The Defining Art Events of 2023

Just One More Year Until the Centre Pompidou Closes

There’s only one year left to visit the Centre Pompidou in Paris before it closes in summer 2025 to accommodate a five-year, €262 million ($283.6 million) renovation. France’s top museum for modern and contemporary art will undergo routine maintenance as well as the renovation, expansion, and reallocation of some interior spaces in its famed building designed by Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano.

During the process, the museum plans to move the Atelier Brancusi, the modernist sculptor’s former studio, into the main building. The institution is also expected to do a complete rehang of its collection, and offer more experiences in both physical and digital formats, as well as a refurbished library.

Ahead of the closure, however, the Centre Pompidou has several notable exhibitions planned, including what has been billed as the largest Constantin Brancusi exhibition ever staged, and a centenary celebration of Surrealism in 2024. A survey of Black art made in Paris between 1950 and 1990 is expected in 2025.

Meanwhile, the institution has focused on expanding its presence, with global satellites in Brussels and Jersey City slated to open, respectively, in 2025 and 2026. It also plans to launch a museum in Seoul in 2025, and a partnered institution at AlUla in Saudi Arabia in 2027, and has proposed another in Paraná, Brazil. The Centre Pompidou currently has venues in Metz in northern France, Shanghai, and Málaga, Spain. —Francesca Aton

Controversy in Florida over Teaching Michelangelo’s David

David, the 521-year-old artwork and one of the most famous figures in Western art history, made headlines this year, to the surprise—and confusion—of many worldwide. In March, Hope Carrasquilla, the former principal of Tallahassee Classical School, resigned after parents complained that her Renaissance art syllabus was inappropriate for a sixth-grade class, as it included an image of the classical sculpture, which one parent deemed “pornographic.” The ambiguous circumstances of her departure (initially reported as a firing) and the allegation of obscenity incited a media frenzy, with museum professionals, art historians, and politicians weighing in as to whether they constituted censorship. 

(Carrasquilla, for her part, told HuffPost that the standard protocol is to notify parents ahead of lessons on classical artwork, but due to a “series of miscommunications,” the picture was unveiled without warning.)

In a rare statement, the Florida Department of Education declared the statue’s “artistic” and “historical value,” and called for a more nuanced approach to classical art. Critics of the Tallahassee Classical School were quick to position the PR debacle in the debates unfolding in the American South over what constitutes “age-appropriate” education, and the controversy concerning the charter school system, which adheres to a “classical education curriculum model” that stresses a return to “core virtues” and the “centrality of the Western tradition.”

Michelangelo’s David itself ended up having the final word, as an avatar of the marble masterpiece stopped by Saturday Night Live for some finger-wagging. “Those parents are ignorant prudes … I’m the world’s greatest sculpture and I’m a very pretty boy,” David said. —Tessa Solomon

Hank Willis Thomas's Controversial Monument to Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King

The January unveiling of a much-anticipated Boston monument honoring civil rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King was to be a crowning achievement for artist Hank Willis Thomas. Then it took a turn. The sculpture, titled The Embrace, almost immediately became an unintended viral meme, drawing jests and mockery across social media platforms.

Depicting two pairs of intertwined disembodied arms, the artwork diverges from traditional monuments by omitting clear facial representations or conventional portrayal. Instead, it challenges viewers to discern whose arms belong to whom. While social media buzzed with ridicule, defenders praised the sculpture’s poetry. Martin Luther King III commended the work for its symbolic unity, emphasizing its capacity to unite communities.

Amid the criticism, Thomas defended the piece, drawing parallels with past derided public artworks. He maintained that the sculpture, a product of collective effort by Bostonians, embodies the enduring message of King’s timeless “Love Your Enemies” sermon. —Daniel Cassady

The Tate Britain Rehang

Comprehensive permanent collection rehangs are becoming increasingly common, and so it hardly seemed notable when, earlier this year, Tate Britain in London announced it would revise its galleries for the first time in a decade. To some, the rehang’s areas of attention even seemed welcome: an increased emphasis on women artists, a new focus on the transatlantic slave trade. The rehang, Tate Britain director Alex Farquharson said, was an attempt to offer “a more truthful account of history.”

