Dawn Airey, a veteran television executive with a career spanning Channel 5, Sky, ITV, Yahoo!, and Getty Images, has been appointed chair of Arts Council England, the arms-length body that distributes over £680 million annually in UK government funding for culture. She will be paid £60,000 a year for a two-day-a-week role, succeeding a period of significant review and policy change for the organization.
South Korean ceramic artist Jongjin Park has won the 2026 Loewe Foundation Craft Prize for his piece "Strata of Illusion" (2025), a partially-collapsed seat-like form made from paper and coated in porcelain slip. The award comes with a €50,000 ($58,700) prize, and Park's work will be exhibited alongside other shortlisted entries at the National Gallery Singapore, opening tomorrow and running through June 14.
Wallace Chan, the Chinese artist known for his work across microscopic gemstone carving and monumental titanium sculpture, is presenting two concurrent exhibitions in Venice during the 61st Venice Biennale: “Vessels of Other Worlds” at the Pietà Chapel and “Mythos” at Scala Contarini del Bovolo. In an interview with ArtAsiaPacific, Chan discusses his artistic journey from traditional Chinese Buddhist carving to Western iconography, the spiritual resonance of the Pietà Chapel (where Vivaldi composed), and how his works explore themes of transformation, birth, growth, and rebirth through the lens of Buddhist philosophy and Catholic ritual.
Swiss businessman and former diplomat Uli Sigg has spent over three decades assembling one of the largest private collections of contemporary Chinese art, comprising thousands of works. Artist Ai Weiwei has referred to Sigg as “my maker,” highlighting the collector’s pivotal role in promoting Chinese contemporary art on the global stage.
Adam Budak has been dismissed as director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow (MOCAK), effective from 12 May, with his employment ending on 30 June. The city of Krakow cited improper performance of duties related to work organization and team management, following an investigation triggered by a complaint signed by 37 employees. Budak disputes the decision, calling it baseless and made under time pressure, and is considering an appeal. Artists including Paulina Ołowska and Robert Knoke have rallied in support, with several artists withdrawing from MOCAK's 2026–27 programme in solidarity.
Bolivian artist Marisol Mendez has won the 2026 Saltzman-Leibovitz Photography Prize for her work *MADRE*. The award includes a $15,000 cash prize, and Mendez's winning piece will be exhibited alongside works by other nominees at Photo London from May 13 to 17. The prize was founded in 2025 by photographers Lisa Saltzman and Annie Leibovitz. Miranda Barnes took second place, with Cole Ndelu, Lindeka Qampi, and Bettina Pittaluga also nominated.
Intervista al gallerista di frontiera che ha aperto il suo spazio a Vasto in Abruzzo
Sangallo Fine Art, a modern art gallery located in Vasto, Abruzzo, Italy, is profiled in an interview with its founder Giorgio di Michele Marisi. The gallery, born from a chance encounter and a passion for 20th-century art, has carved out a distinctive space in the periphery of the art world. It is currently presenting the exhibition "Permanenza della materia espansa" (2026), curated by Lorenzo Madaro, which exemplifies its commitment to critical rediscovery and experimental display. Despite being geographically distant from traditional art hubs, the gallery has built a loyal clientele of knowledgeable collectors and international buyers, relying on direct relationships and participation in art fairs.
This article presents a curated series of profiles featuring prominent global figures across the disciplines of art, history, fashion, and human rights. The collection highlights individuals such as art critic Andrew Graham-Dixon, fashion historian Valerie Steele, and photographer Marco Delogu, emphasizing their contributions to cultural discourse and the intersection of their work with religion and philosophy.
The Thoma Foundation, established by Carl and Marilynn Thoma, has evolved from a private art collection into a multifaceted philanthropic powerhouse based in Dallas. Operating under the philosophy of stewardship rather than ownership, the foundation has loaned over 1,400 works to more than 200 museums globally. Their collection is notably diverse, ranging from Spanish Colonial masterpieces to cutting-edge digital art, such as Siebren Versteeg’s algorithmic compositions, all aimed at sparking public dialogue and expanding cultural access.
Evita Tezeno is a Dallas-based artist recognized for her vibrant collage paintings that utilize hand-painted papers and found objects. Influenced by Black modernists like Romare Bearden and Elizabeth Catlett, her work depicts harmonious scenes of everyday Black life, drawing from her childhood memories in South Texas and personal dreams. Her practice has earned significant acclaim, including a 2023 Guggenheim Fellowship and the Elizabeth Catlett Award, positioning her as a vital voice in contemporary figurative collage.
Beth Rudin DeWoody is a preeminent American art collector and philanthropist whose influence spans private acquisition, public exhibition, and institutional support. Central to her impact is The Bunker Artspace in West Palm Beach, a dynamic hub where she showcases her vast, eclectic collection through curated exhibitions like "A Wing and a Prayer" and "Beyond the Rainbow." Her role as a patron is further solidified by her positions on museum boards, such as the Norton Museum of Art, and her frequent loans to major institutions worldwide.
