The Photographs that Shaped the Black Arts Movement in the Mid-20th Century

The Mississippi Museum of Art will present "Photography and the Black Arts Movement, 1955-1985," an exhibition featuring over 100 photographers whose work shaped the Black Arts Movement. The show includes iconic images such as Ernest Withers's 1968 photograph of Memphis sanitation workers striking with "I Am A Man" signs, Ming Smith's portrait of Sun Ra, and Ralph Arnold's collage critiquing war and violence. Running from July 25 to November 8 in Jackson, the exhibition spans editorial and commercial photography, self-portraits, and mixed-media works that document protest, cultural identity, and resistance during the Jim Crow era.

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Announces a Major Gift of Nearly 2000 Photographs

The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) has received a major donation of nearly 2,000 photographs from the Joy of Giving Something Inc. (JGS), a nonprofit dedicated to photographic arts. The gift, drawn from the collection of late financier Howard Stein, spans the 19th century to the present and includes works by over 450 artists, with highlights from Eugène Atget, Nadar, Alfred Stieglitz, Dora Maar, László Moholy-Nagy, Man Ray, Berenice Abbott, Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Mary Ellen Mark, and contemporary figures like Adam Fuss and Cindy Sherman. The donation also includes a grant for cataloging and housing, and comes as the VMFA plans five new photography galleries opening in 2027.

A Contemporary Art Haven Just a PATH Ride Away

Luis Emilio Romero, a Jersey City native, moved from Bushwick to the Monira Foundation's residency at Mana Contemporary in Jersey City, where he now paints intricate, textile-influenced patterns in a calm basement studio. Mana Contemporary, a 2 million-square-foot former tobacco warehouse converted in 2011 by Moishe Mana, Eugene Lemay, and Yigal Ozeri, hosted its Spring Open Studios on May 17, with over one-third of its 300 artists participating—the largest turnout in years. The event featured installations by TLaloC, sculptures by John Chamberlain, and an exhibition of artist books, "Open Book(s): Observations," presented by Pierogi Gallery, Mana, and the Monira Foundation. Pierogi co-owners Joe Amrhein and Susan Swenson also brought their Flat Files containing nearly 4,000 works to Mana for six months to a year.

Sad Cowboy

What Pipeline gallery presents "Sad Cowboy," a group show organized for Miguel Bendaña at The Falstaff Project in El Paso, running from May 28 to July 4, 2026. The exhibition features three Detroit artists—Israel Aten, Cay Bahnmiller, and Dylan Spaysky—whose works explore American mythology, masculinity, and identity through collage, drawing, and sculpture. The title references a collage by Bahnmiller incorporating Amiri Baraka's poem "Sad Cowboy," critiquing the lone cowboy myth. Aten's colossal figures blend medieval iconography with video games, Bahnmiller's text-based works deconstruct language, and Spaysky's carbon paper drawings capture disposable media moments.

Exhibition at Bellevue Palace: Rush causes server crash

Ausstellung im Schloss Bellevue: Ansturm legt Server lahm

Berlin's Schloss Bellevue, the official residence of German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, is being transformed into a pop-up art gallery from June 13 to 28 before undergoing a multi-year renovation. The exhibition, titled "Freiraum Kunst," features works by artists including Katharina Grosse, Wolfgang Tillmans, and Monica Bonvicini. However, the ticket booking system crashed due to overwhelming demand, causing delays and prompting the Akademie der Künste to work on resolving the technical issues, assuring the public that tickets are still available.

Free tickets now available for temporary exhibition at Bellevue Palace

Ab sofort kostenlose Karten für temporäre Schau im Schloss Bellevue

Berlin's Bellevue Palace, the official residence of German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, will transform into a pop-up gallery for two weeks from June 13 to 28. Free timed-entry tickets become available from 3:00 PM on the website of the Akademie der Künste. The exhibition will feature works by artists including Katharina Grosse, Wolfgang Tillmans, and Monica Bonvicini, displayed in rooms emptied ahead of a multi-year renovation.