Many critics disagreed, however, accusing Tate of having bowed to pressure from liberal literati to diversify its offerings and come out worse as a result. Jonathan Jones, writing in the Guardian, spoke for many when he claimed the offerings were “glib, patronising, belittling.” This permanent collection display tested the limits of just how far museums could go in rewriting the canon—and some were glad the presentation was mounted at all. In a positive review, Laura Freeman wrote in the Times of London, “Damned if you do go woke, damned if you don’t. You can’t please everyone all of the time and there’s no pleasing some people.” —Alex Greenberger

Art and Fashion Become Even More Entwined

Crossovers between art and fashion may have a storied history but, in the last year, many designers worked with artists at what appeared to be an unprecendented pace.

In March, Jonathan Anderson, artistic director of Spanish luxury fashion house LOEWE, debuted the Fall/Winter Ready to Wear collection in Paris, with compressed-confetti-cube sculptures by Italian artist Lara Favaretto helping deliver the show’s high concept. The cubes crumbled as models walked the runway, a gesture that underlined Anderson’s argument that contemporary fashion has become impossibly fleeting. In the same week, Spanish label Paco Rabanne paid tribute to its late founder’s work with Salvador Dalí in the 1960s. The designer’s models wore clothes affixed with the Surrealist artist’s strange visuals: a floating rose, an empty desert, and a sculptural heart made of rubies, among them.

By September, at New York Fashion Week, younger designers embraced artistic allusions and historical references, with emerging labels with downtown followings like Dauphinette and Puppets and Puppets drawing loosely on Surrealist and medieval art. More established designers like Proenza Schouler and Khaite, meanwhile, presented collections at the intersections of business and culture. At Eckhaus Latta’s showcase in Rockefeller Center, artists like Aria Dean and Susan Cianciolo were among the models who ascended an Art Deco escalator dressed in technical fabrics meant to weather the elements. At the Whitney Museum of American Art, Carolina Herrera’s creative director Wes Gordon staged a show dedicated to ballet-core that he said embraced the Renzo Piano–designed museum’s sleek lines.

All the while, historians closely eyeing fashion and art crossovers sought to further expand the discourse. Fashion historian Eugenia Paulicelli, speaking to ARTnews, commented that over the past year, artistic directors, especially within couture houses, have embraced an erratic moment, exploring “ways to look at chaos.” —Angelica Villa

The Brooklyn Museum Union Ratifies Contract

In November, the union at the Brooklyn Museum ratified a three-and-a-half-year contract, concluding negotiations that began in January 2022.

Throughout the negotiations, the union and its supporters picketed some of the museum’s top events, including the Thierry Mugler VIP gala and the Artists Ball, to make their cause visible. They differed over issues of health care benefits, job security, and wages, which had stalled among leadership in 2020.

The agreement guarantees a 23 percent wage increase for the duration of the contract, raising the minimum wage, and promising annual raises. The cost of health care benefits will also decrease, and coverage will extend to part-time staff working 20 hours per week. An additional $50,000 in funds will benefit professional training. The agreement between the Local 2110 UAW staff union and museum administration demonstrates the impact of a sweeping labor movement that will likely continue to impact other art institutions across the country. —Francesca Aton

Boris Eldagsen Wins Photography Contest with AI-Generated Image, Then Forfeits Prize

This was the year that artificial intelligence—and more specifically AI image generators—took the art world by storm. While there has been much hand-wringing by artists about what future AI may create, there was perhaps no better demonstration of the current absurdity than when Boris Eldagsen took first place in the creative open category in the World Photography Organization’s Sony World Photography Awards for a piece titled The Electrician. Shortly after winning, Eldagsen revealed that the piece, which appears to be an old photograph showing two women, wasn’t a photograph at all, but the contrivance of an AI image generator.

After winning, Eldagsen appeared contrite. “AI images and photography should not compete with each other in an award like this,” he wrote in a statement. “They are different entities. AI is not photography. Therefore I will not accept the award.” He continued, “We, the photo world, need an open discussion. A discussion about what we want to consider photography and what not. Is the umbrella of photography large enough to invite AI images to enter – or would this be a mistake?”

