It was yet another busy year at Artnet News, one in which we published thousands of stories covering every inch of the art world. We were there for major art fairs, multimillion-dollar auctions, landmark exhibitions, museum openings, and every other hot topic. In between that, we conversed with artists both emerging and established, tracked the rise and rise of A.I., followed art and pop culture crossovers, and uncovered the latest in art-world scandals.
What a ride! Before we get ready to do it all over again, here’s a mammoth list of our favorite stories in 2023.
‘A Face Is Not Just a Face’: Is It Finally Time for the Gay Gaze of Unsung Portraitist Gilbert Lewis?
By William Van Meter, January 23, 2023
Gilbert Lewis, Untitled (Nude Drawing), ca. 1980. Gouache and graphite on paper, 24 x 18 inches. Courtesy of Kapp Kapp.
“Lewis was out-of-step with the straight art world for being too gay, but his longing gaze was anachronistic in the queer art of the time… The tide has now shifted where the quieter voices from the era are now being recognized.”
Emily Sargent, Not Just a Sister to John, Was a Serious Painter in Her Own Right. Her Watercolor Landscapes are Finally Entering Museums—and the Spotlight
By Sarah Cascone, February 6, 2023
John Singer Sargent, Emily Sargent (1877). Private collection.
“The full scale of Emily’s practice only became clear in 1998, when a family member discovered a forgotten trunk containing a stash of 440 of her watercolors.”
Former Tom Sachs Employees Detail New Allegations of Meager Pay and Dehumanizing Work for the Artist and His Wife, Sarah Hoover
By Sarah Cascone, March 21, 2023
Tom Sachs and Sarah Hoover attend a Chanel fashion show at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2018. Photo by Jared Siskin/PMC.
“‘None of us signed up to work for the Sarah Hoover studio, but none of us felt that we could say no, because she was the boss’s wife,’ studio alum Dawn told Artnet News.”
How We Ended Up in the Era of ‘Quantitative Aesthetics,’ Where Data Points Dictate Taste
By Ben Davis, March 30, 2023
The “Big Bang Data” exhibition at Somerset House on December 2, 2015 in London, England. Photo: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images for Somerset House.
“As an instrument used to justify consumer preference within a landscape of complex values, a Quantitative Aesthetic often just becomes a way to deal with the problem of not wanting to spend much time thinking—the opposite of deep thought.”
Meet the Robotics Company Beloved by Generative Artists for Transforming Their Digital Art Into Physical Reality
By Min Chen, April 12, 2023
An Artmatr robot at work. Photo: Matt Coote and Federica Berra, courtesy of Artmatr.
“These room-sized machines are the products of nearly a decade’s worth of research and development that leans on the expertise of artists and scientists from MIT. Their purpose is to help artists physically realize digital artworks with maximal control and creativity.”
Berlin’s Star-Studded Paris Bar Became World-Famous for Its Artist Patrons. Was It All an Artwork by Its Late Owner Michel Würthle?
By Kate Brown, April 18, 2023
Michel Würthle outside Berlin’s Paris Bar. Photo: Alexander Becher/ullstein bild via Getty Images.
“One could say Würthle’s craft was to create a myth out of the bar, the art, and the people in it. Put another way by Bruno Brunnet, an art dealer and close friend of the restaurant owner and one of the bar’s unofficial cultural attachés, it is a social sculpture.”
A Brief, Blossoming History of Tulips in Art, From a 17th-Century Dutch Flower Craze to Koons’s Controversial Bouquet
By Annikka Olsen, April 18, 2023
Still Life with Tulips. Found in the collection of Nationalmuseum Stockholm. Photo: Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images.
“Tulips’ widespread popularity has also led them to become perennial muses for artists, a reliably understood symbol of spring and a cornerstone of vibrant, nature-inspired landscapes.”
