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Lorenzo Fusi has been named artistic director and chief curator of the inaugural Yerevan Biennial. The first iteration of the exhibition was scheduled to take place later this year in various venues

Lincoln Center has a new online portal; the Royal Danish Ballet is streaming; and museums and galleries expand online offerings. Here is a list of digital content.

The Centre Pompidou in Paris may be reconsidering plans to open a satellite branch in Seoul due to the novel coronavirus. The https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/centre-pompidou-south-korea Art

In a major turnaround, the Kunstmuseum Basel in Switzerland has reached a settlement with the heirs of Curt Glaser—a prominent Jewish art critic and museum director who sold the majority of his collection

Derek Fordjour and the gallery that once worked with him are battling in court over pieces he promised to create before his career took off.

He’s best known for images of aviators, racing cars and socialites on the Côte d’Azur, but a new book reveals the driving passions of the French photographer’s early life

In a family photograph taken by his father in 1903, nine-year-old Jacques Henri Lartigue stands on a path in the Bois de Boulogne, in front of his mother and grandmother. He is grinning mischievously and clutching a beloved Jumelle box camera that had recently been given to him by his father. In the next few years, Jacques will constantly record the world around him, photographing his bedroom, making portraits of uncles and cousins, and framing his older brother, Zissou, as he leaps into the air from a boat.

Another 60 years will pass, however, before the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York hosts the first exhibition of his work, belatedly bestowing on Jacques Henri Lartigue the recognition he deserves as one of the great innovators of 20th-century photography.

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For those who write about culture for a living, working from home is a way of life. Pre-lockdown, the Observer’s film, art, dance, architecture and theatre critics discussed their jobs

The experts’ experts - our writers on their most-trusted sources

“Every now and then, in the middle of Tuesday afternoon, when you’ve seen a run of really bad films – Mighty Pups, say, followed by some terrible Michael Bay movie – and you’re scuttling from one screening room to another, and it’s raining, and you’ve got a deadline, and you’ve been up since 5am, and you think: ‘Ohhh, life is so hard!’ But then you go: ‘Hang on a minute…’” Mark Kermode takes a breath and reflects on his professional fortunes. “When I went to the school careers office, they told me I should probably work in an insurance office. Instead,” – he draws the next six words out for emphasis – “I watch films for a living. Which is astonishing to me. I should never ever complain about the job that I have, because I have the best job in the world.”

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Wherever you are in the world, this week we’d like to see your pictures on the theme ‘ambience’

The next theme for our weekly photography assignment, published in print in the Observer New Review is ‘ambience’.

Share your photos of what ambience means to you – and tell us about your image in the description box.

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Galleries and institutions are girding themselves against the effects of coronavirus but how will the artists themselves survive?

The show is on, but not open. The masterpiece hangs unseen. The museum is as silent as the isolation in which the artist tries to work, uncertain of any future as the virus rages without vaccine. Art now waits upon science.

The four Tates closed first. “It is strange and sad to think of them occupied by art, but empty of the audiences they serve,” reflects Frances Morris, the director of Tate Modern. “To shut such recently opened shows as Warhol and McQueen is distressing; so much work had gone into Tate Modern’s 20th anniversary.” The National Gallery’s Titian, years in the planning, closed after just a few days. The exhibition reunited what director Gabriele Finaldi calls “possibly the most important cycle of pictures ever painted”, adding: “But how can we think of that, before humanity?”

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An odyssey around remote parts of central and eastern Europe led Fabio Ponzio to this incongruous sight

Before the collapse of the Soviet Union, Italian photographer Fabio Ponzio would look at a map of Europe and find his eyes always drawn to the east, to its “mysterious names, inscrutable frontiers and roads that ran on into unknown, prohibited lands”. It seemed to him that the iron curtain was “the division between the conscious and the unconscious mind of Europe”.

He first travelled across that dreamlike frontier in 1987, two years before revolutions reunited the continent. After the wall came down, over the course of a couple of decades, he drove determinedly through all the remote territories from which he had been excluded, with a tent and a stove and a sleeping bag in the back of his car, along with three Nikon cameras and 100 rolls of film. He slept in woods or in the homes of people he met. Once, in the mountains of Albania, the villagers told him that he was the first foreigner they had seen since two Italian soldiers fleeing the armistice of 1943.