With AI image generators still early in their development, it’s unlikely this will be the last time an awards committee has to discern what is and isn’t real. —Harrison Jacobs

The British Museum Settles Claim with Chinese Canadian Poet for Uncompensated Translations

The British Museum is one of the most famous, well-funded public museums in the world. But earlier this year, Yilin Wang discovered the institution had used her translations of poetry in “China’s hidden century,” a large historical exhibition, without permission, compensation, or credit. The exhibition was the result of a four-year research project, involving “over 100 scholars from 14 countries” and was partially funded by a government grant of more than $917,000 (£719,000).

After Wang raised enough money to retain a lawyer and file a claim in the UK Intellectual Property Enterprise Court, the British Museum eventually settled with the Chinese Canadian poet and translator. Notably, the museum acknowledged it was “reviewing the permissions process it has in place for temporary exhibitions, particularly with regard to translations.” The British Museum also issued a statement that it did not have a policy regarding the specific clearance of translations. For an institution that strongly asserts ownership over contested items like the Parthenon Marbles, the case highlighted how gaps in the British Museum’s policies and procedures could allow for such a clear error to occur. —Karen K. Ho

San Francisco Art Institute's Bankruptcy Puts Diego Rivera Mural’s Future in Doubt

It’s been a rough year for the San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI): In April, one of the nation’s oldest and most esteemed art schools, whose alumni include Kehinde Wiley, Richard Diebenkorn, and Annie Leibovitz, declared bankruptcy. It was subsequently required to liquidate its assets to pay back hundreds of millions of dollars in debt. Among the creditors? Numerous former faculty who were laid off during the pandemic and are owed additional severance. 

Last year, SFAI announced that it was in discussions to merge with University of San Francisco, but when the deal didn’t go through, the school closed, holding its final graduation ceremony in July 2022. Then, this year, several months after the bankruptcy announcement, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that a group of investors was proposing to purchase SFAI’s Russian Hill campus, which would include its famed 74-foot-wide Diego Rivera mural, titled The Making of a Fresco Showing the Building of a City (1931), estimated to be worth $50 million. The group, led by Laurene Powell Jobs, is reportedly working to open a new school on the site. If the sale goes through, little will be left of SFAI besides some good memories. —Harrison Jacobs

Hannah Gadsby’s 'Pablo-matic' Goes Viral

If critics don’t like large-scale New York exhibitions, they’ll usually keep their opinions to themselves. But few held back when it came to the Brooklyn Museum’s “It’s Pablo-matic: Picasso According to Hannah Gadsby,” an exhibition greeted with such ferocity that the curators even responded to the mudslinging on social media. “That feeling when It’s Pablo-Matic gets (male) art critics’ knickers in a twist,” wrote curator Lisa Small on Instagram, where she posted a selfie with her co-organizers, comedian Hannah Gadsby and Brooklyn Museum curator Catherine Morris.

One such “(male) art critic” was myself. I hated “It’s Pablo-matic,” and so did New York Times critic Jason Farago, who wrote of the exhibition, “The ambitions here are at GIF level, though perhaps that is the point.” Farago was referring to Gadsby’s comedic jabs intended to highlight the misogyny of Picasso, whose art was placed here alongside pieces by feminists such as Mickalene Thomas, Dara Birnbaum, and others. The juxtapositions didn’t prove insightful for Farago or me, and the show became a punching bag on social media. Yet it didn’t stop the exhibition from luring enormous crowds to the Brooklyn Museum, highlighting how populist endeavors such as this one get people in the door, just not always for the right reasons. —Alex Greenberger

Shanghai’s Long Museum Founders Sells a Host of Works to Disappointing Results

When Sotheby’s announced in August that it would host a sale of work from Chinese billionaire Liu Yiqian and his wife Wang Wei, many were shocked. The move meant that the collectors intended to sell a substantial portion of the collection that comprises the privately run Long Museum in Shanghai. Many in the trade eyed the October sale for what it might signal about the market and the following month’s all-important evening sales.

In the end, the sale at Sotheby’s Hong Kong realized just over $168 million. While a record of $75 million was set for Chinese artist Zhang Daqian, many of the closely watched younger artists in the auction underperformed. The lackluster sale raised concerns about a slowdown in buyer interest and, the following month, works by Kerry James Marshall and Cecily Brown that had been among the museum’s prized acquisitions only a few years ago sold below estimate. —Angelica Villa

British Museum and British Petroleum Cut Ties

In a move celebrated by environmentalists, the British Museum called it quits with British Petroleum after a lengthy 27-year union, marking a notable exit for BP from the UK art scene after cozying up to venues like Tate and the National Portrait Gallery.

