London's Royal Society of Arts launches new annual summer exhibition

The Royal Society of Arts (RSA) and AOAP Projects (formerly Art on a Postcard) are launching a new annual summer exhibition in London titled "Illuminated." Running from 10-24 June at the RSA's headquarters on John Adam Street, the show features over 100 artists including Caroline Coon, Susie Hamilton, and Helen Beard, with all works limited to seven inches by seven inches. Artists receive 50% of sales proceeds, with the remainder funding the RSA's social impact programs. The exhibition marks AOAP Projects' strategic shift from its long-running postcard auction format toward curated exhibitions and broader fundraising initiatives.

Betye Saar’s Birthday Present

Betye Saar, the iconic assemblage artist, is donating her collection of Black dolls to the New York Historical on the occasion of her 100th birthday. The article also covers strong performance art at the Venice Biennale, including works by Florentina Holzinger and Miet Warlop at the Austrian and Belgian pavilions, amidst a fraught edition marked by the death of artistic director Koyo Kouoh, canceled pavilions, and protests. Additional features include a review of Ceija Stojka's exhibition at the Drawing Center and a profile of sculptor Edmonia Lewis.

Venice Biennale: The Must-Sees Off the Official Program

Biennale de Venise, les immanquables du off

The article highlights must-see exhibitions taking place in Venice alongside the official Biennale, curated by the magazine L'Œil. It features three major shows: "Le pli et le temps" at Fondazione dell’Albero d’Oro, exploring the fold as a material and temporal concept through the work of Patrick Saytour and Piero Manzoni; "Lorna Simpson. Third Person" at Punta della Dogana, a major European survey of Simpson's paintings, collages, and films organized by the Pinault Collection; and "Picasso, Morandi, Parmiggiani. Still Lifes" at Galleria di Piazza San Marco, a dialogue between three masters of still life, co-organized by Tornabuoni gallery and the Musée national Picasso-Paris.

From Cannes to Nice, via Grasse and Saint-Paul-de-Vence… 8 Refreshing Exhibitions on the Côte d’Azur

De Cannes à Nice, en passant par Grasse et Saint-Paul-de-Vence… 8 expos rafraîchissantes sur la Côte d’Azur

Beaux Arts Magazine highlights eight refreshing exhibitions across the French Riviera from spring to summer 2026. Featured shows include a Carole Benzaken survey at La Malmaison in Cannes, a hotel biennial at the Canopy by Hilton Cannes, a group exhibition on media theorist Nathalie Magnan at Villa Arson in Nice, and a dialogue between Henri Matisse and Yves Saint Laurent at the Musée Matisse in Nice. Other stops include Ellsworth Kelly at Fondation Maeght in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, and shows in Grasse featuring painter Jean-Honoré Fragonard, photography, and costumes.

Celebrated in the 1970s, American artist Nancy Graves returns to the spotlight at Ceysson & Bénétière

Célébrée dans les années 1970, l’artiste américaine Nancy Graves retrouve la lumière chez Ceysson & Bénétière

Beaux Arts Magazine reports on a resurgence of interest in American artist Nancy Graves (1939–1995), highlighted by a new exhibition at Ceysson & Bénétière. Graves, who worked across painting, sculpture, film, and stage design, was a rising star in the 1970s—exhibiting at MoMA and the National Gallery of Art, and becoming the youngest artist to have a solo show at the Whitney Museum of American Art at age 29. The article traces her career from studying literature at Vassar and art at Yale, to her brief marriage to sculptor Richard Serra, and her pioneering use of NASA satellite imagery and natural history themes in works like her life-size camel sculptures.

Julius von Bismarck “This is not the storm” at Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne

Julius von Bismarck's first Australian solo exhibition, "This is not the storm," opens at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA) in Melbourne on Friday, 17 April. The Berlin-based artist blends art, science, and environmental themes to challenge conventional perceptions of nature as a social construct.

