Your Summer Guide: 20 Art World Highlights Not to Miss

ARTnews has published a summer guide highlighting 20 art world events and exhibitions not to miss in the coming months. Featured highlights include the opera 'El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego' at the Metropolitan Opera, the 'Costume Art' exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a Björk show titled 'echolalia' at the National Gallery of Iceland, a book on the Venice Biennale by Massimiliano Gioni, Raven Halfmoon's 'Flags of Our Mothers' at Ballroom Marfa, a Pierre Huyghe exhibition at Fondation Beyeler Basel, a James McNeill Whistler retrospective at Tate Britain, and the inaugural Medina Triennial in New York.

Au Mémorial de Caen, les artistes africains font face à l’histoire de la colonisation

The Mémorial de Caen, a museum dedicated to World War II and the Cold War, has opened a new exhibition titled "(Dé)colonisations: des artistes africains interrogent l'histoire" (Decolonizations: African Artists Question History). Curated by Ayoko Mensah and Jean-Yves Marin, the show features 80 works by contemporary artists of sub-Saharan African origin, including Omar Victor Diop and Roméo Mivekannin. Swiss collector Jean Claude Gandur, who is building a foundation adjacent to the museum, lent 23 works, and his foundation's curator Olivia Fahmy helped organize the exhibition. The show is a prelude to a planned permanent section on colonial history at the memorial.

A Como sta per arrivare una grande mostra su William Turner e il Romanticismo inglese

A major exhibition on William Turner and English Romanticism is set to open on May 29 at Palazzo del Broletto and the Pinacoteca Civica in Como, Italy. Titled "Turner. L’incanto del lago di Como e del paesaggio italiano," the show features seven precious watercolors inspired by Turner's travels to the Lake Como region, alongside an immersive film produced by Tate Digital. The exhibition traces Turner's stylistic evolution from his 1819 sketches to later chromatic studies from 1842-1843, and is organized by the City of Como in collaboration with the Tate in London.

A Gallery Turned Casino: How Below Grand's "Club Bar" Blurs the Lines of Contemporary Art, NYC

Below Grand, a gallery on Orchard Street in New York, has transformed its space into "Club Bar," an immersive exhibition curated by Marissa Graziano that blurs the line between art and entertainment. The show features a pool table, free beer and hot dogs, and a white roulette table dealt by artist Sam Guy, where guests gamble for raffle tickets to win artworks. The exhibition includes works by Alexis Akua, Thomas Bohm Jr., Alex Cassetti, Angela Dufresne, and others, with a suggested donation of $25 for five plays and raffle tickets.

Ruggero Baragliu brings the painting of "how much is enough" to Rome

From May 30 to June 30, 2026, Blocco 13 in Rome hosts "Qb," the first Roman solo exhibition of Sardinian artist Ruggero Baragliu (born 1987). Curated by Antonello Cuccu and Chiara Manca, the show presents oils, papers, and bas-reliefs that explore the boundary between painting and sculpture through an essential, layered language. Works include small-format oils on panel such as "Colossus" (2026), the multi-year "Untitled with Checkers" (2019–2024), and the bas-relief "Garbata," which transforms brushstroke into volume. The exhibition is part of Blocco 13's "Guests" section, which has previously hosted artists like Pierluigi Fresia and Alessandro Finocchiaro.

Museo Madre Naples: Maria Lai and Living Collapse between history, matter and memory

From June 25 to September 21, 2026, the Fondazione Donnaregina per le arti contemporanee presents the exhibition "Maria Lai: Being is Weaving" at the Madre museum in Naples, curated by Monica Amor and Carlos Basualdo in collaboration with the Archivio and Fondazione Maria Lai. The show traces the artist's six-decade career, highlighting her experimentation with sewing, collage, textiles, and orality, and includes a catalogue with contributions from multiple scholars. Concurrently, the museum hosts "Living Collapse," the second exhibition of the Premio Meridiana, curated by Samuele Piazza, featuring artists Andrea Bolognino, Effe Minelli, and Raffaela Naldi Rossano, which reinterprets the nativity scene tradition through contemporary practices.

The investigation of intimacy at the center of an exhibition in a Paris gallery

L’indagine sull’intimità al centro di una mostra in una galleria di Parigi

French artist Guillaume Valenti (b. 1987) presents his solo exhibition "Système domestique" at Parliament Gallery in Paris, exploring how personal identity can be conveyed through intimate domestic spaces rather than traditional portraiture. The show centers on repeated depictions of the artist's studio bookshelf, captured from the same viewpoint and proportions, which serves both as a subject and a structural grid. Valenti's paintings investigate the interplay of light, color, and abstraction, with works such as "Grise" (2026) and "Bibliothèque blanche" (2026) using overexposure and artificial coloration to deconstruct realistic representation. Other pieces like "The florist" (2026) depict views from the studio window, further examining the boundary between interior and exterior perception.