Author: Arden McKenna

OASIS OF ART. Located near the cracked, dried remnants of the Aral Sea in Uzbekistan, the I.V. Savitsky State Art Museum (aka the Nukus Museum) in Nukus is a hidden treasure. As the Art Newspaper reports, it houses nearly 100,000 works from the mid-20th century, spanning canvases, etchings, and sketches of rural life, alongside regional folk art and textiles. In 2025, the museum has gained unprecedented attention. A few years ago it made the headlines for a scandalous leadership feud after one of its directors accused the culture ministry of advertising her job behind her back, but after exhibitions in Florence and Venice in 2024, the…

Former studio assistants for Tom Sachs have alleged that the workplace environment created by the artist was “destabilizing and scary,” Curbed reported in an exposé published on Monday. Curbed said that it spoke with over a dozen former employees, almost all of whom requested anonymity due to nondisclosure agreements or fear of retaliation. The former assistants alleged that Sachs threw objects or screamed at employees, labeled a storage room “the rape room” (and then later changed it to “the consent room”), dispensed gifts of different values to, in Curbed‘s words, “demonstrate one’s standing” in the studio, and routinely made comments about employees’ appearance and sex life.…