Where to go on Pentecost weekend?

Wohin am Pfingstwochenende?

This article from Monopol presents a curated guide to art exhibitions and events across several European cities for the Pentecost weekend. Highlights include Christina Kubisch's comprehensive survey 'The Emergence of Sound' at the Ludwig Forum Aachen, Pierre Huyghe's solo show at the Fondation Beyeler in Basel, an artist talk with Jorinde Voigt at Galerie Judin in Berlin, the outdoor exhibition 'Ecologies in Motion' in Düsseldorf's Malkastenpark, Elmgreen & Dragset's intervention at the Städel Museum and Liebieghaus in Frankfurt, and 'Eine Stadt als Atelier' at the Kölnischer Kunstverein in Cologne, among others in Ludwigshafen, Warsaw, and Vienna.

Artist Nathaniel Mary Quinn, admired by the Rolling Stones and Leonardo DiCaprio, returns with hometown show

Artist Nathaniel Mary Quinn, known for his distinctive collage-like composite portraits, is opening his first solo exhibition in his hometown of Chicago at the National Public Housing Museum. Titled "A Love Letter to My Mother," the show honors his late mother and includes a replica of his family's living room in the Robert Taylor Homes public housing project. Quinn, who is represented by Gagosian, has seen his work acquired by major institutions including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago. His art will also appear on the cover of the Rolling Stones' forthcoming album "Foreign Tongues."

The Pain Behind the Colors

Der Schmerz hinter den Farben

Henry Taylor is the subject of a major exhibition at the Musée Picasso in Paris, where his monumental paintings addressing racism, poverty, hope, and pain are displayed in dialogue with art history. The article describes a key work featuring Martin Luther King Jr. in a park scene, with small adult-faced figures and a limousine of white men watching, highlighting Taylor's narrative style.

How Can Art Depict Everyday Violence?

Anuar Maauad and Roger Muñoz have cocurated the exhibition "La Alegría de Vivir" at Estudio Anuar Maauad in Mexico City, featuring works by Jorge de León, Benjamin Orlow, Miguel Ángel Rojas, Berenice Olmedo, Miguel Ventura, Paul McCarthy, and Teresa Margolles. The show confronts themes of necropolitics and systemic violence through sculptures, photographs, and installations that depict war, state power, and human suffering as ongoing, normalized conditions.

London exhibition explores untold history of how homelessness was criminalised

A new exhibition titled "Criminal: The Untold History of Homelessness" opens at the Museum of Homelessness in London, exploring the origins of homelessness in the UK and how it has been criminalized. The exhibition challenges the typical focus on the 19th-century Vagrancy Act, instead tracing the "Homelessness Big Bang" to the early 1600s, when land enclosures, economic shifts, and colonial expansion began penalizing unhoused people. Staged in a meadow at Finsbury Park, the show features artists and activists including the anonymous graffiti artist 10 Foot, designer Matt Bonner, and poet Gemma Lees, with works such as 10 Foot's first sculpture "Fairie Newbuild"—a skip-shaped object made from palisade fencing containing a hawthorn tree.

For the Obama Center, Mark Bradford Paints a Fierce and Luminous Chicago

Mark Bradford has completed "City of the Big Shoulders," a monumental painting for the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago. The work, which took five years to create, maps migration patterns and structural racism, reflecting the city's strength and complexity through Bradford's signature abstract, layered style.

Mimmo Jodice in mostra al nuovo Museo del Tesoro di San Gennaro a Napoli. Rare foto ‘barocche’ a colori

Mimmo Jodice, the renowned Italian photographer who died in October 2025 at age 91, is being honored with a new exhibition at the Museo del Tesoro di San Gennaro in Naples. The show, curated by former Capodimonte director Sylvain Bellenger, presents Jodice's rare color photographs from the 1980s—his only color project—which focus on 17th-century Neapolitan Baroque paintings by artists such as Caravaggio, Jusepe de Ribera, and Artemisia Gentileschi. The exhibition runs until January 10, 2027, and also marks the inauguration of newly renovated welcome spaces at the museum, designed by Vanni del Gaudio.

In Milan, the first exhibition-market dedicated entirely to 20th-century modernariato arrives

A Milano arriva la prima mostra-mercato dedicata interamente al modernariato del Novecento

The article announces the arrival of SOMO (Solo Modernariato), Italy's only fair dedicated entirely to 20th-century modernariato, in Milan. After two years in Alzano Lombardo near Bergamo, the event will take place at Superstudio Più in Via Tortona 27 on May 23-24, 2026. It will feature over 70 exhibitors from across Italy, showcasing furniture, lamps, and objects produced between the post-war period and the 1980s, targeting collectors, architects, interior designers, and a new generation of enthusiasts.

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.

MFA students featured in exhibition at AD&A Museum

Graduating Master of Fine Arts students from UC Santa Barbara are presenting their work in the exhibition “Fault Lines” at the Art, Design & Architecture Museum from May 23 to June 7. The show features seven artists—Tiffany Aiello, Alexis Childress, Hope Christofferson, Emily d’Achiardi, Negar Farajiani, Vivek Karthikeyan, and KeyShawn Scott—whose works explore physical and conceptual boundaries through installations, sculpture, video, painting, and public art. Themes include queer and neurodivergent identity, systemic racism, consciousness, and the interplay of fact and fiction.

Grove Gallery to host ‘In the Absence of Space’ exhibition

Grove Gallery in Evanston, Illinois, will host a group exhibition titled 'In the Absence of Space' from May 30 to June 28, with an opening reception on June 6. The show features artists who explore how minoritized and underrepresented communities respond to exclusion and invisibility by creating their own spaces of presence, connection, and community. The exhibition is presented by Evanston ASPA in partnership with Evanston Latinos, Aloha Center Chicago, Gichigamiin Indigenous Nations Museum, Shorefront Legacy Center, and Evanston Made.

The Returning Artists Guild

The Blue House Gallery in Dayton, Ohio, will host "Imagining Abolition: State Blues," a group exhibition presented by The Returning Artists Guild (RAG), an abolitionist collective of directly-impacted practicing artists from Ohio and beyond. The exhibition opens on June 13, 2026, with a reception from 6-9pm, and runs through July 13, 2026, with open hours on Fridays from 4-6pm or by appointment.

Santarcangelo Festival 2026: The Village Fills with Performances, Speaking of the Body as a Political Space Under Pressure

Santarcangelo Festival 2026, il borgo che si riempie di performance parlando di corpo come spazio politico sotto pressione

The 56th edition of the Santarcangelo Festival, titled "Deep Pressures," will take place from July 3 to 12, 2026, in the historic town of Santarcangelo, Italy. Curated by Tomasz Kirenczuk in his final year as artistic director, the festival transforms the town into a "city-festival" with over 100 events including performances, concerts, and participatory practices. The program explores the body as a political space under pressure—from geopolitical conflict and colonial legacies to emotional and social tensions. Key works include "In relation to whom?" by Palestinian artists Marah Haj Hussein and Nur Garabli, "When I Saw the Sea" by Lebanese choreographer Ali Chahrour, and "Homem Novo" by Mozambican artist Yuck Miranda, among others. The festival was presented at Mambo in Bologna, with Kirenczuk emphasizing that the role of the festival is to be unsettling, not reassuring.