Biennial Blowups and Gallery Model Meltdowns

A major Venice Biennale controversy is escalating fast. Artnet News reports that artists are threatening legal action tied to the Visitors’ Lions awards, the visitor-voted Golden Lions that were introduced after the Biennale’s five-member jury resigned on April 30. The dispute centers on artists who say they repeatedly asked to be removed from the voting process but found their names still listed. In a statement posted to e-flux on June 3, the group criticized what it called a lack of transparency and accountability and argued it was unfair to ask the public to vote if those votes “cannot be counted.” The artists said they would “begin next steps towards legal action,” without offering details.

Staying in Venice, The Art Newspaper adds the scale and the paper trail: the statement’s signatories now total 106, including Walid Raad, Laurie Anderson, and Pio Abad. The statement reproduces a May 20 letter in which the artists expressed “shock” that their names remained listed and demanded removal from “any and all contexts involving the Visitors’ Lions awards,” along with disqualification of votes cast for them. The Biennale, in a statement to The Art Newspaper, said it replied on May 28. In that response, the Biennale said artists would remain listed to “guarantee all visitors their freedom of expression,” but votes for signatories requesting withdrawal would not be counted. The Biennale also said it had received no response to that letter.

Across the market, one of the biggest gallery stories of the week landed: ARTnews reports that Pace Gallery is laying off some 50 staff members and dropping about 50 artists. CEO Marc Glimcher described the move as a “model correction,” saying the gallery will focus its roster on 85 artists after growing to 135. The news was first reported by the New York Times, and sources at Pace told ARTnews that the Times story appeared before the layoffs were actually conducted, creating confusion; a town hall was planned for 9 a.m. Thursday. Pace hasn’t released a list of artists it will no longer represent, but ARTnews notes some names now missing from the website, including Keith Coventry, TeamLab, John Gerrard, and Glenn Kaino.

Hyperallergic’s report on the same Pace cuts frames them as part of a wider rethinking of the “mega gallery” model. It says Pace cut 50 artists and laid off 50 staff, shrinking the roster by 30% and staff by about 20%, from 250 to around 200 employees. In a statement shared with Hyperallergic, Marc Glimcher said “the current gallery model isn’t only broken, it’s unfixable,” arguing resources spent on management and expansive rosters make it hard to present a “strategic, unified vision.” Hyperallergic notes a February snapshot of the website showed 28 artists no longer listed, including JR, Damian Loeb, and Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, and estates including Richard Avedon and Keith Sonnier. A staffer speaking anonymously described panic after the news broke early.

Heading down to Florida, Artnet News reports that Philippe Vergne has been named artistic director of the Bass in Miami Beach. The announcement positions him as a high-profile museum leader stepping into a role that will shape the institution’s curatorial direction. The Bass is a key player in a city with an intense contemporary art ecosystem, and the appointment signals the museum’s intent to sharpen its artistic program and public profile. With an artistic director guiding exhibitions and collection priorities, the Bass’s choices—what it shows, commissions, and foregrounds—can influence how Miami Beach is read beyond fair week, and how the museum defines itself within a landscape crowded with major private collections and international attention.

Across Central Asia, ARTnews reports that Kulapat Yantrasast has been named artistic director of the 2027 Bukhara Biennial in Uzbekistan, running from September 3 through November 21, 2027. Yantrasast succeeds Diana Campbell, who led the inaugural edition, “Recipes for Broken Hearts,” featuring more than 70 projects by international artists and Uzbek artisans across Bukhara’s historic center. The biennial is commissioned by Gayane Umerova and the Uzbekistan Art and Culture Development Foundation, and the debut edition drew an estimated 1.8 million visitors. Yantrasast, founder and creative director of WHY Architecture, said he wants the festival to connect with local people, not be “just the art world landing on it for 10 weeks.”

Back in New York, Hyperallergic’s “Art Movements” roundup spotlights Makeda Best as MoMA’s incoming chief curator of Photography, starting in September. Best is currently deputy director of curatorial affairs at the Oakland Museum of California, earned an MFA in studio photography at the California Institute of the Arts, and later completed a PhD at Harvard focused on Civil War photographer Alexander Gardner. She was photography curator at the Harvard Art Museums from 2017 to 2023. MoMA has had a dedicated photography department since 1940, but hasn’t had a permanent leader since Clément Chéroux left in 2022; Best succeeds Roxana Marcoci, who served as interim head. The same roundup notes the Asian Cultural Council awarded over one dollars million to 70 grantees.

A major loss in film and visual culture: Marjane Satrapi has died at 56. Her family, in a statement sent to AFP, said she “died of sadness a little over a year after the death of Mattias Ripa,” her husband. Ripa died April 8, 2025. Satrapi was the French-Iranian graphic novelist, artist, and film director best known for Persepolis, the animated adaptation of her autobiographical work, which she co-wrote and co-directed with Vincent Paronnaud. The film debuted at Cannes in 2007, where it shared the Jury Prize with Carlos Reygadas’s Silent Light, and it received an Oscar nomination for best animated feature. Satrapi also directed films including The Voices (2014) and Radioactive (2019).

From France and the UK, ARTnews reports on a new French study presented by the French Culture Ministry expressing confidence that the Bayeux Tapestry can be moved to the British Museum in July. The 11th-century work depicts William the Conqueror’s triumph at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 and is on UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register. Le Monde reports the main risk is vibrations, but with vibration expert Kerstin Kracht, they were reduced by 96 percent. A unique 1.6-ton, climate-controlled crate has been built, with an inner container suspended by 12 shock absorbers. Two test runs with a replica have already happened, with another rehearsal planned in July. The British government set aside about £1.2 million for transport.

Finally, a sharp piece of cultural criticism takes aim at a new film. “The Best Part of ‘Moss & Freud’ Is When It’s Over” reviews Moss & Freud (2025), described as James Lucas’s debut directorial feature about the friendship between Kate Moss and Lucian Freud. The review says the film frames Moss as looking for the right man to get her sober, and portrays Freud as a “Great Man” who magically sees the “truth” in young women. It highlights scenes set at the National Gallery and later at Freud’s home, and argues the movie romanticizes dynamics it should interrogate. According to the review, Moss & Freud is screening in select theaters in the United Kingdom through at least June 30, is widely available to stream elsewhere, and has a United States theatrical release to come.

That’s the download for today—links to every story are in the show notes. Come back tomorrow for more arts news you can actually use.

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