The Paradoxical Delights of South America’s Biggest Art Fair

The 22nd edition of SP-Arte has opened at the Oscar Niemeyer Pavilion in São Paulo, featuring 180 exhibitors. As Latin America’s largest art fair, the event continues to serve as a critical bridge for 'South-South' artistic relationships, drawing international curators like the Met’s Brinda Kumar. Despite a slightly smaller footprint than previous years, the fair showcases a robust selection of Brazilian talent alongside international galleries navigating the country's complex market.

Miart Turns 30 With a Bigger, Bolder Edition in Milan

Miart, Milan's international modern and contemporary art fair, is launching its 30th-anniversary edition in a new, larger venue, the Allianz MiCo South Wing. The 2026 edition, themed "New Directions: Miart, but different," will host 160 galleries from 24 countries across three levels, featuring sections like Emergent for new voices, Established for historical dialogue, and a special film project called Movements.

Virginia MOCA opens new building with bold show, 'The Pursuit of Happiness.'

The Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art (Virginia MOCA) has inaugurated its new, expanded facility on the campus of Virginia Wesleyan University. The opening is anchored by a major solo exhibition titled "The Pursuit of Happiness" by acclaimed contemporary artist Nina Chanel Abney, alongside a group show, "Seamless: Art and Design." Abney’s exhibition features her signature large-scale, vibrant, and emoji-inspired works that explore the complexities of the American Dream, identity, and power structures through a lens of both visual seduction and narrative ambiguity.

Sculptor Martin Puryear brings major exhibition to Cleveland Museum of Art

The Cleveland Museum of Art has launched "Martin Puryear: Nexus," the first comprehensive survey of the influential American sculptor’s work in nearly two decades. The exhibition features approximately 50 pieces spanning over 50 years, including sculptures in wood, rawhide, and metal, as well as rarely seen drawings and models. Co-organized with the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the show highlights Puryear’s unique blend of traditional craftsmanship, global cultural influences, and abstract forms.

The Story Behind Martin Puryear’s “Alien Huddle,” a Highlight of the Cleveland Museum of Art

The Cleveland Museum of Art has launched "Martin Puryear: Nexus," a major career-spanning exhibition featuring 50 works by the acclaimed American sculptor. A centerpiece of the show is the museum's own "Alien Huddle," a wooden sculpture that the artist recently revealed was inspired by the birth of his daughter and the transformation of a couple into a family of three. The exhibition, which runs from April 12 to August 9, 2026, showcases Puryear's mastery of wood and his ability to blend organic forms with deep cultural and personal narratives.

The National Gallery of Art Holds an Artistic Mirror Up to the United States for Its Big 250th Birthday

The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., has launched "Dear America," a major exhibition commemorating the United States' 250th anniversary. Featuring over 100 prints, drawings, and photographs from the museum’s permanent collection, the show spans from the late 18th century to the present day. The exhibition is organized into three thematic sections—"Land," "Community," and "Freedom"—showcasing works by iconic artists such as Andy Warhol, Ansel Adams, and Richard Avedon alongside contemporary voices like Tom Jones of the Ho-Chunk Nation.

The 200th RSA Annual Exhibition and Big Birthday Party

The Royal Scottish Academy (RSA) has announced its 200th Annual Exhibition, a landmark event running from May 9 to June 14, 2026, in Edinburgh. This bicentenary edition features a massive survey of contemporary Scottish art and architecture, including works by Academicians and selections from an open call. To celebrate the milestone, the RSA will host a "Big Birthday Party" on May 27 and has introduced three major new prizes, including the RSA Jack Vettriano Award, bringing the total prize fund to over £25,000.

‘Knoxville Girl’ Gets Her Revenge in Wayne White’s New KMA Exhibition

The Knoxville Museum of Art has debuted a major new exhibition by Chattanooga-born artist and puppeteer Wayne White titled "Revenge of the Knoxville Girl." The centerpiece of the show is a ten-foot-tall marionette of the titular character from the famous Appalachian murder ballad, depicted as having crawled out of the river to claim the severed head of her killer, Willy. The installation blends local folklore with references to Cormac McCarthy’s novel *Suttree* and Tennessee Volunteers football culture.

Biggest ever exhibition of work by major British artist coming to Williamson Art Gallery

The Williamson Art Gallery & Museum in Birkenhead has announced the largest-ever retrospective of the influential 20th-century British artist Leonard McComb. Titled "Leonard McComb: Nature and Humanity," the exhibition will feature over 60 works, including the monumental 10-meter drawing "Rock and Sea Anglesey" on loan from Oriel Môn, alongside pieces from Manchester Art Gallery and the Royal Academy.

Pre-Raphaelite exhibition explores LGBT+ stories

Cartwright Hall Art Gallery in Bradford has launched a new exhibition of Pre-Raphaelite masterpieces paired with contemporary reflections from the local LGBT+ community. Members of the Equity Partnership charity collaborated with museum staff to reinterpret 19th-century works by artists such as Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Ford Madox Brown, and John Collier through the lens of lived queer experience.

