A Venice Biennale Meltdown, the Prado Is Too Popular, and a $2.7M Speed Painting?!

Here we are, already at the end of the first month of the new year. That means it’s time to do the first Art Angle Round-Up of 2026, where, as is custom, we’ll review some of the art news stories that people are talking about, and what they might tell us something about the forces shaping the year to come.

Today art critic Ben Davis, senior editor Kate Brown and editor in chief Naomi Rea talk about three stories:

—The big controversy over the South Africa pavilion at the Venice Biennale, which Artnet News has had multiple pieces about.

—The Prado Museum in Madrid, which has a good problem: it has too many visitors. It also has a plan to deal with overcrowding.

—The mini-genre of "speed painting," specifically the painter Vanessa Horabuena. She sold a painting of Jesus for almost $3 million dollars that she made in 10 minutes at a Mar-a-Lago fundraiser—a sign of the world out of control, though perhaps a slightly more fun one to talk about than some of the other things in the news. Or maybe not.