Venice Biennale titled ‘Foreigners Everywhere’ platforms LGBTQ+, outsider and Indigenous artists

VENICE, Italy — Outsider, queer and Indigenous artists are getting an overdue platform at the 60th Venice Biennale contemporary art exhibition that opens Saturday, curated for the first time by a Latin American. Brazilian curator Adriano Pedrosa’s main show, which accompanies 88 national pavilions for the seven-month run, is strong on figurative painting, with fewer … Read more

Choctaw artist Jeffrey Gibson confronts history at US pavilion as its first solo Indigenous artist

VENICE, Italy — Jeffrey Gibson’s takeover of the U.S. pavilion for this year’s Venice Biennale contemporary art show is a celebration of color, pattern and craft, which is immediately evident on approaching the bright red facade decorated by a colorful clash of geometry and a foreground dominated by a riot of gigantic red podiums. Gibson, … Read more

A painting of Winston Churchill by an artist whose work he hated is up for auction

LONDON — A portrait of Winston Churchill by an artist whose work the British leader loathed went on display Tuesday at Churchill’s birthplace ahead of an auction in June. The painting by modernist artist Graham Sutherland was made in preparation for a larger portrait that Churchill hated and which was later destroyed — an episode … Read more

Artist refuses to open Israeli pavilion at Venice Biennale until cease-fire, hostage release

VENICE, Italy — The artist and curators representing Israel at this year’s Venice Biennale announced Tuesday they won’t open the Israeli pavilion exhibition until there is a cease-fire in Gaza and an agreement to release hostages. Their decision was posted on a sign in the window of the Israeli national pavilion on the first day … Read more

Demolition of groundbreaking Iowa art installation set to begin soon

DES MOINES, Iowa — Crews could begin ripping out a groundbreaking art installation bordering a Des Moines pond as early as next week under plans announced by a local art museum Wednesday, saying the artwork is hazardous and would be too expensive to repair. City officials gave the Des Moines Art Center permission to begin … Read more

Morocco hosts one of Africa’s first exhibitions of Cuban art, a milestone for Afro-Cuban painters

RABAT, Morocco — When Morocco ‘s King Mohamed VI visited Havana in 2017, Cuban-American gallery owner Alberto Magnan impressed him with a “full immersion” in the Caribbean island’s art and culture, drawing a line between the cultural and historical themes tackled by Cuban artists and those from across Africa. Seven years after that encounter, one … Read more

Like Banksy, France’s mystery ‘Invader’ marks cities with art. He could surprise the Paris Olympics

PARIS — For the Paris Olympics, it could almost be a new sport: Score points by hunting down mosaics that a mystery artist who calls himself “Invader” has cemented to walls across France’s capital, the world and even had carried aloft to the International Space Station. Vincent Giraud, one of the artist’s Parisian fans, is … Read more

Ukraine’s most famous sculptor turns war debris into art, expressing the inexpressible

PARIS — From within the debris of Russia’s war, Ukraine’s most famous sculptor was compelled to make a dark artistic pivot the day his own country house was ravaged by a Russian strike. “It happened by accident, it happened when a missile came into our house, our dacha … and my neighbors gathered the debris … Read more

Ben Affleck inspired J.Lo’s first album in a decade. She’s using it to poke fun at her romantic past

LOS ANGELES — Throughout her career, Jennifer Lopez has been hailed as an epochal, prolific and hard-working artist. One adjective not often associated with the pop icon-turned-actor and movie producer, however, is self-deprecating. But as she readies to drop her first studio album in a decade, Lopez is performing a kind of fictionalized mea culpa … Read more

Art exhibit honors fun-loving man killed in mass shooting in Maine

WINSLOW, Maine — Peyton Brewer-Ross was the life of the party, with wraparound sunglasses and an outlandish Randy “Macho Man” Savage Slim Jim jacket. He also was a Navy shipbuilder, the father of a 2-year-old girl, and engaged to be married. Brewer-Ross, one of the 18 people killed in the deadliest mass shooting in Maine … Read more