In Venice, 22 unmissable exhibitions on the sidelines of the biennial

À Venise, 22 expositions incontournables en marge de la biennale

The article highlights 22 must-see exhibitions happening alongside the 61st Venice Biennale, which is expected to be affected by geopolitical tensions but still promises artistic vibrancy. Notable events include Bvlgari's dual projects featuring artists Lotus L. Kang, Lara Favaretto, and Monia Ben Hamouda; the unveiling of the Asscher collection at the Ama Venezia foundation with works by Charles Ray, Jenny Saville, and Richard Serra; and the inaugural exhibition "The Only True Protest Is Beauty" at the Fondation Dries Van Noten, showcasing 200 objects across fashion, design, and art. Other highlights include a dialogue between Picasso, Morandi, and Parmiggiani at the Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa.

Frieze New York Is an Assembly-Line Salad

At Frieze New York, curator Lucien Zayan searches for artworks exploring the relationship between food and art, finding a piece by Aki Goto at Europa gallery that reflects on sugar, colonization, and cavities. The fair features works like David Lamelas's "To Pour Milk into a Glass" (1972) from Dia Art Foundation and Mungo Thomson's "Snowman" (2023) at Karma, while a performance by Kite (Oglála Lakȟóta) at the Counterpublic triennial booth offers a reprieve from the monotonous fair experience.

How Painter Akira Ikezoe Became This Spring’s Breakout Star in New York

Japanese-born painter Akira Ikezoe has become a breakout star in New York this spring, appearing simultaneously in two prestigious exhibitions: the Whitney Biennial and MoMA PS1's Greater New York. His absurdist, diagrammatic paintings—featuring naked figures, skeletons, and dairy-centric narratives—have drawn significant attention from curators and critics. Despite lacking a New York gallery, Ikezoe is represented by Proyectos Ultravioleta in Guatemala City and was also included in the 2025 Sharjah Biennial, positioning him for rapid ascent in the art world.

In Venice, Arthur Jafa and Richard Prince Ask: What Is Appropriate to Appropriate?

Arthur Jafa and Richard Prince are showing their work together in a joint exhibition titled "Helter Skelter" at the Fondazione Prada in Venice. Curated by Nancy Spector, the show explores the artists' shared practice of appropriation, a connection that began when Prince attended the debut of Jafa's video work AGHDRA (2021) and later deepened through conversations about race, property, and self-authorization. Jafa has long admired Prince's approach, calling him "the blackest white artist I know," and the exhibition pairs their works to examine how appropriation functions differently for a Black artist versus a white artist.

Biennale di Venezia 2026. Le grandi mostre da non perdere in città

The article previews major exhibitions in Venice during the 2026 Biennale, highlighting a rich lineup of shows across the city's museums and foundations. Key highlights include a retrospective for Marina Abramović at the Gallerie dell'Accademia, a Peggy Guggenheim exhibition at her former home, and dual shows at Palazzo Grassi and Punta della Dogana featuring artists like Michael Armitage, Amar Kanwar, Lorna Simpson, and Paulo Nazareth. Other notable venues include Fondazione Prada, Ca' Pesaro, and the Museo Correr, with artists ranging from Joseph Kosuth to Jenny Saville.

5 free must-see exhibitions to pick in Parisian galleries in May

5 expos gratuites coups de cœur à cueillir dans les galeries parisiennes en mai

Beaux Arts Magazine highlights five free exhibitions to visit in Parisian galleries in May 2026. At Galerie Mayoral, a show explores Alexander Calder's ties to Paris, featuring gouaches and totems. Galerie Les Filles du Calvaire presents Michel Jocaille's first solo exhibition, "Lily of the Valley," which uses lily-of-the-valley motifs to evoke labor history and camp aesthetics. Galerie Anne-Laure Buffard hosts a poignant dialogue between Diane Esmond, a painter whose works were burned by the Nazis, and her granddaughter Adrianna Wallis, whose photographs reference looted objects. Galerie Templon exhibits Alioune Diagne's paintings inspired by Wolof traditions, and another gallery shows prints by Swedish artist Mamma Andersson.

