Exhibition commemorates Frederic Church 200th

The Olana Partnership opens "Frederic Church: Global Artist" on May 17 at Olana State Historic Site in Hudson, New York, commemorating the 200th anniversary of Frederic Church's birth (1826–1900). The exhibition brings together monumental oil paintings, drawings, oil sketches, and photographs from Church's global travels, with loans from major institutions including the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, The New York Historical, and the Terra Foundation for American Art. It is organized by Elizabeth Kornhauser, Tim Barringer, and Jennifer Raab, and is part of the broader Frederic Church 200 initiative.

5 exhibitions across the globe celebrating women who shaped art and culture

Five museums across the globe are opening exhibitions this month that celebrate women who have shaped art and culture. The shows include Björk's multidisciplinary "Echolalia" at the National Gallery of Iceland in Reykjavík, Iris van Herpen's New York exhibition, Marina Abramović's historic showing at Venice's Gallerie dell'Accademia, the Tate Modern's first major Frida Kahlo retrospective, and centenary tributes to Marilyn Monroe. The article notes that despite women making up 51% of visual artists worldwide, their work remains underrepresented in public institutions, with 78% of London galleries showing more male than female artists.

National Gallery of Art’s New Exhibit Examines the American Experience

The article describes a new exhibition at the National Gallery of Art that examines the American experience through visual art. The show brings together works from the museum's collection to explore themes of identity, history, and culture in the United States.

kengo kuma's first US museum emerges within vast art and nature campus in pennsylvania

Kengo Kuma & Associates has unveiled the design for its first museum in the United States, a wood-clad pavilion complex at the Brandywine Conservancy & Museum of Art in Pennsylvania. The 3,716-square-meter structure, part of a major expansion, will transform the 6-hectare campus into a 131.52-hectare public preserve and garden designed with Field Operations. Construction is planned to begin in spring 2027, with an opening in fall 2029, adding 80% more exhibition space and integrating art, ecology, and conservation.

An exhibition of an artist who brought post-impressionism to England

The Museum of Somerset is hosting "A Life in Art: Roger Fry," an exhibition dedicated to the painter, critic, and curator Roger Fry, who introduced post-impressionism to England. The show features nearly 40 of Fry's paintings from a recent Charleston exhibition, alongside works by his wife, Arts & Crafts artist Helen Coombe, whose career and life have been largely overlooked. Through artwork, archival photos, and a film, the exhibition explores Fry's complex personal life, including Coombe's institutionalization for mental illness, and his role within the Bloomsbury Group.

What to Look for at Frieze New York 2026

Frieze New York 2026 returns to The Shed in Hudson Yards from May 13–17, featuring over 65 international galleries in its 15th edition. The fair emphasizes Latin American art with new committee members Fátima González and Omayra Alvarado, and includes highlights such as Southern Guild's expansion into Tribeca and Yeni Mao's cyborg sculptures in the Focus section. Collectors and enthusiasts can explore a diverse range of contemporary and blue-chip works across multiple fairs during Art Week.

The Clark presents exhibition of Giorgio Griffa

The Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts, presents "Giorgio Griffa: Paths in the Forest," the first solo museum exhibition in the United States dedicated to the Italian artist Giorgio Griffa (born 1936). On view from June 13 to October 12 at the Lunder Center at Stone Hill, the exhibition features works spanning nearly six decades, including highlights such as "Sessanta frammenti" (1980), "Rosa" (1968), and "Narciso" (1986). Griffa is known for his use of diluted acrylics on unstretched, unprimed canvases, and his practice emphasizes the intelligence of materials and an ecological ethic. The exhibition is curated by Robert Wiesenberger, John and Barbara Vogelstein Senior Curator of Contemporary Art at the Brooklyn Museum and former curator of contemporary projects at the Clark.

Maine art museums overflow with summer exhibits

Maine's art museums are presenting a packed summer season with numerous exhibitions, including the collaborative show "By Design: The Worlds of Betsy James Wyeth" organized by the Colby College Museum of Art, Farnsworth Art Museum, and Brandywine Museum, which explores the design influence of Andrew Wyeth's wife. Other highlights include the largest survey of Carl Spinchorn at the Ogunquit Museum of American Art and Bates College, "Shadow of the Eagle" at the Abbe Museum examining Native American perspectives on the Revolutionary War, and retrospectives of Phyllis Graber Jensen and Spindleworks Art Center at Bates College and Bowdoin College respectively. The Center for Maine Contemporary Art features new abstract sculptures by Bianca Beck, while Colby Museum also presents "Imagining an Archipelago" focusing on art from Cuba, Guam, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and their diasporas.

