1993 in art

Events

• May – Jay Jopling opens the London gallery White Cube. Tracey Emin's first major exhibition, "My Major Retrospective 1963–1993" opens here on 19 November.
• 27 May – Via dei Georgofili Massacre: A car bomb planted outside the Uffizi Gallery in Florence by the Mafia kills five people and irretrievably destroys three paintings, including an Adoration of the shepherds by Gerard van Honthorst.
• 21 June – Tate St Ives gallery opens in Cornwall, England.
• July – Multiple artworks are stolen from the National Art Museum of Azerbaijan.
• 18 August – The 14th century Kapellbrücke covered wooden truss bridge in Lucerne crossing the river Reuss is largely destroyed by fire, together with two-thirds of the 147 17th-century interior paintings by Hans Heinrich Wägmann.

Full date unknown

• Start of Stone & Man project in Qaqortoq, Greenland: 18 Nordic sculptors led by local artist Aka Høegh carve an initial 24 sculptures into rock faces and boulders around the town.
• The comic book collecting boom achieves its peak.
• The Barbie Liberation Organization, as a revolt against gender stereotypes, switches the voice boxes on a reported 300 talking G.I. Joe and Barbie dolls before returning them to stores.
• A catalogue of Augustan portraits lists 148 replicas of Augustus of Primaporta, plus six done as cameos. The earliest known replica of Augustus is made before 25 BC.
• Duo Yun Xuan holds the first art auction in mainland China.

Exhibitions

• Kustom Kulture, Laguna Beach Art Museum
• Harold Parker retrospective, Queensland Art Gallery
• Venice Biennale shows several works by Young British Artists including Damien Hirst's Mother and Child Divided.

Awards

• Archibald Prize – Garry Shead – "Tom Thompson"
• John Moores Painting Prize – Peter Doig for "Blotter"
• Schock Prize in Visual Arts – Rafael Moneo
• Turner Prize – Rachel Whiteread
• Wolf Prize in Arts – Bruce Nauman—The Venice Biennale--
• The Lion d'or Golden Lion for Best Pavilion: Hans Haacke and Nam June Paik representing Germany

Works

• Jake and Dinos Chapman – "The Disasters of War" after The Disasters of War by Francisco Goya
• Martin Creed – Work No 79: Some Blu-tack kneaded, rolled into a ball and depressed against a wall
• Peter Doig – Blotter
• Elisabeth Frink – Risen Christ
• Anya Gallaccio – Stroke
• Antony Gormley – Iron: Man
• Joseph Havel – Exhaling Pearls
• K Foundation – Money: A Major Body of Cash
• Tobi Kahn – Shalev
• Roy Lichtenstein – Large Interior with Three Reflections
• Joel Shapiro - Loss and Regeneration- installed at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in WDC
• James Stephenson – Joy Selig
• John Stanton Ward – The Annunciation
• Gillian Wearing – Signs that say what you want them to say and not Signs that say what someone else wants you to say
• Rachel Whiteread – ''House''

Films

• Flirting Scholar

Deaths

• 22 January – Brett Weston, American photographer.
• 26 January – Robert Jacobsen, Danish sculptor and painter.
• 28 January – Hannah Wilke, American painter, sculptor and photographer.
• 30 January – Svetoslav Roerich, Russian painter.
• 19 February – Pietro Pezzati, American painter.
• 13 March – José Gómez Abad, Spanish painter.
• 30 March – Richard Diebenkorn, American painter.
• 18 April – Dame Elisabeth Frink, English sculptor.
• 21 April – Rowland Hilder, English landscape painter.
• 3 May – Robert De Niro, Sr., American abstract expressionist painter.
• 20 May – Stevan Bodnarov, Serbian sculptor and painter.
• 30 May – Henry Heerup, Danish painter and sculptor.
• 9 June - Thomas Ammann, Swiss art desler.
• 31 July – Lola Álvarez Bravo, Mexican photographer.
• 6 September – Leonard Bocour, paint-maker, painter.
• 20 October – Milan Konjović, Serbian painter.
• 7 December – Abidin Dino, Turkish artist.