10 Must-See Shows During the Venice Biennale 2026

The 2026 Venice Biennale is embroiled in multiple controversies, including the cancellation and reinstatement of Australia's representative artist Khaled Sabsabi, ongoing calls to bar Israel from participating, criticism over allowing Russia to participate, and mounting voices to exclude the U.S. in response to President Donald Trump's actions in Iran. Despite these disputes, the article highlights that many of the city's most exciting shows will take place away from the main Biennale venues.

Next stop – infinity! My transcendental experience on Japan’s ‘art island’ guided by its master Lee Ufan

The article profiles Korean-born artist Lee Ufan, who turns 90 next month, and his transcendental art on Japan's Naoshima island. It describes his upcoming major shows: a retrospective in Venice coinciding with the Biennale, and an exhibition at Dia Beacon in New York. Lee, a key figure in the Mono-ha movement, creates works like the steel arch "Porte Vers l'Infini" on Naoshima that engage with nature and perception. The piece traces his career from early violent, resistant sculptures involving cracked glass and boulders to later meditative paintings and installations.

5 Standout Artworks at Carnegie International 2026

The Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has unveiled the 59th edition of its Carnegie International exhibition, featuring a monumental series of murals titled *Orogenic* (2026) by Abraham González Pacheco. The newly commissioned work, made of concrete, metal, and pigment, depicts a maelstrom of archaeological objects inspired by the museum’s collection and sets the tone for the exhibition.

It’s the Most Controversial Venice Biennale in Years. Can the Art Stand Up to the Noise?

The 2026 Venice Biennale is embroiled in controversy, with the US Pavilion at the center of a political storm. The Trump administration's State Department overhauled the selection process, bypassing the usual NEA panel and commissioning a nonprofit, the American Arts Conservancy, to organize the pavilion. Artist Alma Allen, who accepted the invitation despite threats from galleries and curators, presents a show that critics find politically muted. The Biennale's jury resigned days before the opening, and annual prizes were canceled, adding to the turmoil.

First Look: See What’s Inside the Met Gala’s “Costume Art” Exhibition

Vanity Fair art and style correspondents Nate Freeman and José Criales-Unzueta preview the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute spring exhibition "Costume Art," which inaugurates the Condé M. Nast Galleries. The exhibition arrives amid controversy over the Met Gala being sponsored by Lauren Sánchez Bezos and Jeff Bezos, leading to boycott calls and New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani skipping the event. Despite this, Anna Wintour and Met director Max Hollein announced the gala raised a record $42 million. Head curator Andrew Bolton presents fashion as art, pairing garments with artworks like Warhol's Skull and Sarah Lucas's Nud Cycladic 9.

A Major Martin Puryear Retrospective Reveals an Artist Who Has Never Stopped Evolving

The Cleveland Museum of Art has opened "Nexus," a major retrospective of Martin Puryear featuring over 50 works, the first comprehensive survey of the artist's career in some time. The exhibition includes rarely displayed early pieces from Puryear's personal collection alongside recent works, organized in consultation with the 84-year-old artist. Highlights include the titular 1979 piece "Nexus" made of Alaskan yellow cedar, and other works like "Night and Day" and "Alien Huddle" that showcase his mastery of wood and cold-molding techniques.

Several Eternities in a Day: Form in the Age of Living Materials

The Hammer Museum in Los Angeles presents "Several Eternities in a Day: Form in the Age of Living Materials," a spring 2026 exhibition running from April 5 to August 23. Curated by Jill Spalding, the show features works by artists including Edgar Calel, Guadalupe Maravilla, Carmen Argote, and others, exploring the concept of "Brownness"—a fluid identity rooted in ancestral memory, animal kinship, and a profound connection to living materials. The exhibition is organized into three acts: large-scale installations, paintings and works on paper, and ceramics, offering a visceral and immersive experience that draws on precolonial traditions across the Americas.

