Blackwood, to create her gown and style her look for the evening. He worked with New York’s Atelier YQS on the dress, his first for the major event.

It’s a full-circle moment for the pair, who were both born and raised in New York City, Blackwood in Brooklyn and Self in Harlem, before attending Bard College together. Since then, Blackwood has earned acclaim for his statement anti-racism handbags and has expanded into shoes and ready-to-wear. He’s also designed custom gowns for Beyoncé, Serena Williams, and Megan Thee Stallion. Self, meanwhile, has become a rising name in the contemporary art world. Major exhibitions of her paintings, which employ fabric and mixed media to depict the exaggerated silhouettes of her dynamic Black subjects, have taken place at the Baltimore Museum of Art, Finland’s Espoo Museum of Art, and other galleries and institutions. She was also awarded London’s Fourth Plinth Prize in 2024 and featured in The Artsy Vanguard 2019. She recently installed a sculpture of an embracing couple, titled Art Lovers (2025), at the newly reopened New Museum in Lower Manhattan. In advance of their Met Gala moment, Blackwood and Self spoke to Artsy about their long friendship and the influences they drew on for the dress, from Degas’s ballerina sculptures to unconventional textiles.

Read their conversation with Artsy below (answers have been edited for length and clarity).

Alina Cohen: How did you two meet?

Brandon Blackwood: We met on the quad in 2009. She was sitting with future friends of mine, and we all ended up talking. We had the New York connection. When you go to a small liberal arts school upstate, in the middle of nowhere, and you meet someone who kind of looks like you in a space where that isn’t the norm, you bond very quickly. I’ve always wanted a sister, and Tschaba’s like a sister to me.

Tschabalala Self: We lived together for one year in this dorm called “Feitler.” It was a vegan co-op but also like a black fraternity house on campus.

A.C.: Did you connect over creative interests?

B.B.: We’d go to each other’s dorms or, when we were living together, meet in the kitchen and talk about our ideas, which ranged from movie scripts to designing. For a second, we wanted to launch a brand together and call it “Self Love.” So this is very full circle.

T.S.: We wanted to make gender-neutral clothing that was ready-to-wear, with an elevated street style vibe.

A.C.: Is this the first time you’re truly collaborating?

T.S.: I’d say the second. Brandon designed my wedding dress last year. That was a big milestone. Brandon was also essentially a bridesmaid. He was with me every step of the way.

That was the first time we collaborated on something that was out in the world, even in our shared community. But I’ve always been able to talk to Brandon about ideas.

B.B.: Tschaba has custom pieces of mine. I also have a custom piece of hers.

A.C.: That’s Tschaba’s painting behind you?

T.S.: Yes, it’s called Dancer (2026). Brandon just moved. It was a piece for his new home.

B.B.: I have a few pieces of Tschaba’s throughout the house. Two feature female figures, and one is a man and woman together. When you walk in my door, her art is the first thing you see. It’s very powerful; it makes me feel good; and it’s low-key a little sexy: the shapes, the colors. I’m very proud of it. When you surround yourself with things you love so much, you can’t help but incorporate that into your day.

A.C.: How did the Met Gala collaboration come about?

T.S.: I told Brandon that I was going to be on the host committee. I asked if he wanted to make my dress for the gala. He was really excited and just jumped in.

B.B.: It’s a huge milestone. We started brainstorming. The theme is “Fashion Is Art,” and I wanted the dress to border on costume but feel refined…like a period piece come to life.

T.S.: When Brandon was describing the silhouette, he’d say that it should look like an upside-down tulip: a form found in nature that is also regal, feminine, and timeless. The gown is super contemporary, with lots of different silhouettes. It makes me think of Degas’s ballerina sculpture, which is a fusion of this hard bronze sculpture with textile. This garment’s unique textile elements really speak to me, because textiles are such an important part of my practice. The dress is a perfect combination of both our aesthetics and formal concerns.

A.C.: What are the unique textile elements in the dress?

B.B.: We have a silk corseted gown with a draped-over skirt held up by this really beautiful, soft tulle underlay. I played around with volume in an unconventional way and tried to layer texture in a way that’s easy to read. We used a lot of satin, a lot of chiffon. The bodice is a matte chiffon, which is cool. It’s usually shinier, more exposed. We’re doing a corset-lace bodice, which will hug the body and help tell the overall story of the dress.

