The group exhibition "Desperate, Scared, But Social" at the UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art (Langson IMCA) explores the complexities of contemporary social dynamics and collective anxiety. The show brings together diverse artistic perspectives to examine how individuals navigate a landscape defined by political instability, environmental concerns, and the pervasive influence of digital connectivity.
Jacqueline Humphries's survey exhibition at the Aspen Art Museum features her painting installation "TSLA" (2025), a five-panel work hung on bare metal studs that bisects the gallery space. The installation plays with perception through mirrors and anamorphic imagery, including a distorted Tesla logo, and includes a hidden set of red paintings visible only as reflections. The show also presents nine smaller works generated in part by artificial intelligence, housed in a green-walled adjacent room.
The article argues that contemporary painting has entered a period of stagnation, characterized by bloated, vapid, and market-driven works. The author cites observations from Frieze London and the exhibition "Painting After Painting" at SMAK in Ghent, noting that much recent painting lacks intellectual rigor and emotional depth. A conversation with artist Christopher Wool is referenced, where he contrasts the current lack of critical dialogue with the productive crises of the late 1970s, when painters like Philip Guston faced backlash for challenging conventions.
The article reviews the joint exhibition "Hunks" at Bureau gallery in New York, featuring works by painter Julia Rommel and photographer Lucas Blalock. Rommel's post-minimalist abstract paintings, created through folding and stapling canvases, explore color and texture with a personal touch, while Blalock's digitally manipulated photographs blend studio effects and surreal editing. The show runs through February 21, 2026, at the gallery's 112 Duane Street location.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute spring exhibition, "Costume Art," pairs fashion with artworks from the Met's collection, including ancient Greek statues and Andy Warhol screenprints, alongside garments by designers from Charles James to CFGNY. Curator Andrew Bolton aims to suggest that fashion can expand understanding of art, but the show's juxtapositions often feel vague and sloppy, with only occasional resonant pairings like a Jean Paul Gaultier shirt and Joe Brainard drawing linked by queer artist lineage.
The Palazzo Strozzi in Florence has launched a major exhibition exploring the profound influence of the Italian Renaissance on Mark Rothko. Co-curated by the artist's son, Christopher Rothko, the show spans three historic locations: the Palazzo Strozzi, the Museo di San Marco, and the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana. By placing Rothko’s abstract canvases in direct dialogue with Fra Angelico’s frescoes and Michelangelo’s architecture, the exhibition highlights how the artist’s visits to Italy in the 1950s and 60s shaped his spatial thinking and spiritual intensity.
A retrospective of Tracey Emin's work at Tate Modern reveals how her art, frequently interpreted as raw personal confession, is deeply intertwined with the broader cultural and social forces of her time. The review argues that her oeuvre serves as a witness to a specific era, moving beyond purely autobiographical readings to reflect wider societal currents.
Artist Alex Heilbron presents a solo exhibition at the Los Angeles gallery as-is. The show is featured as a lead review in the February 2026 issue of Contemporary Art Review LA, highlighting Heilbron's continued exploration of painting and visual language within the Southern California art scene.
Gardar Eide Einarsson’s latest exhibition at Maureen Paley’s East London space presents a haunting exploration of dissociation and coded information. The show features two distinct series: 'Closed Caption,' a collection of monochrome black gouache paintings featuring isolated subtitles from films, and 'Incendiary Test Area,' a set of hyperrealistic woodblock prints created in collaboration with master Shoichi Kitamura. These prints depict the interiors of mock 'Japanese' houses built by the US Army for fire-bombing tests during World War II.
Don Porcaro (American, b. 1950) presented his second solo exhibition at Westwood Gallery in New York, titled "Lost Stories," featuring two series of stone sculptures: towering polylithic pillars from the Lost Stories series and mysterious artifact-like objects from the Art or Fact series. Curated by gallery co-founder James Cavello, the show highlights Porcaro's lifelong practice of sourcing stones from diverse geographies and reconfiguring them into stacked, architecturally inspired forms that evoke prehistoric megaliths, ancient columns, and funerary urns.
The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has opened a major exhibition titled 'Metamorphoses,' inspired by Ovid's poem. The show brings together Renaissance masterpieces, antiquities, and contemporary works, grouping them by the myths they depict to explore themes of transformation, desire, and gender through striking visual juxtapositions.