Ripple: Furniture Sculpture and Painting after 1982

David Kordansky Gallery is presenting "Ripple: Furniture Sculpture and Painting after 1982," an exhibition of historic works by Swiss artist John Armleder, on view from May 7 to June 13, 2026. The show focuses on Armleder's Furniture Sculpture series from the 1980s, which incorporates functional or decorative objects alongside paintings, exploring the intersection of art, design, and everyday life. Works like FS 156 (1987) and Untitled (FS) (1987) exemplify his interest in collectivity, chance, and the viewer's role in assigning meaning, influenced by experiences such as a prison stint for refusing conscription and his time on a rowing team, as well as the experimental compositions of Erik Satie and John Cage's writings on chance.

‘I shared a single bed with my mother for three years’: Sung Tieu on her monument to immigrant workers in Venice

Artist Sung Tieu has clad the German pavilion at the 2024 Venice Biennale with a mosaic replica of the Gehrenseestrasse complex, a now-abandoned housing estate in Berlin where she lived as a child. The work, titled "Human Dignity Shall Be Inviolable," uses three million mosaic stones to recreate the facade of the prefabricated blocks that housed Vertragsarbeiter—contract workers from Vietnam, Mozambique, Angola, and Cuba who bolstered East Germany's economy. Tieu, who shared a single bed with her mother in the complex for three years, conceived the pavilion alongside the late artist Henrike Naumann.

At the Venice Biennale, Koyo Kouoh’s ‘In Minor Keys’ Looks Deeply at Lush Gardens and a Scarred Earth

Koyo Kouoh's exhibition 'In Minor Keys' at the 2026 Venice Biennale centers on the practices of two deceased artists, Issa Samb and Beverly Buchanan, whose ways of thinking animate the show through dedicated 'Shrines' in the Central Pavilion. The exhibition also draws on Marcel Duchamp's legacy, featuring works by over a dozen contemporary artists including Akinbode Akinbiyi, Guadalupe Rosales, Natalia Lassalle-Morillo, Guadalupe Maravilla, Sofía Gallisá Muriente, and Avi Mograbi, whose installation 'Between a River and a Sea' contrasts pre-1948 business directories with a 2023 Gaza Yellow Pages. A section called 'The Schools' highlights artist-run spaces such as Denniston Hill, Guest Artists Space (G.A.S.) Foundation, blaxTARLINES, and the Nairobi Contemporary Art Institute.

Memories Bathed in Color

In Farbe getauchte Erinnerungen

The Fondation Luma in Arles, France, has opened three exhibitions exploring memory and archives, headlined by Gerhard Richter's "Overpainted Photographs." The show features 120 works from Richter's private archive, some exhibited for the first time, created since the mid-1980s by dragging photographs through leftover paint in his studio. Richter, now 94, personally selected and hung the works chronologically starting from the fall of the Berlin Wall, reflecting his lost homeland and the passage of time. The exhibition also includes early sketches and oil paintings by the late architect Zaha Hadid, previously shown at London's Serpentine Gallery in 2016.

8 Must-See Solo Gallery Shows in May

Galerie magazine has curated a list of eight must-see solo gallery shows across the United States for May, highlighting exhibitions in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. Featured artists include Domenico Gnoli at Lévy Gorvy Dayan, John Stezaker at Gray in Chicago, Alison Elizabeth Taylor at Jessica Silverman in San Francisco, Charles Ray at Matthew Marks Gallery and Jeffery Deitch in Los Angeles, Jose Dávila at Sean Kelly, and Peter Hujar at Ortuzar, among others. The article provides details on each artist's practice and the scope of their exhibitions, such as Gnoli's largest U.S. show in five decades and Hujar's restaging of his final solo exhibition.

