Tate Britain is hosting a major exhibition of James McNeill Whistler, exploring his mastery of light and atmosphere across paintings, etchings, and pastels. The show traces Whistler's career from his early realist works to his iconic nocturnes and portraits, emphasizing his radical approach to composition and color.
The California African American Museum presents 'Willie Birch: Stories to Tell,' a sweeping retrospective spanning over five decades of the artist's career, from the late 1960s to the present. The exhibition features Birch's paintings, papier-mâché sculptures, charcoal drawings, and installations, all rooted in his exploration of Black cultural memory, community life in New Orleans, and what he calls 'retentions'—fragments of African heritage persisting across generations. Organized chronologically, the show highlights Birch's evolving visual language and his commitment to storytelling as a form of social practice.
“Io non sono Un Pittore Anacronista”. La ricerca fraintesa dell’artista Carlo Maria Mariani
The Fondazione Carlo Maria Mariani issues a corrective statement defending the late artist Carlo Maria Mariani (1931–2021) against persistent misclassification as an "Anacronista" or "Postmodern" painter. The foundation argues that critics and institutions have superficially lumped Mariani into the anachronistic movement of 1970s–80s Italy, ignoring the conceptual and cerebral foundations of his work. Currently, a solo exhibition titled *I Segni dei Tempi* is on view at the Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte in Naples until July 14, curated by Andrea Viliani and Antonio Martino. This follows a 2024 show at the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence and precedes a major retrospective at Palazzo Citterio in Milan in 2026, curated by Eike Schmidt.
Focus Art Fair, New York's only art fair dedicated to contemporary Asian art, returned for its fourth edition at Chelsea Industrial, running through May 24, 2026. The fair's theme, 'human-technology coexistence,' was explored through works such as Hwia Kim's interactive installation 'What if two eyes don't work together?' presented by LG Electronics, and pieces by the Ukrainian-born F-Twins (Anna and Valeriia Lyshchenko), who founded the Primarealism art movement in response to AI's encroachment on critical thinking. Other highlights included Annu Yadav's political installation 'This Land is Wounded' (2025) and Taezoo Park's 'Hacked Snoopy' (2025), which memorializes neglected technologies. The fair featured more than 40 galleries and presenters, with a notable appearance by Japanese pop icon Kento Senga, who shared his FiNGA character as a means of connecting with his grandmother suffering from Alzheimer's.
The European Night of Museums returns on Saturday, May 23, 2026, with participating museums across Europe opening their doors for special evening hours. In Italy, the Ministry of Culture organizes extraordinary openings from 8 PM to midnight at the symbolic price of 1 euro, alongside events in theater, music, dance, literature, and cinema. Highlights include Rome's Notte dei Musei (16th edition) with civic museums open until 2 AM, Villa Adriana and Villa d'Este in Tivoli offering evening access and contemporary performances, and the Royal Savoy Residences in Piedmont featuring guided tours, exhibitions, and family activities.
Gallery Weekend Beijing (GWBJ) will celebrate its 10th anniversary with the 2026 edition running from May 22 to May 31, opening with three VIP days before going public on May 26. Founded in 2017, the event features curated exhibitions from 30 galleries and 10 non-profit institutions across Beijing, anchored in the 798 Art District and extending to Caochangdi and the CBD Art District. A new Academic Committee—comprising Guo Xi, Leng Lin, Tian Yuan, Xi Tao, and Yang Beichen—selected the participating galleries, with 25 returning from previous editions and five newly nominated. Highlights include institutional presentations at UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Red Brick Art Museum, and SONG Art Museum, as well as a special exhibition titled "Nirvana" by Ouyang Chun.
Lifestyle Asia has published a curated list of art exhibitions and events to see in May, offering recommendations for art enthusiasts looking to explore new shows and installations during the month. The article serves as a guide to notable cultural happenings, likely highlighting both emerging and established artists across various venues.
Der Heilige Geist im Schmerzrausch
Florentina Holzinger's "Pfingstspiel" (Pentecost Play) is a multi-hour performance staged across two locations in Austria—the Wiener Eislauf-Verein in Vienna and Schloss Prinzendorf—as a satellite event to her contribution to the Venice Biennale. The work features extreme physical stunts, including a performer rappelling down a hotel facade, a car drifting with Holzinger on its roof, and a crucifixion scene, all drenched in blood, pain, and religious imagery. The performance, presented only once before 700 guests as part of the Wiener Festwochen, is described as a brutal, uncompromising marathon that pushes the boundaries of live art.
