Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Announces 314 New Acquisitions During 50th Anniversary Year

The Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden announced 314 new acquisitions in 2025, its 50th anniversary year. The additions span photography, mixed-media works, and contemporary American artists, including pieces by Lorna Simpson, Sarah Sze, Mickalene Thomas, Danny Lyon, Graciela Iturbide, Adam Pendleton, and Mark Bradford. Major gifts include a multi-year donation from collectors Doug and Toni Gordon of 176 works forming an archive of Pendleton's works on paper, as well as 13 contemporary Chinese works tied to a 2022 exhibition. The museum also acquired nine architectural photographs by Ezra Stoller documenting its 1974 opening and 19 prints by Joel-Peter Witkin.

Independent Art Fair Trades Downtown for the World

The Independent Art Fair has moved to Pier 36 on the Lower East Side waterfront for its 17th edition, running through May 17. The fair features 76 booths with a more spacious, warehouse-like layout, and a noticeably older, glossier crowd compared to previous years. Exhibitors include Los Angeles-based ATLA and Diane Rosenstein galleries, as well as international participants like Bogotá's SGR Gallery, showcasing solo presentations by artists such as Yoshikazu Tanaka, Kuniko Kinoto, and Johan Samboní. The fair has also announced partnerships with Sotheby's for its 20th-century edition and with the nonprofit Henry Street Settlement, signaling a tension between upscale ambitions and local community ties.

Latin American galleries dominate at Frieze New York

Frieze New York 2025 features a surge of 14 Latin American galleries from Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil, reversing a trend of withdrawal seen during the first 100 days of Donald Trump’s second presidency. Non-profit support from organizations like Latitude, which helped all eight Brazilian exhibitors, and a concerted effort by Frieze’s Americas team have enabled this increased presence, despite ongoing challenges such as high shipping costs, tariffs, and visa denials—exemplified by Mexican artist Dr Lakra being unable to attend his own show at Kurimanzutto.

Venice’s top museum brings in 80-year-old performance artist as St. Mark’s Square hosts Lee Ufan exhibition

Gallerie dell'Accademia, one of Venice’s most historic museums, is hosting "Energy in Transition," a major retrospective marking performance artist Marina Abramović’s 80th birthday. The exhibition features iconic works such as "The Lovers: The Great Wall Walk" (1988) and "Balkan Baroque" (1997), for which she became the first woman to win the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale. Visitors can interact with installations involving crystals, meditation platforms, and energy brushes, transforming Abramović’s once-violent performances into a healing journey. Separately, St. Mark’s Square is hosting an exhibition by Korean artist Lee Ufan, featuring his sculpture "The Kiss."

Lee Ufan stars in Venice with a major exhibition by Dia Art Foundation

Dia Art Foundation presents a major solo exhibition of Lee Ufan at SMAC Venice, opening May 9, 2026, as an Official Collateral Event of the 61st Venice Biennale. Curated by Jessica Morgan, the show spans over sixty years of the artist's career, featuring historical and unseen paintings, monumental installations, and new site-specific works across eight rooms. It includes seminal series such as *From Point*, *From Line*, *From Winds*, *With Winds*, *Correspondance*, and *Dialogue*, tracing Lee's evolution from the 1960s to the present.

NJCU Visual Arts Gallery presents "Formidable Women, Dangerous Times"

New Jersey City University Visual Arts Gallery is presenting a solo exhibition by Johanna Foster titled "Formidable Women, Dangerous Times," running from May 14 to 28, 2026. The show features a series of figurative oil paintings that depict fierce women from Foster's communities, both real and imagined, exploring themes of resistance, courage, and perseverance in difficult times. Foster, a professor of sociology at Monmouth University, began her MFA at NJCU in 2022 and has exhibited widely across New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and California, including a digital exhibition at Newark Liberty International Airport and the Montclair Art Museum.

Martin Schongauer en toute majesté

The Louvre Museum in Paris has opened a major retrospective dedicated to Martin Schongauer (c. 1445–1491), the German engraver and painter from Colmar, bringing together a large portion of his known works. The exhibition features around one hundred pieces, including fifty engravings, five of his rare drawings, and nearly all of his attributed paintings—such as the "Virgin and Child at the Window" (c. 1480) from the Getty Museum and the "Orlier Altarpiece" (c. 1470–1475) from the Musée Unterlinden. The centerpiece is Schongauer's "Virgin of the Rose Bush" (1473), displayed at low height to reveal its botanical precision. Co-curated by Pantxika Béguerie De Paepe and Hélène Grollemund, the show also highlights Schongauer's influence on contemporaries and later artists through comparative works by Rogier van der Weyden and others.