Jonathas de Andrade - En galerie

Jonathas de Andrade's solo exhibition, titled "Ivresse d’une vie de bain de mer," is on view at Galleria Continua in Paris. The show brings together recent and never-before-seen works inspired by Brazilian Neo-Concretism and geometric abstraction. Andrade transforms vernacular forms into chromatic compositions, drawing from a project initiated after a 2025 commission from the Victoria and Albert Museum. The works engage with the materials and practices of maritime communities in northeastern Brazil, particularly canoeiros and jangadeiros (fishermen and raft sailors). The exhibition includes the film "Jangadeiros e Canoeiros" (2025), along with silkscreens, recycled sails, and paintings on wood, blending photography, abstraction, and readymade elements.

Newcastle Art Gallery’s stunning new exhibitions open up a multiverse

Newcastle Art Gallery has opened three new exhibitions following its February reopening with the blockbuster show 'Iconic Loved Unexpected'. The new presentations include Tiyan Baker's solo show 'Mouth Mnemonica', 'The Mordant Family Gift' featuring 25 works donated by philanthropists Simon and Catriona Mordant, and Brian Robinson's 'Multiverse'. The exhibitions collectively showcase a diverse range of national and international artistry, with works by artists such as Gemma Smith, Tim Silver, Alasdair Macintyre, and Rafael Lozano-Hemmer. Baker's solo exhibition focuses on preserving the Bidayǔh language through multimedia works including autostereograms and video installations.

Photographer Catherine Opie is everywhere all at once this spring

Photographer Catherine Opie is experiencing an extraordinary year in 2026, with multiple major exhibitions opening simultaneously across Europe and Los Angeles. A career-spanning survey at London’s National Portrait Gallery will travel to Edinburgh’s Royal Scottish Academy, while other shows appear in Kassel, Germany, and Trondheim, Norway. In Los Angeles, her new exhibition “Holding Blue” opens May 28 at Regen Projects, featuring 44 images of Norwegian mountain landscapes shot over 20 days in early 2024, accompanied by nine ceramic sculptures. Her work also appears in group shows at the Autry Museum of the American West, Hauser & Wirth, and David Zwirner. Opie, who retired from UCLA after serving as chair of the art department and teaching photography for more than 20 years, describes this period as the “Catherine Opie World Tour 2026.”

Lap-See Lam presented in major exhibition at Henie Onstad

Henie Onstad Kunstsenter in Oslo, Norway, is presenting a solo exhibition titled "Ombres" featuring Stockholm-based artist Lap-See Lam, the fourth recipient of The Lise Wilhelmsen Art Award. The exhibition showcases major works from Lam's career, including two shadow play installations brought together for the first time as a single immersive installation, alongside new glass-blown sculptures created during her residency at CIRVA in Marseille. Lam's work interprets traditional storytelling forms like Cantonese opera and shadow plays to explore the translation and mistranslation of cultural heritage, tracing histories from 18th-century Chinoiserie to Chinese restaurants in modern-day Sweden, reflecting her family's migration from Hong Kong.

Lubaina Himid and Magda Stawarska: Zanzibar

Lisson Gallery in London presents "Lubaina Himid and Magda Stawarska: Zanzibar," an immersive installation running from June 4 to August 22, 2026. The exhibition features nine diptychs painted by Himid in 1999, paired with a 38-minute multi-layered sound composition by Stawarska created in 2023. The works explore themes of memory, displacement, and belonging, drawing on Himid's birthplace in Zanzibar and her family's migration to London. The installation includes Taraab music, opera, archival BBC clips, and Himid's own voice, creating a multi-dimensional experience that reflects both artists' sense of loss and connection to their native countries.

Come, let's play human

Komm, wir spielen Mensch

The Kunsthaus Zürich is presenting a retrospective of Venezuelan-American artist Marisol (1930–2016), whose playful yet formally sophisticated sculptures blend abstraction, figuration, and everyday objects. The exhibition traces her career from early shows at Leo Castelli's gallery through her participation in the 1961 and 1963 Museum of Modern Art group exhibitions, her 1968 'European year' representing Venezuela at the Venice Biennale and featuring on the 4th documenta, to her subsequent decades-long disappearance from the European art scene.