Cecilia Vicuña: Minga for the Sea

Kunstnernes Hus in Oslo presents 'Minga for the Sea,' a major new commission by Chilean artist, poet, and activist Cecilia Vicuña, running from May 29 to August 9, 2026. This is Vicuña's first major presentation in Scandinavia, featuring two large horizontal quipus made from locally sourced raw wool, one dedicated to the Southern Hemisphere/Chile and the other to the Northern Hemisphere/Sápmi. The quipus incorporate contributions from Indigenous and environmental defenders, including poems, drawings, and videos, forming a polyphonic archive of cultural resistance against destructive resource extraction and pollution of marine environments.

David Plowden’s Iowa Exhibit Opening Reception Today at 4:00 PM

The Sioux City Art Center is hosting an opening reception today at 4:00 PM for an exhibition of black-and-white photographs by David Plowden, titled "David Plowden’s Iowa." The show features 90 images taken from the 1960s through the 2000s, documenting Iowa’s rural communities, agricultural landscapes, barns, grain elevators, and small-town structures. The exhibition was organized by curator Christopher Atkins and originally toured the state from 2012–2014 via Humanities Iowa. The reception includes free margaritas in celebration of Cinco de Mayo.

The All-Women Exhibition Putting Penzance On The Art Map This Summer

An all-women exhibition titled 'Making Her Mark: A Celebration of Women in Art' has opened at Penlee House Gallery & Museum in Penzance, Cornwall, as the first stop on a three-part UK tour. The show features over 60 works by female artists from the 19th century to the present day, including Tracey Emin, Barbara Hepworth, Elizabeth Forbes, and Laura Knight. It is a collaboration between Penlee House, Worcester City Art Gallery & Museum, and Kirkcaldy Galleries, curated jointly by the three venues with local leadership from Penlee House deputy director Katie Herbert. The exhibition is part of Art Fund's £5.36 million Going Places programme and will travel to Worcester and Kirkcaldy in 2026 and 2027.

German Expressionism at the National Gallery

The National Gallery in London will stage its first exhibition of modern German paintings, 'German Expressionism: Modern Painting 1900–1918', in spring 2027, before traveling to the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin in autumn 2027. This is the first UK and Ireland exhibition since the 1960s to cover both key Expressionist groups, Die Brücke and Der Blaue Reiter, featuring over fifty international loans from institutions such as Berlin's Neue Nationalgalerie, Brücke Museum, and the Art Institute of Chicago, alongside works from private collections.

The Skylands Museum of Art presents "FINI...pas fini!"

The Skylands Museum of Art in Lafayette, New Jersey, presents "FINI...pas fini!" from May 16 to September 26, 2026, a temporary exhibition of over 30 works by the internationally recognized artist Leonor Fini (1907-1996). Drawn from the museum's permanent collection, the show includes original drawings, etchings, silkscreens, and lithographs featuring portraits, sphinxes, female figures, cats, and fantastical beings. Special events include an opening reception on May 16 and a gallery talk by art appraiser Carol Curci, a friend and authority on Fini, who will discuss the artist's life and work.

Lillian Bassman—the Avant-Garde Photographer Who Transformed Harper’s Bazaar—Finally Gets Her Due

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has opened "Lillian Bassman: Bazaar and Beyond," an exhibition on view through July 26 that examines the career of photographer Lillian Bassman. Curated by Virginia McBride, the show highlights Bassman's work at Harper's Bazaar and Junior Bazaar, as well as her independent photography known for radical darkroom manipulations. The exhibition was made possible by a gift of 70 works from Bassman's estate, produced in collaboration with her children Lizzie and Eric Himmel, and marks a homecoming for the artist who drew inspiration from the Met's galleries.

United States Pavilion to Open at the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia With Landmark Solo Presentation by Alma Allen: Call Me the Breeze

The United States Pavilion will open at the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia with a landmark solo presentation by artist Alma Allen, titled "Call Me the Breeze." The exhibition marks the first time the U.S. Pavilion has dedicated its space to a single artist in this context, highlighting Allen's sculptural work that blends organic forms with industrial materials.