In ‘Door to Life,’ Pacita Abad Evokes Traditional Yemeni Architecture

The article reports on 'Door to Life,' the third solo exhibition of works by the late Filipino artist Pacita Abad (1946-2004) at Tina Kim Gallery in New York. The show focuses on a body of work Abad created after her 1998 visit to Yemen, where she was inspired by the country's traditional architecture and decorative arts, particularly its ornate doors and qamariya (semicircular stained-glass windows). The works, executed in her signature trapunto style—a technique of stitched, padded canvas—layer geometric patterns, botanical motifs, and vibrant colors to evoke Yemeni design. The exhibition runs through June 20.

Kumu to unveil Kristi Kongi's largest solo exhibition 'Chromatic Drift'

Estonian painter Kristi Kongi's largest solo exhibition, 'Chromatic Drift,' will open at the Kumu Art Museum on May 22. The exhibition fills the museum's great hall, courtyard, and windows with new works featuring earthy tones like purple, brown, and burgundy, described by curator Ann Mirjam Vaikla as reflecting the aesthetics of the Anthropocene. The show is accompanied by a book with essays by Sara Garzón, Sirje Helme, and Vaikla, and includes works created during Kongi's residency at Cerámica Suro in Guadalajara, Mexico.

Bright future for the next generation of artistic talent

Hong Kong Secretary for Culture, Sports and Tourism Rosanna Law Shuk-pui visited Venice to support the Hong Kong Collateral Event at the 61st Venice Biennale, themed “Fermata: Hong Kong in Venice.” The exhibition features artists Kingsley Ng and Angel Hui, with five installations exploring poetic rhythms in everyday life, curated by the Hong Kong Museum of Art (HKMoA). Law also viewed American artist Nick Cave’s sculpture *Amalga (Plot)* and announced the Venice Biennale Internship Programme 2026, which will send six arts-background interns to Venice for a six-week residency.

Romanesco in a Max Mara Coat

Romanesco im Max-Mara-Mantel

Evelyn Taocheng Wang's first institutional solo exhibition in Italy, "Sweet Landscape," opens at the Museion in Bolzano. The Chinese-born, Rotterdam-based artist presents silk paintings, pastel canvases, and painted garments that probe the region's complex history beneath its idyllic Alpine scenery. Works such as "Frog Princess Checks Her Smartphone in front of Window of August Macke’s Hat Shop" (2026) and "Ancient Roman bust for Sale" (2026) blend local food motifs, cultural translation, and hybrid identity, questioning who gets to write history and how landscapes are perceived through secondhand experiences.

“Joseph Barrett: Views from his Lahaska Studio” to open at Silverman Gallery

The Silverman Gallery of Bucks County Impressionist Art in Holicong, Pennsylvania, will open a new exhibition titled “Joseph Barrett: Views from his Lahaska Studio” on May 16-17, 2025, with opening receptions featuring live jazz and refreshments. The show runs through June 20 and includes previously unseen works such as “View from My Window,” “Neshaminy,” and “County Theater in Snow,” alongside Barrett’s painting “Estate of Joseph Stanley,” recently returned from a two-year display at the U.S. Embassy in Kigali, Rwanda, as part of the State Department’s Art in Embassies program.

Liliana Moro “| senza | soluzione di continuità” at Platea | Palazzo Galeano, Lodi

Liliana Moro presents a new installation titled “| senza | soluzione di continuità” at Platea | Palazzo Galeano in Lodi. The work is described as a powerful yet subtle artistic gesture that renegotiates the function of the shop window as a public space, emphasizing responsibility and generosity.

À Deauville, un vitrail monumental de Clara Rivault fête les cinq ans des Franciscaines

Les Franciscaines de Deauville, a former convent turned cultural center, celebrates its fifth anniversary by unveiling its first permanent commission: a monumental contemporary stained glass window by Clara Rivault. Titled "Ceux qui traversent," the double-sided work spans the entrance of the Grande Galerie, blending traditional glass techniques with photographic transfers, lead, and light. Rivault, born in 1991 and trained at Montpellier's École supérieure des beaux-arts, La Cambre in Brussels, and the Centre international d'Art verrier de Meisenthal, has previously created works for the Institut français in Paris and the church of Saint-Paterne in Saint-Pair-sur-Mer.