T.S.: When I put on the dress, I felt like I was embodying an artwork. And that fits the theme perfectly for the gala.

A.C.: Were there other visual references?

B.B.: I was looking a lot at Tschaba’s work. She loves to mix textures, loves a kooky mash-up of things. I wanted to translate that. You’ll see how the skirt drapes over the tulle, how what we're doing is unconventional, like her artwork.

T.S.: The dress also creates an emphasized silhouette to the body through construction and costume. This really elevated, feminine hourglass shape is also a throughline in my practice. That’s a peak symbol of beauty for us, for our background. We’re accentuating that. I’m almost becoming an embodiment of the subjects in my work. I love the shape.

B.B.: It’s really severe. Choosing a cinched lace corset, dropping where the skirt starts so that you get the hip. You get the bust. You get the waist. There’s a lot of body.

A.C.: Are there elements that feel very “New York?”

T.S.: Right now in the Hudson Valley, where Brandon and I met, there are tulips everywhere. Many of our memories are here. There’s a certain lightness and easy elegance that remind me of this region. There’s a throughline, the city to here, and back.

B.B.: The dress still has a severe moment that feels true to a native New Yorker. It’s Hudson-meets-Harlem.

T.S.: That’s my whole thing!

A.C.: Tell me about the color.

B.B.: We chose a really muted, sexy gray. This is the first gray piece I’ve ever made. It’s cool and impactful and looks beautiful on her skin tone. We’ll add jewelry, some diamond detailing. It’s gonna be a moment.

A.C.: Shoes?

T.S.: Gray Jimmy Choo. Very simple. Pointed-toe pump, something that complements the dress but doesn’t take any attention away.

A.C.: What does it mean to work together for the Met Gala?

T.S.: I feel blessed I’m working on this with a friend. And not just any friend. I’ve known him since I was 20, and Brandon was a teenager. Our brains weren’t finished growing! I’m excited and also nervous. It’s nice to have a friend who’s also family—to do it together. It’s fun and I feel more carefree, more myself. It’s another creative moment we can share. It’s really beautiful.

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Christo and Jeanne-Claude artwork to be presented for the first time ever at Gagosian. https://ift.tt/G0Pce1F

An unrealized work by Christo and Jeanne-Claude that was recently discovered in the Christo’s atelier will be unveiled at Gagosian in London later this month. Entitled Air Package on a Ceiling, the installation consists of a 52-foot-long, 33-foot-wide inflated form wrapped in rope. Softly illuminated from within, the work resembles half of a cloud protruding from the ceiling. The piece will be realized based on the original model from 1968 as well as preparatory drawings and collages. It will be on view at Gagosian’s Mayfair gallery from May 21st through August 21st.

Original plans for the piece were discovered in 2018 by Christo’s studio manager, Lorenza Giovanelli, while clearing space in the artist’s studio. Upon moving a plinth she came across a box that contained the detailed scale model of the work that included electric wiring to demonstrate the piece’s lighting component. “It’s in such great condition because it’s never seen the sunlight. It was not even dusty … It’s been hidden for 50 years,” said Giovanelli in an interview with The Guardian. Air Package on a Ceiling had first been conceived for the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) in Philadelphia, though was abandoned due to technical restraints.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude, his wife and collaborator, made a series of works in the 1960s that experimented with wrapping air by capturing it within transparent polyethylene packages and rope. These pieces, which pull focus onto the act of wrapping the object rather than on the object itself, gave way to their later installations that wrapped popular monuments like Paris’s Pont Neuf or the Reichstag in Berlin.

A selection of these earlier works from that period will also be on view, alongside Wrapped Automobile–Volvo, Model PV-544 (1981), in which Christo covered an old car belonging to art dealer Serge De Bloe as a means of saving the automobile from destruction.

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5 Standout Shows to See at Small Galleries in May 2026 https://ift.tt/gB9lMby

Marz, 2023
Sheida Soleimani
Harlan Levey Projects

Deathly Silence, 2016
Nicolas Vionnet
Al-Tiba9 Gallery

In this monthly roundup, we spotlight five stellar exhibitions at small and rising galleries.

