Jazz Artist Appreciation: Sheila Jordan (1928-2025) - The Arts Fuse

As an artist who lived through the Reagan-era Culture Wars, I recommend Isaac Butler’s “The Perfect Moment” for the stories that parallel our current fight to defend creative expression. A self-portrait by Robert Mapplethorpe projected onto the facade of the Corcoran Gallery of Art during a protest on 30, 1989 (photo Carol Guzy/the Washington Post via Getty Images, all images courtesy Bloomsbury)

The rapper called his forthcoming film, "JEAN," a “love letter” to the late artist and ’80s New York in his announcement on October 21. Left: American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960–88), c. 1985 (photo Rose Hartman via Getty Images); right: Kid Cudi in 2025 (photo Alan Chapman/Dave Benett via Getty Images)

It’s a provocative and discursive exploration of how artists respond to our late-capitalist epoch, but its focus on “rupture” raises questions. Detail of Wen Liu, "In Light, Where Edges Yield" (2025), prescribed herbal medicine, epoxy clay, resin, acrylic, varnish, stainless steel (photo Rebecca Tisdelle-Macias, courtesy Toronto Biennial of Art; all other photos Neil Price/Hyperallergic)

The Prix Marcel Duchamp jury announced Thursday that it has awarded the 2026 prize to artist duo David Brognon and Stéphanie Rollin, known for their multidisciplinary practice that spans installation, sculpture, video, performance, and photography. The Prix Marcel Duchamp is considered France’s most prestigious art prize, with winners recieving €35,000, or just over $40,000. For the award, a jury typically selects four nominees, who show together at the Centre Pompidou in October. This year, however, five nominees were chosen—Malagasy artist Joël Andrianomearisoa, Josèfa Ntjam, a participant in last year’s Bienal de São Paulo, artist and filmmaker Laura Henno, and Brognon and Rollin—and the annual exhibition was held at Musée d’Arte Moderne de Paris due to the Pompidou’s extended closure.

Paul Stankard, a visionary glass blower who memorialized flora and fauna in hardened and translucent form, died at the age of 83, according to a New York Times obituary that celebrates how his “decades-long obsession with replicating the natural world in glass transformed the American paperweight from tchotchke to fine art.” The cause of his death was cancer, according to his daughter. As the Times described Stankard’s fateful turn to the the mode of working he made his own, “In 1972, with three young children and a newborn at home, Mr. Stankard skipped out on a steady job blowing glass for chemical laboratories. He was in love—with paperweights.”

LEGO brings daft punk’s alive stage into brick formThe illuminated pyramid at the center of Daft Punk’s 2007 Alive tour is on its way to becoming an official LEGO set. Announced on October 22nd, the collaboration between the Danish toymaker and the French electronic duo begins with a fan-designed concert model, bringing one of electronic music’s most recognizable stage designs down to tabletop scale. The pyramid became a defining image of the Alive shows, placing the helmeted musicians within a glowing geometric structure. In the LEGO Ideas concept, a miniature version of the triangular stage sits between two wide, gridded structures, with colorful lighting recreated across its faceted surfaces. The model shows an early look at the proposed set, while the final product design is still in development.images courtesy LEGO Groupa father-and-son LEGO project becomes an official setThe design began during lockdown, when Luxembourg-based LEGO enthusiast Patrick Harboun and his son started building their own version of the famous concert stage. Their proposal won the LEGO Ideas Music to Our Ears challenge in 2020 and later gathered 10,000 supporters on the platform.