José Dávila Makes Space the Subject in His New York Show

José Dávila's solo exhibition "The Simple Act of Positioning" opens at Sean Kelly gallery in New York, featuring sculptures that explore the relational placement of objects in space. The show includes totemic pillars of steel, concrete, volcanic rock, and automotive paint, framed by large black structures, inviting viewers to move through the gallery to fully experience the visual conversations between works. Dávila, originally from Guadalajara and trained in architecture, draws on Modernist precedents from artists like Marcel Duchamp and architects like Luis Barragán.

Hube Guide: What to Do in New York During Frieze

Frieze Art Fair returns to New York from May 13th to 17th, 2026, at The Shed for its 15th edition, featuring over 65 galleries from 26 countries. The fair emphasizes Latin American practices and includes a Focus section curated by Lumi Tan highlighting younger galleries and experimental works. Notable presentations include Reika Takebayashi’s ecological dreamscapes, Bruno Cançado’s meditations on Brazilian vernacular architecture, and Abraham González Pacheco’s graphite works. Beyond the fair, performances and installations extend to institutions like the Whitney Museum of American Art and Dia Art Foundation. The article also previews concurrent exhibitions: "Costume Art" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (May 2026–January 2027), a David Hammons and Jannis Kounellis show at White Cube (May 1–June 13, 2026), and Carol Bove’s exhibition at the Guggenheim (March 5–August 2, 2026).

Gagosian Relocates to Ground Floor at Historic 980 Madison Avenue

Gagosian gallery has relocated to a new street-level space at 980 Madison Avenue in New York, opening on April 25, 2026. Designed by architect Jonathan Caplan of Caplan Colaku Architects, the 12,000-square-foot ground-floor gallery replaces the previous upstairs headquarters, offering direct public access from the street and featuring a restaurant, Kappo Masa, on the lower level. The inaugural exhibitions focus on Marcel Duchamp, including works from his 1960s readymades produced with Arturo Schwarz, and a selection of early Robert Rauschenberg pieces from the Cy Twombly Foundation.

The 10 Best Museum and Gallery Shows to See in the Bay Area This Summer

The article highlights ten notable museum and gallery exhibitions opening in the Bay Area during summer 2026, including Ranu Mukherjee's solo show 'The Long Middle' at Gallery Wendi Norris, a group survey 'Slice of the Pie' at Fraenkel Gallery featuring 14 Bay Area galleries, and 'Giant Steps' at Personal Space in Vallejo focusing on innovative ceramic works. Other featured shows include Will Yackulic's 'A Certain Slant of Light' at pt.2 in Oakland and several other exhibitions across San Francisco and Oakland.

the buzz in bucharest sammy loren on rad and the refreshing romanian art scene

The article reports on the fourth edition of Romanian Art Dealers (RAD), an art fair in Bucharest that exclusively features Romanian galleries and artists. The author, Sammy Loren, travels from Los Angeles to experience the fair, which is co-founded by dealer Catinca Tabacaru and artist-dealer Daniela Pălimariu. The fair includes 31 booths, a Curatorial Summit with 35 international curators, and a central installation titled "Donate a Word" (2025) by Romanian artist Victoria Zidaru. The author attends events like the 10-year anniversary party for Sandwich Gallery and notes the intimate, family-like atmosphere of the local art scene.

One Fine Show: “Paula Rego, Dance Among Thorns” at MUNCH in Oslo

MUNCH in Oslo presents "Paula Rego: Dance Among Thorns," the first comprehensive museum survey of the Portuguese-British artist in the Nordic region and her largest since the 2021 Tate Britain retrospective. The exhibition brings together over 140 works spanning seven decades, from early abstract political collages to the grotesque papier-mâché tableaux of her final years. A central section traces previously undocumented links between Rego and Edvard Munch, including the discovery of a never-before-exhibited work by Rego's son, Nick Willing. Highlights include Rego's monumental "Oratorio" (2008-09) and "The Dance" (1988), which curator Kari J. Brandtzæg connects to Munch's "Dance of Life" (1898-1899).