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The Observer’s reviewers select the shows, recordings, films, buildings and paintings that have shaped their love of the arts

Culture special: Rachel Cooke on criticism in 2020

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Film at Lincoln Center, widely regarded as a citadel of New York movie culture, became the latest arts institution in the city to https://www.artforum.com/news/museums-across-the-us-lay-off-workers-as-covid-19-cases-rise-82588

This intimate exhibition of Ana Mendieta’s work, curated by Cuban compatriot Wilfredo Prieto on the thirty-fifth anniversary of the artist’s death, revolves around three short films that intertwine

Quarantined in Sicily, van Dyck painted a daughter of Palermo who saved the city from an outbreak. Our critic went to see her in an empty museum.

In this age of pile-ons and ‘cancellations’, complacency and cliques, how does a critic stay free-thinking and engaged? Our reviewer pauses for thought...

When Mary Beard’s new BBC documentary series Shock of the Nude began last month, I had high hopes. A new censoriousness is abroad both in the art world, and in our wider culture, and I hoped that she might have something to say about this: something clear, clever and non-prurient. But alas, it was not to be. I disliked her approach to marble fig leaves and the male gaze, and in the New Statesman, where I am the television critic, I said so, calling the series out for what I regarded as its superficiality and modish solipsism. “She is the star,” I wrote. “And Michaelangelo, Courbet and all the rest of them can go hang.”

I did not expect her to like this, but neither did I expect to hear that she didn’t like it. Beard, a Cambridge don, is smart and successful. I assumed she would rise above it; given that I once gave a book of hers a rave review, she would know, moreover, that it wasn’t personal. But again, I was wrong. A few days later, Beard devoted the blog she writes for the Times Literary Supplement to TV criticism, having taken exception not only to my review, but to several others too. In it, she ticked each of us off individually. (Had I, she wanted to know, ever considered how few TV minutes in the past had been devoted to Zoffany’s Tribuna?) She then called for a total rethink of TV criticism. It seems that Beard wants new, better TV critics, who will take a new, better approach to television. The inference is that what she really wants are TV critics who will universally praise everything that she does.

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The exhibition “White Black Death Gold” by Elisabeth Frieberg focuses on the most recent works on canvas by the Swedish artist. Frieberg’s abstract oil paintings are deeply influenced by nature, personal

Galerie Vera Munro, founded in Hamburg in 1977, works with a range of diverse artists who are active in different media such as painting, drawing, installation, sculpture, photography, and video. The

“Third Dimension: Works from The Brant Foundation” is the second exhibition at The Brant Foundation’s New York space, featuring over 20 artists integral to its collection. The selected sculptures,

First of all, the Carole King album is sweet. I also like the idea of “carpets on the walls” to keep the castle or church warm and provide some cool, labor-intensive images for people to admire at the

If to paint is to work in simplicity, to return forever to archaic forms, raw colors and raw materials, then Franck Chalendard is a painter. And a great one at that. His pictures—since this is the word

Artist Calvin Seibert grew up on a ski resort strongly influenced by brutalist architecture in 1960s Colorado.

“The construction sites were never fenced in, so they were great places to play and always had piles of sand,” he says. Later, after studying at the School of Visual Arts in New York, Seibert began making modernist sandcastles.

See more on Seibert’s Instagram page

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You can craft your way to a sense of community, says the artist Liza Lou. She’s creating her “comfort” project on Instagram in real time.

Gagosian is pleased to present “Duino Elegies,” a group exhibition that traces the resonance of Rainer Maria Rilke’s poetry through artworks spanning the past 150 years. In 1912, Rilke was invited to

The Observer’s critics offer creative alternatives to major forthcoming gigs, concerts, shows and exhibitions that have been postponed or called off

Cancelled: Eurovision Song Contest 2020
Alternative: Charli XCX’s Self-Isolation IG Livestream (Instagram)
It’s hard to know how long CXCX will continue with her top-notch series of daily livestreams, in which she’s played at talkshow host, communing with collaborators Christine and the Queens, Rita Ora and Kim Petras, or working out with Diplo. But let’s hope they never end. KE

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A series of paintings from the gallery’s artists touching on ideas of Spring and the changing seasons.  For more information on the gallery and its artists, please follow this link. 

March 5 – May 2020 James Cohan is pleased to present an exhibition of new paintings by Firelei Báez, on view at 48 Walker Street through May 2020. This is the artist’s second solo exhibition with

From Hamlet to Wu-Tang Clan to maths lessons for kids, there are countless ways to have fun

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As millions of us try to find things to keep ourselves and our kids occupied during the lockdown, the good news is that many companies have decided to put some of their previously paid-for online content and services out there for free. So if you are trying to stave off cabin fever, maybe give one or two of these a try…

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Physical distancing, self-isolation and lockdown – the best photography from around the world.

