THIS WEEK'S HOT TOPIC
It was a busy week in the art world. Unionized workers at the American Folk Art Museum, Brooklyn Museum, and Whitney Museum ratified new contracts with their respective institutions, avoiding planned strikes in each case. LA icon Ed Ruscha unveiled a custom poster for Alejandro González Iñárritu’s new Strangelovian-satire starring Tom Cruise, “Digger.” And Kehinde Wiley wrote to President Trump asking to buy back his painting that was recently removed from the American Embassy in the Dominican Republic for being too “woke.”
But this week, we focus on another bit of news: that the Independent art fair has been acquired by Informa, a London-based conglomerate that works in business intelligence, publishing, and live events, among other sectors.
According to ARTnews, the deal was completed last year, meaning that the fair’s two 2026 events—Independent in May and Independent 20th Century in September—were produced under Informa. However, exhibitors were only informed of the acquisition last Friday, October 2, five days after the latter event wrapped. The reason for the delay isn’t clear, and Independent still hasn’t announced the news publicly.
Since its founding in 2010, Independent has earned a reputation as a gallery-friendly fair with a strong curatorial vision, due in large part to its “independence” from the kind of umbrella companies that oversee Art Basel and Frieze. Time will tell whether the acquisition changes the New York fair’s vibe, but if its two events this year—both of which expanded in size and scope at new locations (Pier 36 for the May edition, the Breuer Building for the September version)—are any indication, we can expect good things.
Independent’s co-founder and longtime creative director, Elizabeth Dee, told exhibitors in an email that the 2026 fairs “speak for themselves and make evident our steadfast commitment to the high quality of the exhibitions.” Dee will retain her role under the new ownership.
3…THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT THE WHITNEY’S ROY LICHTENSTEIN RETROSPECTIVE
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“Like New,” the Whitney Museum’s hotly anticipated Roy Lichtenstein retrospective opening on October 11, proposes the artist as a consummate pop figure “fascinated by how images are built, copied, enlarged, circulated, and made new,” according to the museum’s press release. Per this fascination, the curators (a group that includes artist Alex Da Corte) reexamine Lichtenstein for the millennial age. As our society grapples with the dysphoria of artificial intelligence’s presence in creative fields, the work of Lichtenstein—which appears very flat and machine-made, but was in fact fastidiously created by hand—and his study of how imagery moves through media speaks to the public imagination in a new way.
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Though Lichtenstein is one of the most recognizable names in art history, many don't know that his career didn't take off until the artist was in his late 30s and early 40s, when Leo Castelli first showed his work. He was boosted into superstardom after several decades of toiling without much attention while teaching at Rutgers University.
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There are around 130 works in the show, the lion's share of which are hanging on the wall. However, the museum was able to recreate three murals the artist made, one of which, Greene Street Mural, is 96 feet long. The original, made in 1983, stretched throughout Castelli Gallery on West Broadway before being destroyed after a month and a half on view, in accordance with the artist’s wishes. It was recreated at Gagosian in 2015, and then again destroyed.
Another special feature of this show is what’s happening on the third floor of the museum in conjunction with “Like New”: a special exhibition of work made by Lichtenstein in the final year of his life. He died in 1997 at the age of 73, and his final year is marked by an outburst of creativity. Though several of the works are unfinished, the exhibition shows his out-of-the-box thinking from his final years, including a proposal for a sculpture that would be placed in the Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas and a study for a mural at the Padre Pio Pilgrimage Church in Italy.
A NUMBER TO KNOW
60% to 70%
The typical share of a museum’s energy consumption taken up by heating, ventilation, and air conditioning, experts say. It’s just one of the practical stresses motivating institutions worldwide to reconsider their climate control standards, reported Annabel Keenan in The Art Newspaper.
Part of the problem emerged decades ago, when 1970s-era research into the ideal temperature and relative humidity conditions for museums in London “became the status quo across the industry,” she writes. Since then, many institutions worldwide have not only strained under the burden of their own energy bills and climate impact but also faced related curatorial disadvantages. For instance, did you know that museums can be boxed out of borrowing certain works unless they can keep their spaces within narrow temperature and relative humidity ranges mandated in the loan contracts?
The good news is that momentum has been building toward a less rigid, more localized system of climate standards, relays Keenan. Among the recent milestones was the establishment of the Bizot Green Protocol in 2015. Originally put forth by a consortium of international museums as a more lenient set of temperature and humidity guidelines, it has evolved in the succeeding years into a broader program advocating for “a more adaptive approach instead of insisting on consistent numbers,” she writes. Other entities, such as Getting Climate Control Under Control, are working with specific institutions to design and implement standards, procedures, and technology better fit for present-day climate realities.
The museum sector is still a long way from a total green overhaul of its operations. But as any self-help specialist will tell you, the first step toward solving any problem is acknowledging that it exists. It’s a start.
—Tim Schneider / The Gray Market
ASK: ACCESS SOPHISTICATED KNOWLEDGE
A reader ASKed: You mentioned that opportunities in the art market often come through community, friends, and acquaintances, and that reaching out and face-to-face interaction go a long way. For someone who’s currently outside the market and can’t rely on an existing network, how would you approach the “reaching out” part specifically? Is it mainly about volume, targeting the right people, finding a reason to contact them, or something else?
NoReserve: To some extent, the answer to your question depends on location. There are a lot more opportunities to interface with the art world if you’re located in New York, LA, or even one of the more “regional” urban hubs like Detroit, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. Openings can be intimidating, but at other times, galleries are generally very welcoming and happy to chat. The same is true at fairs; you just have to pick your spot. Money speaks the loudest, of course, but showing a commitment to the local art scene, big or small, speaks volumes too. Know what’s going on. Ask real questions, even if you think they’re naive. People in the art world love to talk about art.
It’s not about volume, more about fit. Interested in galleries? You’re not going to get a coffee with Larry Gagosian, but there are a lot of different role players that make his business run. You don’t have to find a “reason to contact them” if you’re genuinely interested in their work. And always be honest about your intentions, even if it’s just to network. Don’t pretend to be a collector to visit an artist’s studio or meet a dealer. They’ll sniff you out right away.
Have your own question for the NoReserve team? Reply to this email or reach out to us on Instagram, @no.reserve. Readers whose submissions we choose get a special prize—six free months of our paid newsletter, The Baer Faxt.
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Sarah Higgins has curated more than 40 exhibitions for institutions like MOCA Georgia and the Zuckerman Museum of Art, and led Art Papers, the country's longest-running nonprofit art journal, since 2018. This year, Higgins guest-curated the Atlanta Art Fair, where she brought together three Georgia artists who work with absurdism and irreverent humor.
Below, Higgins joins Josh Baer to talk about what happens to criticism when the authority to assign value moves (a crisis for some, democratization for others), why negative reviews now get aimed at institutions rather than artists, and why a city with this much art has so few spaces to display it.
Recorded in partnership with AAF on September 28, 2026.
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