Hong Kong artist Trevor Yeung has transformed the 1,000-square-meter nave of the CAPC in Bordeaux into an immersive installation titled "Jardin des neuf soleils" (Garden of Nine Suns). Visitors climb a monumental rainbow-colored scaffolding structure to the ceiling, tying colored ribbons as wishes, accompanied by a symphony of bells. The exhibition also features green light inspired by an Insectron device found in the museum's storage, and nine "Chaotic Sun" light sculptures that reinterpret a little-known Chinese myth about ten suns crossing the sky.
A major retrospective of the Dutch Golden Age painter Gerard van Honthorst has opened at the Centraal Museum in Utrecht, running from April 25 to September 13, 2025. The exhibition brings together numerous large-format works that trace Honthorst's full career, from his early Caravaggesque phase to his later stylistic and thematic diversification across Utrecht, Rome, London, and The Hague. The show is praised for its successful mix of chronological and thematic hanging, offering a comprehensive view of the artist's complexity.
Yosra Mojtahedi, artiste iranienne passée de la peinture à de stupéfiantes sculptures vivantes
Yosra Mojtahedi, an Iranian artist born in 1986, has transitioned from painting to creating stunning living sculptures. Her work, characterized by black and white contrasts, features sculptures that breathe, have hair, and incorporate torn tights and synthetic locks, evoking themes of identity, censorship, and bodily autonomy. She recently presented a spectacular installation titled "Isthme noir" at the Espace Monte-Cristo in Paris and an exhibition at the Abbaye de Maubuisson, where her spiritual universe unfolds across multiple rooms. Mojtahedi's practice includes sound elements in Persian or Kurdish, and she views her sculptures as "bodies" that are both intimate and political.
Jon Cuyson will represent the Philippines at the 61st Venice Biennale in 2026 with an installation titled "Sea of Love / Dagat ng Pag-ibig." The work combines painting, sculpture, sound, and moving image into a spatial environment inspired by the logic of the sea. It features fragmented painting panels, metal hardware, cast resin mussels, and marine debris, alongside a film narrated from the perspective of mussels in Cavite City. Central to the piece is a queer Filipino time-traveling seafarer named Kerel, whose story unfolds across Cuyson's Kerel Trilogy films. The pavilion, located in the Arsenale, is curated by Mara Gladstone.
The 19th International Encaustic Conference will take place May 29-31 at Edgewood Farm in Truro, Massachusetts, produced by the Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill. The three-day event brings together artists from around the world to celebrate encaustic painting, an ancient medium using pigmented wax, with technical demonstrations, educational programming, networking, juried exhibitions, and extended gallery hours in Wellfleet and Truro. Keynote speaker is artist Portia Munson, known for her maximalist installations exploring consumerism and identity. Pre- and post-conference workshops run May 26 to June 4.
The Rothko Museum in Daugavpils, Latvia, opens its summer exhibition season on June 5, featuring five distinct shows that span photography, painting, and ceramics. Highlights include a retrospective of South African photographer Roger Ballen, known for his psychologically intense and boundary-blurring work; Chinese painter Liu Guofu’s meditative abstractions exploring entropy; Lithuanian artist Romualdas Balinskas’s shift toward abstract expression; Latvian artist Madara Tropa’s botanical paintings; and a ceramic series by Pēteris Martinsons marking his 95th anniversary. The season brings together artists from Latvia, Lithuania, China, and South Africa, curated by Aivars Baranovskis, Calvin Hui, and Tatjana Černova.
The British Museum has announced ticket prices for its upcoming Bayeux Tapestry exhibition, running from 10 September 2026 to 11 July 2027. Top-price adult tickets will cost £33, with off-peak tickets at £27 and student/disabled tickets at £25. Super-off-peak tickets priced at £25 will be available for the last weekday slot during school terms. Members can book free timed tickets from 16 June, with public booking opening on 1 July. The tapestry, depicting the Norman invasion of 1066, will be displayed in the Sainsbury Exhibitions Gallery while its home museum in Normandy undergoes renovations. Additionally, a garden installation titled 'Tapestry of Trees' by designer Andy Sturgeon has been unveiled on the museum forecourt, featuring 37 silver birch trees inspired by the tapestry.