Ambiguity Reigns in Olaf Hajek’s Mysterious Illustrations

Berlin-based illustrator Olaf Hajek creates dense, uncanny compositions that blend nature, culture, and magic, drawing inspiration from Surrealist icons like Leonora Carrington and Remedios Varo. His work emphasizes ambiguity, using superimposed florals and figures, dramatic scale shifts, and a tension between decay and renewal to develop a universal visual language from diverse cultural influences.

Brett Goodroad at Crèvecoeur, Left Bank

Brett Goodroad at Crèvecoeur, rive gauche

San Francisco-based artist Brett Goodroad presents a solo exhibition titled "Bells" at Crèvecoeur’s Rive Gauche location in Paris. The exhibition features a series of new paintings that showcase Goodroad’s signature style of fluid, gestural abstraction and figurative ambiguity, documented through an extensive digital archive of installation views and individual work shots.

Raoul de Keyser at Trautwein Herleth

Trautwein Herleth in Berlin is hosting a solo exhibition of works by the late Belgian painter Raoul de Keyser. The presentation features a selection of the artist’s signature abstract compositions, characterized by their tactile surfaces, muted palettes, and the subtle tension between formalist geometry and organic forms.

Anna Clegg “Hustlenomics” at Schiefe Zähne, Berlin

Artist Anna Clegg has opened a new solo exhibition titled "Hustlenomics" at the Schiefe Zähne gallery in Berlin. The show presents a new body of her paintings that engage with the life cycle of images in contemporary culture.

'A Swimming Soul' at Whitestone Gallery, Seoul, South Korea on 18 Apr–24 May 2026

Whitestone Gallery Seoul is hosting "A Swimming Soul," a group exhibition featuring emerging artists Lee Juyoung, Kisho Kakutani, and Yudai Takeuchi. Running from April 18 to May 24, 2026, the show utilizes the metaphor of a swimming fish to explore themes of youth, uncertainty, and the drifting nature of modern existence. Each artist presents a unique visual language to address the ambiguity of reality, from Lee’s blurred urban reflections and Kakutani’s obstructive "noise" layers to Takeuchi’s exploration of the liminal space between consciousness and sleep.

MAYA WATANABE IN A GROUP EXHIBITION AT THE HOSPEDALETTO COMPLEX IN VENICE

The In Between Art Film Foundation has announced "Canicula," the final installment of its "Trilogy of Uncertainties," set to open at the Ospedaletto Complex during the 2026 Venice Biennale. Curated by Alessandro Rabottini and Leonardo Bigazzi, the exhibition features eight international artists, including Peruvian video artist Maya Watanabe, whose work investigates memory and the politics of representation. The show utilizes the unique architecture of the Ospedaletto’s church and music hall to create immersive environments exploring themes of environmental and political pressure.

What Faces Do Not Say: Reimagining Portraiture Beyond Recognition.

Curator Yasmin Sarnefors challenges the traditional boundaries of portraiture in the exhibition 'What Faces Do Not Say,' which features artists from Africa and its diaspora. Moving away from the expectation of physical resemblance, the show explores identity through ambiguity, memory, and the use of archives, landscapes, and abstract gestures. By presenting works that obscure or transform the human face, the exhibition highlights the psychological and political dimensions of how individuals are perceived and represented.

Michael Fullerton: The Politics of Portraiture

Glasgow-based painter Michael Fullerton is presenting a two-part exhibition that critically examines the politics of portraiture. The first section features 11 oil portraits of male asylum seekers he lived alongside while working as live-in staff at the Hilltop Hotel in Carlisle. These works, painted in a traditional style, depict the men with care against ambiguous landscapes, deliberately restricting personal information to names and origins, highlighting their status within systems of power.

Vulnerability Seen Through the Eyes of Two Artists on Display in Romagna

La vulnerabilità vista dallo sguardo di due artiste in mostra in Romagna

The Galleria d’Arte Contemporanea Vero Stoppioni in Santa Sofia is hosting "Corpi invisibili, fuori controllo" (Invisible Bodies, Out of Control), a dual exhibition featuring artists Claudia Amatruda and Carla Giaccio Darias. Part of the broader "Un Problema del Genere" festival, the show explores the concept of vulnerability through contrasting artistic methods. Amatruda utilizes photography, sculpture, and video to depict bodies in risky, natural environments that highlight relational dependency, while Giaccio Darias uses archival imagery and painting to present fragmented, anatomical forms that challenge the viewer's gaze.

‘Out of Place’ : The Afterlives of Landscape.

The major retrospective ‘Out of Place’ at ART AFRICA showcases over 200 images by South African photographer Jo Ractliff, spanning four decades of her career. The exhibition traces Ractliff’s evolution from her early 1980s street photography to her mature, atmospheric landscapes that examine the scars of colonialism, apartheid, and regional conflicts in Southern Africa. By focusing on the 'afterlife' of violence rather than the events themselves, the collection highlights her unique ability to capture how history sediments within the physical terrain.

