Artist Lucy Raven has completed her film trilogy, "The Drumfire," with the release of Murderers Bar (2025). The 42-minute film documents the historic removal of four dams along the Klamath River, capturing the dramatic release of water and the restoration of a river system flowing from Oregon through Northern California. The work is currently on view at the Power Plant in Toronto and is scheduled to travel to the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston in May.
London’s Annely Juda Fine Art is relocating from its Dering Street premises in Mayfair after 35 years to a new gallery on nearby Hanover Square, set to open at the end of October. The move marks a new phase for the nearly 60-year-old gallery, with co-director Nina Fellmann taking on greater responsibilities as founder David Juda, who turns 80 next year, steps back. The new space occupies three floors of a Grade II-listed Georgian townhouse, including a former ballroom with a glass-domed ceiling, and will feature a smaller gallery for emerging artists. David Hockney will inaugurate the venue with his Moon series (2020-23), while the final exhibition at the old space is a site-specific installation by Tadashi Kawamata titled Demolition.
The article highlights eight major art exhibitions and events opening in Houston in May 2025, including the U.S. debut of "Picasso–Klee–Matisse: Masterpieces from the Museum Berggruen" at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), which features works by Picasso, Klee, Matisse, and Giacometti. Other notable events include the "Freedom Plane National Tour" of founding-era documents at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, the 20th Annual Empty Bowls fundraiser at Silver Street Studios, and "No Longer, Not Yet" by Marisol Valencia at Art League, which uses materials from a migrant shelter. The article also mentions shows at CAMH, Moody Art Center, and Sawyer Yards.
The Branch Museum of Design in Richmond has opened 'Imagining Best Products,' an exhibition exploring the architectural and graphic design legacy of the former retailer Best Products. The show, curated by architect Don O’Keefe with Harvard Graduate School of Design students, features original drawings by James Wines, items from a 1979 MoMA exhibition, and building models. It coincides with the demolition of Best Products' old headquarters in Henrico, which is being razed for a new arena-anchored development, though the timing is coincidental.
The city of Detroit is experiencing a significant Harry Bertoia revival, centered around the rediscovery and restoration of a massive 26-foot suspended sculpture. Originally commissioned in 1970 for a Michigan mall and long presumed lost or destroyed during building demolitions, the steel-wire and brass work was found languishing in a basement in 2017. Following an extensive restoration process, the monumental piece has been installed in General Motors' new global headquarters at the historic Hudson’s site, a feat that required complex engineering and a five-story opening in the building's facade.
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York has acquired and put on display a capsule from the demolished Nagakin Capsule Tower in Tokyo. The capsule, designated A1305, is the centerpiece of a year-long exhibition titled "The Many Lives of the Nakagin Capsule Tower," which also includes archival materials such as photographs, models, films, and recordings. The tower, designed by Kisho Kurokawa and completed in 1972, was a landmark of the Metabolism movement, featuring 140 prefabricated modules. After years of decline, it was demolished in 2022, but 23 capsules were salvaged, with 16 finding homes in institutions including MoMA.
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Lacma) opened its new $720 million David Geffen Galleries building to 2,000 members and guests for previews on June 27, 2025, before its official opening in April 2026. Designed by Swiss architect Peter Zumthor, the elevated concrete structure spans Wilshire Boulevard with 110,000 square feet of gallery space, floor-to-ceiling windows, and a 300-seat theater. Musician Kamasi Washington organized a "sonic preview" with 100 jazz musicians performing his six-part suite *Harmony of Difference* throughout the empty space. The building sits adjacent to the preserved Japanese Pavilion (designed by Bruce Goff, 1988) and features Tony Smith's sculpture *Smoke* (1967) in a courtyard.
The Institute of Contemporary Art's Watershed in East Boston has reopened for its 2026 season with the exhibition "Lucy Raven: Rounds," featuring two large-scale installations by New York-based artist Lucy Raven. The show includes "Hardpan," a kinetic light sculpture co-commissioned by the ICA and Barbican Centre, and "Murderers Bar," a 44-minute film documenting the demolition of a concrete dam on the Klamath River in Northern California. Both works explore themes of industrial history, extraction, and environmental transformation, with the Watershed's former factory setting amplifying the industrial resonance.
Lucy Raven's video installation "Murderers Bar" (2025) has its European premiere at the Barbican's Curve gallery in London. The work documents the 2023-2024 demolition of four dams on the Klamath River in Oregon and California, focusing on the destruction of the Copco No. 1 dam built in 1918. The film is the final part of Raven's trilogy "The Drumfire," exploring themes of pressure, release, and material transformation. It uses aerial photography, drones, lidar, and sonar animations to capture the river's reclamation of its course after the dam's removal, following decades of activism by Indigenous communities including the Yurok, Karuk, Klamath, Hoopa, and Shasta Indian Nation. The exhibition also includes a new kinetic sculpture, "Hardpan" (2025), that physically manifests ideas of force and pressure.
Artist Kelly Akashi, whose Altadena home and studio were destroyed in the January 2025 Eaton fire, has transformed the burned lot at 2650 Highview Ave. into a two-day art exhibition titled "Field Set," held May 23–24, 2026. The exhibit features Akashi's sculptural works made from fire remnants and a sound installation by collaborator Phil Peters, who used custom microphones to record the ongoing demolition and rebuilding sounds. Visitors were invited to sit on speakers and feel the low-frequency vibrations, creating an immersive experience that blends art with the physical memory of the disaster.
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) has opened its new David Geffen Galleries, a major building designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Peter Zumthor. The structure, which replaces four older buildings on the museum's campus, is a single-story, concrete-and-glass pavilion spanning Wilshire Boulevard, designed to create a more unified and accessible visitor experience.
