Artist Andy Goldsworthy on gathering gravestones: This is my best work yet - BBC

RUPERT, Vt. (AP) — Carrying a large pump spray bottle and a small, sturdy brush, Caitlin Abrams stood before two starkly contrasting graves in a modest cemetery in western Vermont. Overcast skies hung low over a nearby hillside in full autumn color. Last year, Abrams had delicately cleaned the tombstone of Mary Bailey, who died in 1852 at just 21 years old. The still-pristine white marble stone stood out compared to the neighboring grave, holding Bailey’s sister Eliza, covered in grime and moss collected over the decades. Working in quick, gentle strokes, Abrams used her brush and sprayer to peel away dirt hiding the floral details on Eliza's grave before moving to the next. Associated PressCaitlin Abrams cleans a gravestone at a cemetery in Rupert.

RUPERT, Vt. (AP) — Carrying a large pump spray bottle and a small, sturdy brush, Caitlin Abrams stood before two starkly contrasting graves in a modest cemetery in western Vermont. Overcast skies hung low over a nearby hillside in full autumn color. Last year, Abrams had delicately cleaned the tombstone of Mary Bailey, who died in 1852 at just 21 years old. The still-pristine white marble stone stood out compared to the neighboring grave, holding Bailey’s sister Eliza, covered in grime and moss collected over the decades. Working in quick, gentle strokes, Abrams used her brush and sprayer to peel away dirt hiding the floral details on Eliza’s grave before moving to the next. “Sometimes you can definitely see a difference right away,” she said. “Other times, it’s a month later you’ll come back and go ‘oh my gosh, it’s beautiful.’”Abrams is one of the many social media creators who have found success posting videos of themselves cleaning graves. They can attract large audiences, often including those looking for cleaning content or videos with repetitive and subtle sounds known for their calming effect.

Plus, this year's Prix Duchamp winners, a trove of Kiki Smith prints heads to NYPL, and more. Turiya Adkins (photo Clyde Nichols); Timothy Yanick Hunter (photo Spring Morris), and Clifford Prince King (photo Clifford Prince King; images courtesy Studio Museum)Art Movements, published every Thursday afternoon, is a roundup of must-know news, appointments, awards, and other happenings in today’s chaotic art world. Studio Museum in Harlem Names Three Artists-in-ResidenceMultidisciplinary artist Turiya Adkins, artist and curator Timothy Yanick Hunter, and photographer and filmmaker Clifford Prince King have been selected as the Studio Museum’s yearlong artists-in-residence for 2026–27. Starting this November and through October 2027, the three will have individual studio spaces in the institution's new building on West 125th Street. The residency also includes professional development training and material support, and culminates with a group exhibition in one of the museum's galleries.

An alleged member of the four-person team that broke into the Louvre last October, stealing crown jewels worth roughly $100 million, has been denied release, Le Figaro reports. The suspect, Rachid H., 40, has been detained since November 2025, and will remain in pre-trial detention, the Paris Court of Appeal ruled Wednesday. On the morning of Sunday, October 19, 2025, the gang used a truck-mounted motorized ladder to break into the Louvre’s Apollo Gallery through a second-floor window. Once inside, they smashed two display cases and grabbed eight pieces of jewelry. (A crown once owned by Empress Eugénie was dropped in their haste.) As alarms sounded, they fled and escaped on two motorized scooters. The entire heist unfolded in roughly seven minutes.

Raye is the winner of the 2026 Mercury prize, for her second studio album, This Music May Contain Hope. Her win – for a hugely ambitious 73-minute record that spanned big band jazz, power balladry, funk and more – caps an ongoing renaissance for a British singer who at one point was in the doldrums, lashing out publicly at her record label for not letting her release a studio album. Since that low in 2021, she split from that former label and found huge success with two studio albums: My 21st Century Blues, which won her six Brit awards – still the record for a single Brits ceremony – and This Music May Contain Hope, which topped the UK charts and contains the global hit Where is My Husband! The judging panel said: “Raye displays real imagination and scope in showing what an album can be, going beyond any one style or genre to realise her vision. The judges agreed that Raye’s superb album will serve as a huge inspiration for years to come.”The award, handed out yearly to the best British or Irish album as voted for by a panel of music industry figures, comes with a £25,000 prize.

"The Prime of Your Life" examines what recognition and market success mean for 18 women artists over 75. Rose Wylie, "Opera Singer and Teapot" (2024), oil on canvas“What is an ‘old-age style’? Is it the same as a ‘late style’?” asks Linda Nochlin at the start of her 2008 essay, “Old-Age Style: Late Louise Bourgeois.” As our understanding of an artwork evolves with the artist’s age, the essay examines Bourgeois’s enduring aesthetics and interests throughout her seven-decade career, focusing particularly on the soft and hard qualities of her work. Nochlin, the esteemed feminist art historian, meditates on the relationship between a work made early in an artist’s career and one made at the end of their life, asking how the latter changes our understanding or interpretation of the former.