As BP and the museum’s latest 5-year tie-up expired in February, a chorus of voices, including academics and museum staffers, urged the museum to step back from the partnership, leading to the confirmation, as disclosed by the Guardian, that all ties between the museum and BP have been severed.

Though some terms will linger till year-end, the nature of these “supporter benefits” isn’t specified, detached from any museum initiatives. This split, a constant source of contention in cultural circles, echoes Tate’s 2016 breakup with BP after a 26-year affair, signaling a broader shift as institutions rethink ties with fossil fuel giants, reflecting societal strides away from such associations. —Daniel Cassady

The Parthenon Marbles Talks Grind On

The year saw new—but not necessarily promising—progress on the centuries-old issue of whether the Parthenon Marbles belong in England, where they currently reside, or in Greece, from which they originate, with neither side ceding the fight. This past January, the British Museum, which has exhibited the sculptures since 1832, after they were stripped from the Acropolis in Athens by the Scottish nobleman Lord Elgin, confirmed that it had been meeting secretly with Greek representatives for months over a potential loan agreement that would see some of the sculptures returned on a rotating basis. 

But, only days later, the Greek Ministry of Culture released a statement denouncing the possibility of any agreement that affirms the United Kingdom’s ownership claim of the contested antiquities. “We repeat, once again, our country’s firm position that it does not recognize the British Museum’s jurisdiction, possession and ownership of the Sculptures, as they are the product of theft,” the statement read.

Pressure on the British Museum has grown in recent years for the museum to acknowledge Greece’s claim to the sculptures, as the debate around the ownership of artworks looted during periods of colonization has shifted worldwide. Many leading cultural institutions have returned antiquities in their collection to their countries of origin, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, while several European museums have returned fragments of the Marbles. Throughout the controversy, the UK government has said that the decision rests with the British Museum. However, museum trustees are not allowed to deaccession from the collection without governmental approval, per a 1963 British Museum Act.

Animosity between the British Museum and Greek Culture Ministry deepened as the year progressed. In May, the British government declassified documents revealing that the Foreign Office was sympathetic to Greece’s appeals for their return following a visit from Greece’s then culture minister, who visited the British Museum in 1983. John Macrae, head of cultural relations at the Foreign Office, noted in the report more than 40 years ago that “the problem seemed to me to be one that would be with us for some time to come. We had to live with it and as far as possible contain it.”

Five months later, the Greek government filed a formal claim for the return of the Parthenon Marbles, the first of several to come. 

This past November, tensions again spiked. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak publicly accused Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis of “grandstanding” over the disputed sculptures, and called off a meeting with Mitsotakis only hours before it was set to start. Days prior, Mitsotakis had appeared on British television to compare the taking of the marbles from the Parthenon to cutting Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa in two. Sunak said Mitsotakis had reneged on a promise not to publicly comment on the Parthenon Marbles during his visit to England, which was designed to deepen Greek-British relations. An official for the Greek government denied ever making such a promise. “There was a positive side to the cancellation of this meeting, that it gained even more publicity … [for] the fair request of Greece for the reunification of the sculptures of the Parthenon,” Mitsotakis said, per the Associated Press. —Tessa Solomon

 Lisa Schiff and the Litigious New York Elite

This past May, Lisa Schiff, an art adviser with deep connections to the upper echelons of the market, got hit with multiple lawsuits from aggrieved collectors and galleries. Among them, Candace Barasch and Richard Grossman accused Schiff of defrauding them in the sales of artworks collectively worth millions of dollars. The lawsuits, and their aftermath, have provided a unique window into all-too-common business practices that permeate the art world’s shadowy corridors.

In the intervening months, Schiff shuttered her company, SFA Advisory, and her space at London’s Cromwell Place, and declared bankruptcy; lawyer Douglas J. Pick was appointed to liquidate the firm. In October, a New York judge approved the sale of select artwork and books from Schiff’s extensive collection, yet more than 100 pieces remain shrouded in mystery among the trove of nearly 900 artworks in her possession. 

