Posted September 02, 2026in Art News
Des Moines is a triple A city. We are proud of that. The major leagues are close enough in Kansas City, Minneapolis and Chicago. We embrace our size and limited aspirations as a tradeoff for escaping the rat races that accompany major league status. We choose blithe over blight and
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Posted August 05, 2026in Art News
This summer, 41 years after her murder, Ana Mendieta reached her career zenith headlining at London’s Tate Modern. That’s a top-five most-visited art museum in the world and number one for modern art. A retrospective of Mendieta’s career opened in mid-July with more than 120 works, tracing her breakout years in Iowa
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Posted July 01, 2026in Art News
A red rectangular abstract by Mark Rothko sold for $85.8 million at spring auction in New York. The seller of the 1957 work, “Brown and Blacks in Reds,” was the estate of art dealer Robert Mnuchin, who paid $6.7 million for the work in 2003. That price was described as “art-becomes-reality”
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Posted June 03, 2026in Art News
The art world went to court this spring, a lot. In San Francisco the family of Armand Vaillancourt lost its legal fight to prevent The City from dissembling and moving his brutalist Vaillancourt Fountain from Embarcadero Plaza. San Francisco will spend $4 million to move the neglected political sculpture, labeled
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Posted May 06, 2026in Art News
New York City’s Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) premiered “Marcel Duchamp,” the first retrospective of the controversial artist in six decades. The reaction has been overwhelmingly positive, ending all controversies about what this year’s event of year will be in the art world. Duchamp has long been considered the third
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Posted April 01, 2026in Art News
Twenty years have passed since Des Moines Art Center hosted its tribute to Ana Mendietta. She was a Cuban refugee who escaped Castro’s reign of terror, was raised in Sioux City and first rose to fame in Iowa City where her 1973 performance piece “Rape Scene” was first performed. Photos
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Posted March 04, 2026in Art News
March brings great news for Des Moines’ art scene. As part of Civic Music’s centennial celebration, Bria Skonberg visits Sheslow Auditorium with her bright vocals and Louis Armstrong School trumpet. She is perhaps the hottest act in jazz, having led the Mighty Aphrodite Jazz Band, the Big Bang Jazz Band
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Posted February 04, 2026in Art News
The juiciest story in the art world last month was that of Thomas Doyle, a Kansas-born con man who has been arrested numerous times under at least five different names. Wall Street Journal’s Jenny Strasburg catapulted Doyle to the big time as far as infamy goes telling how he conned
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Posted December 31, 2025in Art News
Listen to the elite guardians of American culture, and you might think the art world is self-destructing. The New York Times writes that the Broadway musical is doomed — by bad ticket sales, $250 average ticket prices, and audiences that prefer old classics. They have been saying that about opera
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Posted December 03, 2025in Art News
The year 2025 was a very good one for Des Moines’ art scene. The news poured sweet and clear. Oyoram, the French-Israeli genius who now headquarters in Sherman Hill, installed “TimePiece” on the north façe of the Fitch Building. Transforming itself 24 times a day, his 3D led clock dazzles
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