From The Mandalorian and Grogu to Dear England: your complete entertainment guide to the week ahead

This article is a weekly entertainment guide from The Guardian, covering cinema, gigs, art, stage, streaming, games, albums, and brain food. In the art section, it highlights three upcoming exhibitions: Hulda Guzmán's first major European show at Turner Contemporary in Margate (23 May to 13 September), featuring her lush, mystical tropical paintings exploring Caribbean identity; Lewis Hammond's exhibition of dark, old master-inspired portraiture at The Hepworth in Wakefield (23 May to 1 November); and Joanna Piotrowska's show at The Common Guild in Glasgow (23 May to 18 July).

How Betye Saar Set Black Dolls Free

An exhibition at the New York Historical celebrates Betye Saar’s promised gift of her collection of over 100 Black dolls to the institution, coinciding with her upcoming 100th birthday. The show, on view through October 4, features dolls alongside Saar’s paintings, prints, and sculptures, including works like “The Liberation of Aunt Jemima” (1972) and “Indigo Mercy” (1975). Saar began collecting Black dolls in 1949 and has incorporated them into her art since the 1970s, using watercolors during the COVID-19 pandemic to reimagine them in mystical scenes.

See exhibition by Erin Jane Nelson, ‘Living and Working,’ at UAB’s AEIVA through Sept. 26

The Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts (AEIVA) at the University of Alabama at Birmingham presents “Living and Working,” a survey exhibition of artist Erin Jane Nelson, running through September 26. This is Nelson’s largest solo exhibition to date and her first survey, spanning a decade of her practice across photography, textiles, and ceramics. The exhibition will travel to the Knoxville Museum of Art in August 2027, and AEIVA is co-publishing an exhibition catalog with Institute 193. The opening reception is May 21, and free community programming includes summer drop-in tours, a pinhole camera workshop, Science Nights in partnership with the Birmingham Zoo, and a chamber music event.

The Delicate Bouquet of Roses and Peonies by Redouté and Thilo Westermann at Malmaison

Le délicat bouquet de roses et de pivoines de Redouté et de Thilo Westermann à Malmaison

An exhibition titled "Roses & Pivoines" has opened at the Château de Bois-Préau in Malmaison, France, pairing the 19th-century botanical watercolors of Pierre-Joseph Redouté with contemporary glass-painting works by German artist Thilo Westermann. Redouté, famous for his meticulous rose and peony illustrations commissioned by Empress Joséphine Bonaparte, is shown alongside Westermann's pointillist technique on glass, which he developed from 2014 onward. The show also includes works by Jan-Frans van Dael and Cornelis van Spaendonck, plus scent stations for visitors to smell rose essences.

Roberto Lugo brings monumental tribute to Puerto Rican culture to Manhattan park

Roberto Lugo has unveiled a monumental 20ft-tall urn titled *Capicú de Cariño (I Heard It Both Ways)* (2026) in Manhattan’s Madison Square Park, as part of his exhibition *Alfarero del Barrio (Village Potter)* commissioned by the Madison Square Park Conservancy. The urn features portraits of prominent Puerto Rican figures including Bad Bunny, Sonia Sotomayor, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Roberto Clemente, and the artist’s own parents, Gilberto and Maribel Lugo. The installation also includes a 15ft-tall orange fire hydrant sculpture, *Para Los Días Caliente (This Is For The Hot Ones)* (2026), and several planters and domino tables, all designed to invite public interaction and community engagement.

Giorgio Vasari beyond the Lives: what the exhibition at the Capitoline Museums in Rome looks like

An exhibition titled "Vasari and Rome" has opened at the Capitoline Museums in Rome, running until July 19, 2026. Curated by Alessandra Baroni and promoted by Roma Capitale, the show features over seventy works—including drawings, prints, engravings, letters, medals, sculptures, and paintings—that trace Giorgio Vasari's relationship with 16th-century Rome. Sixteen autograph works and seven drawings are among the highlights, arranged in four sections that follow the chronology of Vasari's Roman sojourns, from his arrival in 1532 under Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici to his later engagements with patrons like Bindo Altoviti and Cardinal Alessandro Farnese. The exhibition is staged in an intimate, chamber-like setting on the top floor of Palazzo Caffarelli, contrasting the small space with the vast theme of Vasari's role in papal Rome's political and cultural life.