Widline Cadet presents her first solo U.S. museum exhibition, "Currents 40: Widline Cadet," at the Milwaukee Art Museum, on view through August 9. The show features her hypnotic triptych of photographs, her debut photography book "Seremoni Disparisyon (Ritual [Dis]Appearance)," and works across photography, installation, video, and ceramic that explore Black femininity, Haitian folklore, and the immigrant experience. Cadet, born in Haiti and raised in New York, has gained prominence through residencies at the Studio Museum in Harlem and publications in The New Yorker and Aperture Magazine.
The Resnick Center for Herbert Bayer Studies in Aspen, Colorado, is opening a new exhibition titled "Double Take: Recurrent Dialogues in the Art of Herbert Bayer" on June 12, 2026. The show features over 70 works by Bayer, many rarely seen, on loan from the Denver Art Museum, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, and the George Eastman Museum. The exhibition pairs and clusters Bayer's works to explore the interdependency of mediums across his career, from 1930s surrealist photomontages to 1970s geometric abstractions.
Museo Jumex in Mexico City is staging two soccer-inspired exhibitions. "Football & Art: A Shared Emotion" runs through July 26, featuring works across painting, sculpture, installation, photography, and video that explore football's cultural impact in Mexico and beyond. Highlights include Sofía Echeverri's textile commission about Mexico's 1971 Women's World Cup qualifiers and Tercerunquinto's sculptural installation using salvaged seats from Azteca Stadium. "Objects of Glory" opens June 10 in partnership with Qatar Museums and the 3-2-1 Qatar Olympic and Sports Museum, showcasing historic memorabilia such as Diego Maradona's match-worn jersey from the 1986 World Cup quarter-final and Pelé's boots from the 1970 World Cup.
The Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow (MAMM) presents 'Generation Wealth' by American documentary photographer and director Lauren Greenfield as part of the XII Moscow International Biennale 'Fashion and Style in Photography 2021'. The exhibition, opening May 21, 2021, includes over 200 photographs, documentary films, and interviews drawn from Greenfield's 25-year investigation into global consumer culture, wealth aspiration, and the transformation of happiness. It marks Greenfield's third exhibition at MAMM, following previous shows in 2000 and 2004.
Abbas Akhavan, born in Tehran in 1977, represents Canada at the 61st Venice Biennale with an exhibition titled "Entre chien et loup" (Between Dog and Wolf). Commissioned by the National Gallery of Canada and curated by Kim Nguyen, the installation transforms the Canada Pavilion into a monumental Wardian case—a 19th-century plant transport device—converted into a greenhouse for Victoria water lilies. The lilies, native to South America and germinated at the Orto Botanico di Padova from seeds provided by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, reference their prominent display in the Crystal Palace during the 1851 Great Exhibition. The exhibition runs until November 22, 2026.
Abbas Akhavan, born in Tehran in 1977, will represent Canada at the 61st Venice Biennale in 2026 with an exhibition titled "Entre chien et loup" (Between Dog and Wolf). Commissioned by the National Gallery of Canada and curated by Kim Nguyen, the Canada Pavilion is transformed into a monumental Wardian case—a 19th-century plant transport device—serving as a greenhouse for Victoria water lilies. The seeds were germinated at the Orto Botanico di Padova in collaboration with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and the installation will be on view until November 22, 2026.
A new free-admission art gallery, the Galleria Verticale, has opened inside Palazzo Marignoli, a historic 19th-century building in central Rome owned by the Allianz Group. The gallery presents a vertical exhibition route from top to bottom, showcasing part of Allianz Italia's corporate art collection, which spans the 19th and 20th centuries. Curated by Claudia Crosera and Aulo Guagnini, the temporary display (open until May 5, 2027) features works by artists such as Francesco Hayez, Alfredo Tomiz, Umberto Veruda, and Arturo Rietti, alongside restoration history and archival materials related to the insurance companies that merged into Allianz. The building also houses a flagship Apple store designed with Norman Foster's involvement and a panoramic restaurant, Quid.
