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THE HEADLINES
SAVILLE ON A ROLL. The International Gallery of Modern Art at Ca’ Pesaro in Venice has announced that it will host a major exhibition of work by Jenny Saville next year. The solo show will be the British painter’s first in the northern Italian city and will coincide with the 2026 Venice Biennale. Gagosian, the mega-gallery which represents Saville, is supporting the show. Ca’ Pesaro is a Baroque marble palace turned art museum facing Venice’s Grand Canal. Saville, who was born in 1970 in Cambridge, has had three major museum shows at London’s National Portrait Gallery, the Albertina in Vienna, and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. “Venice represents a place where art is an intrinsic part of everyday life and where the Biennale artists of today sit in dialogue with these great Venetian artworks,” Saville said in a statement. “It’s a great honor to have the opportunity to exhibit in Venice.” The exhibition of 30 paintings at Ca’ Pesaro will be curated by Elisabetta Barisoni and will run from March 28 to November 26, 2026.
BACKING BLOCKCHAIN ART. During his stint as chief executive of Sotheby’s from 2015 to 2019, Tad Smith led a major push to modernize and digitalize the auction house. One of his notable initiatives was the 2018 acquisition of the AI startup Thread Genius, a company that used image recognition and machine learning to recommend artworks based on user preferences. Given his background, Smith’s current focus on digital art and assets comes as little surprise, and he recently told The Art Newspaper that he’s bullish for blockchain art. His comments come ahead of the sale of Robert Alice’s NFT painting at Sotheby’s New York, and after the speculative boom and subsequent blockchain art bust of 2021-2022. Smith, who now serves as chairman of the supervisory board at The Fine Art Group and is also a partner at 50T Holdings, said that “each new development in the field of art will inevitably horrify traditionalists. So, the division around digital art and NFTs is not new. This is a normal transition. When you look at the baby boomers, and to some extent, Gen X, their art isn’t going to appeal to the younger millennials and Gen Z in the way that that it did to them when they were at that age. Every generation has its own art, and you can see that historically.” Will the sale of Alice’s NFT work reflect the health of the digital art market? It remains to be seen.
THE DIGEST
Ed Ruscha has made a limited-edition chocolate bar molded in the shape of a topographic section of California’s Central Valley. [Artsy News]
Phys Org argues that Tutankhamun’s excavation 100 years ago, when archaeologists decapitated and dismembered the pharaoh, was not a triumph but a “great shame.” [Phys Org]
Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett’s prized Frank Frazetta painting is destined for the auction block on December 10 at Heritage Auctions. Bidding start at $10 million. [Artnet News]
San Francisco’s Rena Bransten Gallery, known for championing BIPOC and female artists since 1975, will close on November 22. [Artforum]
The Kicker
TO SELFIE, OR NOT TO SELFIE? Earlier this year, The Telegraph published a headline declaring: “Ban selfie-takers from museums—these people don’t deserve to see great art.” In the accompanying article, columnist Celia Waldon described her frustration at finding Emile Jean Horace Vernet’s Portrait of a Lady obscured by a visitor taking a photo, arguing that prohibiting selfies could help restore respect for cultural heritage. Her view echoes a growing debate. In June, Florence’s Uffizi Galleries announced plans to impose “precise limits” on selfies after a visitor damaged a painting by Anton Domenico Gabbiani while trying to photograph himself. The museum’s director said the policy aimed to curb behavior “incompatible with respect for cultural heritage.” Yet, as The Art Newspaper writes, opinions remain divided. Ross Parry, professor of museum technology at the University of Leicester, notes that the UK’s 1,700 museums differ widely in digital maturity and physical space. Some restrictions, he says, may simply reflect operational or safety needs. The Frick Collection in New York, for example, maintains a long-standing ban on all photography to protect unbarriered artworks, after past trials led to visitors nearly colliding with paintings.
See you at the same time tomorrow.