As the legal sparring has continued, claims of ownership and restitution echo through New York’s art elite. Pick, on behalf of Schiff, has asked galleries to return deposits Schiff paid against future purchases, including that for a $650,000 Wangechi Mutu sculpture Barasch bought from Gladstone Gallery that was named in her lawsuit as a piece she had Schiff buy, but never received. Wendy Lindstrom, meanwhile, who represents both Barasch and Grossman, has asked the court to stop Pick’s attempts to return works to collectors who filed claims against Schiff. It’s a royal mess that is sure to continue into 2024. —Daniel Cassady

Yayoi Kusama Apologizes (Finally) for Decades-Old Comments

Yayoi Kusama is arguably the most successful female artist in the world right now, what with this year seeing her second Louis Vuitton collaboration, major exhibitions ongoing in several cities, and sales of her work frequently in seven figures at art fairs and auctions. But Kusama’s apology for the racist statements in her 2003 autobiography, ahead of the opening this past October of an exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, stands out for what it didn’t include.

Kusama used derogatory and offensive language to refer to Black people in several of her written works, not just her autobiography. And this aspect of her creative output wasn’t a secret: journalist Dexter Thomas wrote about it in features for Vice in 2017 and Hyperallergic earlier this year. But the offensive language hasn’t deterred museums and major galleries from organizing popular public shows devoted to the artist’s Infinity Mirror rooms, colorful sculptures, and dot-laden works.

The long-overdue apology finally prompted a serious conversation about why Kusama’s racist language—which is not inherent to Japanese culture—had been missing from so many discussions, publications, and exhibitions about the artist. It’s also worth thinking about why it required someone from outside the art industry to make it happen. —Karen K. Ho

Jeffrey Gibson Selected for American Pavilion at 2024 Venice Biennale

Last year’s edition of the Venice Biennale saw many major firsts for several countries’ respective long-standing national pavilions, including first women (Lumturi Blloshmi for Albania and Zsófia Keresztes for Hungary), first Black women (Sonia Boyce for Great Britain and Simone Leigh for the United States), first artist of Algerian descent (Zineb Sedira for France), first artist of Pacific descent (Yuki Kihara for New Zealand), first Roma artist at any pavilion (Małgorzata Mirga-Tas for Poland), and the renaming of a pavilion (from Nordic to Sámi, for the exhibition’s three Indigenous artists, Pauliina Feodoroff, Máret Ánne Sara, and Anders Sunna).  

This year’s edition seems no different. Look no further than the selection for the American Pavilion: Jeffrey Gibson, who will be the first Indigenous artist to take over the entire pavilion. (Hopi painter Fred Kabotie was part of a group presentation in the pavilion in 1932, well before it became devoted to single-artist showings in 1986.) Based in Hudson, New York, Gibson, a member of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and also of Cherokee descent, is best known for his beaded punching bag sculptures and semiabstract paintings, all executed in a vibrant palette and often incorporating text. He won the MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship in 2019, and edited a volume titled An Indigenous Present published earlier this year. 

The pavilion was commissioned by Louis Grachos, director of SITE Santa Fe in New Mexico, where a major traveling survey of Gibson debuted in 2022. The pavilion will have two curators, Abigail Winograd and Kathleen Ash-Milby, who will also be the first Indigenous person to serve as curator of the US Pavilion. —Maximilíano Durón

The Rijksmuseum’s Vermeer Exhibition and the Return of the Blockbuster

For decades, museums had become used to mounting a certain kind of exhibition every few years to draw in big crowds: the blockbuster, with a marquee artist name and the promise of a once-in-a-lifetime experience. The pandemic put a yearslong halt on that trend, as gathering huge masses of people together became unsafe. While immense events lasting a few days like art fairs bounced back toward the end of 2021, the blockbuster had a slightly slower return.

