Virginia Museum of Fine Arts gifted collection of nearly 2,000 photographs

The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) has received a major gift of 1,986 photographs from Joy of Giving Something Inc (JGS), a nonprofit founded by Howard and Janet Stein. The donation includes works by over 450 artists, spanning the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries, with highlights from photographers such as Charles Marville, Eugène Atget, Nadar, Alfred Stieglitz, Dora Maar, and Dorothea Lange. The collection, largely assembled by financier Howard Stein, also features rare daguerreotypes, vernacular photographs, and contemporary works. A previous transfer in 2023 included portfolios by Paul Strand and Larry Clark, and the JGS board has now elected to donate the vast majority of its remaining holdings to the museum.

London Gallery Weekend 2026 Highlights And Recommendations

London Gallery Weekend 2026 will take place from June 5 to 7, featuring over 120 galleries across the city, including nine first-time participants and several with new or expanded spaces. The free, open-to-all event is organized by geographic focus days: Central London on Friday, South London on Saturday, and East London on Sunday, with participating galleries open from 11am to 6pm on Friday and Saturday, and 12pm to 5pm on Sunday. Highlights include Gagosian showing rare early works by Christo, Niru Ratnam presenting Keith Piper, Sadie Coles HQ screening new films by Helen Marten, and Victoria Miro debuting Shahzia Sikander's first exhibition since announcing representation.

4 Must-See Shows at Gallery Weekend Beijing

Gallery Weekend Beijing (GWBJ) took place in the 798 Art District, drawing visitors who mingled art-viewing with shopping and leisure in a commercialized landscape. The 10th annual event featured solo exhibitions by younger Chinese artists, including Ouyang Chun's "Nirvana" and Yang Fudong's "Fragrant River," with collectors and patrons like Tian Jun and Zhu Zhu actively shaping the programming. Despite an economic downturn, veteran galleries such as Hive Center for Contemporary Art and Tang Contemporary Art maintained robust activity, while emerging artists explored themes of technological anxiety, bodily perception, and material systems.

Get a taste of the beautiful game through art at exhibits across LA

The article highlights several art exhibitions and installations across Los Angeles that celebrate soccer and sports culture in anticipation of the World Cup. Featured works include Lyndon J. Barrois Sr.'s "Fútbol is Life" at LACMA, featuring miniature sculptures made from chewing gum wrappers depicting historic soccer moments; Pelle Cass's "Play!" at Union Station's Metro Art Passageway Gallery, showing densely layered timelapse photographs of athletes; and Mark Dean Veca's mural "Miracle of La Brea" at the new Wilshire/La Brea Metro Station, which traces the history of the Miracle Mile. The piece also notes the recent opening of the David Geffen Galleries at LACMA and upcoming museums like Refik Anadol's Dataland and the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art.

'The future of art': A first look at the video installation that'll light up LACMA's Wilshire bridge

Artist Diana Thater is creating a new permanent large-scale video installation titled "Oo Fifi, Five Days In Claude Monet’s Garden, Part 3" for the bridge over Wilshire Boulevard at LACMA's David Geffen Galleries. The piece, expected to debut in September, will run nightly from sundown to sunrise and features 6K footage Thater shot in 2025 of Claude Monet's garden in Giverny, France, projected onto a 59-foot-wide wall and part of the bridge ceiling. It will be the largest work of Thater's career and the first permanent outdoor video installation by an artist in a public space.

Detroit’s MOCAD Reopens with a New Vision and a New Kind of Leadership

The Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD) has reopened after an eight-month renovation, marking its 20th anniversary with a new vision centered on artists and community. Co-directors Jova Lynne and Marie Madison-Patton have titled this new chapter "A Practice of Multiplicity," emphasizing the wholeness of artists' lives beyond their work. The renovation includes infrastructural upgrades like an HVAC system, a new Learning Studio, a transformed café for programming, and a facade that opens to the street. Two inaugural surveys highlight Detroit artists Olayami Dabls and Carole Harris, whose practices explore the city's history, culture, and social transformation.

Shenzhen International Museum of Art to open Saturday

The Shenzhen International Museum of Art (SIMoA) will officially open to the public on Saturday in the Guangming Science City district. The museum, covering approximately 135,000 square meters, features two hull-shaped structures symbolizing Eastern and Western cultures. Its opening day presents seven themed exhibitions, including 'Return of National Treasures' showcasing bronze animal heads from the Old Summer Palace, 'Realm of Masters' with European paintings from Budapest, and 'Neo Link — The Future of Art' featuring works by Anish Kapoor and Olafur Eliasson. Other exhibitions include a Xu Bing interactive space, the first Shenzhen Art and Technology Biennale, and selections from the CAFA Art Museum.