Nancy Graves - En galerie

Nancy Graves (1939-1995), a major figure in American art who first gained recognition in 1969 at the Whitney Museum in New York, is the subject of a gallery exhibition presenting works from 1977 to 1990. Her multidisciplinary practice encompasses sculpture, painting, drawing, and film, drawing on scientific and cultural references. The featured works showcase an experimental approach based on layering, assemblage, and dynamic colors reminiscent of Abstract Expressionism, inspired by art history, archaeology, and her travels. Graves refused a fixed style, instead exploring the memory of forms and their reinterpretation in a free, layered visual language that is now being rediscovered.

François Morellet, mathematics and humor as guides

François Morellet, les mathématiques et l’humour pour guides

The article reports on the national centenary celebration of French artist François Morellet (1926–2016), titled "100 x Morellet," which includes exhibitions, conferences, and symposia across France. The centerpiece is the exhibition "100 pour cent" at the Centre Pompidou-Metz, curated by Michel Gauthier, featuring 100 works spanning Morellet's entire career from 1941 to 2016. The show extends beyond the museum onto a wall of a nearby SNCF technical center, reflecting Morellet's affinity for public space. The exhibition is structured around the artist's dual nature—oscillating between the rigorous geometric order inherited from Piet Mondrian and the irrational, humorous spirit of Francis Picabia—showcasing his evolution from self-taught adolescent paintings to concrete art, Op Art, monochromes, and neon works.

For the 9th edition of Printemps Asiatique Paris, K-art in the spotlight

Pour la 9e édition du Printemps Asiatique Paris, le K-art à l’honneur

The 9th edition of Printemps Asiatique Paris, running from June 3 to 12, 2026, places Korean art (K-art) at center stage, celebrating Franco-Korean friendship. The event moves from its previous location to the refined spaces of Galerie Charpentier and includes a "Parcours galeries" route featuring around twenty Parisian galleries. Participating galleries include Louis & Sack with Lee Hyun Joung's memorial landscapes, Magna Gallery with Hoon Moreau's oak sculptures, and Françoise Livinec with works by Bang Hai Ja. Other highlights include Jean-François Cazeau gallery showing major Asian artists like Zao Wou-Ki, Léonard Tsuguharu Foujita, and Yayoi Kusama; Mingei gallery presenting Japanese bamboo basketry from the 8th century to today; Sinapango gallery with lacquer objects including a Ming-dynasty erotic incense box; and Jacques Barrère gallery with a large Goryeo-dynasty bodhisattva sculpture. The Musée national des Arts asiatiques – Guimet mounts complementary exhibitions on Silla civilization treasures and K-beauty.

Lee Miller at the Musée d'Art moderne de Paris: A Photographer Between War, Beauty and Chaos

Lee Miller au musée d’Art moderne de Paris : une photographe entre guerre, beauté et chaos

Lee Miller, the American photographer who transitioned from fashion modeling and surrealist experimentation to war photography, is the subject of a major retrospective at the Musée d'Art moderne de Paris. The exhibition covers her career from 1929 to 1955, highlighting her early work as a model for designers like Patou, Chanel, and Schiaparelli, her collaboration and romantic relationship with Man Ray, and her harrowing experiences documenting World War II. After the war, Miller abandoned photography and lived in obscurity until her death in 1977, when her archive was rediscovered and her significance to both history and art history was fully recognized.

Kiki Smith - En galerie

Kiki Smith, a multidisciplinary artist born in 1954, is the subject of an exhibition titled "Flight" at Galerie Lelong. The show features bronzes, stained glass, and drawings in which birds and nature reflect human emotions, continuing her 40-year exploration of the unity of living things—human, animal, and plant—from the microscopic to the cosmic. The article, published in L'ŒIL no. 796 on June 1, 2026, is behind a paywall.