But it came back this year with a bang, as evidenced by the Rijksmuseum’s major exhibition dedicated to 17th-century Dutch master Johannes Vermeer. The exhibition brought together 28 of the only 37 paintings attributed to him, including a number of impressive loans that had never been exhibited in the Netherlands. The museum even authenticated three works months before the exhibition opened. Billed as the largest Vermeer exhibition ever staged, the public appetite to see the show was intense, with tickets selling out within days of its February opening, the museum releasing additional tickets, and then having to shut down its online ticket portal because of demand, and unverified tickets being resold in the thousands. When all was said and done, some 650,000 visitors from 113 countries—though more than half were Dutch—traveled to Amsterdam to see the exhibition during its 16-week run. —Maximilíano Durón

Frieze Acquires the Armory Show and Expo Chicago 

At the top of the art fair industry are two companies: Art Basel and Frieze, each of which stages multiple events around the globe every year. While Art Basel may be slightly larger and more prestigious, Frieze, ahead of its 20th anniversary, made a bid to outdo its rival, adding two US-based fairs to its portfolio, which already includes two London fairs and ones in New York, Los Angeles, and Seoul. The two new fairs are the Armory Show in New York and Expo Chicago, both of which have roots dating back decades and have since been reimagined. 

At the time of the July acquisition, Frieze CEO Simon Fox told ARTnews, “Let’s start with the fact that the US art market is the biggest in the world by far.… We’ve been growing and innovating across all parts of our organization. I see lots of future growth opportunities for us, thinking about Frieze as a whole rather than simply as an operator of fairs.” 

As part of the deal, for an undisclosed sum, the fairs will keep their individual management structures and teams as separate divisions, with the merger allowing for shared services, like human resources and legal. The Armory Show now takes place each September, with the mood during its final pre-Frieze edition having been one of optimism among dealers who were showing there. Expo Chicago, which is unique for its robust programming specifically tailored at US and international curators, will have its next edition in April.  

The acquisition of the Armory Show in particular has been the subject of much discussion across the US art market, as it was previously a direct competitor to two of Frieze’s existing fairs: Frieze New York, now a more boutique-size fair, and Frieze Seoul, which has a conflicting date: the Armory Show coincided with Frieze Seoul this year. Those two fairs are also able to attract the gallery giants, which the Armory Show was noticeably missing in September. “The two can coexist very comfortably as they currently do. We think we can enhance what the Armory Show currently does,” Fox said in July. —Maximilíano Durón

Climate Activism Continues Apace, with Major Legal Consequences for Activists

Climate activists continued to attack works of art in museums across the globe in 2023, attempting to spotlight the urgency of the climate crisis. Two activists were arrested in November at London’s National Gallery after attacking The Toilet of Venus by Diego Velázquez with hammers. Another pair of activists protested this past April at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., by smearing red paint on the case holding a famous Degas sculpture, and, in Sweden, Monet’s Artist’s Garden at Giverny also received a dose of red paint.

Governments have ramped up retaliatory measures in an attempt to dissuade further assaults on national treasures. The activists who attacked the Degas in D.C. were charged with “conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States.” In Australia, a protester had to fight a counterterrorism charge after defacing a work by Frederick McCubbin, and a Vatican court fined two activists $30,000 for gluing themselves to an ancient statue. —Daniel Cassady

Starchitect David Adjaye Accused of Sexual Misconduct

Few architects have risen as high in recent years as David Adjaye, the Ghanaian-born designer of institutions such as the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., which critics roundly praised upon its opening in 2016. And few have fallen as fast as he did following a Financial Times report in which three women who had worked at his firm, Adjaye Associates, detailed allegations of sexual misconduct. He denied the allegations and any criminal wrongdoing. But, once the report ran, the damage was done, and museums began to sever ties with him.

The Studio Museum in Harlem, for which Adjaye was designing a new building, stopped working directly with him because “the actions that are being alleged run counter to the founding principles and values” of the institution, as board chair Raymond J. McGuire put it. And the Africa Institute in Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates canceled a 343,000-square-foot campus that Adjaye was working on altogether. Other #MeToo controversies within the art world have yielded similar consequences, but rarely have the stakes seemed so high for institutions—or the individuals—stuck in the middle of it all. —Alex Greenberger

Supreme Court Rules Against the Andy Warhol Foundation in Landmark Decision

The United States Supreme Court ruled this past May against the Andy Warhol Foundation in a keenly followed copyright infringement lawsuit filed against photographer Lynn Goldsmith, a decision expected to have ramifications for future cases involving the fair-use doctrine, a legal theory that underpins much copyright law.

