Nature by the uncool YBA, armoured ceramics and dizzying Aussie abstraction – the week in art

The article is a weekly art roundup highlighting several major exhibitions opening in London and Cambridge. It spotlights a new show of nature-themed paintings by Cecily Brown at the Serpentine Gallery, ceramics by Phoebe Collings-James at Pitzhanger Manor, a career survey of Turner Prize-winner Veronica Ryan at the Whitechapel Gallery, a Frank Bowling retrospective at The Fitzwilliam Museum, and a presentation of Aboriginal Australian art at Edel Assanti. The piece also features a powerful war photograph from Iraq and includes brief news items on topics ranging from a Matisse retrospective to potential museum entry fees.

2026 Whitney Biennial Lineup Announced

2026 whitney biennial line up

The Whitney Museum of American Art has announced the artist lineup for the 82nd edition of its prestigious biennial, scheduled to open on March 8, 2026. Curated by Marcela Guerrero and Drew Sawyer, the exhibition will feature 56 artists, duos, and collectives selected after more than 300 studio visits. The upcoming edition is currently untitled and focuses on the theme of "relationships," exploring everything from family ties and technology to geopolitical entanglements and interspecies connections.

acropolis michael rakowitz athens allspice mesopotamia

Michael Rakowitz's survey exhibition "Allspice" at the Acropolis Museum in Athens explores themes of cultural displacement, looting, and historical narrative through works like his series "The invisible enemy should not exist" (2007–), which reconstructs looted artifacts from Baghdad's National Museum of Iraq using Arabic food wrappers and newspapers. The show also features his 2004 video "Return," documenting his effort to import Iraqi dates labeled as "product of Iraq" to the US after decades of sanctions, and includes interventions with the museum's own collection, such as a Cypriot head he linked to Assyrian art.

One Fine Show: “Michael Rakowitz, Proxies for Poets and Palaces” at the Stavanger Art Museum

Iraqi-American artist Michael Rakowitz has opened his first major survey exhibition in Norway, titled "Proxies for Poets and Palaces," at the Stavanger Art Museum. The show features eight new reliefs from his long-running series *The Invisible Enemy Should Not Exist*, which recreates artifacts looted from Baghdad's Iraq Museum using cardboard, Arabic newspapers, and food packaging, alongside older works like the 2017 film *The Ballad of Special Ops Cody*.

9 Must-See Summer Shows in Upstate New York

Galerie magazine has compiled a curated list of nine must-see summer art exhibitions in upstate New York, highlighting the region's growing cultural significance. Featured shows include a Leonora Carrington survey at the Katonah Museum of Art, a historical exhibition on the Baghdad Modern Art Group at CCS Bard Galleries, and a collaborative installation by Antonio Marras and Maria Lai at Magazzino Italian Art. Other venues include The School in Kinderhook, The Campus near Hudson, Sky High Farms in Germantown, and the Edward Hopper House Museum & Study Center.

'All the Lands from Sunrise to Sunset' at Green Art Gallery, Dubai, United Arab Emirates on 18 Apr–1 Jun 2026

Green Art Gallery in Dubai is hosting 'All the Lands from Sunrise to Sunset,' a group exhibition featuring Alla Abdunabi, Fatma Al Ali, Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck, and Michael Rakowitz. The show explores the persistence of imperial logics and extractive economies through diverse media, including text-based collages, reconstructed artifacts made from food packaging, and archival interventions. By examining acts of naming, erasure, and symbolic circulation, the artists treat empire not as a historical relic but as a mutating contemporary condition.

Art Basel Qatar Announces Artistic Director and Theme for 2027 Edition

Art Basel Qatar has appointed Iraqi curator Wassan Al-Khudhairi as artistic director for its second edition, scheduled for January 28–30, 2027, in Doha. The fair will be themed “between / بين,” exploring states of betweenness and fluid cultural encounters, and will feature a scaled-up Special Projects sector with large-scale, site-specific works, alongside solo gallery presentations. Al-Khudhairi, a specialist in modern and contemporary Arab art, previously served as founding director of Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha and held curatorial roles at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis.

Tate announces 2025 Turner Prize shortlist

The Tate has announced the shortlist for the 2025 Turner Prize, which will be held in Bradford as part of the UK City of Culture festival from September 27 to February 22, 2026. The four nominees are Iraqi artist Mohammed Sami, known for his solo exhibition 'After the Storm' at Blenheim Palace; British artist Rene Matić, whose work addresses race, gender, and political rhetoric; Scottish-born Nnena Kalu, nominated for her contributions to exhibitions at the Walker Art Gallery and Manifesta 15; and London-based Canadian artist Zadie Xa, recognized for her installation at the Sharjah Biennial 16. The winner will be announced on December 9, receiving £25,000, while the other shortlisted artists will each receive £10,000.