Rediscovering the Eternal City of the 1500s in the drawings of Maarten van Heemskerck. The exhibition in Rome

Riscoprire la Città Eterna del ‘500 nei disegni di Maarten van Heemskerck. La mostra a Roma

A major exhibition at Palazzo Poli in Rome, hosted by the Istituto Centrale per la Grafica, showcases a selection of drawings by Dutch artist Maarten van Heemskerck (1498–1574) from his so-called 'little sketchbook,' now held at the Kupferstichkabinett in Berlin. The show, titled 'Maarten van Heemskerck e il fascino di Roma' and running until June 7, presents the artist's meticulous studies of Roman antiquities made during his four-year stay in the city from 1532, offering a rare visual record of Renaissance Rome's ancient collections before and after the 1527 Sack of Rome.

Interview with Wallace Chan, the artist who created a bridge between Venice and Shanghai through water

Intervista a Wallace Chan, l’artista che attraverso l’acqua ha creato un ponte tra Venezia e Shanghai

Wallace Chan, the Hong Kong-born artist turning 70, has launched a dual-exhibition project titled "Vessels of Other Worlds" between Venice and Shanghai, curated by James Putnam. In Venice, the show runs concurrently with the Biennale at the Cappella di Santa Maria della Pietà (Vivaldi's church), featuring three titanium sculptures inspired by Catholic holy oils, surrounded by smaller works evoking water droplets. In Shanghai, the same sculptures appear at the Long Museum (West Bund) starting July 18, 2026, on a monumental scale—seven, eight, and ten meters tall—with a kaleidoscopic interior accessible through a door in the central piece. The exhibitions also include sound compositions by Brian Eno and reference Chan's earlier Venice shows (Titans, Totem, Transcendence).

Nan Goldin Gets a Major UK Moment with ‘You Never Did Anything Wrong’

The Hayward Gallery at London's Southbank Centre has announced 'You Never Did Anything Wrong,' Nan Goldin's first major UK exhibition in over 20 years. The show, on view from November 24, 2026, to March 7, 2027, will survey Goldin's autobiographical photography, highlighting her intimate depictions of love, loss, queer and post-punk communities, and her recent anti-war activism. The exhibition follows the UK debut of her opera 'The Ballad of Sexual Dependency' at Gagosian London earlier this year.

“It’s about how to speak the unspeakable”: artist Lotus Kang's new work explores absence as an opportunity

Artist Lotus L Kang has created a new installation titled 'The Face of Desire is Loss' for the inaugural Bulgari Pavilion at the 61st Venice Biennale. The pavilion, located at the Giardini entrance, features Kang's signature use of light-sensitive photographic film that reacts to the environment, suspended from steel joists with large holes inspired by the lotus root motif. The work draws on a line by poet Lara Mimosa Montes and explores themes of absence, loss, and the void, with the film changing color over time from deep purple to hues resembling bruise, blood, and bile.

The Colorful History of the Van Gogh Museum and the Highlights You Must Not Miss

The article traces the history of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, from its origins in the efforts of Johanna van Gogh-Bonger—who preserved Vincent van Gogh's works after his death—to its official opening in 1973 by Queen Juliana. It describes the museum's location on Museum Square, its two-part building designed by Gerrit Rietveld and Kisho Kurokawa, and its role as a major tourist attraction that drew nearly two million visitors in 2024.

The National Gallery x hololive DEV_IS ReGLOSS’s Juufuutei Raden Announce a World-First Crossover Collaboration, Launching May 20 | NEWS

COVER Corporation has announced a collaboration between hololive DEV_IS ReGLOSS VTuber Juufuutei Raden and The National Gallery, London, launching May 20, 2026. Titled “When Raden Meets Art – A Shared Art Journey”, the project features three masterpieces selected by Raden—J.M.W. Turner’s “Rain, Steam, and Speed – The Great Western Railway”, Vincent van Gogh’s “Sunflowers”, and Claude Monet’s “The Water-Lily Pond”—reimagined into exclusive merchandise including fragrance mists, scarves, and cup sets. Raden, a certified curator in Japan, also recorded an audio guide highlighting 20 works from the Gallery, and the entire ReGLOSS team visited the museum for a behind-the-scenes experience.

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.