Alexandre Gabriel, a partner at São Paulo gallery Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel, opens his home in the Praça da República neighborhood to reveal his personal art collection, which includes works by friends and a Robert Mapplethorpe photograph of Peter Berlin (1976). Gabriel describes how his collection began with gifts from artist friends he met while interning at a film production company in 1996, including Ivens Machado, Luiz Zerbini, Barrão, and Ernesto Neto, and emphasizes that his collection is strictly personal, guided by love and memory rather than market trends.
The National Gallery of Canada and the Sobey Art Foundation have announced the six finalists for the 2026 Sobey Art Award, Canada's most prestigious contemporary visual arts prize. The shortlisted artists are Melaw Nakehk'o (Circumpolar region), Samuel Roy-Bois (Pacific), Audie Murray (Prairies), Lotus L. Kang (Ontario), Caroline Monnet (Quebec), and Shane Perley-Dutcher (Atlantic). Their practices range from land-based pedagogy and architectural sculpture to ancestral materiality and metal basketry.
Singaporean artist Vanessa Liem, a 23-year-old recent graduate of the University of the Arts, London, creates surreal, dreamlike paintings that explore themes of performance, vulnerability, and the impact of the outside gaze on the human body. Her works, characterized by humanoid figures with smooth faces and unusual light effects, have been exhibited at the ArtScience Museum and won the top prize in the Emerging Category for UOB's 2019 Painting of the Year. She is preparing for a solo exhibition titled 'The Third Person in the Room' at Cuturi Gallery in Singapore, her first show in the city in three years, marking a homecoming and artistic maturation.
Emerson Bowyer has been appointed as the new chief curator of the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas. Bowyer, an expert in 18th- and 19th-century British and French art, previously held positions at the Art Institute of Chicago, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and The Frick Collection. He is known for organizing ambitious exhibitions such as "David d’Angers: Making the Modern Monument" (2013), "Canova: Sketching in Clay" (2023–24), and "Camille Claudel" (2023–24), the latter being the first American retrospective of the artist in over 30 years. Bowyer also acquired significant works for the Art Institute of Chicago, including a portrait bust by Claudel and a pre-Raphaelite painting from Andrew Lloyd Webber's collection.
Eva Respini, interim co-director of the Vancouver Art Gallery (VAG), advocates for art museums to focus exclusively on art and artists, rather than engaging in activism or political stances. In a recent interview, she emphasized that her expertise lies in artistic direction, not other issues, even as institutions face pressure to address topics like the war in Gaza. Respini has been working to stabilize the VAG after it postponed plans for a new building in 2024, parted with executive director Anthony Kiendl, and laid off nearly a third of its staff. She has launched a new permanent collection installation on the third floor of the gallery's current home, highlighting 20th-century and contemporary Canadian and international art with a focus on B.C. artists.
PAM CUT // Center for an Untold Tomorrow, the film and new media arm of the Portland Art Museum, has announced the 2026 Sustainability Labs Fellows. The program, now in its fifth year, supports five mid-career media artists—Kamari Bright, Peter Burr, and others—with bespoke mentorship in business planning, financial strategy, creative brand expansion, and mental health. The Labs culminate in a pitch session at Wieden + Kennedy and attendance at PAM CUT’s Cinema Unbound Awards on May 29, honoring polymath artists including Titus Kaphar, Emma McIlroy, and Maria Bamford.
Kiran Nadar, one of India's most influential arts patrons, is spearheading the development of the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA) in Delhi, set to become the largest integrated cultural center in India at over one million square feet. The museum, supported by the Shiv Nadar Foundation, will feature multiple exhibition spaces, a performing arts center, a library, an education center, and restaurants. Nadar recently appointed Manuel Rabaté, former director of Louvre Abu Dhabi, as KNMA's director. She also made headlines by purchasing M.F. Husain's record-breaking painting *Untitled (Gram Yatra)* for $13.8 million at Christie's New York. On the occasion of Nalini Malani's collateral exhibition "Of Woman Born" at the 2026 Venice Biennale, supported by KNMA, Nadar discussed her vision for putting Indian art on the world stage.
Ruba Katrib, Chief Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs at MoMA PS1, has been appointed curator of Art Basel's Unlimited sector for 2026. Unlimited is a dedicated platform for large-scale installations, sculptures, wall paintings, and video works. Katrib, a Syrian American curator known for bold exhibitions and amplifying emerging voices, will select around 69 projects from over 100 gallery proposals to create a coherent curatorial narrative within a 16,000 m² space. She succeeds Giovanni Carmine, director of the Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen.
Dallas Contemporary has appointed John McBride as Interim Director and Jeremy Strick as Strategic Advisor. McBride, formerly Deputy Director of the Nasher Sculpture Center, will oversee daily operations, programming, and financial stewardship during a multiyear planning period. Strick, former Director of the Nasher and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, will advise on mission, governance, and curatorial programming. The appointments follow recent leadership turnover, including the departure of Executive Director Lucia Simek in December 2025.