The legal battle began in 2016 when the Andy Warhol Foundation preemptively sued Goldsmith after she raised concerns about Warhol’s use of her 1981 photograph of the pop star Prince. Goldsmith shot the photograph of Prince on assignment for Newsweek. The magazine ultimately did not use the images, but Goldsmith retained the licensing for future use. Later, Warhol used the photograph as a reference for a Vanity Fair commission, allegedly without Goldsmith’s knowledge. Those illustrations were copyrighted by Warhol and have, since his death in 1987, been sold and reproduced for hundreds of millions of dollars. This, she said in her suit, was copyright infringement.

In the years since the Warhol Foundation sued Goldsmith, the case has made its way through the lower courts, eventually reaching the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, which ruled in 2019 in favor of the Andy Warhol Foundation. Last year, the Appellate Court reversed the Southern District Court’s decision. The case was concluded in the Supreme Court, but its impact on the application of the fair-use doctrine in controversies of “appropriation art” continues.

As in similar cases, the Supreme Court’s decision hinged on whether the justices deemed Warhol’s use of Goldsmith’s image as “transformative,” meaning that the original was transformed to the extent it is a new artwork. In the last decade, it has become a key defense for artists who rely on appropriated images, such as Jeff Koons and Richard Prince, both of whom have been taken to court on allegations of exceeding the protections of the doctrine. 

The issue has been divisive among artists. High-profile figures including Barbara Kruger and curator Robert Storr have argued that a tightening of the fair-use doctrine would constrict the creative process. Theoretically, artists and content creators, fearing costly litigation, may abstain from using or referencing copyrighted work, thus limiting cultural exchange and discourse. While its most recent opponents, digital artists whose images have been incorporated into artificial intelligence technology, argue that the highly subjective criteria of “transformation” is an inadequate legal foundation when livelihoods are on the line. —Tessa Solomon

Documenta Finds Itself in Controversy (Again)

Documenta, a roving art exhibition in Germany, and one of the most prestigious events of its kind in Europe, is in trouble. It has been, for some time: last year, Documenta 15 was roiled by allegations of anti-Semitism after a mural depicting a Jewish caricature made it to opening day; the debacle was exacerbated by the circulation of misinformation in prominent German news outlets about an Indonesian collective. In Germany, most art is dependent on federal funding—which trickles down to the state and municipal levels—and Documenta was warned that its future was dependent on reforms, even as some called for greater government control of the whole operation.

“I doubt Documenta will command the respect and the pre-eminence it did before this year, though, and it’ll never recover its aim of imagining the whole world in one show,” New York Times critic Jason Farago wrote in September 2022.

Those words may be prophetic. This past February, the organization released a report conducted by a scientific committee that accused the curators and select artists of exhibiting anti-Israel bias. Then, in November, the six-member selection committee charged with finding an artistic director for the 2027 edition Documenta resigned, as the organization again grapples with allegations of anti-Semitism.

The 2023 controversy began after Documenta released a statement about Ruangrupa, the Indonesian collective that organized last year’s edition, decrying two of its members for liking, then un-liking, social media posts in support of Palestine. It is highly unusual for a biennial to speak out against past or present curators, and moreover, Ruangrupa is not involved in organizing the forthcoming edition. The statement was written by Documenta managing director Andreas Hoffmann, who said the content of the posts was “intolerable and unacceptable.”

A month later, Documenta was again in the headlines after its organizers denounced Ranjit Hoskote, a member of the selection committee for its 2027 exhibition. Hoskote, an Indian poet and critic, had been called out in a report in Suddeutsche Zeitung for signing a letter protesting Zionism and Hindu nationalism, an ideology known as Hindutva, in 2019. The letter was published by the Indian division of Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions, a group that advocates for Palestinian rights. In Germany, BDS is a political flashpoint, with some even seeking to criminalize it. In a response to the Suddeutsche Zeitung article, German culture minister Claudia Roth said the letter Hoskote signed was “clearly antisemitic and full of anti-Israel conspiracy theories.” She threatened to again pull funding from Documenta.