Nine Must-See Art Exhibitions to Catch in Philadelphia This Spring

Philadelphia's spring exhibition season features nine must-see shows across the city, including Kelly Kozma's solo exhibition 'Watch Me Backflip' at Paradigm Gallery + Studio, which presents a massive 22-foot installation of 35,000 hand-stitched circles made from repurposed materials. Other highlights include 'Soft/Cover' at The Fabric Workshop and Museum, exploring fabric and screenprinting in relation to the human body; 'Preserving Assyria' at the Penn Museum, focusing on Iraqi archaeologists reclaiming cultural heritage after ISIS destruction; and 'The Battle of the Bathers' at the Barnes Foundation, examining a media kerfuffle involving two Paul Cézanne paintings.

art abbas akhavan venice biennale canadian pavilion

Abbas Akhavan has transformed the Canadian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale into a greenhouse-like installation titled "Abbas Akhavan: Entre chien et loup." The pavilion's wooden doorway has been replaced with glass, revealing a pond with pinkish water illuminated by sunlight and LED grow-lamps. Visitors encounter mossy boulders, a vintage fur coat sprayed with water, sharpened bronze sticks, and custom frosted mirrors that blur the architecture. The centerpiece will be three giant Bolivian water lilies, grown from seeds sent from Kew Gardens to Padua, which will gradually take over the pond over the summer. The exhibition is curated by Kim Nguyen, commissioned by the National Gallery of Canada, and supported by the Canada Council for the Arts.

‘Your homes will be destroyed, your family killed’: the US has dropped millions of war propaganda leaflets – but do they work?

The United States military has been dropping propaganda leaflets in psychological operations (psyops) for over a century, from World War I through the Gulf War and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. A new interactive exhibit at Pioneer Works in Brooklyn, organized by the digital archive group Khajistan, displays hundreds of these leaflets, including those dropped on Japan during World War II and in more recent conflicts. However, declassified internal documents, such as a 1971 US Air Force report, reveal that leaflets were often used as toilet paper, cigarette rolling paper, or souvenirs by enemy soldiers, undermining the official narrative of their effectiveness.

Exhibition | Hayv Kahraman, 'What cannot be said will be wept' at Pilar Corrias, Conduit Street, London, United Kingdom

Hayv Kahraman presents her solo exhibition 'What cannot be said will be wept' at Pilar Corrias gallery on Conduit Street in London. The show features new works by the Iraqi-born artist, known for her figurative paintings that explore themes of displacement, memory, and the female body.

Francis Alÿs at MAMU: A Global Portrait of Childhood Through Play

The Banco de la República has opened a new exhibition at the Museo de Arte Miguel Urrutia (MAMU) in Bogotá titled "Francis Alÿs, juegxs de niñxs 1999–2025." Featuring 27 video works from the Belgian-born, Mexico-based artist's long-running series documenting children's games worldwide, the show opened on April 23 at El Parqueadero and the second floor of MAMU. Curated by Cuauhtémoc Medina and Virginia Roy, the exhibition includes footage from Afghanistan, India, Mexico, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Colombia, where a new work filmed in the Amazon with the Arara community is featured.

The most exciting museum openings in 2026

A trio of major museum openings is expected in Los Angeles in 2026: the expansion of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Lacma) with its new David Geffen Galleries designed by Peter Zumthor opening in April; the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, founded by filmmaker George Lucas and designed by Ma Yansong, opening on 22 September; and the digital artist Refik Anadol's Dataland, the first museum devoted to AI-generated art, opening in spring. Additionally, the Victoria and Albert Museum opens V&A East in London on 18 April, and the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, opens an expansion on 6 June.

56 participating artists, duos and collectives revealed for 2026 Whitney Biennial

The Whitney Museum of American Art has announced the 56 artists, duos, and collectives participating in the 2026 Whitney Biennial, the 82nd edition of the landmark U.S. contemporary art survey. Co-curators Marcela Guerrero and Drew Sawyer have chosen not to give the exhibition a thematic title, instead letting conversations with artists guide the selection. The roster includes well-known figures like Andrea Fraser, Kamrooz Aram, Precious Okoyomon, Pat Oleszko, and Julio Torres, alongside emerging talents and historical or overlooked figures such as Carmen de Monteflores, José Maceda, and Kimowan Metchewais. The exhibition opens March 8, 2026, occupying most of the Whitney's Manhattan building with performances, public events, and online programming.