Counterpublic’s 2023 Exhibition in St. Louis Shakes Up the Formulaic—and Often Problematic—Shape of American Triennials
By Taylor Dafoe, April 26, 2023
Torkwase Dyson, Bird and Lava (Scott Joplin), 2023. Photo: Chris Bauer. Courtesy of Counterpublic.
“At stake here, against the backdrop of the heartland and its history of industrial capitalism and land dispossession, is a broader consideration not just of how we can use art to incur change, but whether or not art can incur change at all.”
For Decades, the West Celebrated the Late Taiwanese Sculptor Ju Ming—Until He Vanished From the Global Stage. What Happened?
By Vivienne Chow, May 4, 2023
Ju Ming outside the Place Vendome in Paris, France during the exhibition “Sculptures of Ju Ming” in December 1997. Photo: Xavier Rossi/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images.
“Over the past decade, Ju went from being a widely exhibited Asian artist in the west to a name adored exclusively by Asian audiences or lovers of Asian culture.”
Baz Luhrmann, a Design Museum, and a Robot Artist Staged an A.I. Art Show Where Sparks—and Machine-Driven Creativity—Flew
By Richard Whiddington, May 15, 2023
Baz Leherman on stage with Ai-Da and Tim Marlow at Chelsea Factory. Photo: Yuxi Liu for Bombay Sapphire.
“But, of course, in this moment of A.I., with society bracing itself to be bamboozled, belittled, and rendered jobless by the very thing, Ai-Da is more, much more: she’s a physical embodiment of the future that happened yesterday.”
Go Drinking With Art Advisors, Never Say ‘Nice to Meet You,’ and 33 Other Useful Things I’ve Learned as an Art-World Gossip Columnist
By Annie Armstrong, May 18, 2023
The night I learned tip #23 the hard way at Mac’s Club Deuce.
“I can’t give away all of my secrets, but here are a few words to the wise I’ll share with you today.”
Tate Britain Has Re-Hung Its Collection to Better Represent the U.K.’s Past. Here Are 5 Must-See Works That Reflect the Change
By Holly Black, May 24, 2023
Pablo Bronstein, Molly House (2023). ©Pablo Bronstein. Courtesy the artist and Herald St, London. Photo by Andy Keate.
“Tate’s overhaul has promised to do that, not only by shaking up exactly what is on display (which tops over 800 works), but by adding renewed context and connections between artists, their work, and the wider socio-political context of the day.”
A Dealer Who Called Out the Art World’s Lack of Due Diligence Is Himself a Victim of Lisa Schiff’s Alleged Ponzi Scheme
By Eileen Kinsella, May 26, 2023
Incoming Pace Gallery vice president Adam Sheffer. Image courtesy of Pace Gallery.
“The emphasis on due diligence is all the more striking given that Sheffer himself appears to be one of the aggrieved parties, although not a plaintiff, in the suit brought against Schiff.”
How Hardcore Can Art Get? Does A.I. Need Therapy? And Other Thoughts in the Air at London Gallery Weekend
By Naomi Rea, June 5, 2023
Eddie Peake attends the Frieze 91 x London Gallery Weekend opening party celebrating London’s Creative Scene at The Groucho Club on June 1, 2023 in London, England. Photo: Dave Benett/Getty Images for London Gallery Weekend x Frieze.
“For committed patrons of the arts, London’s nascent gallery weekend poses something of an impossible task… Between exhibitions, opening parties, and dinners, there is perhaps too much competing for your attention.”
How a New Wave of ‘Hypersentimental’ Portraiture Is Serving Up Painting for the Age of Vibe Shifts and Nano-Influencers
By Kate Brown, June 8, 2023
Elizabeth Ravn, Magdo and Lucci (Neukölln Bed) II, 2022. Courtesy the artist and Deborah Schamoni. Photo: Ulrich Gebert
“Hypersentimentalism’s laser-focus on niche knowledge and micro-communities offers a way to keep faith with the strengths of figuration, while still positioning oneself against some of these frustrations. It follows an ‘IYKYK’ logic, playing up a layer of insider opacity.”