K. T. Kobel

“Hand, Body, Object, Sin”

Kutlesa, Goldau, Switzerland

Through May 29

Practice Makes Permanent, 2026
K.T. Kobel
Kutlesa

An Exit Without Leaving, 2026
K.T. Kobel
Kutlesa

Since 2022, British-born, Amsterdam-based painter K. T. Kobel has staged shows from Los Angeles to Milan. This month, the artist mounts his first major Swiss exhibition, filled with cinematic paintings that embrace fragmentation and loose ends. His compositions, which are reminiscent of storyboards, offer disjointed images that the viewer must piece together.

Each of Kobel’s new works features four painted scenes, vertically stacked within a singular wooden frame. An alluring, eerie haze ensconces these three-foot-tall arrangements, created using pigment transfer, acrylic, and encaustic. Their contents blend taboo and tension: Practice Makes Permanent (all works 2026) features a hissing black cat, while the screaming mouth and black latex bodysuit in An Exit Without Leaving suggest both horror and kink. The images recall the Spaghetti Slashers Kobel holds dear, though they are not, in fact, from real films.

The human mind naturally detests ambiguity. Here, however, Kobel reminds us of all the imagination can conjure when given a few mysterious, compelling frames. As the artist himself says, “repetition becomes ritual.”

“Terra Incognita (Unknown Land) – Part II”

Al-Tiba9 Gallery, Barcelona

May 14–July 25

Floating Court Reflections, 2026
ChingKe Lin
Al-Tiba9 Gallery

Hybrid Cluster, 2025
Dongbay
Al-Tiba9 Gallery

Last spring, the chic Al-Tiba9 Gallery, located in Barcelona’s picturesque El Born neighborhood, unveiled “Terra Incognita.” The group show featured five international artists who tested the boundaries between nature and humanity. Its sequel arrives this month, presenting work by a new crop of five artists who explore how humanity situates itself within Earth’s diverse environments.

Swiss photographer Andy Storchenegger will present a three-channel film, Nobody is Okay (2022). This collaboration with Zambian poet Marita Banda explores the psychology of masquerades. Self-proclaimed Chinese “eco-warrior” Dongbay suspends decorated animal pelts and textiles made of recycled Carhartt clothes within metal scaffolding. These spatial experiments bring the artist’s illegal urban art practice into the white cube. Swiss painter and sculptor Nicolas Vionnet—the only participant to feature in both editions of the exhibition—alternately calms and frustrates viewers with canvases that feature melancholy landscapes and a sculpture of an impractical skateboard equipped with crutches. Taiwanese artist Ching-ke Lin’s signature whirls of bamboo render an ancient, natural material futuristic. Meanwhile, Milan-based duo Dan Molin & Milani contribute a motorized fitting room titled Muletto (2022), which transforms an intimate space into something industrial. Together, these works ask: What does it take to make a home?

Sheida Soleimani

“Flyways”

Harlan Levey Projects, Brussels

Through June 27

Iranian-born, American-based photographer and filmmaker Sheida Soleimani integrates activism into her art and life. When she’s not producing political imagery that protests the powers that necessitated her parents’ exile from Iran, the artist cares for injured migratory birds. She’s all too aware that their plight—and gorgeous resilience—parallels her family’s.

Soleimani’s third exhibition in six years with Harlan Levey Projects unites two of her ongoing, interconnected series—both of which figured in her 2025 New York institutional debut, “Panjereh,” at the International Center of Photography. That presentation introduced audiences to Soleimani’s maximalist “Ghostwriter” series of magical realist scenes shot with overwhelming clarity. These works are collaborative: Soleimani’s mother created drawings which appear throughout the compositions, while her father provided graphics and slogans that oppose Iran’s authoritarian leadership—and any ruler, really, who abuses power.

The exhibition pairs “Ghostwriter” specimens like Marz (2023) and Safehouse (2024) with additional shots like Misunderstanding (2024) and Exodus (2024), drawn from Soleimani’s more recent “Flyways” series inspired by her avian rescue. Especially exciting is the debut of the artist’s new film, Wave (2025), which unites the distinct series throughout her latest show. Here, the Soleimanis care for insects and deer in a desert landscape, intermittently reciting mantras that honor the resolve of all intrepid species: “We are alive because we refuse to rest.”