Shortly after, Hoskote quit the committee. In his resignation letter, published on e-flux, Hoskote wrote: “It is clear to me that there is no room, in this toxic atmosphere, for a nuanced discussion of the issues at stake.” That same day, Israeli artist Bracha L. Ettinger resigned from the committee due to, what she called “dark times” in her home country.

Later, all the remaining members of the selection committee resigned—Simon Njami, Gong Yan, Kathrin Rhomberg, and María Inés Rodríguez. “In the current circumstances we do not believe that there is a space in Germany for an open exchange of ideas and the development of complex and nuanced artistic approaches that documenta artists and curators deserve,” the curators wrote in their resignation letter, which was published on e-flux. 

In a statement, Documenta said it had considered putting the process of selecting an artistic director on hold altogether “due to the special world situation following the Hamas terrorist attack in Israel.” —Tessa Solomon

Investigations on Human Remains Implicate the Smithsonian and the American Museum of Natural History

It is one thing to pursue the collection of knowledge, it is quite another to learn how much of that process was guided by eugenics and a deep lack of ethics. Investigations published this year on the Smithsonian and the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) highlighted the significant volume of human remains in their collections, the wide range of sources, and what was impeding the repatriation process. Many of the Smithsonian’s brain specimens and other human remains were obtained without consent, including looting from graveyards. A large portion of the AMNH’s collection came from Indigenous and enslaved people, as well as hundreds of poor New Yorkers whose unclaimed bodies were donated to medical schools.

The investigations prompted Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch III to announce a task force and an apology, while the American Museum of Natural History announced updated policies, including repatriation procedures, new storage facilities, and the removal of specimens from display. But even with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990, the investigations revealed how slowly these major institutions have moved to deal with one of the darkest parts of their histories, and why that urgently needs to change. —Karen K. Ho

Massive Antiquities Scandal Revealed at the British Museum

It’s too easy to make jokes about how the British Museum is filled with stolen objects. So it was a surprise this year when the institution announced that a staff member had been fired following the discovery of missing, stolen, and damaged objects in the collection archives. Internal reports and an external review would reveal that the staff member was a senior curator; the thefts took place over three decades, and totaled 2,000 items, many of which were not documented or cataloged; some of the Greco-Roman gems appeared on eBay for as little as $51; and a whistleblower’s alert to senior museum officials in 2021 was dismissed.

As a result of the scandal, museum director Hartwig Fischer resigned instead of stepping down early next year as had been previously announced, and deputy director Jonathan Williams also departed. Officials from Nigeria and Greece who had previously pushed for the repatriation of artifacts also questioned whether items such as the Benin Bronzes and the Parthenon Marbles were actually safe at the British Museum. There are plans to fully document and catalog the institution’s 8 million items, at a cost of $12.1 million, as well as to implement security measures to prevent future such incidents. Whether or not the museum can repair its reputation and the public’s trust is another question.

Artforum and the War of the Letters

Since its founding in 1962, Artforum has had its fair share of scandal. But none of those controversies compare to the one the magazine faced this year after editor in chief David Velasco published a version of a circulating open letter that demanded a cease-fire in Gaza and called for Palestinian liberation. Signed by a multitude of artists, the letter initially did not mention the October 7 Hamas attack that killed 1,200 Israelis and took more than 200 hostages—until word of it was appended to the letter days later.

A war of letters followed. Dealers Dominique Lévy, Brett Gorvy, and Amalia Dayan published their own response in Artforum, chastising the magazine for ignoring the events of October 7. They then went on to become three of the many dealers and artists who signed a counter-letter urging “empathy” after the Hamas attack while also failing to note the more than 15,000 Palestinians who had been killed by that time in Gaza by Israeli airstrikes, according to the Gazan health ministry. Velasco was subsequently fired, a decision that the Artforum publishers said was made because the letter’s publication and promotion was “not consistent with Artforum’s editorial process.”

By this point, a fault line had been exposed, and the furor only mounted. Artists, writers, and curators started to boycott Artforum, along with ARTnews and Art in America, which are also owned by Penske Media Corporation. That fault line has continued to generate new quakes in the months since. In November, Artists for Palestine UK cited the events surrounding Artforum as an example of how Western institutions are censoring pro-Palestine voices, setting the publication alongside German museums that have canceled exhibitions for those who call for a cease-fire. —Alex Greenberger