Il grande artista portoghese che per la sua mostra a Venezia ricostruisce una Via Crucis
Portuguese artist Pedro Cabrita Reis presents "XIV Steps" at the Magazzino del Sale 3 – Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia during the 61st Venice Biennale. The exhibition features a new cycle of fourteen diptychs inspired by the structure of the Via Crucis (Stations of the Cross), arranged in a linear, processional path that emphasizes rhythm, distance, and repetition. Developed with Luca Berta and Michael Short, the works blend painting, materiality, and spatial construction, using dense layers of violet, dark red, black, and orange punctuated by large black diagonals that evoke architectural elements and tension.
The Galleria d'Arte Moderna (GAM) in Turin has launched "Quarta Risonanza," an exhibition program running from May 21 through November 1, 2026. The program comprises four distinct projects: a major survey of works on paper from the museum's collections titled "Un altro Novecento," curated by Fabio Cafagna and Elena Volpato; an intervention by artist Pesce Khete as the program's "Intruso"; a photographic series by Lisetta Carmi exploring eroticism and authority at the Staglieno cemetery, presented in dialogue with sculptures; and a centenary exhibition for conceptual artist Vincenzo Agnetti, "Oggi è un secolo," curated by Chiara Bertola and Virginia Lupo, focusing on his Photo-graffi works from 1979–1981.
A Milano arriva la prima mostra-mercato dedicata interamente al modernariato del Novecento
The article announces the arrival of SOMO (Solo Modernariato), Italy's only fair dedicated entirely to 20th-century modernariato, in Milan. After two years in Alzano Lombardo near Bergamo, the event will take place at Superstudio Più in Via Tortona 27 on May 23-24, 2026. It will feature over 70 exhibitors from across Italy, showcasing furniture, lamps, and objects produced between the post-war period and the 1980s, targeting collectors, architects, interior designers, and a new generation of enthusiasts.
Two prominent Seattle galleries, Traver Gallery and Greg Kucera Gallery, are launching a new art fair called Assembly to coincide with the 10th edition of the Seattle Art Fair in July. Assembly will take place at West Canal Yards from July 23-26, featuring 10 to 15 invited galleries from the Pacific Northwest and Dallas, with a more intimate, curated approach and significantly lower participation costs ($3,000–$6,500 per gallery versus $25,000+ at SAF). The fair is invitational, uses vacant spaces around a central atrium instead of traditional booths, and plans to redistribute ticket and booth revenue to participating galleries.
A group exhibition titled 'Next/Now' will open in New Delhi on 29 May 2026, organized by ARTIndia Magazine and Vadehra Art Gallery. The show features 30 emerging artists selected from ARTIndia's '30 Under 30' list, working across painting, sculpture, installation, photography, and mixed media. The opening coincides with Defence Colony Gallery Night, and partial proceeds will support the ARTIndia Care Fund, which provides medical care for young artists.
The Kitchen, a New York nonprofit arts organization, held its annual spring gala at City Winery to honor four female filmmakers: Cheryl Dunye, Garrett Bradley, Shari Frilot, and Catherine Gund. The event was co-chaired by prominent figures including Ava DuVernay, Julie Mehretu, and Komal Shah, and featured performances, remarks, and a crowd of artists, curators, and collectors. The gala celebrated the filmmakers' contributions to cinema, with special recognition of their work in expanding representation and narrative boundaries.
The Belfast Photo Festival returns for 2026 as the largest annual photography festival in the UK and Ireland, running from 4–30 June at venues across the city. This year's theme, 'Horizons: Visions of Futures Unknown,' challenges photographers and audiences to explore technological, environmental, geopolitical, and AI-driven boundaries in the medium. Featured works include Laura Pannack's 'The Journey Home,' Florence Goupil's documentation of a Peruvian protection agent, Toby Smith's participatory installation confronting the collapse of mechanical photography, and Lean Lui's allegorical 'The White Barracks' examining power and patriarchy.
The Belarus Free Theatre has opened an exhibition titled “Official. Unofficial. Belarus.” at La Chiesa di San Giovanni Evangelista di Venezia, marking Belarus's first presence at the Venice Biennale in six years and its first appearance not as a state but as a self-governing cultural body. Curated by Daniella Kaliada, the show features Belarusian artists working across painting, installations, and large-scale sculptures, aiming to make the experience of living under authoritarianism viscerally legible through works that explore surveillance, repression, and bodily experience.