First Pass

9 stories from 5 sources

Arts institutions confront questions of originality, scale, and value

Day’s Recap

Supporting Articles

An Australian artist, Jane Allan, is catching heat after winning a $20,000 prize with a painting critics say looks like an outright lift from a Nicholas Harding work. At the same time, her earlier prize-winning portrait has been flagged for looking strikingly close to a 1982 Basquiat piece, with the National Portrait Gallery describing it as “clearly influenced” by him. The gallery is not saying more, even as the side-by-side comparisons keep fueling the chatter.

11:47 PMThe Guardian Art and Design

Pace Gallery is shrinking, and it is trying to control the story around what that means. But inside the art world, the downsizing is landing messily, with some staff and artists feeling like they are getting partial answers at best. The result is a swirl of uncertainty about what changes are real, who gets affected, and what the gallery is planning next.

6:21 PMHyperallergic

Ari Emanuel is in talks to buy theatre operator ATG for about $6bn from its private equity owner Providence. People close to the process expect a deal could be reached soon.

5:41 PMFinancial Times

Other Developments

A curated list of other prominent stories from this day.

Rapid advances in AI and biotechnology are creating ethical, legal, and social problems that cannot be resolved by technical methods alone. The piece argues that humanities disciplines are essential to shape responsible research, interpret impacts, and guide decisions about what should be built and deployed.

8:00 PMNature

James Cahill’s new novel, “The Violet Hour,” drops you into a hazy, status-obsessed art scene where everyone is chasing the next rung up. It’s packed with big egos, hungry climbers, and the kind of casually ruthless behavior that tends to hide behind gallery smiles. The story runs on fame, greed, and ambition, with characters exaggerated just enough to feel uncomfortably familiar.

4:58 PMHyperallergic

The Jimmy Awards handed out its top prizes to two standout high school musical theater performers, one from Georgia and one from Arizona. Bowen Yang hosted the ceremony, which is basically Broadway’s big night for teens who can really sing, act, and command a stage.

12:54 PMNew York Times Arts

Charles Hinman, a New York artist who helped push painting off the wall and into real space, has died at 93. Beginning in the early 1960s, he built shaped canvases that jut out and curve, landing somewhere between painting and sculpture.

10:15 AMNew York Times Arts

A Philadelphia library founded by Benjamin Franklin just got a very unexpected boost to its shelves: about 1,500 books on sex and sexuality. The collection stretches back to the 1600s and traces how people have written, argued, moralized, and obsessed over sex across centuries.

5:02 AMNew York Times Arts

Jacques Henri Lartigue usually gets filed under sleek black-and-white shots of rich people at play. But a new exhibition flips that familiar image and puts his color work front and center, showing he was experimenting boldly when color photography still felt like a novelty. Think bright, lively scenes that capture speed, style, and everyday joy with a surprisingly modern eye.

2:00 AMThe Guardian Art and Design

Make it yours

Build Your First Pass.

Pick your topics, set your cadence, and receive your personalized First Pass in your inbox. It’s that simple!