United States Pavilion to Open at the 61st International

The United States Pavilion at the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia will open on May 6, 2026, featuring a solo presentation titled "Call Me the Breeze" by American artist Alma Allen. Curated by Jeffrey Uslip and commissioned by the American Arts Conservancy with support from the U.S. Department of State and the Guggenheim Foundation, the exhibition transforms the historic Giardini pavilion with sculptures in bronze, walnut burl, and various stones, including Colorado Yule marble used in the Lincoln Memorial.

Eat Frida food off a Frida plate: Kahlo kitsch raises eye...

A major Tate Modern exhibition dedicated to Frida Kahlo and her circle opens next month in London, accompanied by a wave of commercial spin-offs including a Kahlo-inspired menu, dinner plates, a Netflix documentary, a clothing line, and an opera premiering in New York. The show, titled "Frida: The Making of an Icon," will also display over 200 souvenir objects and knick-knacks, examining Kahlo's transformation into a global brand. A new whodunnit novel by Oscar de Muriel reimagines Kahlo as a detective, and a culinary collaboration with Mexican chef Santiago Lastra will run at the Tate Modern restaurant.

Al Padiglione del Giappone della Biennale di Venezia vi affidano una bambola da accudire

The Japan Pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale 2026 features an immersive, interactive exhibition titled "Grass Babies, Moon Babies" by Japanese-American artist Ei Arakawa-Nash. Visitors are invited to care for one of 200 dolls, each with a QR code that provides a "diaper poem" linked to the doll's symbolic birth date—reflecting the artist's personal experience of becoming a father in 2024 and broader social dynamics in Japan. The pavilion, curated by Lisa Horikawa and Mizuki Takahashi, evolves over the seven months of the Biennale as a platform for shared care and participation.

"In Minor Keys" Hits All the Right Notes

The 61st Venice Biennale's international exhibition, titled "In Minor Keys," opened with a somber curatorial press conference, as artistic director Koyo Kouoh, who died in May 2024 at age 57, was not physically present. The exhibition features 110 invited participants across the Arsenale and Giardini, including works by Buhlebezwe Siwani, Johannes Phokela, Wangechi Mutu, Ebony G. Patterson, and Kambui Olujimi. Protests marked the opening, with gatherings at the temporary Israeli pavilion and Pussy Riot's presence at the Russian pavilion, while the exhibition itself asks viewers to look closer at overlooked forms of representation and consider innovative models of measuring the world.

A sturdy soldier in a sequin dress

"Eine kräftige Soldatin im Paillettenkleid"

Media reviews of the Venice Biennale's opening week offer contrasting takes on the German and US pavilions. Critics describe the German pavilion, curated by Sung Tieu and Henrike Naumann, as a dense, ironic East-West narrative that layers Nazi architecture with DDR prefab construction, creating what Jörg Häntzschel calls a "shockingly seamless symbiosis." The US pavilion, featuring sculptures by Alma Allen, is panned by Maximilíano Durón in ArtNews as politically timid and empty, lacking the clear colonial critiques of previous editions by Simone Leigh and Jeffrey Gibson.

Au macLyon, l’art vidéo comme vecteur d’émotions

The article reports on the exhibition "Regards sensibles" at the macLyon (Musée d'Art Contemporain de Lyon), which showcases 28 video artworks from the collection of Isabelle and Jean-Conrad Lemaître. The exhibition celebrates the couple's complete donation of their video art collection to the museum. It begins with Gillian Wearing's 1996 video "Boytime," the first video artwork the Lemaîtres acquired, and spans works from 1984 to 2025 by artists of 43 nationalities, offering a broad panorama of the video art genre.

6 Artworks That Define the 2026 Venice Biennale’s Main Exhibition

The 2026 Venice Biennale's main exhibition opens this week, curated by Koyo Kouoh—the first African woman to hold the role—who was announced in 2024 but passed away suddenly in 2025. The article highlights six artworks that define her curatorial vision, which connected the international art world to artists and institutions from Africa and the Global South.

Khaled Sabsabi’s Rocky Road From Australia to the Biennale

Lebanese-Australian artist Khaled Sabsabi was nearly removed from his commission for the Venice Biennale after being accused of supporting terrorism, but was later reinstated. He is now arriving in Venice to present not one but two works at the prestigious international exhibition.

This Professor Won the ‘Bauhaus Bathroom’ Design Competition for the Gropius House

The New York Times Art section announced the winner of a competition to design a public restroom at the historic Gropius House in Lincoln, Massachusetts. The winning design, dubbed the 'Bauhaus Bathroom,' was created by a professor whose identity has not been disclosed in the provided text. The competition aimed to add a functional, contemporary restroom that respects the iconic Bauhaus architecture of the house, which was designed by Walter Gropius in 1938.