Patrick Puckett

“Daze of Our Lives”

Wally Workman Gallery, Austin

May 9–May 31

U.S.A., 2026
Patrick Puckett
Wally Workman Gallery

Watermelon, 2026
Patrick Puckett
Wally Workman Gallery

Mississippi-born and -based painter Patrick Puckett has already had eleven solo shows since 2013 with Wally Workman Gallery, a 46-year-old Austin art stronghold situated in a historic home. With each successive year, Puckett’s self-professed “Hillbilly Baroque” compositions have grown tighter, bolder, more dynamic, and ever-brighter.

“Daze of Our Lives,” Puckett’s twelfth presentation at the gallery, offers yet another body of life-sized portraits depicting blissed-out figures. They’re rendered in Puckett’s signature high-contrast, electric palettes. 7 of the 12 new works are oil paintings on canvas. The rest are mixed media on paper. Motifs repeat, like a ping pong table, echoed by the racket that another figure brandishes, legs splayed, in U.S.A. (all works 2026).

Yet these “Daze of Our Lives” aren’t all fun and games. Puckett immortalizes his recurrent ping pong player in the pensive lulls between volleys. There are many moments of ambrosial seduction here too, from the reclining goddess in Watermelon to the female figure lazing in a lawn chair with a bouquet between her legs in Garden. Indeed, while Puckett’s figures are alluring, they’re never fully idealized. His electric hues underscore their more serious sides, the people they might be after closing the bathroom door to catch their breath during a party.

John Vitale

“TIME ISN'T AFTER US”

Court Tree Collective, New York City

May 2–June 6

Spirit Portal #2, 2026
John Vitale
Court Tree Collective

Spirit portal #3, 2026
John Vitale
Court Tree Collective

“TIME ISN'T AFTER US” seems to take its name from “Once in a Lifetime,” the Talking Heads’ most famous song. It’s a fitting callout, considering critics have already likened Brooklyn-based John Vitale’s gentle geometric abstractions to music, with all its rhythms and rests.

Vitale’s latest paintings present additional contradictions. Black voids underscore pastel forms in compositions that balance groundedness and buoyancy. Vitale’s energetic hand remains palpable in these works of acrylic, house paint, pencils, aerosol, and china markers on raw canvas, despite their easygoing overtones. Adding a touch of bawdy humor are flaccid, phallic forms that accumulate around circular portals—a new visual element in the artist’s work.

After years of teaching himself how to paint (and a short stint at New York’s storied School of the Visual Arts in 2008), Vitale is hitting his stride. “These paintings led me in an interesting direction,” he wrote on Instagram alongside Spirit Guide (2026). “This piece in particular may have cracked something open for me and my practice moving forward.” The work is awfully playful, considering the guru status he’s imbued it with.

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Thomas Hart Benton, Jessie Wlicox Smith announced for shows at Lucas Museum of Narrative Art. https://ift.tt/bVt5j8v

The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, the long-anticipated Los Angeles institution co-founded by filmmaker George Lucas and businesswoman Mellody Hobson, has unveiled the lineup for its inaugural exhibitions. The ambitious survey will feature more than 1,200 works drawn from a founding collection that spans more than 40,000 objects.

Housed in a 300,000-square-foot building designed by Ma Yansong of MAD Architects with Stantec, the museum is dedicated to what Lucas has called “the people’s art: the tradition of telling stories through images, from prehistoric cave paintings to comics and cinema.”

Spread across more than 30 galleries occupying roughly 100,000 square feet, the opening program traces visual storytelling across time periods and geographies. Several exhibitions are organized around enduring myths of love, family, community, and adventure, while others spotlight individual 20th-century figures.

Among the headlining solo presentations are Thomas Hart Benton, with selected works depicting American life; Jessie Willcox Smith, whose classic scenes illustrated fairy tales and other children’s books; and N.C. Wyeth, represented by book illustrations from the 1910s through the 1940s. Norman Rockwell, Maxfield Parrish, and Frank Frazetta will each receive their own dedicated galleries.

Themed exhibitions round out the presentations. “Children’s Stories” gathers illustrations by Beatrix Potter, Leo Politi, E.H. Shepard, and Jacob Lawrence. “Comics & Graphic Stories” showcases the museum’s holdings of American and European comics, with works by Mœbius, Marie Severin, Jack Kirby, Alison Bechdel, Jim Lee, Frank Miller, and Rafael Navarro, alongside a complementary survey of manga and anime. A “Murals” exhibition presents large-scale public works by Judith F. Baca, Diego Rivera, and JR, while “Narrative Forms” explores adventure, fantasy, romance, and science fiction through artists including Julie Bell, Boris Vallejo, Ken Kelly, Georges Méliès, John C. Berkey, and Jeffrey Catherine Jones.