ACC Gallery presents "Echoes over the Hudson"

ACC Gallery in Tenafly, New Jersey, presents "Echoes over the Hudson" from May 5-23, 2026, an exhibition featuring contemporary Korean artists based in the New York Tri-State region. The show includes works in painting, sculpture, installation, photography, and new media by artists such as Eunchong Kim, Jinsook Lee, Agnes Woo, and Hyo Jin Jeon, exploring themes of migration, urban experience, memory, and cultural hybridity.

À Marseille, l’installation textile monumentale d’Adrien Vescovi déploie ses couleurs

Artist Adrien Vescovi has installed a monumental textile work titled "Dormir comme le soleil" at the Vieille Charité in Marseille. The installation features over 600 dyed sheets suspended across 108 arches of the former hospice, using natural pigments from plants, spices, and ochres. The fabrics, dyed in a labor-intensive process involving large wooden spoons and cauldrons, are designed to fade and evolve over the eight-month exhibition, responding to wind, humidity, and Mediterranean light.

‘Art is story, and stories save lives’: In St. Walburg, a travelling exhibit gives voice to stories often left untold

The Susan Velder Gallery and More in St. Walburg, Saskatchewan, is hosting 'Invisible Winds: Stories You Can Not See, Journeys toward Wholeness,' a traveling exhibition curated through the Organization of Saskatchewan Arts Councils (OSAC). Featuring 19 local artists, the show explores hidden emotional realities such as adoption, PTSD, trauma, and resilience through mixed-media works, including Holly Hildebrand's textured portraits 'Ghosts and Shadows: Heather' and 'Ghosts and Shadows: Teanna.' Visitors are encouraged to scan QR codes to hear artists' stories, and many return multiple times to absorb the heavy themes.

Exhibition | Huang Hankang, 'The Sky Remains as the Bird Departs' at Arario Gallery, Shanghai, China

Arario Gallery Shanghai presents Huang Hankang's solo exhibition 'The Sky Remains as the Bird Departs,' running from May 15 to July 4. The show uses Shanghai as a dynamic 'processing system' where images, histories, and cultures are constantly received, translated, and reorganized. Through installations and paintings, the exhibition compresses multiple visual and historical threads, featuring works such as 'Gate of Flesh and Soul,' which juxtaposes Giuseppe Castiglione's hybrid visual language with the Cathay Theatre and fragments of George Washington's dentures, and 'Overlaid Life,' which contrasts a Song Dynasty crystal rabbit with cultivated orchids. Other pieces like 'Void Resonance' and 'Nameless Mark' explore perception, the body, and cultural mediation.

National Art Museum presents vibrant exhibition within World Urban Forum [PHOTOS]

The Azerbaijan National Art Museum has opened an exhibition titled 'Chronicle of the City of Winds: Baku in the Works of Artists from the 19th to 21st Centuries,' organized jointly by the Azerbaijan Culture Ministry and the museum. Featuring over 80 works of painting, graphic art, and sculpture, the show traces Baku's historical, architectural, and cultural evolution from the 19th century to the present day. It includes pieces from the museum's collection alongside contemporary works, and is part of the 13th session of the World Urban Forum (WUF13), held within the Year of Urban Planning and Architecture in Azerbaijan. The opening ceremony featured speeches by Deputy Culture Minister Saadat Yusifova, museum director Shirin Malikova, and People's Artist Salhab Mammadov, as well as a musical performance by Honored Artist Nargiz Karimova and Zumrud Alizade.

Three exhibitions set to open at Hunterdon Art Museum

The Hunterdon Art Museum in New Jersey will open three new exhibitions on May 17, 2025. The shows include a solo exhibition of figurative painter Emily Strong, featuring large-scale realist oil paintings that explore identity and relationships; “Claybash,” the museum’s second triennial juried ceramics exhibition curated by Angelik Vizcarrondo-Laboy; and “Mindscapes,” a retrospective of 60 years of work by 93-year-old New Jersey artist Bascha Mon, whose recent pieces are inspired by the music of composer Olivier Messiaen.