Jack White, the musician best known as the frontman of The White Stripes, has begun showing his visual art, which he has been creating since his teenage years. The article offers a glimpse into his vibrant, technicolour artistic practice, marking his debut as a visual artist in the public eye.
Va in onda su Rai Tre il documentario dedicato al mecenate siciliano Antonio Presti. Qui la video anteprima
On Tuesday, May 19, 2026, at 3:30 PM, RAI 3 will broadcast the documentary "Asteroide 20049 Antonio Presti," produced by Rai Documentari and dedicated to Sicilian patron Antonio Presti (born 1957). Written by Fedora Sasso and Francesco Castellani, curated by Giulietta Venneri, and directed by Fedora Sasso, the film explores Presti's four-decade career using art to intervene in marginalized areas of Sicily. The documentary's title references an asteroid named after Presti, symbolizing his vision linking cosmic and urban space. It opens at the Astrophysical Observatory of Isnello and focuses on the Catania neighborhood of Librino, where Presti created MAGMA, an open-air museum developed through collaboration with students, artists, and residents.
The Metropolitan Opera has staged Gabriela Lena Frank's first opera, *El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego*, which imagines a supernatural reunion between Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera on Día de los Muertos. The production, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin and starring Isabel Leonard and Carlos Álvarez, uses magical realism to explore the couple's turbulent relationship, though it largely sidelines their Communist activism and Kahlo's queer affairs in favor of a simplified reconciliation narrative.
Helen Ochyra reports on how Tasmania, particularly Hobart, has emerged as a leading global art destination, driven largely by MONA (Museum of Old and New Art). The privately funded museum, founded by art collector David Walsh, recently opened a $100 million AUD wing housing a towering concrete amphitheatre by German artist Anselm Kiefer. Beyond MONA, Hobart hosts the provocative winter festival Dark Mofo, the science-and-culture Beaker Street Festival, and the inaugural Island Readers & Writers Festival, cementing its reputation for cutting-edge arts and culture.
This week's Required Reading roundup from Hyperallergic covers a diverse range of art-world stories. French photographer JR has unveiled "La Caverne du Pont Neuf Paris" (2026), an optical illusion installation that transforms the pathway across the Seine into a black-and-white mountain range cave, paying homage to Christo and Jeanne-Claude's 1985 wrapping of the same bridge. Other highlights include architecture scholar Karrie Jacobs investigating a New York waterfront walking initiative for The Nation, curator Tara Contractor writing in Apollo about James McNeill Whistler's use of metallic pigments influenced by Japanese traditions, and Rob Corsini interviewing Amelia Abraham about their new book celebrating photography of queer nightlife for Dazed.
Dolce Vita war gestern
Andrea Modica's new photobook "Italian Story" collects four decades of photographs taken in Italy, beginning with her first trip there in the late 1980s. Born in 1960 to a family with roots in Sicily and Naples, Modica received a Fulbright scholarship to travel to Sicily and photograph the origins of the Catholic imagery, gender roles, and family structures she experienced growing up in New York. The book, however, is not a documentary of her heritage; instead, it presents dreamlike, surreal images—motionless bodies in water, dead fish, figures behind mosquito nets, Madonna statues—that resist clear narrative or identity politics. Modica works with an 8x10 large-format analog camera and prints using the historic platinum-palladium process, giving the images a timeless, collaborative quality.
"Das ist fucking Disneyland"
The article surveys recent German cultural commentary, highlighting three main stories: art historian Bénédicte Savoy's warning in the FAZ about the physical decay of German universities, particularly the Technical University of Berlin, as a threat to democratic culture; Berlin artist Charlie Stein's essay on anxiety as a pervasive contemporary condition and art's role in making it visible; and critic Rachel Wetzler's harsh review of the Venice Biennale in Artforum, calling it an overwhelming 'theme park' version of the art world. Additionally, Nikolaus Bernau defends expert juries in the Tagesspiegel, using the Biennale's jury crisis as a case study.
Artist and educator Holly Greenberg launched the multi-year project "Bird Collisions in the Anthropocene" in 2024 after learning about a mass bird collision at Chicago's McCormick Place Lakeside Center in October 2023, where nearly 1,000 birds died in a single night. Using data from the Chicago Field Museum and ornithologist Dave Willard, Greenberg focuses on the 10,863 birds found dead after hitting Chicago buildings in 2023 alone. The project involves community members stitching nearly 11,000 fabric birds to raise awareness and educate the public about preventing window collisions, which kill an estimated one billion birds annually across North America.
Local man Brian Jacobs attends a friend's high-profile surrealist art show in New York but cannot determine whether the works are genuinely surrealist or simply poorly executed. He describes a painting of a five-eyed fisherman holding a melting bowling ball as looking like it was painted by a first grader. The artist, Gavin McCloud, interprets Jacobs's bewildered reactions as impressed awe and plans to gift him the melting bowling ball painting. Gallery owner Christine Morgan admits she sometimes hosts derivative work from donors' children in exchange for large checks, and advises artists to claim ambiguity as the real art if questioned.
On Sunday, May 24, 2026, Italian historic homes will open their doors free to the public as part of the 16th National Day promoted by ADSI – Associazione Dimore Storiche Italiane. The 2025 edition involved over 500 properties and more than 250,000 visitors, highlighting the widespread cultural heritage across Italy. The article argues that this event is not merely cultural or tourist-oriented but raises broader questions about the future of Italy's fragile territories and the need for a cohesive national strategy for territorial rebalancing.
The article, published by DW, examines the ongoing debate about the relationship between art and politics, using the Venice Biennale as a case study. It highlights how the 2024 edition of the Biennale has become a platform for political statements, particularly regarding Russia's exclusion from the event following its invasion of Ukraine, and the broader question of whether cultural institutions can remain neutral in times of geopolitical conflict.