Biennale Arte 2026: which national pavilions strike us and why

The 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, titled "In Minor Keys" and curated by Koyo Kouoh (who passed away in May 2025), opened amid intense controversy over its artist list and geopolitical tensions. Protests erupted against the participation of Israel and Russia, with a petition signed by 22 countries to exclude Russia, threats from the European Commission to suspend funding, and the resignation of the international jury. Around 18 national pavilions staged strikes and partial closures to denounce the normalization of Israel's presence and precarious labor in the art world. The Austria Pavilion's performance by Florentina Holzinger, featuring a girl hanging upside down inside a tilting bell, became a viral symbol refocusing attention on art itself.

In Minor Keys A Cacophony At 61st Venice Biennale – Miranda Carroll

The 61st Venice Biennale, titled 'In Minor Keys,' opened with a central exhibition curated by the late Koyo Kouoh, who died in 2025. The show features 110 artists and collectives, realized by a team of five curators known as 'la squadra di Koyo.' The exhibition spans the Giardini and Arsenale venues, with works including Otobong Nkanga's living facade installation, Theo Eshetu's dying olive tree, and Nick Cave's vibrant sculptures. Poems and quotes by Refaat al-Areer, Etel Adnan, Toni Morrison, and Ben Okri punctuate the spaces, encouraging visitors to pause and reflect.

People and places

Elisa Contemporary Art Riverdale Gallery will open a new group exhibition titled "People and places" on May 20, 2026, running through September 2. The show features works by six artists: Betty Ball, Carol Bennett, Sherry Karver, Mitch McGee, Dean Moore, and Jeffrey Palladini, with a focus on uplifting summer themes including water scenes, poolside figures, and bright yellow elements. The exhibition includes new works from Ball's Land & Sea series and introduces Sherry Karver as a new gallery artist.

Monet in Le Havre, the Awakening of the Master

Monet au Havre, l’éveil du maître

The MuMa (Musée d'art moderne André Malraux) in Le Havre is presenting a summer exhibition that explores Claude Monet's formative years in the port city, where he developed the groundbreaking intuition for Impressionism. The show traces his evolution from caricatures and portraits to landscapes, highlighting how his childhood in Le Havre—with its bustling docks, luminous beaches, and dramatic cliffs—shaped his artistic vision. Key works include his first plein-air painting from 1858, created alongside mentor Eugène Boudin, and the iconic *Impression, Soleil levant* (1872), painted in the same harbor.

Robert Lugo’s Colossal Ode to Puerto Rico Rises in Madison Square Park

Artist Roberto Lugo unveiled a two-part public monument to Puerto Rican culture in Manhattan's Madison Square Park on May 20. The installation includes a colossal ceramic urn titled "Capicú de Cariño (I Heard It Both Ways)" featuring hand-painted portraits of his parents, reggaeton star Bad Bunny, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, and Lin-Manuel Miranda, alongside a 15-foot-tall orange fire hydrant sculpture "Para Los Días Caliente (This Is For The Hot Ones)" that evokes his childhood summers in Philadelphia. Both works were commissioned by the Madison Square Park Conservancy and will remain on view through December 6.

WHAT IS SEAWORLD VENICE THE INSTALLATION AT THE BIENNALE THAT STAGES ECOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL COLLAPSE

Florentina Holzinger, an Austrian choreographer and performance artist, represents Austria at the 61st Venice Biennale with 'SEAWORLD VENICE,' an interdisciplinary installation curated by Nora-Swantje Almes. The work transforms the Austrian Pavilion into a hybrid space—part sacred building, underwater theme park, and sewage treatment plant—where visitors' bodily fluids flood the pavilion and sustain performers. Features include a jet ski as a monument to ecological catastrophe, robot dogs, a performer living in a water tank fed by urine, and a bell recovered from the lagoon that rings hourly to challenge patriarchal and religious authority. The installation runs through November 22 at the Giardini della Biennale.