The Cost of Love: Rugby Art Museum and Gallery presents joint exhibition by artists Charlie Kirkham and Robert Walker

Artists Charlie Kirkham and Robert Walker are set to debut a joint exhibition titled "The Cost of Love" at the Rugby Art Gallery and Museum this May. The showcase features contemporary paintings that reimagine classical mythological figures—such as Narcissus, Apollo, and Adonis—to explore psychological themes of desire, transformation, and vulnerability. While both artists maintain a focus on technical rigor and the human figure, the works shift away from traditional storytelling to focus on the emotional tensions of modern life.

The forest hears, the field sees: Liavon Volski presents new art project in Poland

Renowned Belarusian musician and writer Liavon Volski has debuted his first solo painting exhibition, titled "The Forest Hears, the Field Sees," at the Museum of Free Belarus in Warsaw. The exhibition features 11 conceptual works characterized by misty landscapes and surrealist elements, each inspired by traditional Belarusian proverbs. The opening event was a multi-sensory experience, incorporating fog machines and a musical performance by Volski to complement the atmospheric nature of the canvases.

Conduit Gallery presents Kendall Glover: "Dynamatic" opening reception

Conduit Gallery in Dallas is hosting "Dynamatic," a solo exhibition by Brooklyn-based artist Kendall Glover featuring sculptures and textiles produced within the last year. The show highlights three distinct series: large-scale tubular steel sculptures, experimental bronzes cast from rattan and thread, and a collection of silver-leafed crocheted works known as "Quasars."

Painterly Figures Entwine in Soojin Choi’s Ceramic Sculptures

Ceramic artist Soojin Choi creates intricate sculptures of entangled pairs, using stoneware slabs and nylon strands to achieve a precarious balance that minimizes contact with the ground. Her painterly background is evident in the gestural marks, visible brushstrokes, and drips on the white-slipped surfaces, with the artist describing her process as a "constant negotiation with gravity."

Marianna Simnett “Circus” at Secession, Vienna

Marianna Simnett has opened a new multimedia exhibition titled "Circus" at the Secession in Vienna. The show features a combination of light, sound, and sculptural works that delve into her Yugoslav heritage, weaving together personal family history with folklore.

The village where Van Gogh spent his final days celebrates its most distinguished visitor

An exhibition titled "Van Gogh, Influencer: Legacies in Motion" has opened at the Château of Auvers-sur-Oise, the village near Paris where Vincent van Gogh spent his final 70 days and died by suicide in July 1890. The show, running until 3 January 2027, features nearly a hundred works by artists influenced by Van Gogh, including Léonide Bourges, Charles-François Daubigny, and Léo Gausson, though no original Van Gogh paintings are included. Curated by Wouter van der Veen, the exhibition explores visual parallels and stylistic contrasts between Van Gogh’s iconic works—such as *Church at Auvers* and *Wheatfield with Crows*—and those of his contemporaries and followers.

Thom Yorke and Stanley Donwood Plot a Mysterious Art Show in Venice

Musician Thom Yorke and artist Stanley Donwood will present a new exhibition titled “No Go Elevator (not without no keycard)” in a small gallery in Venice next month, coinciding with the Venice Biennale. The show marks their first showcase outside the U.K. and features a mix of drawings and a large painting created in London this year, with cryptic textual components and no unifying theme, according to the artists.

Philadelphia’s New Art Fair Is Betting Big on Community

Philadelphia is set to launch a new contemporary art fair called Elsewhere on June 4, organized by Megan Galardi, founder of Blah Blah Gallery. The fair will take over the Yowie Hotel, a pair of 1900s rowhouses, featuring 26 galleries from cities including Los Angeles, Toronto, and London. Booth prices are kept low—around $3,000 for the largest rooms—and some exhibitors can sleep in their spaces to reduce costs. Participating galleries include Harlesden High Street, DARLA, and Blah Blah Gallery, with artists such as Patricia Renee’ Thomas, Emmanuel Massillon, and Qualeasha Wood. The fair also includes panels, DJ sets, reciprocal museum tours, and VIP studio visits.

MIT List Visual Arts Center celebrates 40 years

MIT's List Visual Arts Center celebrated its 40th anniversary on April 10, 2026, with performances, receptions, and the opening of a new exhibition titled "Performing Conditions," which explores work, debt, and labor. Housed in the Wiesner Building designed by I. M. Pei, the museum manages public art across MIT's campus, including works by Olafur Eliasson and Sanford Biggers, and runs a Student Lending Art Program that loans about 700 works annually. An anonymous donor has launched a $1 million matching challenge grant for conservation of the public art collection.

Where Words End Exhibition Brings Tom Vattakuzhy’s Story Paintings to Mumbai

Mumbai will host the first exhibition of artist Tom Vattakuzhy's work in the city, titled 'Where Words End,' at the Institute of Contemporary Indian Art (ICIA) from May 3–17, 2026. The exhibition presents a series of his "story paintings," which explore experiences that elude verbal expression, moving beyond his illustrative background to create ambiguous, emotionally resonant works.