← CULTURE§ THE INDEX · 16 STORIES

The Studio.

Artists, makers, and the work itself.

§ THE STUDIO

The Art Market Grew Last Year. Mostly at the Top.

Global art sales rose 4 percent to $59.6 billion in 2025, according to the Art Basel and UBS report. The money moved at the high end while the under-$50,000 segment at auction slipped. Here is what that means if you make art or want to buy it.

§ THE STUDIO

Who Gets Paid When the Painting Sells Again

§ THE STUDIO

The Momentum Is Real. So Are the Numbers Under It.

§ THE STUDIO

The Artists Who Took the Machines to Court

In January 2023, a group of illustrators sued the companies behind three image generators for training on their work without asking. Nearly four years later the case is still moving. Here is where it stands, what the courts have said, and what any artist can do now.

READ · 3 MIN →

§ THE STUDIO

Who Pays for the Wall

Most public art in Los Angeles is paid for by a quiet rule: one percent of construction. Federal arts money got a lot less dependable in 2025. Here is where the money for murals, sculptures and community art actually comes from, and how artists get to it.

§ THE STUDIO

Los Angeles Spent 2026 Building Rooms for Art

A new museum building over Wilshire, a fair at an airport, a landmark show of Black photography at the Getty. The city had one of its biggest art years. Here is what happened, and what it means for the artists who live here.

§ THE STUDIO

How a Wall Actually Gets Painted

§ THE STUDIO

Somebody Decided What You See

§ THE STUDIO

The Five Ways Artists Actually Get Paid

Almost nobody lives on gallery sales. The working artists you know are running four or five income lines at once, and knowing what they are is the difference between a practice and a hobby.

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§ THE STUDIO

How to Walk Into a Studio

Open studios and first Fridays are free, everybody is welcome, and most people never go because they are afraid of not knowing what to say. Here is what to say.

§ THE STUDIO

Buy the First Piece for Under Two Hundred

Collecting sounds like something other people do. The entry point is a print, a study or a small work from somebody local, and buying one does more for a working artist than a year of admiring the big ones.

§ THE STUDIO

She Photographed Jazz Like It Sounds

§ THE STUDIO

The Photographers Who Shot Mali Dancing

§ THE STUDIO

Amy Sherald Took Her Show Home

The painter of the Michelle Obama portrait pulled her biggest exhibition out of the Smithsonian rather than let one painting be explained away. Then Baltimore broke its attendance record for her. The tour ends in Atlanta.

READ · 3 MIN →

§ THE STUDIO

The Pulitzer Went to Compton

In 2018 the prize that usually goes to symphonies went to a rap album about growing up on Rosecrans. Kendrick Lamar did not change to win it. The prize changed.

§ THE STUDIO

She Sculpted the Faces History Tried to Skip

Augusta Savage built Harlem's most important art classroom with her own hands, and her students became the century's masters. Ask where a movement comes from and the answer is usually somebody's classroom.