The archive of the great architect Piero Portaluppi opens to the public: it happens at Villa Necchi in Milan

L’archivio del grande architetto Piero Portaluppi apre al pubblico: succede a Villa Necchi a Milano

The Fondo Ambiente Italiano (FAI) has opened a new permanent archive space dedicated to the architect and intellectual Piero Portaluppi (1888-1967) inside Villa Necchi Campiglio in Milan, the architect's own masterpiece. The archive, acquired by FAI in December 2025 from the closing Fondazione Portaluppi, is housed in three attic rooms and includes thousands of original documents, drawings, photographic prints, sketchbooks, caricatures, postcards, and 16 mm film reels totaling eight hours of footage shot between the 1930s and 1960s. The collection also features Portaluppi's personal library of three thousand volumes and architecture journals, which will be made available for study in collaboration with the Soprintendenza Archivistica e Bibliografica della Lombardia and the Politecnico di Milano.

Art4you Gallery’s tribute exhibition to women closes at Art Smiley Art Gallery

Art4you Gallery hosted 'Her Story – A Tribute to Women, Edition 2' at Art Smiley Art Gallery in Dubai from May 10–15. The international group exhibition featured 21 artists from 16 countries, presenting works in canvas, installation, and mixed media that explored themes of identity, strength, memory, and womanhood. Curated by Jesno Jackson, the show aimed to create a living archive of women's stories, with participating artists including Cristina Gabriela, Seungeun Cho, Vasilisa Eliseeva, Natasha Boshoff, and others from diverse cultural backgrounds.

At the GAM in Turin, the Fourth Resonance between drawing, paper and twentieth-century collections

From May 21 to November 1, 2026, the GAM—Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Turin—launches its new exhibition season titled "Fourth Resonance," a program dedicated to the languages of drawing, sign, and stroke. The season includes multiple exhibitions, notably "Un altro Novecento. Works on Paper from the GAM Collections," curated by Fabio Cafagna and Elena Volpato, which brings together over 600 works on paper spanning the 20th century, from Symbolism to the 1990s. Featured artists include Lucio Fontana, Giorgio Morandi, Filippo de Pisis, Max Beckmann, and many others, with monographic rooms and contemporary interventions woven into the museum's collections.

Amy Sherald: American Sublime Art Exhibition at The High Museum

The High Museum in Atlanta is presenting 'Amy Sherald: American Sublime', an exhibition dedicated to the celebrated American portrait painter. The show features Sherald's distinctive figurative works, known for their muted gray skin tones and vibrant backgrounds, which have gained widespread acclaim since her official portrait of Michelle Obama.

Jaime Vallardo Chavez Announces International Exhibitions

Jaime Vallardo Chavez, known as 'El Artista de las Monedas Mundiales,' has announced a series of international exhibitions across Peru, France, Italy, and Colombia, alongside the launch of his traveling museum initiative 'Cruzada y museo itinerante del Continente Americano el Bicentenario de America.' The exhibitions include venues such as Museo Amano in Lima, the Bienal de Biarco in Colombia, the Salon d'Automne in Paris, the MAXXI National Museum in Rome, the Naval Museum of the Caribbean in Cartagena, and the Carrousel du Louvre. The traveling museum project, developed during the pandemic, commemorates bicentennial anniversaries of independence across the Americas and has gathered over 600 participating artists.

Understanding human emotions through art

An exhibition titled “Seri: Woman Perspective – Voice of Our Time” at 22Hale Street Heritage Gallery in Ipoh, Perak, brings together 10 women artists showcasing 24 paintings and six ceramic- and clay-based sculptural works. The show explores the psychology of art, emotional expression, identity, and social reflection. A parallel talk, “From Pain to Healing: The Art of Emotional Recovery,” was given by Health Ministry psychology officer Rahilah Abdul Rahim, who introduced the Art Drawing House-Tree-Person (ADHTP) technique and color-based exercises as therapeutic tools for accessing and understanding emotions.

Mango Tango Art Gallery Presents: Fresh Paint and Seasoned Strokes

Mango Tango Art Gallery in St. Thomas is opening a group exhibition titled 'Fresh Paint and Seasoned Strokes' on May 30, featuring works by three artists: newcomer Vickie Lawrence, regional icon Eric Winter, and master teacher David Millard. The show includes watercolors, acrylics, and oil paintings, with live music by Sammy Watts and Ras Abu, and will run for one month.