Sung Tieu on Representing Germany at the 61st Venice Biennale

Sung Tieu, who is co-representing Germany at the 61st Venice Biennale alongside Henrike Naumann, responds to a questionnaire from ArtReview about her plans for the German Pavilion. She describes her inspiration as her mother and childhood home, a site built for foreign contract workers in the GDR that later became a refuge for the diaspora. Tieu states that her work relates to the Biennale theme "In Minor Keys" through the lens of Gehrenseestrasse, a concrete record of collective memory. She also expresses skepticism about the Biennale's importance, noting that the German Pavilion's fascist architecture compels artists to work against it, and that national pavilions reveal how much work remains in undoing nationalism.

Artist Mateo Blanco Unveils a Poetic Vision for America’s 250th Anniversary

World-renowned artist Mateo Blanco has unveiled *Silver Falls Flag* (2026), a textile work reimagining the American flag as a flowing cascade of silver threads, evoking waterfalls and natural rhythms. The piece will be displayed from May 16 to August 23 at the Brick Store Museum in Kennebunk, Maine, as part of the exhibition *From Many, One: Visions of American Patriotism at 250*, marking the nation's 250th anniversary.

An outsider artist takes the world's biggest stage with the US Pavilion at the Venice Biennale

U.S. artist Alma Allen, a self-taught sculptor from Utah who works in Mexico, has been selected to represent the United States at the Venice Biennale with his exhibition "Call Me the Breeze" at the U.S. Pavilion. The selection process was fraught and opaque, with institutions declining to bid for the commission due to concerns about administration politics after the open call removed diversity, equity and inclusion language in favor of promoting "American values." A prior proposal for artist Robert Lazzarini fell apart after its institutional sponsor backed out, and Allen's project was quickly assembled with the American Arts Conservancy as sponsor and Jeffrey Uslip as curator. Allen, who has lived outside the critical art world for three decades, created a bronze evil eye for the pavilion's exterior and a headless sheep sculpture as a self-portrait of an outsider.

Pro Arts Jersey City presents A Margin of Influence: Artists and the books that inform them

Pro Arts Jersey City presents "A Margin of Influence: Artists and the books that inform them" at ART150 Gallery from May 8-31, 2026. Curated by Raymond E. Mingst and Arthur Bruso, the group exhibition features ten artists—including Agnieszka Wszolkowska, Alvin Quiñones, Brad Terhune, Dorie Dahlberg, Elliot Appel, Hank Yaghooti, Josephine Barreiro, Laura Lou Levy, Nanette Reynolds Beachner, and Peter Delman—who explore how books shape their creative practice. The show runs weekends with an opening reception on May 8.

PinchukArtCentre opens new exhibition at the Venice Biennale

The PinchukArtCentre has opened a new exhibition titled "Still Joy — From Ukraine Into the World" as part of the official parallel program of the 61st Venice Biennale. The show, which opened on May 7 at Palazzo Contarini Polignac and runs through August 1, features works by over 20 international and Ukrainian artists exploring joy as an act of resilience and humanity. Central to the exhibition are testimonies from Hlib Stryzhko, a marine veteran who returned from Russian captivity, which are transformed into sculptural elements. Notable works include a protest performance by Yurii Hruzinov at the Russian pavilion, a video installation of Kyiv rave parties by Malashchuk and Khimei, and installations by Future Generation Art Prize laureates Ashfika Rahman and Zhanna Kadyrova.

Currents of the 61st Biennale: Inside Venice’s Flow of Art and Power

The 61st Venice Biennale jury, composed of five curators—Solange Oliveira Farkas, Zoe Butt, Elvira Dyangani Ose, Marta Kuzma, and Giovanna Zapperi—resigned on April 30th amid internal tensions over decisions that conflicted with the late Koyo Kouoh's curatorial vision. The jury had previously stated it would refrain from considering countries whose leaders are charged with crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court. Meanwhile, Filipino artist Jon Cuyson prepares to present his installation at the Philippine Pavilion, featuring works shipped 60 days before geopolitical conflict escalated, navigating unstable maritime routes. His project includes the film series "Sea of Love (Dagat ng Pag-ibig)" and a new fourth film, "Sea of Echoes," exploring themes of migration, queer experience, and ecological resilience through mussels as non-human protagonists.