Benjamin Sutton

Benjamin Sutton is the Editor, Americas of The Art Newspaper.

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Three exhibitions to see in New York this weekend

From Jennie C. Jones at the Guggenheim to Vincent Smith at Alexandre Gallery

Baltimore Museum of Art director Christopher Bedford will leave to lead SFMoMA

Bedford, like his SFMoMA predecessor Neal Benezra, very publicly ran afoul of industry conventions around deaccessioning and selling works from museum collections

First director picked to lead Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Latino

Jorge Zamanillo, currently the executive director and chief executive of HistoryMiami Museum, will lead the new Washington, DC museum through planning and construction

Three exhibitions to see in New York this weekend

From 20th century Italian masterworks at the Center for Italian Modern Art to Ashley Bickerton’s oceanic sculptures at Lehmann Maupin

Biden administration reverses Trump-era restrictions on federal art commissions

In the waning months of his presidency, Donald Trump’s administration imposed a ban on commissioning abstract or modernist art for federal buildings

Frieze cancels Los Angeles fair’s outdoor sculpture show due to shipping delays and labour shortages

Frieze Sculpture Beverly Hills, which was to take place in Beverly Gardens Park and run until May, would have included sculptures from 12 exhibiting galleries

Three exhibitions to see in New York this weekend

From the jewels of the American Folk Art Museum’s collection to Alec Soth’s journey across the US

More than $3.1m awarded to recipients of United States Artists grants for 2022

The non-profit’s new cohort of fellows includes sculptors Lonnie Holley and Nicole Marroquin, and textile artists Melissa Cody and Indira Allegra

The next Whitney Biennial’s 63 participating artists and collectives revealed

The exhibition’s 80th iteration, originally scheduled for 2021, will open on 6 April with its own official symbol

Simone Leigh statue of African deity installed at former site of Confederate monument in New Orleans

Leigh’s sculpture was unveiled at the symbolically charged site in the city centre during the closing weekend of the fifth Prospect New Orleans triennial

Three exhibitions to see in New York this weekend

From Abraham Palatnik’s first posthumous show at Nara Roesler to ayahuasca-inspired ceramics at Salon 94

Controversial statue of Theodore Roosevelt removed from American Museum of Natural History

The equestrian statue, which depicts Roosevelt on horseback flanked by a Native American man and a man of African descent, had been the focus of years-long campaigns from activists calling for its removal

NFTblog

Caviar with your crypto? World’s ‘first NFT restaurant’ planned in New York

Access to the members-only restaurant will be available only to holders of limited-edition non-fungible tokens

Three exhibitions to see in New York this weekend

From an artist couple’s colourful daring at the Museum of Arts and Design to the last chance to see Alexander Calder at the Museum of Modern Art

Sotheby’s reportedly selects Goldman Sachs Group and Morgan Stanley to pursue IPO at around $5bn

The auction house, which had been publicly traded for decades before being bought by Patrick Drahi for $3.7bn in 2019, could return to public trading later this year

Rare Shakespeare First Folio acquired by Canadian university to go on view at Vancouver Art Gallery

The University of British Columbia has acquired a copy of the ‘First Folio’ that helped preserve some of the bard’s most famous plays, including ‘Macbeth’ and ‘The Tempest’

Support for controversial Lacma expansion and a new Dred Scott museum: first round of $24.7m US federal culture grants announced

The National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded 208 grants for projects in most states, Washington, DC, Guam and Canada

Three exhibitions to see in New York this weekend

From the last chance to see Etal Adnan at the Guggenheim to a dynamic group exhibition at Nicola Vassell

New US stamp pays tribute to Edmonia Lewis, celebrated Black and Ojibwe sculptor of the 19th century

The new stamp will be unveiled at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, which houses what is likely Lewis’s most famous extant work

Researchers train AI to attribute paintings based on detailed brushstroke analysis

A project led by scientists at Case Western Reserve University uses machine learning to identify a distinctive ‘fingerprint’ in each artist’s way of applying paint

US museums close or reduce capacity as Omicron variant causes surge in Covid-19 cases

The Metropolitan Museum will stay opened at reduced capacity, while others like the Yale University Art Gallery and the Baltimore Museum of Art close temporarily

Utah museum acquires works by Japanese American artist Chiura Obata made in internment camp

Obata was incarcerated at the Topaz Relocation Center in Utah during the Second World War; now 35 of his works have been acquired by the Utah Museum of Fine Arts

Nelson-Atkins Museum acquires one of the earliest daguerreotype portraits made in the US

The 1840 profile portrait is part of a collection of early photographic works by Henry Fitz Jr. that is joining the Kansas City museum’s holdings

Hundreds call for reckoning with American artist Thomas Eakins’s troubling legacy

Eakins, who is celebrated far and wide in his native Philadelphia, was embroiled in controversy during his lifetime and made disturbing photos of young girls

Sotheby’s owner Patrick Drahi reportedly considering taking auction house public

Drahi bought Sotheby’s less than three years ago, took it private and began implementing a series of cost-cutting measures

Title and travel plans of Simone Leigh’s US pavilion at the Venice Biennale revealed

In addition to her trademark large-scale sculptures, Leigh’s presentation includes a range of scholarly and educational projects on both sides of the Atlantic

Confederate statue at centre of deadly Virginia rally will be melted down to make new monument

The city council in Charlottesville, Virginia, chose to give the controversial work to a local organisation over proposals to relocate it to Texas, California or other distant sites

In pictures: Boca Raton curator Kathleen Goncharov picks her favourite works from Art Basel in Miami Beach

From new discoveries to old friends, our expert eye selects works not to miss at the fair

Benjamin Sutton. Photographs by Eric Thayer

‘Often we consider Blackness as a monolith’: Pérez museum presents global Black identity in all its diversity

Exhibition of features contemporary works by more than 30 artists from Africa and the African diaspora from the Jorge M. Pérez Collection

Lawrence Weiner, conceptual artist known for large and poetic text interventions, has died, aged 79

The artist’s trademark interventions, often consisting of graphic elements and enigmatic phrases, are among the most distinctive bodies of work in contemporary art