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From a time before physical distancing - the best photography commissioned by the Observer in March 2020.

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The fourth annual Rabkin Prize for Arts Writers, which recognizes outstanding contributions by art critics who inform the public through their writing on contemporary art, have been awarded to nine

New York–based architect, urbanist, educator, and writer Michael Sorkin—a singular activist voice in the design field—has died of complications arising from COVID-19. He was seventy-one. As the director

Twelve New York galleries will each present two works by a single artist in Zwirner’s digital viewing room.

I KNEW PAUL KASMIN ALL HIS LIFE. When Paul was a small baby, his father used to have a Tuesday evening soirée, where I met a lot of people, David Sylvester and Francis Bacon among them. And then, in

My first impulse when this all began was to buy groceries. My second was to see how people were doing. The art world, for all its flaws and fissures, is a community, and it’s the one I’ve got. When

We asked arts workers for their stories of how the lockdown is affecting their livelihoods. Here are their responses

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This week we asked arts workers to share how their livelihoods were being affected by the coronavirus. Since then, the UK government’s measures to give financial aid to the self-employed will help the sector – but many are still deeply concerned about the lack of work available in the coming months. Here are some of the nearly 150 stories we received. Thanks to everyone who got in touch.

Stephen Laughton, 38, playwright and TV writer
My play, One Jewish Boy, opened in the West End on 10 March – a huge step up for me. I had TV deals lined up, a movie deal on the cards, another play about to start in New York. The play managed to stay open for one week. It got us to press night, and much like its original fringe run, was a critical success – four and five stars, and that first week was packed out. It was the moment I’d been waiting for. But I knew what was coming – a moment I hoped I would cherish for ever was tinged with crushing defeat. It felt as if everything we had worked for – all the abuse (my play is about antisemitism and I was on the receiving end of a lot of it), all the hard work, the blood, joy, sweat and tears – just faded away. The next day it got worse: I didn’t quite take in the monumental loss of having every gig I had lined up, cancelled. In the short term, I’m pretty screwed, the financial loss from the cancellation of two plays, a TV and a film gig has hit the tens of thousands. That makes it sound as if I always earn at this level – I don’t and I haven’t. I’ve been working hand to mouth and now, when it looked as if I might finally be able to breathe, I don’t know when I’ll get paid again. I just need to find a way to keep my head above water.

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With his deserted cityscapes and isolated figures, the US painter captured the loneliness and alienation of modern life. But the pandemic has given his work a terrifying new significance

Who can fail to have been moved by all the images of people on their doorsteps clapping for the NHS last night? They filled TV screens and news websites, presenting a warming picture of solidarity in enforced solitude – all alone yet all together. But there are some far less reassuring images circulating on social media. Some people are saying we now all exist inside an Edward Hopper painting. It doesn’t seem to matter which one.

I assume this is because we are coldly distanced from each other, sitting at our lonely windows overlooking an eerily empty city, like the woman perched on her bed in Morning Sun, or the other looking out of a bay window in Cape Cod Morning.

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From underground aqueducts to tree-bridges and fish that love sewage, indigenous customs could save the planet – but are under threat. Landscape architect Julia Watson shares her ‘lo-TEK’ vision

On the eastern edge of Kolkata, near the smoking mountain of the city’s garbage dump, the 15 million-strong metropolis dissolves into a watery landscape of channels and lagoons, ribboned by highways. This patchwork of ponds might seem like an unlikely place to find inspiration for the future of sustainable cities, but that’s exactly what Julia Watson sees in the marshy muddle.

The network of pools, she explains, are bheris, shallow, flat-bottomed fish ponds that are fed by 700m litres of raw sewage every day – half the city’s output. The ponds produce 13,000 tonnes of fish each year. But the system, which has been operating for a century, doesn’t just produce a huge amount of fish – it treats the city’s wastewater, fertilises nearby rice fields, and employs 80,000 fishermen within a cooperative.

Watson, a landscape architect, says it saves around $22m (£18m) a year on the cost of a conventional wastewater treatment plant, while cutting down on transport, as the fish are sold in local markets. “It is the perfect symbiotic solution,” she says. “It operates entirely without chemicals, seeing fish, algae and bacteria working together to form a sustainable, ecologically balanced engine for the city.”