‘I feel at home here’: Michael Rakowitz’s Acropolis Museum exhibition locates the lines between stories of lost heritage

The Acropolis Museum in Athens has opened "Allspice: Michael Rakowitz and Ancient Cultures," the first exhibition in a trilogy organized with the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and the nonprofit Neon. It is also the first time the museum has presented work by a living artist. The show pairs ancient objects from the University of Chicago’s Institute for the Study of Ancient Culture and the Thanos N. Zintilis Collection of Cypriot Antiquities with 14 works by Iraqi-American artist Michael Rakowitz, including pieces from his ongoing series "The invisible enemy should not exist," which recreates artifacts looted or destroyed from the National Museum of Iraq. Rakowitz’s lamassu reliefs, reimagined from the Palace of Nimrud, and a new commission featuring his mother’s recipes explore themes of lost heritage, memory, and diaspora.

‘Art’s Selfish’: Canada Pavilion Artist Abbas Akhavan on What Comes After Venice

Abbas Akhavan, representing Canada at the 2026 Venice Biennale, has transformed the Canada Pavilion into a greenhouse-like installation titled “Abbas Akhavan: Entre chien et loup.” The pavilion’s wooden door has been replaced with glass, revealing a pond of pinkish water illuminated by sunlight and LED grow-lamps. Visitors encounter mossy boulders, a vintage fur coat sprayed with mist, sharpened bronze sticks, and frosted mirrors that blur the architecture. Three giant Bolivian water lilies, grown from seeds sent from Kew Gardens to Padua, will gradually fill the pond over the summer. Akhavan describes his role as a “custodian” rather than a controller, emphasizing the unpredictability of nature.

In Hayv Kahraman’s New Show, the Artist Heals From Devastation

Hayv Kahraman's latest solo show, "Ghost Fires," at Jack Shainman Gallery in New York City features paintings of women with smoke rising from their fingertips and pupil-less eyes, using scorched textures and marbled pigments. The body of work is her first since the January wildfires in Los Angeles displaced her and her family from their Altadena home, and it explores trauma, memory, and healing without directly depicting flames.

Wafaa Bilal: ‘I see democracy slowly eroding now’

The article profiles Iraqi American artist Wafaa Bilal through his survey exhibition "Indulge Me" at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, running until October 19. The show highlights his career-spanning works including the 2007 performance "Domestic Tension," where he lived in a gallery while online participants could shoot him with a paintball gun; "3rdi" (2010-11), featuring a camera surgically affixed to his head; and "Virtual Jihadi" (2008), a video game critiquing war's sanitization. Recent works like "Thumbsat Model" (2024), a golden bust of Saddam Hussein on a satellite to be launched into orbit, are also featured. Bilal, who fled Iraq in 1991 after arrest for anti-regime art, discusses his journey from refugee to NYU professor.

Abbas Akhavan Transforms the Canada Pavilion Into a Greenhouse, Daring Viewers to Leave Behind Their Preconceptions

Artist Abbas Akhavan has transformed the Canada Pavilion at the Venice Biennale into a functioning greenhouse for his exhibition "Entre chien et loup." The pavilion now houses a 6,000-gallon pool containing giant Victoria water lilies, with modifications including grow lights, water misters, a new ventilation system, and structural reinforcements to support the 25-ton water tank. The installation evokes Victorian-era Wardian cases and London's Crystal Palace, but Akhavan emphasizes that his interest in the lilies began intuitively, not as a commentary on colonialism or empire. The project, developed with curator Kim Nguyen, involved collaboration with Kew Gardens and the Orto Botanico di Padova to cultivate the plants, and the outcome remains uncertain as the lilies may thrive or wither over the exhibition's six-month run.

Fragility and Resistance of an Iranian Artist on Display in Rome

Fragilità e resistenza di un’artista dell’Iran in mostra a Roma

The Galleria Anna Marra in Rome is hosting "Assemblages," the first Italian solo exhibition of Iranian artist Sepideh Salehi. The show features works that blend collage, Japanese paper, photography, and drawing to depict Iranian women living in the United States who have shared experiences of displacement and political upheaval. Salehi’s figures often avert their gaze or conceal their faces, symbolizing a "calligraphy of refusal" and a quiet resistance against the historical traumas of the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the Iran-Iraq war.

Robert McLaughlin Gallery Opens New Summer Exhibits in Oshawa

The Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa, Ontario, will launch its summer exhibition season on June 13, 2026, featuring five new displays. The season includes solo shows by artists Stephen Andrews, Oliver Husain, and Austin Henderson. Andrews presents 'The sum of the parts,' a display of 125 drawings examining media coverage of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Husain offers an immersive video installation titled 'I ♥ Snail,' exploring the history of IMAX cinema. Henderson, the RBC emerging artist in residence, debuts works investigating queer history and the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Canada through his family history. A free public event with curator remarks, artist-led tours, and a complimentary shuttle from OCAD University in Toronto will mark the opening.