Photographer Iwan Baan has released images of the completed David Geffen Galleries, the long-awaited Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) expansion designed by Swiss architect Peter Zumthor. The undulating, glass-and-concrete building stretches along Wilshire Boulevard, elevated 30 feet above street level, and is set to open fully in April 2026. Major construction finished at the end of 2024, with some lower-level spaces already open. The single-level design eliminates traditional hierarchies, placing all artworks on the same plane, and the building aims for LEED Gold certification with low-carbon concrete and natural ventilation.
Habib Hajallie, a Kent-based artist of Sierra Leonean and Lebanese heritage, presents a new solo exhibition titled "Black & Blue" at Larkin Durey in London. The show features meticulous ballpoint pen drawings on found fragments of philosophical and historical texts, exploring themes of memory, connection, and loss. For this series, Hajallie switched from black to blue ink as he grapples with the stillbirth of his daughter and the loss of his sister four years ago. Works include self-portraits and depictions of Black cultural figures, conveying emotions such as despair, confusion, numbness, and care.
Artist Paribartana Mohanty's solo exhibition "I Rescued Speed Altogether" at Delhi's Shrine Empire gallery presents 12 paintings and three moving-image works created over eight years of documenting the demolition of the Kathputli art colony, a historic slum cluster in west Delhi known for its street performers. The works, mounted on found objects like glue cans and plastic, focus on the objects and landscapes left behind after demolitions, with human figures absent from the canvases. Mohanty's title comes from his three-year-old son's triumphant statement after learning to pedal a bicycle, which the artist sees as an absurd phrase fitting for what he calls the "absurd acts" of demolition.
Animierte Körper
Latefa Wiersch presents her exhibition "Atlas Studios" at the Istituto Svizzero in Rome, featuring unsettling, puppet-like sculptures that resemble film sets. The works explore themes of bodily helplessness, imperfection, and geopolitical displacement, drawing on her earlier project "Hannibal" at the Dortmunder Kunstverein, which addressed post-migrant German realities and the demolition of a housing complex. The new installation references the Atlas Studios in Ouarzazate, Morocco, and the history of cinema, with figures made from rags and nylon stockings that appear as actors or set workers.
Fifteen international architecture studios have created installations from reused building materials and found objects for the exhibition "Reuse: Architectures of Almost Nothing" at artspace Laguna in Mexico City during art week. The show, curated by Laguna's curatorial director María Muñoz and architect Edgar Rodríguez, features works made from windshields, tarps, barrels, and even a complete car, all arranged across the former factory space. Participating studios include Sam Chermayeff Office, Ex-Soup, Parabase, Bangkok Tokyo, and others, with each piece designed as an "architectural accessory" that resignifies a single object through redeployment.
Saudi artist Dana Awartani has created a new installation, 'Listen to my Words,' for the 2024 Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale. The work features a large-scale geometric floor pattern made from hand-dyed silk, which visitors are invited to walk upon, deliberately fraying and damaging the intricate design over the course of the exhibition.
Écho des songes. Le Symbolisme à Bruxelles
The Maison Hannon in Saint-Gilles, Brussels, has opened a major exhibition titled "Écho des songes" dedicated to Belgian Symbolism. Following an extensive restoration that removed scaffolding from its 1904 Art Nouveau facade, the historic residence designed by Jules Brunfaut is now fully accessible to the public. The show utilizes the building's restored interiors, including its famous staircase hall and Paul Baudoüin frescoes, to provide a contextual backdrop for the Symbolist movement.
The article reports on the upcoming 61st Venice Biennale in 2026, focusing on the Korean Pavilion's exhibition titled "Liberation Space: Fortress and Nest." The Korean Pavilion, built in 1995 as the 26th national pavilion in Giardini Castello Park, will present itself as a temporary monument exploring Korea's post-colonial history, specifically the liberation period (1945-1948) and the concept of sovereignty. Artistic director Choi Bit-na has curated the exhibition to address Korea's geopolitical context, viewing the pavilion's 1995 entry as a key moment of decolonization alongside the demolition of the Government-General building and the founding of the Gwangju Biennale.
Brooklyn-based street artist RAE BK has transformed a modular home at 1049 Samsonville Road in Kerhonkson, New York, into an immersive exhibition titled “Faraday Cage.” The house, slated for demolition by spring 2026, has been painted and reimagined as an art installation before its materials are recycled. The exhibition includes themed rooms such as the “Eggman” room, and was documented on September 14, 2025.
A pop-up art exhibition in Philadelphia explores the dismantling of Isaiah Zagar's public mural *Skin of the Bride* (c. 1990-2001), a ceramic-and-tile mosaic originally housed in a community arts center. The building was sold in 2017, purchased by a real estate developer in 2023, and despite efforts to protect the mural as a historic site, it is slated for demolition. The Magic Gardens team selectively removed certain tiles, including Mexican folk art, while leaving others behind, altering the artwork's visual integrity. The exhibition presents fragments of Zagar's work alongside a video installation and a multimedia piece reflecting on memory and placemaking.
The article reviews "Contemporary Ruin future visions," an exhibition at Drexel University's Leonard Pearlstein Gallery curated by artist Nancy Agati. The show explores the perpetual cycle of urban construction, demolition, and renewal, focusing on Philadelphia's evolving neighborhoods. Featured artists include Sophie White, who documents rapid gentrification in Fishtown/Kensington through plein-air gouache paintings, and Jennifer Johnson, whose sculptural maps trace the transformation of the Black Bottom area from 1725 to 2025. Joseph E. B. Elliott contributes photographs of decaying buildings, such as Saint Bonaventure Church and Richmond Generating Station, capturing ruins both past and present.