In an interview marking the sixth anniversary of his gallery, Max Goelitz reflects on the founding and evolution of his two-location operation in Munich and Berlin. He discusses how his decade at Häusler Contemporary, where he served as director, prepared him for the unpredictable nature of running his own gallery. The COVID-19 pandemic forced a strategic pivot from international ambitions to a focus on the local German market, which proved unexpectedly sustainable. Goelitz also addresses the current challenges facing galleries, including generational shifts and a more difficult art market, while advocating for an "old-school" reconsideration of what defines a gallery in times of transition.
Mark Lubell has been appointed as the new executive director of the Sag Harbor Cinema, a historic theater in the Hamptons endorsed by Steven Spielberg. Lubell previously served as executive director of the International Center of Photography (ICP), where he oversaw the opening of its new campus on Ludlow Street in 2020. He brings experience from Magnum Photos and a background in fine art photography, and he aims to foster community connection through the cinema experience.
Blake DeYoung is stepping down as Executive Director of the San Juan Islands Museum of Art (SJIMA) at the end of May to become Executive Director of the Skagit Valley College San Juan Center branch, replacing Randy Martin. Deputy Director Wendy Smith will serve as Acting Director during the transition. The museum board remains unchanged, and the institution views this as an opportunity to realign its structure and build on recent successes, including record attendance in 2025.
Michael Ovitz is a prominent American executive and venture capitalist, best known for co-founding Creative Artists Agency (CAA) in 1974. During his twenty-year tenure as Chairman, he transformed CAA into the world's premier talent agency while simultaneously brokering major Hollywood studio sales and leading global marketing initiatives for brands like Coca-Cola. His career also includes a term as President of the Walt Disney Company and decades of influential work in Silicon Valley, where he played a pivotal role in the formation of Andreessen Horowitz.
Ecco chi è Florentina Holzinger, l’artista protagonista del Padiglione Austria a Venezia 2026
Florentina Holzinger, an Austrian artist, performer, and choreographer born in Vienna in 1986, has been selected to represent Austria at the Venice Biennale 2026. The article traces her career from her early work *Silk* (2012), which won the Prix Jardin d’Europe at ImPulsTanz Festival, through boundary-pushing pieces like *Recovery* (2015), *Schönheitsabend* (2015), *Apollon* (2018), and *Tanz* (2019), which earned a Nestroy Prize. Her practice blends dance, circus, horror, body art, stunt techniques, and sideshow, often featuring all-female casts and full nudity, and has provoked censorship in Italy while being hailed as avant-garde elsewhere. She became an associate artist at Berlin’s Volksbühne in 2021 and will join its ensemble from the 2026/27 season.
Fondazione Elpis in Milan has appointed Marcella Ferrari as its new director, effective April 2026, marking a new phase for the foundation founded by Marina Nissim in 2020. Ferrari plans to expand the foundation's spaces in Porta Romana with the addition of Villa and Atelier Elpis alongside the existing Lavanderia, creating a constellation of venues for residencies, production, education, and public programs. She emphasizes listening to staff, artists, curators, and the local community, while strengthening international relations and developing projects that connect artistic production with public space and contemporary research.
Marlene A. Schenk has been appointed as the new director of the Moontower Foundation, the organization managing the estate of the late German artist Rebecca Horn (1944–2024). She will take up the position on June 1, 2026, overseeing the strategic and programmatic development of the foundation, which is based in Bad König, Hesse. Schenk previously served as artistic director of the Kunstverein Friedrichshafen, where she curated programs at the intersection of place, collectivity, and institutional practice, and led the digital processing of the archive. She is also a co-founder of the independent exhibition space FKA Six in Berlin and has worked at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt.
Im Kampf gegen den Kulturkampf
Bazon Brock, the German art theorist and self-described "artist without a work," turns 90 on June 2. Known for his explosive rhetoric and "Action Teaching" method, Brock studied under Theodor W. Adorno, performed with Joseph Beuys and Nam June Paik, and taught aesthetics at the University of Wuppertal. He founded the "Denkerei" in Berlin, a salon he calls an institute for theoretical art, universal poetry, and prognostics, and ran a famous "Besucherschule" (visitor school) at multiple editions of Documenta.
Ist Berlin doch noch nicht over?
Çağla Ilk, who curated the German Pavilion at the Venice Biennale two years ago, has presented her plans as the new artistic director of the Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin. Her program reimagines theater from the perspective of visual art, signaling a major shift in the city's theater landscape. The announcement comes amid broader reforms in Berlin's theater scene, including Matthias Lilienthal's upcoming takeover of the Volksbühne, and was met with both anticipation and anxiety, reminiscent of Chris Dercon's failed tenure at the Volksbühne in 2017.
Gallery Isabelle, founded by Isabelle de Caters in Dubai's Al Quoz district, celebrated its 20th anniversary in April 2026 with a 20-day exhibition titled "Move, Pause, Return." The show unveiled one work per day before bringing all 20 artists together for a final gathering. De Caters, who opened her first space B21 Gallery in 2006 when contemporary art in the Gulf was seen as a passing fad, reflects on two decades of building a gallery through instinct, long-term artist relationships, and organic growth rather than commercial dictates.