Whistler Didn't Mean to Make His Mourning Mother an Art World Star. Today, She's a Highlight at a Major Exhibition in London

James McNeill Whistler's iconic 1871 painting 'Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1,' better known as 'Whistler's Mother,' is currently on display at Tate Britain in London as part of 'James McNeill Whistler,' Europe's largest-ever retrospective of the artist's work. The painting, on loan from the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, was created in Whistler's London studio when his mother Anna McNeill Whistler agreed to pose after a model canceled. The exhibition runs through late September 2026.

Art for hot days: Top 10 exhibitions to see this summer in Chicago

This article presents a curated list of ten must-see art exhibitions in Chicago for summer 2025, highlighting a diverse range of artists and venues. Featured shows include a rare solo exhibition of miniature figurines by 85-year-old Argentinian artist Liliana Porter at Secrist|Beach, a group show inspired by cosmology at the Renaissance Society, and a posthumous survey of Martin Wong's brick-focused paintings at Wrightwood 659. Other notable exhibitions include sculptural works by Oren Pinhassi and Leticia Pardo at the Arts Club of Chicago, Nathaniel Mary Quinn's emotionally charged portraits at the National Public Housing Museum, and Jeremiah Hulsebos-Spofford's monumental sculptures at the Elmhurst Art Museum.

Review: “Daniel Rios Rodriguez: Open this Wall” at Ruby City, San Antonio

Ruby City's Studio annex in San Antonio presents "Daniel Rios Rodriguez: Open this Wall," an exhibition of paintings and drawings by Texas-born artist Daniel Rios Rodriguez. The autobiographical works draw on his time living in San Antonio from 2013 to 2025, incorporating found materials like nails, rope, copper, and limestone into rough-hewn frames. Highlights include dream-inspired large-scale eagle paintings and a pen-and-ink tribute to the San Antonio Riverwalk, with the show serving as a homecoming for the artist, who took his first art classes at San Antonio College.

Dentro uno storico palazzo del centro di Roma ora si visita una nuova galleria d’arte. Gratis

A new free-admission art gallery, the Galleria Verticale, has opened inside Palazzo Marignoli, a historic 19th-century building in central Rome owned by the Allianz Group. The gallery presents a vertical exhibition route from top to bottom, showcasing part of Allianz Italia's corporate art collection, which spans the 19th and 20th centuries. Curated by Claudia Crosera and Aulo Guagnini, the temporary display (open until May 5, 2027) features works by artists such as Francesco Hayez, Alfredo Tomiz, Umberto Veruda, and Arturo Rietti, alongside restoration history and archival materials related to the insurance companies that merged into Allianz. The building also houses a flagship Apple store designed with Norman Foster's involvement and a panoramic restaurant, Quid.

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.

Byblos dans le fracas du monde

The article reviews an immersive exhibition at the Institut du monde arabe in Paris titled "Byblos, cité millénaire du Liban," which presents over 470 archaeological artifacts from the ancient Phoenician city of Byblos in present-day Lebanon. The show features national treasures rarely or never before exhibited outside Lebanon, including stone anchors, statuettes, engraved stelae, gold and silver vessels, and a Roman mosaic depicting the abduction of Europa. The scenography plunges visitors into underwater and subterranean environments, evoking the city's 9,000-year history as a Mediterranean trade and diplomatic hub, its ties with Egyptian pharaohs through cedar wood, and its role in spreading the Phoenician alphabet.

Ephemeral Metamorphosis

Métamorphose éphémère

French artist JR has unveiled a monumental inflatable installation titled "La Caverne du Pont-Neuf" on the Pont-Neuf bridge in Paris. The immersive work, composed of giant printed canvases sculpted by air, forms a 120-meter-long cave over the Seine where visitors can walk while listening to a sound piece by former Daft Punk member Thomas Bangalter. The installation is free to visit from June 6 to 28, 2026, and pays homage to the 40th anniversary of Christo and Jeanne-Claude's iconic "Pont-Neuf Wrapped" project.

Lucia Pietroiusti and Filipa Ramos Named Convenors for Norway’s Bergen Assembly

Bergen Assembly, the triennial art platform in Bergen, Norway, has named Lucia Pietroiusti and Filipa Ramos as convenors for its 2028 edition. The duo, known for their collaborative project “The Shape of a Circle in the Mind of a Fish,” will conduct part of their research publicly and work closely with the city. Pietroiusti is curator of the Sixth Autostrada Biennale and founder of Serpentine Gallery’s General Ecology initiative; Ramos teaches at FHNW Academy of Art and Design and is curator of the 2027 Lofoten International Art Festival. A “Prelude” event begins September 12, 2025.