Four Dozen Artists Celebrate Marine Wildlife and Lore in ‘Common Waters’

Arch Enemy Arts in Philadelphia is presenting 'Common Waters,' a group exhibition running from June 5 to July 5, featuring 60 artists from around the world. The show celebrates marine wildlife and lore through square-format works that range from fantastical depictions of coral-haired sirens and octopuses to miniature paintings and sculpted paper reliefs of sea turtles. A portion of sales proceeds will be donated to PangeaSeed, a non-profit that uses art to advocate for ocean conservation.

130+ Artists Illuminate the Vast Creative Possibilities of the Nightlight

DUDD LITE, a collaboration between design collective Dudd Haus and The Future Perfect gallery, presents over 130 artist-designed nightlights on view through June 26. Curated from nearly 400 open-call submissions, the exhibition transforms a mundane household object into a canvas for small-scale sculptures made from stained glass, wood, sea shells, ceramic, cotton, and more. Featured artists include James Burial, Chris Wolston, Nicholas Holmes, and Mikei Huang, among others.

À la Biennale de Venise, le pavillon de l’Ouzbékistan fait revivre la mer d’Aral

The Uzbekistan Pavilion at the 61st Venice Biennale, curated around the figure of author Allayar Darmenov, brings together artists including Vyacheslav Akhunov, Zi Kakhramonova, A. A. Murakami, Zulfiya Spowart, and Nguyen Phuong Linh to explore the ecological disaster of the Aral Sea. Once the world's fourth-largest lake, it was drained by Soviet irrigation projects for cotton farming; the pavilion's installations—such as Kakhramonova's participatory salt-fish molding piece and Spowart's cradle-like sculpture—imaginatively revive the vanished sea and its endemic species.

Gaia Sleeps Amid Sarah Eberle’s Award-Winning Garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show

At the 2025 RHS Chelsea Flower Show, designer Sarah Eberle's garden "On the Edge" won the prestigious Garden of the Year award. The installation features a sleeping figure of Gaia, the personification of Mother Nature, crafted from willow branches by artist Tom Hare and carved from a fallen tree by Tim Wood. The garden, a collaboration with the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), highlights "edgelands"—the overlooked transitional spaces between rural and urban areas—using native plants, a dry stone arch by Noble Stonework, and a deliberately wild aesthetic to evoke nature in recovery.

From Two Tons of Celadon, Jean Shin Sculpts a Metaphor for the Korean Diaspora

Artist Jean Shin has created "Celadon Landscape," a monumental installation at the Green-House at Green-Wood in New York, using nearly two tons of discarded celadon porcelain fragments donated by studios in Icheon, South Korea. The work features two large bulbous vessels covered in broken shards of cups, saucers, and pots, appearing to emerge from the earth as if unearthed in an archaeological dig. The installation is on view through January 17.

Meet the artists behind the women’s Western art exhibition at Southwest Art Gallery and Science Center

The Southwest Art Gallery and Science Center in Dickinson, North Dakota, hosted a public artist reception on May 14 for its women’s Western art exhibition, featuring regional female artists whose work depicts the landscapes, wildlife, and culture of the Northern Plains and American West. The exhibition includes paintings, sculptures, and mixed-media works centered on ranching, farming, and rural life, and will remain on display through June 12. Featured artists include Daphne Clark, Afton Ray Rossol, Barb Kalenze Kraft, Oksana Zvyagelskiy, Trish Stevenson, and Kelsey Jacobson, each sharing personal stories of how art became a creative outlet and source of healing.

Kayem and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Showcase Role of Hot Dogs in American History

Kayem, a New England-based hot dog brand, has partnered with the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA) to create an exhibition exploring the cultural significance of hot dogs in American history. The collaboration uses artworks and artifacts from the museum's collection to trace the hot dog's journey from its European origins to its status as a quintessential American food, highlighting its presence at events like baseball games, state fairs, and presidential inaugurations.

The British Museum bets on 'total immersion' to display the Bayeux Tapestry, which will be presented flat

Le British Museum mise sur « l’immersion totale » pour exposer la tapisserie de Bayeux qui sera présentée à plat

The British Museum has announced plans for an exceptional exhibition of the Bayeux Tapestry, which will be displayed flat for the first time in its history, rather than hung vertically as it has been for decades in Bayeux. The 70-meter-long 11th-century embroidery depicting the Norman conquest of England will be shown in London from September 10, 2026, to July 11, 2027, with tickets priced between £25 and £33. The museum promises an 'immersive' experience featuring raking light, digital devices, and loaned objects to contextualize the 58 scenes and 626 characters.

