Smithsonian Women’s Museum chaos, Oliver Beer and Rufus Wainwright, Jasper Johns in Bilbao—podcast

A bill to build the new Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum on the National Mall in Washington, DC, where many other Smithsonian museums are located, has failed in the US House of Representatives
Photo by 54conphotos, via Wikimedia Commons
From breaking news and insider insights to exhibitions and events around the world, the team at The Art Newspaper picks apart the art world’s big stories with the help of special guests. An award-winning podcast hosted by Ben Luke.
The Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. has faced unprecedented scrutiny and government interference since President Trump came to power. Now, its long cherished plans for a Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum on the National Mall in D.C. have been dealt a blow because the US House of Representatives has struck down a bill to build the museum. Ben Luke talks to Elena Goukassian, The Art Newspaper’s senior editor of museums and heritage in New York, about the partisan rift that led to failure of the bill, as well as other developments relating to the Smithsonian.
Oliver Beer, Resonance Painting (On and Ever Onward) (2026)
© Oliver Beer. Courtesy Thaddaeus Ropac gallery, London · Paris ·Salzburg · Milan · Seoul. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates
As part of London Gallery Weekend, which begins on 5 June, the British artist Oliver Beer will show new paintings and related sound and video works in an exhibition, The Sky in the Cave, at Thaddaeus Ropac. The show relates to Beer’s opus Resonance Project: The Cave, in which he brought eight singers into a prehistoric painted cave in the Dordogne in France to respond to its particular acoustic frequencies. Among them was the singer songwriter Rufus Wainwright, and Ben speaks to Oliver and Rufus about their collaboration.
Jasper Johns, Painting with Two Balls (1960)
© Jasper Johns, VEGAP, Bilbao, 2026
And this episode’s Work of the Week is Painting with Two Balls by Jasper Johns. It is part of a new retrospective of the American artist’s work at the Guggenheim Bilbao, Night Driver. Ben talks to the exhibition’s curator, Enrique Juncosa.
We take a tour of the soon-to-open V&A East Storehouse in London and the Met's newly revamped Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, plus a discussion of Rachel Whiteread's show at Sussex's Goodwood Art Foundation
Exploring the host of exhibitions and events that celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Jean Tinguely, plus a look at the newly opened Fenix museum with its director, and a discussion of Ben Shahn's 1941 study, ‘Harvesting Wheat’
Remembering Koyo Kouoh, the Venice Biennale curator who died earlier this month, plus a look at the five designs competing for the late-Queen's memorial commission, and a discussion with curator Robert Storr about the work of Jasper Johns
We discuss how London Gallery Weekend can impact the market and how Brazil's National Museum plans to rise from the ashes, plus a look at a 19th century miniature portrait of Jane Austen

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