Flash back: The artists creating new stories from archival photos

Nanina Guyer, curator of photography at Zurich's Museum Rietberg, has organized the exhibition "A Kind of Paradise: Colonial-Era Photography in Contemporary Art," which examines how contemporary artists repurpose archival colonial-era photographs. The show features 20 artists, including Sammy Baloji, Rosana Paulino, Sasha Huber, Dinh Q. Lê, Wendy Red Star, Omar Victor Diop, and Zenaéca Singh, who transform these historical images into sculptures, films, and recontextualized works. The exhibition is divided into four sections: artists as archivists, confronting stereotypes, healing, and a final section on repair.

Nick Doyle’s AI Oracle at Perrotin is Part Influencer, Part Therapist, Part Snake Oil Salesman

Nick Doyle's exhibition "Collective Hallucinations" at Perrotin New York features an AI oracle named Ava, an interactive chatbot that offers therapy-like advice in the style of a Gen Z influencer. The installation, centered around a structure called Mirror, Mirror that resembles a psychic storefront, uses ChatGPT, ElevenLabs voice software, and the HeyGen avatar platform. Doyle developed Ava's persona to sound like a blend of Cher from Clueless, a life coach, and a reality-TV confessional, complete with an accidentally acquired Australian accent. The show closes on May 30.

Stanley Donwood on his show with Thom Yorke in Venice: ‘These drawings… they’re not planned’

Stanley Donwood, the artist and longtime collaborator of Radiohead's Thom Yorke, discusses his recent and upcoming projects in an interview. These include the conclusion of 'This Is What You Get', a retrospective at Oxford's Ashmolean Museum; the 'Motion Picture House' installation based on Radiohead's albums Kid A and Amnesiac; and his first exhibition outside the UK with Yorke, titled 'No Go Elevator (not without no keycard)', staged in Venice during the 2026 Biennale. The Venice show, presented with Tin Man Art, features 15 ink-on-paper works combining drawings and text from Yorke's notebooks.

'The future of art': A first look at the video installation that'll light up LACMA's Wilshire bridge

Artist Diana Thater is creating a new permanent large-scale video installation titled "Oo Fifi, Five Days In Claude Monet’s Garden, Part 3" for the bridge over Wilshire Boulevard at LACMA's David Geffen Galleries. The piece, expected to debut in September, will run nightly from sundown to sunrise and features 6K footage Thater shot in 2025 of Claude Monet's garden in Giverny, France, projected onto a 59-foot-wide wall and part of the bridge ceiling. It will be the largest work of Thater's career and the first permanent outdoor video installation by an artist in a public space.

Alma Allen on Representing the US at the 61st Venice Biennale

ArtReview published a questionnaire sent to artists and curators participating in the 61st Venice Biennale (2026), featuring responses from Alma Allen, who is representing the United States at the Giardini pavilion. Allen gave cryptic, philosophical answers, declined to answer several questions, and criticized the art world establishment, calling outsider artists the most important and refusing to provide a framework for interpreting her work. The article includes details about her bronze sculpture "Not Yet Titled" (2023) and her reflections on US identity, violence, and bureaucracy.

Matías Duville on Representing Argentina at the 61st Venice Biennale

Matías Duville will represent Argentina at the 61st Venice Biennale in 2026 with a site-specific installation titled *Monitor Yin Yang*, transforming the Argentina Pavilion into a walkable landscape made of salt and charcoal. The work expands drawing into a spatial, sonic, and time-based experience, inspired by the natural environments of Mar del Plata and Patagonia. Duville discusses his approach in an interview with ArtReview, noting how early encounters with vast territories and geological time continue to shape his practice, and how the project relates to the Biennale's theme, *In Minor Keys*, by focusing on subtle intensities and open-ended evolution.

Rising Voices: Contemporary Art from Asia, Australia and the Pacific opens at the V&A

The Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A) in London has opened 'Rising Voices: Contemporary Art from Asia, Australia and the Pacific', a landmark exhibition drawn from the collection of the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA). Featuring over 70 works by more than 40 artists from 25 countries, the show is organized in three thematic sections—Re-Visioning History, Enduring Knowledge, and Evolving Faith—and includes sculpture, photography, painting, ceramics, weaving, and body adornment. Many works are on view outside their home region for the first time. The exhibition runs until 10 January 2027.

