Today
The Emirati princess running Sydney’s Biennale speaks out
Hoor Al Qasimi is royalty in the UAE, and a shooting star in the art world. But not everyone’s happy that she landed in Sydney.
Yesterday
David Rowe cartoons for November 2025
David Rowe is a multiple Walkley award-winning cartoonist. He draws a daily political cartoon and one for the Chanticleer column.
‘Real art today is creating data sets’: the artists not scared of AI
Deepfaked Kim Kardashians and a machine that’s learning the dead Occitan language are like paintbrushes in the box for these creatives.
This Month
Art attack: Gallery directors earn more than premiers
The NGV is setting records for attendance and director pay, while its Sydney counterpart is struggling with a donations drought, new reports show.
Has 21st-century culture become samey and dull?
A provocative new book says yes as it chronicles the decline of cultural invention. But it is only half right.
Stolen by Nazis, Gustav Klimt portrait lights up NYC with $365m sale
The painting became the second-most expensive artwork ever sold at auction and set the tone for the market’s most anticipated sale week for years.
Arkley’s freeway races out of the boardroom trailing a hefty price tag
The painter’s last major work spent 25 years at a Melbourne architecture firm. Now there are hopes it will become the artist’s third $2 million sale of the year.
For Judith Neilson the art world is too timid. So she built a gallery
The billionaire says Australia’s art scene is too politically correct. She opened her own gallery to display the Chinese art she has spent decades collecting.
The hedge fund billionaire selling a $15m gold toilet
The owner of the 100kg toilet, named “America”, by the artist who sold a banana taped to a wall for $9 million, has been a mystery for nearly a decade.
After a six-year legal fight, Del Kathryn Barton’s magnum opus is back
The 9m-long, five-panel work was sold with instructions it never be broken up. Ten years after it was, it’s back together and asking more than $1.2 million.
Del Kathryn Barton is done with rage, but she’s still a workaholic
With a fourth sellout New York show under her belt, the bankable Australian artist wants to make time for some self-care. That jars with her ambitious work ethic.
Jean-Michel Basquiat is one of the world’s most valuable artists. Why?
Thanks to a handful of money men, the neo-expressionist – who died in 1988 – has been transformed from New York scenester into blue-chip investment.
Whiteley’s take on Wategos Beach, the ultimate Byron Bay art flex
Whiteley’s bright beach, Dobell’s monumental Helena Rubinstein portrait and Dorrit Black’s Sicilian scene stand out in Smith & Singer’s year-end sale.
October
Art world bust-up over authenticity of $500k dot painting
A painting “attributed to Johnny Warangkula Tjupurrula” will be auctioned in spite of calls for it to be withdrawn and one expert calling it a fake.
Art auction house bets early bird discount will get buyers in
Art Leven director Mirri Leven is hoping a hefty discount on the 25 per cent buyer’s premium will jolt cautious buyers back into the market.
In London, art market sees glimmers of hope
At galleries across the city, an emerging generation of artists and gallerists injecting some excitement into the market.
Two paintings emerge from out of the blue. Are they real?
The star lots from two auctions, both held out of view for decades, had to be examined by experts to establish their provenance. For one, certainty is elusive.
OpenAI taps MCA for help with ‘art-washing’
The means of art theft may be more subtle when it’s AI rather than a crew of jewel thieves at the Louvre doing the stealing, but it’s still robbery.
Heartbreak for Australian artists caught up in US shutdown
What promised to be a sugar hit for First Nations art sales in the US just became more of a slow burn.
David Rowe named cartoonist of the year for record 11th time
The Financial Review cartoonist has taken out the award for three years running, and was also named caricaturist of the year for a 15th time.