A photography gallery brings together documentary images by Robert Capa, Gordon Parks, Alfred Eisenstaedt, and Dorothea Lange. Additional sections are devoted to architecture, cinema—drawing on production designs, props, and costumes from the Lucas Archives—history, “Civic Life,” “Western Stories,” and a suite of “Everyday Life” galleries on themes from childhood and motherhood to play, school, sports, and work. Works by Frida Kahlo, Charles White, Kadir Nelson, and Robert Colescott will also be on view. The museum opens on September 22nd.

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German artist Georg Baselitz dies at 88. https://ift.tt/d4jAeDF

Georg Baselitz, a titan of 20th-century art, has died at 88. Thaddaeus Ropac, one of the galleries that represents the artist, announced his death with an obituary from Baselitz’s family.

The poet Robert Isaf writes in the statement that Baselitz—known for his large-scale, expressionistic canvases—“defined German visual art for a generation, profoundly influencing artists around and after him and the international world of art.” Isaf confirmed in the statement that the artist died “peacefully.”

Baselitz was born Hans-Georg Bruno Kern in Deutschbaselitz, Germany, in 1938. His family lived first under the Nazi regime, then under the East German government. Early on, the artist fought for art-world acceptance. The Art Academy of Dresden rejected him, the Weißensee Academy of Fine and Applied Arts in East Berlin suspended him, his peers accused him of “sociopolitical immaturity,” and the press called his style “pornographic” after he debuted his first solo exhibition, in West Berlin, in 1963.

Baselitz experienced a breakthrough with his “Heroes” series (1965–66). The large-scale oil paintings featured thickly rendered male figures. They were often larger than life, appearing in torn uniforms across ruined landscapes. By the end of the decade, Baselitz had inverted his figures. The motif became his calling card and persisted through the decades. Isaf writes, “What elevates Baselitz to the status of era-defining visionary is not his command of contour, for instance, or shadow, but of relationship—that is to say, the relationship between viewer and viewed.”

Art historians often situate Baselitz’s work alongside that of fellow Germans Gerhard Richter and Anselm Kiefer, who similarly wrestled with their country’s legacies of violence and repression. The artist has also been deemed a Neo-Expressionist for mounting what the New York Times called “a frontal attack on Minimalism and Conceptualism, the dominant ‘cool’ styles of the 1970s.” Isaf situates the artist within the world of Pop, “which most fully among contemporary movements could be said to take up manipulating the dimension of viewer relationship as its core concern.”

Baselitz mounted several high-profile exhibitions over his long career. In 1972, he exhibited in Documenta in Kassel, Germany. He represented Germany at the 1980 Venice Biennale. More recently, the Centre Pompidou opened a major retrospective in Paris in 2021, and White Cube and Gagosian, which also represent the artist, have presented solo shows in the past few years.

Baselitz continued working until his death. On May 6, the Fondazione Giorgio Cini, in Venice, will open “Eroi d’Oro.” The presentation will coincide with the 61st Venice Biennale and feature the artist’s most recent series of paintings, which depict self-portraits and renderings of Elke, the artist’s wife. She survives him, along with his sons, gallerists Daniel Blau and Anton Kern. In the obituary, Isaf writes, “[Baselitz’s] ultimate subject is and will always have been Elke. His final paintings, his portraits of him and her, honest, unflinching, and profoundly human, come to terms with all of what this means. They float suspended, inverted, among golden eternity and the many gilded worlds and lives they’ve lived together.”

Baselitz continued working until his passing. On May 6, the Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venice will open “Eroi d’Oro.” The presentation will coincide with the 61st Venice Biennale and feature the artist’s most recent series of paintings. They depict self-portraits and renderings of Elke, the artist’s wife. She survives him, along with his sons, gallerists Daniel Blau and Anton Kern. In the obituary, Isaf writes: “[Baselitz’s] ultimate subject is and will always have been Elke. His final paintings, his portraits of him and her, honest, unflinching, and profoundly human, come to terms with all of what this means. They float suspended, inverted, among golden eternity and the many gilded worlds and lives they’ve lived together.”

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