Due giovani artisti in una mostra a Matera si confrontano sulle tracce della memoria

The article reports on "Remain(s)," a dual exhibition at Momart Gallery in Matera, Italy, featuring young artists Luca Granato and Michela Rondinone. Curated by Antonella Marino, the show explores the aesthetics of fragments and memory through installations, sculptures, and video works. Granato's pieces address loss, migration, and climate change, while Rondinone's works focus on childhood, play, and relational practices. The exhibition runs until May 26, 2026.

Play ‘Liminal Bingo,’ Pat Perry’s Participatory Photo Treasure Hunt

Detroit-based artist Pat Perry has launched "Liminal Bingo," a participatory photo treasure hunt open to anyone with an internet connection. Participants are encouraged to go outside, gather friends, and photograph a series of illustrated prompts—such as capturing a handshake with a stranger while both wear sunglasses—using a camera or phone. When five prompts are completed in a row, players have a bingo and submit their images via Instagram or email. Photos submitted by August will be considered for a fall exhibition at Hashimoto Contemporary in New York and a potential book.

Proof of life — Curator’s Choice celebrates Nelson Mandela Bay’s creative pulse

The Curator’s Choice exhibition at Art on Target in Nelson Mandela Bay showcases 10 selected artists, ranging from emerging talents to established practitioners, including an octogenarian and recent graduates. The show, now in its third year, is an offshoot of the annual Same Size-Same Price-No Signature exhibition and was curated by Art on Target director Bretten-Anne Moolman. Artists were chosen by a diverse panel of over 20 local professionals, educators, and art lovers, and were given eight months to prepare new works for the exhibition, which opened on 13 May.

Ashfika Rahman's art lands in New York Times Critics' Top 6

Bangladeshi visual artist Ashfika Rahman has been recognized by The New York Times as one of the six must-see shows at the Venice Biennale, with her work "Than Para — No Land Without Us" featured in the collateral exhibition "Still Joy — From Ukraine into the World." The installation, presented by the PinchukArtCentre and curated by Björn Geldhof and Oleksandra Pohrebnyak, incorporates thousands of small temple bells gathered from different spiritual traditions and draws on testimonies from Ukraine as well as the struggles of Indigenous communities in Bangladesh's Hill Tracts.

Spain: Oriol Vilanova and the Abolition of the Museum and the Archive

ESPANA ORIOL VILANOVA Y LA ABOLICION DEL MUSEO Y EL ARCHIVO

The Spanish Pavilion at the 61st Venice Biennale presents "Los restos," a project by Catalan artist Oriol Vilanova, curated by Carles Guerra. The installation transforms the pavilion into an anti-museum or pseudo-museum, featuring over twenty years of postcards collected from flea markets, arranged in a wall-based accumulation that challenges linear narrative and archival hierarchy. The project also includes a publication and a performative action titled "El fantasma de la libertad" (2026), inspired by Luis Buñuel, which will take place across the Giardini and Arsenale through unannounced encounters.

Lakshmi Shankarreddy’s Art Exhibition Explores Life Between India And California

Artist Lakshmi Shankarreddy presented a solo exhibition titled 'Bringing Two Cultures Through Art' at the Consulate General of India in San Francisco on May 15. The show featured paintings exploring landscapes, florals, and portraits that bridge her Indian heritage and life in California, including the work 'Blossoms,' now part of the Consulate's collection. Shankarreddy, who studied fine art at Stanford University and has worked for over three decades in impressionistic and abstract styles, also uses her art for philanthropy, supporting organizations like Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford.

Gryphon Gallery presents "Absence of Gravity" - a Robin Love solo exhibition

Robin Love's solo exhibition "Absence of Gravity" opens at Gryphon Gallery in Califon, New Jersey, on May 30, 2026, running through September 27. The show features 22 small-format oil-on-paper paintings created over the past year, half of which were made during a residency in Orquevaux, France, along with larger works and a selection of oil-on-linen paintings. It marks Love's first solo exhibition of oil paintings, following a career as a photographer and co-founder of a multidisciplinary design studio with her late partner David Derrick.