As part of our Year in Review, we’re happy to share the Top-25 photos uploaded to Flickr in 2019.

According to Artnet , a banana duct-taped to a wall at Basel Miami Beach this week – was sold at $120,000. This, not one of a kind art installation, presented by an artist Maurizio Cattelan is already sold to two different buyers, with the third now going for $150,000.

There’s a reason so many people find the art world to be impenetrable and elitist - it’s designed to be. Don’t get me wrong, I love visiting my local art gallery; it’s a great place to take the kids, and often, I discover beautiful and thought-provoking pieces. But sometimes, I feel downright frustrated by the works that have been chosen for inclusion.

Some 44,000 years ago, an artist climbed high onto a cave ledge on an Indonesian island, paintbrush in hand. Perhaps inspired by spiritual visions, the artist sketched a dynamic scene featuring tiny, animal-headed hunters armed with spears cornering formidable wild hogs and small buffaloes. In a new study, researchers argue that the scene's visionary storytelling—which they claim represents the oldest known figurative art made by modern humans—shows that people already had imaginations much like our own at the time of the cave painting, and likely much earlier.

Assuming the emergence of consciousness in artificial minds is possible, those minds will feel the urge to create art. But will we be able to understand it?

Plautilla Nelli was likely the first woman in history to paint the iconic biblical scene.

Michel Cohen made millions selling art and lost it all trading stocks. Desperate and in debt, he stole more than $50 million by double-selling famous paintings. Then he disappeared. In her new documentary, Vanessa Engle recounts Michel’s story and her 17-year search for the missing art dealer.

A lead mineral called plumbonacrite was used to create a thick, paste-like paint.

Arthur Brand located the stolen Picasso painting after a four-year search

In her project Archiving Eden, photographer Dornith Doherty explores the beauty and necessity of the world's botanical stockpiles.

When Dan Robbins passed away last week at the age of 93, many people paused to remember a man who made painting fun for the masses.

Chris Wenzel's lifelong love affair with tattooing began when he was just nine years old when his aunt asked him to design her a tattoo, one he ended up partly inking on her skin himself. By the time he was teenager, both his arms were completely covered in skin art. As an adult, he was a respected tattoo artist who owned Electric Underground Tattoos Inc, a studio in Saskatoon, Canada. "He loved seeing the ink on people's skin, fell in love with it," says his wife Cheryl, who now runs the tattoo studio with a business partner.

To doodle is human, as these drawings from Stephen King, Queen Victoria, and more prove.

You've got to be kidding me.

AI art has a long history that is often overlooked

Last year, a museum dedicated to the work of Étienne Terrus revealed most of its paintings were probably not by him. How did they get there?

It was a flourishing trade in human flesh. A quest headed by art suppliers so ruthless in seeking out the perfect pigment, that it makes Dorian Grey's creep-level look like amateur hour. It was the business of making "Mummy Brown," a paint colour.

Acrylics on Canvas - 100 * 70 cm

This bookstore in Shanghai will make you feel like you've entered an alternate universe with stairs on the ceiling.

Stéphane Breitwieser robbed nearly 200 museums, amassed a collection of treasures worth more than $1.4 billion, and became perhaps the most prolific art thief in history. And as he reveals to GQ’s Michael Finkel, how Breitwieser managed to do all this is every bit as surprising as why.