Spotlight Returns, and the Market Races

Welcome to The Daily Art Download—your daily update on all of the art world news you need to know… I'm your host Fenton Gigglesnort.
It is Sunday, May third, two thousand twenty-six. Let’s dive in.

New York is getting a long-overdue dose of Louisa Chase. At Berry Campbell, “Louisa Chase: The Eighties” is described as the artist’s largest and most comprehensive solo show in New York in more than two decades, and the first since the gallery announced its representation of the artist’s estate. The presentation focuses on a sharply curated selection of works on paper from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, emphasizing how Chase moved between abstraction and representation rather than treating them as opposites. The article places her between Neo-Expressionism and the New Image movement, and notes her ties to Philip Guston, whom she met in 1975 at Yale. The exhibition runs through May 30, 2026.

Staying in the United States, Lévy Gorvy Dayan is rolling out a new way to sell high-value art with a platform called LGD Hammer. The idea, according to gallery cofounder Brett Gorvy, isn’t to “invent a new paradigm,” but to introduce more urgency at a time when private sales have slowed and buyers want time to look, think, and negotiate. LGD Hammer will offer one painting at a set time to a smaller group of buyers, with Dominique Lévy serving as auctioneer, drawing on her years at Christie’s. The first work is Willem de Kooning’s Milkmaid (1984), estimated at ten dollars million to fifteen dollars million. It’ll be viewable by appointment from May 2 through the May 16 sale.

Across the Atlantic, Hyperallergic’s roundup “May You Live in Less Interesting Times,” edited by Hakim Bishara, opens with turmoil at the Venice Biennale. It notes that the show’s international jury has collectively resigned, with jurors signaling the decision relates to their statement that countries accused of committing crimes against humanity—named as Israel and Russia—will not be considered for awards. The newsletter also highlights Hakan Topal’s essay on the corporatization and “administrification” of American higher education, citing a statistic that between 1976 and 2011, university admin jobs grew by 369% while full-time tenured and tenure-track faculty grew by 23%. It also flags Valentina Di Liscia’s interview with Tania Bruguera ahead of “Tatlin’s Whisper #6” in Times Square.

Links to all three stories are in the show notes—give them a read, and I’ll catch you back here tomorrow for the next download.