Art News

British Museum director Hartwig Fischer seems to have dashed the hopes of Greeks hoping to reclaim their cultural patrimony in a recent interview. Speaking with Greek newspaper Ta Nea, Fischer claimed that the famously disputed Parthenon friezes, also known as the Elgin Marbles, had been transformed by the British possession of these works: “When you move cultural heritage into a museum, you move it out of context. Yet that displacement is also a creative act,” he said.

Considered by many to be the father of modern high fantasy, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892–1973), one of the world’s most beloved writers, introduced millions to the hobbits, elves, heroes and dragons of Middle-earth through his popular literary works, beginning with The Hobbit. Opening in New York January 25 at the Morgan Library & Museum, Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth is the largest collection of Tolkien material ever assembled in the United States.

Artist Jason Lazarus discusses the process behind his site-specific installation for SFMOMA, Recordings #3 (At Sea) (2014–16). Having collected found photographs for years, Lazarus describes his fascination with the human touch of the handwritten notes on the backs of many of these images.

A 1,000-pound portable fresco at the Philadelphia Museum of Art shows the realities of life on a hacienda.

Graciela Iturbide, one of the most prolific and insightful documenters of life and culture in Mexico is sharing her vision of a complex nation at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston (MFA Boston). Graciela Iturbide’s Mexico features nearly 140 photographs and is the first major East Coast presentation of the artist’s work.

Who deserves to be in a museum? For too long, the answer has been "the extraordinary"—those aspirational history-makers who inspire us with their successes. But those stories are limiting, says museum curator Ariana Curtis.

Sarah Sze is an artist best known for her sculpture and installation art. In this video, Sze introduces her approach to making art and describes her work Seamless.

The folksy charm of Margaret Kilgallen will be on display starting this week in the first posthumous museum exhibition of the Mission School artist’s work, opening Friday at the Aspen Art Museum.

Reginald Marsh captures the excitement of 1930's Coney Island in his dramatic depiction of a steeplechase, Wooden Horses (1936). Curator Erin Monroe discusses this moment in American history perfectly captured in tempera paint at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art.

In a new body of work from Dawoud Bey, the prolific portrait photographer explores blackness from a new angle: landscapes set at twilight. Night Coming Tenderly, Black, originally commissioned by FRONT International: Cleveland Triennial of International Art, and opening this week at the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) shows Bey working with landscapes in the same intimate way he usually photographs people.