Why Hasn’t Atlanta’s Art Scene Flourished Like Those of Other Cities in the South? A Tragic Plane Crash May Hold the Answer
By Annie Armstrong, July 10, 2023
Auguste Rodin’s The Shade , which was donated to the High Museum from the country of France after the devastating plane crash in 1962. Photo: Raymond Boyd/Getty Images.
“The consequences of the horrific crash, which was the most deadly to date, are what many in Atlanta blame for the arts community’s failure to launch.”
Creepily, the Woody Allen Romp ‘Vicky Cristina Barcelona’ Channels the Book That Outed Picasso’s Treatment of Women
By Ben Davis, August 4, 2023
Penelope Cruz, Scarlett Johansson, Woody Allen ,and Rebecca Hall arrives at The Los Angeles Premiere of “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” at the Mann Village Theatre on August 4, 2008 in Westwood, California. (Photo by Steve Granitz/WireImage)
“The more I think about it, the more certain I am that Vicky Cristina Barcelona—a late-period, but pre-Vanity Fair exposé trifle from Allen—is channeling Gilot’s tell-all. Which is unsettling, for reasons I’ll explain.”
Can a Digital Artwork Outlast a 19th-Century Painting? Experts Are Already Battling Obsolescence in the Field
By Jo Lawson-Tancred, August 9, 2023
Digital conservation. Photo by Matthieu Vlaminck and Morgan Stricot, courtesy of ZKM.
“The comparatively nascent field of new media art conservation needs to take urgent action if it hopes to save valuable contemporary artworks from the accelerating pace of technological transformation.”
The Art Market Has Taken a Hit. Are We About to Enter Bargain City?
By Katya Kazakina, August 11, 2023
Christie’s Global President Jussi Pylkkänen. Courtesy of Christie’s Images Limited 2023.
“A new era has arrived. Welcome to the buyer’s market. At the spring sales, ‘I made out like a bandit,’ said art advisor Ben Godsill.”
Freud, Hockney, Pigeons, and Pubs. Step Inside the Eccentric New London Art Show Curated by Designer Jonathan Anderson
By Jo Lawson-Tancred, September 18, 2023
Jonathan Anderson at Offer Waterman. Photo courtesy of J.W. Anderson.
“In locating and rekindling this passion for London, Anderson makes a point of reveling in the city’s more unseemly elements. He insists that these have informed his creative vision just as much as the more rarified influence of fine art.”
‘We Cannot Fight A.I.’: How Art Schools Are Navigating the Challenge of Artificial Intelligence
By Brian Boucher, October 27, 2023
Auto design students at Detroit’s College for Creative Studies. Photo: Center for Creative Studies.
“Will admissions officers know whether the artworks in an applicant’s portfolio were created with a few keystrokes, for instance? How should professors appraise works created entirely with A.I.?”
How Georgia O’Keeffe’s Brief Refuge in Bermuda May Have Inspired Her Fateful Move to New Mexico
By Adam Schrader, October 29, 2023
Georgia O’Keeffe’s Banyon Tree Trunk (1934) is pictured inside the Masterworks Museum in Bermuda. Photo by Adam Schrader
“In New Mexico, Hunter said, O’Keeffe could be left alone—a feeling she sought out after her time in Bermuda.”
How Did Illusionist Jeanette Andrews Get Her First Museum Show? The Answer Involves C.I.A. Mind Control
By Katie White, November 15, 2023
Jeanette Andrews. Photograph by Michael George.
“The 33-year-old illusionist is determined to bring magic back to an elevated sphere.”
Hollywood Icon Sharon Stone on Her Most Challenging Role Yet: An Abstract Painter
By Whitney Mallett, December 15, 2023
The artist Sharon Stone. Photo: Eric Michael Roy.
“She wore jeans and bare nails, her slicked back hair streaked with grey, and toured me around the colorful works on the walls before delving into her singular journey.”
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