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Covid-19’s impact on the arts world has led to countless films and concerts being scrapped or postponed and theatres and galleries closed. Here’s an updating list of what’s affected so far

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Latest

• Cambridge Folk festival (30 July-2 Aug) cancelled
• Lovebox festival cancelled.
• Parklife festival cancelled.
• All Points East festival cancelled.
• Henley festival cancelled.
• Download, the UK’s biggest rock music festival, cancelled.
• Isle of Wight festival cancelled.
• Verbier classical music festival cancelled.
• Women’s prize for fiction postponed to September.
• The Great Escape festival in Brighton cancelled.
• Supersonic festival in Birmingham cancelled.
• Longborough festival opera cancel their summer season.
• English Touring Opera cancel the remaining dates of their spring tour.
• Opera Holland Park’s summer season (June to August) has been cancelled
• Release of Minions: The Rise of Gru (3 July) postponed indefinitely.
• Thriller Live has closed at the Lyric theatre in London.
• Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds will reschedule their UK and European tour, dates TBA.
• Ivor Novello awards postponed until 2 September.
• Hay literature festival, due to run 21-31 May, cancelled.
• The Royal Society of Literature has postponed all events until end of May.

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THINGS HAVE SEEMED CALM in Tokyo during the pandemic. I am tempted to write ominously calm, but in all honesty, things do not feel ominous to me—and this absence of ominousness is what is so

In quarantine in Italy, Filippo Venturi turned his camera on the people providing a vital lifeline outside his front door

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On a locked-down Saturday night, Filippo Venturi came down the stairs of his apartment block in Forlì, in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, to collect his pizza delivery. But before the rider left, he asked something they probably weren’t expecting: “Can I take your picture?”

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In 2012, Chow Chun Fai unsuccessfully campaigned for one of seventy seats in the highest governing body in Hong Kong—the Legislative Council—under the slogan “Cultural Right.” Although he tends to

The Kunstmuseum in Basel agreed to pay the heirs of a Berlin collector for 200 works he sold as he fled German persecution of Jews.

In Ukraine, the railroad traffic controller profession still exists - and about 80% of workers are women. They spend long shifts in small dedicated buildings beside the tracks. Ukrainian photographer Sasha Maslov shot portraits of female workers of the Ukrainian railway company from all over the country, which are compiled in a photo book by Osnovy Publishing.

Ukrainian Railroad Ladies is more than 50 portraits of traffic controllers and safety officers at railroads of Ukraine. This project is also an exploration of why these professions still exist in the 21st century, given the almost entire automatisation of railroad crossings in the country.

• Ukrainian Railroad Ladie is available for pre-order

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Our writers are usually busy covering performances. Coronavirus changed that. Here are their suggestions for what to watch, read or listen to while we’re housebound.

After Art Dubai, a major revenue driver for galleries in the region, canceled its in-person events and moved the fair online, the United Arab Emirates went on a buying spree, purchasing more than $

In an attempt to contain the novel coronavirus in the United States—where the number of confirmed cases has surpassed those in China and Italy and was approaching 86,000 at the time of publication—federal

Inside the mind of a Renaissance genius, chats with Chris Ofili and the dramatic lives of great British sculptors – all in your weekly dispatch

The new Sculpting Lives podcast series explores and celebrates the dramatic lives of British female sculptors including Barbara Hepworth, Elisabeth Frink and Phyllida Barlow.

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Pop-up shops, student accommodation … ICUs. Two-bed prototype for a fraction of the cost of other options being built in coronavirus-hit Italy

Architects have turned to shipping containers to make everything from pop-up shops to co-working spaces, and even teetering towers of student housing. But now the humble corrugated steel box might have found one of its most useful reincarnations yet, in the hands of an international network of architects and engineers who have come together to convert them into two-bed intensive care units for the coronavirus pandemic.

“A group of us started talking a week ago, wondering how could contribute our skills to this emergency,” says Carlo Ratti, an Italian architect based in Boston, where he teaches at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “We all know there is a massive need for more intensive care units across the world, but there are problems with the two existing solutions – as an official report from the Chinese government found, based on their experience of the virus.”

One current solution, he says, is to take a convention centre and fill it with lots of beds, creating a field hospital overnight, as is now planned for the ExCel centre in east London. There is efficiency in the numbers, but Chinese authorities found that problems were caused by the intense concentration of contaminated air, with the result that many more of the medical staff became infected. The second solution is prefabricated hospitals, kitted out with the full mechanical ventilation and negative pressure systems needed for bio-containment, but which take several months to complete.

“We thought, is there any way that you can get the speed of convention centre or tent hospital, mounted in a few hours or a couple of days,” says Ratti, “but at the same time have something that is as safe as the prefab hospital?”

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Yes, it’s better to see this great flutter of planes, volumes and edges in person. But an online visit is the next best thing.