Art Movements: Ekow Eshun Heads to Santa Fe
The London curator is tapped to curate the SITE biennial, Mnuchin Gallery closes, a buyer spends big money on a tiny Michelangelo foot drawing, and other industry news.
Art Movements, published every Thursday afternoon, is a roundup of must-know news, appointments, awards, and other happenings in today’s chaotic art world.
Now Boarding: London —> New Mexico
British curator and writer Ekow Eshun has been tapped to curate the 13th SITE SANTA FE International Biennial, which will take place in the summer of 2027. Eshun, who became the first Black leader of a major British arts institution when he took the helm of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, said in a statement that he is inspired by New Mexico's nickname, “the Land of Enchantment,” where “land, imagination, and lived experience are deeply entwined.”
Mnuchin Gallery Calls It
New York City's Mnuchin Gallery announced it will shutter this month following the death of its founder, investment banker Robert Mnuchin, at the end of last year. Despite its unpleasant associations (Robert's son Steven Mnuchin served as treasury secretary during Trump's first term), the gallery put on some incredible shows, including a truly mind-blowing Willem de Kooning survey in 2019. The gallery's swan song was an exhibition of ... Julian Schnabel plate paintings? Kind of an anticlimactic coda if you ask us.
What Else Happened?
- Chelsea Bighorn is the recipient of the Walker Youngbird Foundation's 2026 Emerging Native Arts Grant. The Lakota, Dakota, and Shoshone-Paiute artist is pictured above working on one of her textile pieces, which often fuse elements from her Native American and Irish-American heritage.
- The Tulsa Artist Fellowship announced its 2026–2028 cohort, comprising Myiesha Gordon Beales, Derrick Estrada / Baseck, Amy Hoagland, Rebecca Nagle, Aaron Robertson, Amir Saadiq, Sabrina Saleha, Leonard Suryajaya, Dustin Tahmahkera, and Loren Waters.
- The Asian American Arts Alliance announced the 2026 recipients of its What Can We Do? grant, which provides $1,500 stipends to artists supporting New York's Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) community.
- Japanese sculptor Yuko Mohri won the $50,000 Calder Prize.
- Conny Maier is now represented by Société gallery in collaboration with Hauser & Wirth.
- Ulrike Al-Khamis will retire from her role as director and chief executive officer of the Aga Khan Museum after nine years.
- The Warhol Foundation is expanding its grant program to support visual arts projects at organizations with budgets under $200,000, citing “dramatic shifts in the national funding landscape” as one of its motivations.
Put Your Money Where Your Foot Is
What if you had a chance to acquire a piece of history? What if that piece of history was a study for one of the most famous artworks of all time — Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel frescoes? The catch: It's a five-by-five-inch drawing of a foot, and it'll cost you $27 million. Those were seemingly minor details for today's winning buyer at Christie's, who, undeterred by a 45-minute bidding war that catapulted the work's price to 20 times its low estimate, proudly took home the red chalk sketch and set a new record for the Italian Renaissance artist. Weird flex, but okay!