Shenzhen International Museum of Art to open Saturday

The Shenzhen International Museum of Art (SIMoA) will officially open to the public on Saturday in the Guangming Science City district. The museum, covering approximately 135,000 square meters, features two hull-shaped structures symbolizing Eastern and Western cultures. Its opening day presents seven themed exhibitions, including 'Return of National Treasures' showcasing bronze animal heads from the Old Summer Palace, 'Realm of Masters' with European paintings from Budapest, and 'Neo Link — The Future of Art' featuring works by Anish Kapoor and Olafur Eliasson. Other exhibitions include a Xu Bing interactive space, the first Shenzhen Art and Technology Biennale, and selections from the CAFA Art Museum.

2026 Busan Biennale 'Dissident Chorus' turns its attention to sound amid an overexposure to the visual

The 2026 Busan Biennale, titled "Dissident Chorus," will open on August 29 across three venues on two of Busan's islands, featuring 44 artists and teams from 23 countries. Conceived as a "polyphonic score" in three movements, the biennale will take place at the Busan Museum of Contemporary Art on Eulsukdo Island, a former ship-equipment warehouse on Yeongdo Island, and the former Busan Nam High School. Co-directed by Evelyn Simons and Amal Khalaf, the exhibition deliberately emphasizes sound, performance, choreography, and club culture over traditional visual art objects, with artists including Joshua Serafin, Natasha Tontey, Eric Baudelaire, and Korean participants Park Hyun-sung, Suki Seo-kyeong Kang, and Lim Min-ouk.

Pilar Zeta Navigates the Beautiful Absurdity of Venice Biennale

Pilar Zeta navigates the Venice Biennale, offering her perspective on several standout exhibitions. She praises Anish Kapoor's show at Palazzo Manfrin as the strongest at the Biennale, describing it as a psychological distortion of space through mirrors and voids. She also highlights Antonio Canova's tomb at the Frari Basilica as a quiet counterpoint to Biennale excess, Marina Abramović's participatory exhibition at the Gallerie dell'Accademia, Jan Fabre's theatrical installation at the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, and an unnamed Dadaist performance blurring art and reality in the streets.

Iris van Herpen’s Sculptural Couture Responds to Nature at the Brooklyn Museum

The article covers the exhibition "Iris van Herpen: Sculpting the Senses" at the Brooklyn Museum, the Dutch couturier's first major American show. It features 140 haute couture creations alongside works from the museum's collection, fossils from the American Museum of Natural History, and specimens from the Yale Peabody Museum and Staten Island Museum. The exhibition is organized into eleven themed chapters, from water to cosmos, and includes new works like the aerial sculpture "Weightlessness of the Unknown" (2024) and the living algae piece "Living Algae look" (2025). Van Herpen pushed for close proximity between viewers and garments, emphasizing an immersive experience.

'Fade' review: Studio Museum Harlem's 'F' series returns

The Studio Museum in Harlem has opened 'Fade,' the sixth installment of its influential 'F' series, featuring 17 emerging Black and Afro-Latinx artists. The exhibition includes works such as London Pierre Williams's large-scale oil painting 'The Stage: He that leaves me blue, a dream (2026)' and Antonio Darden's 'Untitled (Reclining Figure) (2025),' among others. Curated to feel like an unfolding conversation rather than a traditional group show, 'Fade' explores themes of ancestry, spirituality, grief, and transformation, with sculptures, paintings, and installations that hover between memory and dream.

Beyond Mystics, the Northwest Contribution to Modern Art

The article profiles Kenneth Callahan, a key figure in Northwest modern art and former director of the Seattle Art Museum, who found inspiration in the coastal landscapes of the Long Beach Peninsula. It highlights his role alongside Mark Tobey, Guy Anderson, and Morris Graves—collectively known as "The Big Four"—in establishing the value of Northwest art. The piece also announces a current exhibition at the Seattle Art Museum titled "Beyond Mysticism—The Modern Northwest," which features Callahan prominently alongside major American artists such as Franz Kline, Mark Rothko, and Helen Frankenthaler, and runs through August 2.