The Invincible Spirit of Edmonia Lewis

The Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, has opened "Edmonia Lewis: Said in Stone," the first major retrospective of the 19th-century sculptor Edmonia Lewis, who was of Black and Indigenous (Mississauga-Tuscarora) descent. The exhibition displays 30 of her Neoclassical white marble sculptures alongside archival materials and works by other artists, organized into four thematic rooms that explore antislavery, Indigenous artistic worlds, her studios in Rome, and religion and mythology. Co-organized with the Georgia Museum of Art, the show emphasizes Lewis's dual heritage without conflating the two identities, featuring extensive text and quotes from the artist herself.

ISA Art Gallery’s Biophilia Exhibition

Deborah Iskander, founder of ISA Art Gallery in Jakarta, launched the gallery's latest exhibition titled 'Biophilia' at its location in Wisma BNI 46. The gallery, established in 2014, has focused on exhibiting women artists and diaspora Indonesian artists since 2021. The exhibition continues this curatorial direction, featuring works that explore the connection between nature and human experience.

The Carnegie International Tests What “We” Still Means in a Fractured World

The 59th edition of the Carnegie International, the oldest survey of contemporary art in the United States, opens at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, featuring 61 artists and collectives from around the world and 36 newly commissioned works. Curated by Ryan Inouye, Danielle A. Jackson, and Liz Park, the exhibition is titled “If the word we,” developed in collaboration with writer Haytham el-Wardany, and for the first time partners with local institutions including the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh, Kamin Science Center, Mattress Factory, and the Thelma Lovette YMCA to engage different segments of the city’s community.

Biennale Arte 2026: which national pavilions strike us and why

The 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, titled "In Minor Keys" and curated by Koyo Kouoh (who passed away in May 2025), opened amid intense controversy over its artist list and geopolitical tensions. Protests erupted against the participation of Israel and Russia, with a petition signed by 22 countries to exclude Russia, threats from the European Commission to suspend funding, and the resignation of the international jury. Around 18 national pavilions staged strikes and partial closures to denounce the normalization of Israel's presence and precarious labor in the art world. The Austria Pavilion's performance by Florentina Holzinger, featuring a girl hanging upside down inside a tilting bell, became a viral symbol refocusing attention on art itself.

Isamu Noguchi was never a designer, affirms High Museum of Art, Atlanta

The High Museum of Art in Atlanta presents "Isamu Noguchi: 'I am not a designer'," the first design retrospective of the Japanese-American sculptor in 25 years. Co-curated by Monica Obniski and Marin R. Sullivan, the exhibition features nearly 200 objects, including sculptural models, furniture for Herman Miller and Knoll, Akari light fixtures, and large-scale installations like Martha Graham's stage set for "Seraphic Dialogue" (1955). The show challenges Noguchi's own resistance to categorization by framing his multidisciplinary practice—spanning sculpture, design, architecture, and public art—through a design lens.

In Minor Keys A Cacophony At 61st Venice Biennale – Miranda Carroll

The 61st Venice Biennale, titled 'In Minor Keys,' opened with a central exhibition curated by the late Koyo Kouoh, who died in 2025. The show features 110 artists and collectives, realized by a team of five curators known as 'la squadra di Koyo.' The exhibition spans the Giardini and Arsenale venues, with works including Otobong Nkanga's living facade installation, Theo Eshetu's dying olive tree, and Nick Cave's vibrant sculptures. Poems and quotes by Refaat al-Areer, Etel Adnan, Toni Morrison, and Ben Okri punctuate the spaces, encouraging visitors to pause and reflect.

A Decade of Contemporary Art: Gallery Weekend Beijing Turns 10

Gallery Weekend Beijing (GWBJ) will celebrate its 10th anniversary with the 2026 edition running from May 22 to May 31, opening with three VIP days before going public on May 26. Founded in 2017, the event features curated exhibitions from 30 galleries and 10 non-profit institutions across Beijing, anchored in the 798 Art District and extending to Caochangdi and the CBD Art District. A new Academic Committee—comprising Guo Xi, Leng Lin, Tian Yuan, Xi Tao, and Yang Beichen—selected the participating galleries, with 25 returning from previous editions and five newly nominated. Highlights include institutional presentations at UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Red Brick Art Museum, and SONG Art Museum, as well as a special exhibition titled "Nirvana" by Ouyang Chun.

A trip to the future: the best of Belfast photo festival – in pictures

The Belfast Photo Festival returns for 2026 as the largest annual photography festival in the UK and Ireland, running from 4–30 June at venues across the city. This year's theme, 'Horizons: Visions of Futures Unknown,' challenges photographers and audiences to explore technological, environmental, geopolitical, and AI-driven boundaries in the medium. Featured works include Laura Pannack's 'The Journey Home,' Florence Goupil's documentation of a Peruvian protection agent, Toby Smith's participatory installation confronting the collapse of mechanical photography, and Lean Lui's allegorical 'The White Barracks' examining power and patriarchy.

Exhibitions to See: Agenda for 25–29 May 2026

The article presents a curated agenda of art exhibitions to visit from 25 to 29 May 2026, listing shows across multiple cities. It is published by an Italian online magazine registered in Naples, with Lorenzo Crea as director and Visio Adv as publisher.

At the 2026 Biennale, the Bulgarian Pavilion Transforms into a Political Laboratory to Explore the Present

Alla Biennale 2026 il Padiglione della Bulgaria si trasforma in laboratorio politico per esplorare il presente

The Bulgarian Pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale, housed in the Sala Tiziano of the Centro Culturale Don Orione Artigianelli, has been transformed into a speculative political laboratory by The Federation of Minor Practices. Curated by Martina Yordanova, the project features an all-female group of artists—Veneta Androva, Gery Georgieva, Maria Nalbantova, and Rayna Teneva—whose four films serve as "signals" exploring tensions around ecology, media systems, disinformation, and collective responsibility. The pavilion is conceived as a research headquarters from the near future, open until November 22, 2026.

Prisoners of Love: Until the Sun of Freedom

Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme present 'Prisoners of Love: Until the Sun of Freedom' at MACBA – Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona. The immersive installation explores Palestinian incarceration through sound, memory, and poetic fragments, refusing linear narrative and documentary conventions. It features testimonies, songs, and spectral traces that create a polyphonic meditation on captivity, resistance, and the persistence of voice against erasure.