Mario Schifano, the artist who anticipated Arte Povera and beyond. What the exhibition in Rome looks like

The Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome has opened a major retrospective of Mario Schifano, curated by Daniela Lancioni and titled simply "Mario Schifano," running until July 12. The exhibition reconstructs the career of the Italian artist (1934–1998), who worked across painting, film, and music, and highlights his role as a precursor to Arte Povera. A centerpiece is the reconstructed dining room Schifano created for the Rome home of Marella and Gianni Agnelli in 1968, featuring 14 canvases and a planned but unrealized sand-filled room with a pyramid, a detail revealed by film producer Ettore Rosboch in a conversation with the curator.

North America’s Longest-Running Exhibition of International Art Has Landed at the Carnegie Museum

The 59th Carnegie International, titled "If the word we," has opened at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, marking North America's longest-running exhibition of international art. Featuring 61 artists and collectives from countries including Brazil, Benin, China, Indonesia, Lebanon, Peru, Taiwan, and South Africa, the exhibition explores the theme of "we" as an evolving proposition. It includes nearly 40 newly commissioned projects—the largest number in the International's history—spanning painting, photography, sculpture, installation, video, and theater. Notable works include Jonathan González's performance "The Strikebreakers" and Georges Adéagbo's installation "Le Socialism Africain," which uses discarded objects to examine Western power and colonial legacies in Africa.

Artist Kader Attia Will Organize 2027 Edition of India’s Top Biennial

Artist Kader Attia, known for his work addressing colonial violence and a winner of France's Prix Marcel Duchamp, has been selected to curate the 2027 edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, India's premier biennial. Attia, who previously curated the 2022 Berlin Biennale, was chosen by a committee led by prominent Indian artist Jitish Kallat. His appointment continues the biennial's tradition of artist-curators, following Nikhil Chopra (2024) and Anita Dube (2018).

The Carnegie International Makes Its Mark

The 59th Carnegie International opens in Pittsburgh, featuring 61 artists from around the world in the oldest survey of its kind in the United States. Critic Ed Simon reviews the exhibition, noting it captures the excitement of earlier editions while providing vital commentary on authoritarianism and militarism. In other news, activists protested Jeff Bezos's co-chair role at the Met Gala with a costumed action and guerrilla projections on his penthouse; Iran withdrew from its national pavilion at the Venice Biennale; MoMA PS1 announced the first US survey of Mexican artist Teresa Margolles; and Hakim Bishara reflects on MoMA's Marcel Duchamp exhibition.

In Minor Keys: how Venice's international exhibition was brought to life after the death of artistic director Koyo Kouoh

The 61st Venice Biennale's international exhibition, titled "In Minor Keys," was realized after the sudden death of its artistic director, Koyo Kouoh, in May 2025. A team of five of Kouoh's collaborators, known as "la squadra di Koyo Kouoh," worked with her before her death and finalized the exhibition's themes, artist list, and scenography. The exhibition features 111 invited artists, duos, collectives, and artist-led organizations, with the team emphasizing that this remains Kouoh's vision rather than a replacement.

New Art Center and Hidden Gems: A Weekend Full of Surprises in Bruges

Nouveau centre d’art et pépites cachées : un week-end plein de surprises à Bruges

Bruges, the Flemish city known for its medieval charm and UNESCO World Heritage status, has inaugurated a new art center called BRUSK in spring 2026. Located in the museum district, the building designed by Robbrecht en Daem and Olivier Salens features a monumental 350-square-meter fresco by French artist Laure Prouvost titled "The Whispering Walls Rêve," which references the city's past and present. The center also includes a conservation and research facility, with free access to the ground floor. The article proposes a weekend itinerary starting at the Grand-Place (Markt) and highlights Bruges as a hub for contemporary creation alongside its historic treasures.