Your weekly art news fix – served fresh, punchy, and with just the right amount of spice. Expect the unexpected, because the art world never sits still. From controversy to pure inspiration, we’ve got it all covered.
Week 15/2025
BIG PICTURE: Big Picture: From Sun in the Cathedral to Moomins
This week in art: we’re chasing light, literally and metaphorically. From a cathedral sun sculpture to David Lynch’s final message, from Moomin nostalgia to creative momentum hacks: it’s all about what pulls us forward, even when the climb gets steep.
TOP 5 ART STORIES THIS WEEK
1. Hockneymania Hits Paris
David Hockney’s biggest-ever retrospective just landed in Paris, and it’s pure joy on canvas. The Fondation Louis Vuitton is hosting a wild, colorful ride through 400 works spanning seven decades. From sunlit pools to iPad blooms, it’s all here: paintings, photos, drawings, and digital art exploding with life.
Critics are calling it a “springtime celebration.” Hockney just wants his art to make you smile. Mission accomplished. 🙂
2. The Art of Giving Big
Two museums, two continents, two jaw-dropping donations, and one very lucky week for modern art fans.
Jorge M. and Darlene Pérez just dropped a major gift at Tate Modern: Joan Mitchell’s 1973 triptych, Iva — and it’s huge. The 20-foot-wide masterpiece, once dedicated to Mitchell’s dog, is now worth up to $5 million. Real estate mogul Jorge Pérez has to date given or pledged more than $100 million to Miami’s public art museum. Talk about setting the bar.
Meanwhile, The National Gallery of Australia just scored a rare Edvard Munch painting—and no, it’s not The Scream, but it still hits hard. Man with Horse, painted in 1918, is all emotional brushstrokes and bold color. Gifted by philanthropist Geoff Ainsworth AM, this piece now adds some serious weight to the NGA’s European modern collection. (Take a closer, 1.5-min look here).
Pretty cool, right?
3. Lifetime of Fire: 3 Artists, 3 Awards
This week, three towering figures in their fields were honored for their lifetime of groundbreaking work:
 Source: Nicolas Genin – CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons | 1.Werner Herzog — Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement, Venice 🎥 He filmed in jungles, volcanoes, war zones. In Aguirre, Grizzly Man, and Into the Inferno, Herzog chased the extreme, to understand what drives us. His cinema is survival, madness, obsession, truth. Watch one Herzog film and you’re never the same. |
I feel deeply honored to receive a Lifetime Achievement Honorary Golden Lion by the Venice Biennale. I have always tried to be a Good Soldier of Cinema, and this feels like a medal for my work, 82-year-old Herzog stated. However, I have not gone into retirement. I work as always.
 Source: Pasquale Salerno, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
| 2.Philip Glass — Lifetime Achievement Award, World Soundtrack Awards 🎶 He took repetition and made it transcend. His scores (Koyaanisqatsi, The Hours) don’t just decorate films. Minimal, emotional, unmistakable – Glass reshaped modern sound. He proved you can do more by doing less. |
And, also this week:
3. Swedish Artist Lap-See Lam (b. 1990) received $100,000 Lise Wilhelmsen Art Award
She tells immigrant stories in digital temples. Lam’s works blend VR, performances, myth, and sculpture… otherworldly, yet deeply personal. Her art holds memory like an archive of ghosts. Take a look here.
Source
4. David Lynch’s Final Message Is a Scent 🕯️
David Lynch has been laid to rest at Hollywood Forever Cemetery. His grave bears three words: Night Blooming Jasmine.
No explanation. Just his name, the dates, and a phrase tied to memory, mystery, and old Hollywood. In a 2016 interview, he spoke of the scent of jasmine on LA nights, how it could summon visions of Clark Gable and Gloria Swanson. “The golden age of Hollywood is still living in some moods here,” he said.
That scent — night blooming jasmine — is what he chose to leave behind. Beautiful, isn’t it.
Lynch died in January at 78. In one of his final YouTube Weather Reports, he welcomed the coming spring and the return of that same fragrant air. He had been evacuated from his LA home days before, as wildfires swept the city.
5. A Night at the Museum — Literally
The National Gallery in London is offering one lucky guest the chance to sleep among the masterpieces.
To celebrate its 200th anniversary, the museum has teamed up with Airbnb to launch a one-of-a-kind experience: a private overnight stay inside its historic Trafalgar Square galleries. The winner gets a full VIP package: private tour, gourmet dinner, and a bed set up in the middle of Room 46, surrounded by Van Gogh, Monet, and Turner. You can enter the global competition via Airbnb starting April 10.
Source: Bec Hughes.
Art Drop of the Week 🌞
Someone Hung the Sun in a Church. No joke – this Midsummer, the Sun is going on display inside a cathedral.
British artist Luke Jerram is back at the Cork Midsummer Festival with Helios — a massive, 6-meter sculpture of the actual Sun (scaled down, of course), complete with sunspots, solar flares, and a real NASA soundtrack humming in the background. It’s dramatic. It’s glowing. It’s giving space disco meets sacred vibes. If you’ve ever wanted to feel tiny, cosmic, and oddly inspired all at once — this is your moment.
Creativity Boost 💡
Ever hit that awful middle part of a project where everything feels uphill and pointless? Congrats, you’ve met “The Killer Climb.”
It’s the phase where most creative work dies. But there’s a science-backed way to punch through it: 👉 The 5-Minute Microtask Method
Here’s how it works:
Pick the tiniest possible next step (something you can do in 5 minutes or less)
Set a timer for 5 minutes
Do only that one thing
Immediately find the next microtask
Repeat until you accidentally have momentum
Researchers found this trick reduces resistance by 78% and boosts completion rates by 63%. It works because the step is so small, your brain goes: “Yeah, okay. I’ll do that.”
💡 “Make it so small it would be ridiculous not to start.”
Try it today, just five minutes. That’s all. Then do it again tomorrow. You’ll be climbing before you even notice the hill.
🎧 Artist Talk: Milton Glaser on Seeing Connections
“Looking is not seeing.”
In this 6-minute clip, legendary designer Milton Glaser reflects on art, collaboration, and why purpose isn’t found, and it’s built through making connections.
“The most important thing is linking things that have not been linked before and seeing the essential connectedness of everything.”
A quiet masterclass in creative clarity. Watch it here → Lessons from Milton Glaser
Source Reino Loppinen / Lehtikuva
EXTRA Challenge: Childhood Wonderland
The Moomins turn 80 this year, and we’re throwing it back.. way back!
If 6-year-old you could build a dream hideout in Moominvalley… What would it look like? A treehouse that makes pancakes on its own? A pillow fort with secret tunnels? A cloud-powered painting studio?
Flashback Challenge:
Channel your inner kid. Describe or sketch your ultimate childhood wonderland. Reply with your dream creative hut, and we might feature it in the next issue (bonus points if it includes snacks or flying furniture). Because let’s be real — somewhere inside you, that 6-year-old is still building forts and dreaming big. 🙂
That’s it for this time. I hope this gave you something – a new thought, a fresh perspective… something. Because we never really know which tiny pieces of insight will lead to bigger changes, right? Sometimes it’s the smallest things that make the biggest difference.
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Thank you for reading, see you again next time 🙂
Source: Reddit /artmemes
