Miniatures, Restitution, and Faith’s Surreal Power

Aicon Art in New York is going big by going small—miniature, specifically. Artnet News reports the gallery has opened “Courtly Visions: Indian Miniature Painting,” Aicon’s first show wholly dedicated to the genre, bringing together works made roughly between 1630 and the early 19th century. These intimately scaled paintings were created for royal and aristocratic patrons, often as manuscript illustrations or album folios meant to be viewed up close. Associate Hannah Matin says the gallery—long focused on South Asian modernism, especially the Bombay Progressives—wanted to expand the narrative by returning to foundational sources. The exhibition also foregrounds artists and workshops, using specific attributions informed by scholars including Milo C. Beach, Eberhard Fischer, and B. N. Goswamy.

Staying in New York, an 11-year restitution dispute over Amedeo Modigliani’s Seated Man With a Cane (1918) has ended in a loss for billionaire art dealer David Nahmad and his family. A New York judge ruled this week that the painting belongs to the estate of Oscar Stettiner, a Jewish art dealer who left it behind under duress while fleeing Paris ahead of the Nazi occupation. Judge Joel M. Cohen wrote that Stettiner owned—or at minimum had a superior right of possession of—the work before its unlawful seizure, and that he never voluntarily relinquished it. The painting, valued at more than twenty five dollars million, has been held since 1996 by International Art Center, a Nahmad family–linked holding company.

In the hushed galleries of the National Gallery in London, Ming Wong has been turning a familiar martyr into a shape-shifting, time-traveling figure. ARTnews reports that during a residency last year, the Berlin-based, Singaporean artist was given access to the museum’s European masterpieces, feeding into his latest film, Dance of the Sun on the Water | Saltatio Solis in Aqua. Wong reimagines Saint Sebastian—shot with arrows—as a “time and space traveler” whose gender and age seem to shift, speaking Latin through Asian performers of multiple genders. The work carries an afterimage of Derek Jarman’s 1976 film Sebastiane and refracts it through the National Gallery’s 14 painted Sebastians.

ARTnews also profiles sculptor Gisela Colón, who is now the subject of two institutional solo exhibitions: “Radiant Earth” at the Bruce Museum and “The Mountain, The Monolith” at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico. Colón left San Juan in 1987 on a Truman scholarship, built a career in environmental law in California, and returned fully to art after raising two sons. She describes her approach as “organic minimalism,” focusing on material and origin. At the Bruce, wall-mounted “pods” read as biomorphic forms, while taller monoliths shift color with changing natural light—effects tied to plastics and engineered pigments, even as each sculpture is cast and layered by hand.

Hyperallergic’s latest roundup leads with “Salvador Dalí’s Sublime Faith,” with Ed Simon examining Dalí’s “nuclear mysticism,” described as a marriage of quantum physics and Catholic faith, and noting that a Crucifixion was physically attacked twice. The issue also points readers toward other features: Natalie Haddad goes inside The Met’s new Raphael show, including curator Carmen C. Bambach’s remark that asking for Raphael loans is “like asking for the firstborn heir of the royal family.” There’s also Ryan N. Dennis on moving from community engagement to leadership, and an annual 2026 April Fools edition introduced by senior editor Valentina Di Liscia as a tradition—and a reminder that the revolution requires laughter.

That’s today’s download—links to every story are in the show notes. Come back tomorrow for another brisk hit of art-world reality; until then, thanks for listening.

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