A Testimony to Survival and Hope Amid Chaos and Destruction

Vian Sora's first solo museum exhibition in the United States, 'Outerworlds,' is on view at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art (SBMA) through September 7. The exhibition features vibrant, layered abstract paintings that the artist describes as deeply personal, including 'Forest Remains,' a 2023 SBMA acquisition that she considers a self-portrait about migration and assimilation. Sora, born in Baghdad and a survivor of the Iran–Iraq War, Gulf War, and the 2003 invasion, discussed her work in a conversation with SBMA Chief Curator James Glisson, explaining how a 2015 hysterectomy led to a dramatic shift in her style toward bold, colorful compositions. The show will travel to the Speed Art Museum in Louisville and the Asia Society Texas Center after its Santa Barbara run.

The legacy of the Baghdad Modern Art Group is explored in first major US show

The Hessel Museum of Art at Bard College in New York State has opened "All Manner of Experiments: Legacies of the Baghdad Modern Art Group," the first major US survey of the influential Iraqi collective. Organized by curators Nada Shabout, Tiffany Floyd, and Lauren Cornell, the exhibition brings together 64 works by 30 artists—including Dia al-Azzawi, Jewad Selim, and Mohammed Ghani Hikmat—spanning from 1951 to 2023. Many pieces have not been publicly displayed in decades, and the show draws from private collections and major Arab institutions such as the Barjeel Art Foundation, the Dalloul Art Foundation, the Ibrahimi Collection, and Qatar Museums. The exhibition also addresses the devastating loss of modern Iraqi art during the Iraq War, with an estimated 85% of 8,000 works from the Saddam Arts Centre looted or damaged.

Lin May Saeed at Kunsthalle Bern

German Iraqi artist Lin May Saeed (1973–2023) is the subject of a posthumous exhibition at Kunsthalle Bern. The show presents her drawings and sculptures, which critically examine the relationship between humans and animals, positioning non-human creatures as active protagonists rather than symbols or decorative elements.

Vian Sora: Tepe Gawra

Vian Sora’s solo exhibition "Tepe Gawra" at Bortolami Gallery marks her debut with the gallery, featuring a series of large-scale paintings that bridge ancient Mesopotamian history with contemporary Iraqi experience. The works, such as 'Celestial capsule' and 'Scarlet', utilize a complex layering process of poured acrylics and precise oil applications to explore themes of mortality, survival, and the aftermath of conflict.

major exhibition of rare paintings and archives honors zaha hadid ten years after her passing

A major exhibition titled 'I Think There Should Be No End to Experimentation' has opened at LUMA Arles, marking the sixth chapter of the Hans Ulrich Obrist Archives. Curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Arthur Fouray, the show honors the late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid on the tenth anniversary of her passing. It features rarely exhibited paintings, early calligraphic drawings, personal notebooks, and previously unseen video interviews from 2001 to 2013, alongside tribute posters by peers such as Sir Peter Cook, Stefano Boeri, Sumayya Vally, Iwan Baan, and Lina Ghotmeh. The exhibition is presented in the Tower building designed by Frank Gehry and unfolds across the Cherry Tree Gallery and Archives Gallery, with exhibition furniture conceived by Kazuyo Sejima.

'Go to war, do your art:' New Marine Corps museum gallery features combat artists' paintings

The National Museum of the Marine Corps in Triangle, Virginia, will open a temporary exhibition titled “United States Marine Corps: 250 Years of Dedication, Determination and Courage” on June 27, 2025. Curated by Joan Thomas, the show features 91 original works—including oil and acrylic paintings, prints, pastels, mixed media works, and sculptures—drawn from a collection of over 3,000 pieces. The artworks span from the Revolutionary War to the present, with many created by active-duty or former Marine combat artists, such as Staff Sgt. Kristopher Battles and former Marine Joseph Winslow Jr., who depict scenes of combat, camaraderie, and service.

Erbil hosts four-day art gallery by Iranian Kurdish artist

Iranian Kurdish artist Nasr Daneshvar opened a four-day visual arts exhibition titled “Color, Women, Society” in Erbil, Iraq, on Sunday. The show features 22 paintings created over two years, exploring themes of women's strength and societal oppression, with elements of Kurdish culture and traditional attire. Daneshvar, born in Oshnavieh in 1981 and a graduate of Tabriz University's College of Fine Arts, organized the event in coordination with Erbil’s general directorate of culture and arts.