Welcome to the last HENI art newsletter of 2025.

Next week we will publish our special Review of the Year, rounding up the biggest and some of the strangest stories in the art world, over two days on December 29 and 30 before normal service resumes on Friday January 2.

Thank you for reading.

Chicago is called the Windy City because of its politicians reputation for bluster but it lived up to its name when the weather forced a halt to the latest installation at the Obama Presidential Center on the city's South Side.

The first of the five-foot-tall concrete letters, from a speech given by the former President to mark the 50th anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery civil rights marches, was meant to be installed yesterday but plans changed at the last minute with journalists told "increasing wind" had put back plans by 24 hours.

Their installation is expected to take up to six weeks in total with the center due to open in June 2026. It was recently announced Chicago native Theaster Gates would contribute a new commission to the center - a giant frieze made up of images from the archives of Ebony and Jet magazines which reported on African-American life for decades.

The number of artifacts in the Africa Hub of the Manchester Museum in northwest England. The university museum admits its knowledge of the collection is full of "gaps" and has asked visitors to help if they recognize any of them.

1 - Staff at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art have a powerful new ally in their bid to organize a union. Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani has signed an open letter supporting around 900 members of staff who want their union to be recognized by museum bosses led by director Max Hollein.

2 - The Jean-Michel Basquiat show at the Dongdaemun Design Plaza in Seoul, South Korea, is said to be the most valuable ever held in the country with 70 works insured for nearly $950 million. The paintings are on loan from collections in eight different countries including the Parker Foundation in San Francisco.

3 - More than 5,300 people have signed a petition protesting against the proposed demolition of the historic Wilbur J. Cohen Building in Washington D.C. The building is home to a major Ben Shahn mural, The Meaning of Social Security, commissioned as part of the New Deal - the US government response to the Great Depression of the 1930s.

4 - The death of Chicago artist Tony Fitzpatrick in October has not stopped his annual tradition of holding an end of year show. Friends of the painter worked with his family and have put on a show in his honor at the city's West Town Chamber of Commerce.

5 - London appears to have gained two new murals by street artist Banksy in time for Christmas. The image of two children lying on the ground in winter clothes with one of them pointing to the sky was first spotted in Bayswater, west London, yesterday before an identical image was found in central London.

6 - Dallas Contemporary has announced executive director Lucia Simek is leaving the museum having only taken the top job permanently in February. A statement said she "plans to return to her artistic practice, curatorial work, and writing".