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The article reviews the exhibition "MONUMENTS" at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA and the Brick in Los Angeles, which addresses the legacy of Confederate monuments through contemporary art. It highlights Cauleen Smith's installation "The Warden" (2025), which features a live-feed of the decommissioned Confederate sculpture "Vindicatrix" (also known as "Miss Confederacy") by Edward V. Valentine, originally atop the Jefferson Davis Memorial in Richmond, Virginia. The exhibition is curated by Hamza Walker, Kara Walker, and Bennett Simpson.
The article reviews the exhibition "Manet & Morisot" at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco, which pairs works by Édouard Manet and Berthe Morisot to explore their artistic dialogue. It highlights how, contrary to the common assumption that Morisot was influenced by Manet, the show argues that Manet increasingly adopted Morisot's lighter palette, looser brushwork, and intimate subject matter in his later years, especially as his health declined. Key pairings include Manet's "Before the Mirror" (1877) and Morisot's "Woman at her Toilette" (around 1875-80), as well as their respective series of seasonal allegories, shown together for the first time.
Cultured magazine reviews Cady Noland's 2025 exhibition at Gagosian Gallery's 24th Street location in New York, running through October 18. The show features the artist's signature objects—Budweiser cans, shotgun shells, barricades, and images of Patty Hearst and Lee Harvey Oswald—arranged in a fragmented, almost sale-like display. The review notes the inclusion of Steven Parrino's works alongside Noland's, referencing their collaboration at White Columns in 1988, and highlights new elements like "SALE" signs with manicule illustrations. The critic describes the exhibition as a "fascinating mess" rather than a straightforward success.
This article reviews several Chelsea gallery exhibitions, focusing on Mary Ann Unger's monumental sculpture show 'Across the Bering Strait' at Berry Campbell, which features her hydrocal-over-steel works exploring themes of feminism, anthropology, and the natural world. It also covers 'En Route' at Rosebud Contemporary, a group exhibition of abstract painters Rifka Milder, Meg Hitchcock, and Ketta Ioannidou, each reflecting on artistic journeys through their work.
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Milan's art scene is currently anchored by several high-profile exhibitions coinciding with the Miart fair. Key highlights include Cao Fei’s exploration of global farming and technology at Pirelli HangarBicocca, alongside Anselm Kiefer’s monumental tributes to female alchemists. Other notable shows feature historical and contemporary dialogues, ranging from Italian post-war masters to experimental multimedia installations.
The New Yorker's Hilton Als reviews "Marcel Duchamp," a major retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, running through August 22, 2026. Curated by Matthew Affron, Michelle Kuo, and Ann Temkin, it is the first North American retrospective of Duchamp's work since 1973, organized in collaboration with the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The exhibition spans MoMA's entire sixth floor, showcasing Duchamp's shape-shifting practice—from iconic works like "Nude Descending a Staircase (No. 2)" (1912) and "Bicycle Wheel" (1951) to his readymades and conceptual pieces—emphasizing his rejection of commodification and embrace of intellectual freedom, play, and queer sensibilities.
A major two-venue exhibition dedicated to early Renaissance master Fra Angelico (c. 1395-1455) has opened at Palazzo Strozzi and Museo di San Marco in Florence. The show, four years in the making, features unprecedented loans from over 70 museums and 28 newly conserved works, including the Fiesole Altarpiece (c. 1420-23) and the San Marco Altarpiece (1438-43). It reunites dispersed predella panels and decorative components looted during the Napoleonic era, presenting the most complete picture of Fra Angelico to date while challenging the notion that his work was archaic.
The article reviews "Feeling Color: Aubrey Williams and Frank Bowling" at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, an exhibition that pairs works by two artists from Guyana who worked in London in the late 20th century. Both explore abstraction, materials, and sociopolitical themes, with Bowling's color field paintings and Williams' geometric, Pre-Columbian-inspired works displayed in alternating galleries. The reviewer describes the show as dense and vibrant, noting the sensory experience of the paintings and the subtle dialogue between the artists.
William Kentridge's latest exhibition, 'A Natural History of the Studio,' at Hauser & Wirth in New York presents over 70 drawings from his nine-part film series 'Self-Portrait as a Coffee-Pot,' alongside new sculptures. The works, created during the pandemic, explore self-portraiture through charcoal, pastel, and collage, often featuring doppelgängers that argue and disagree, reflecting the artist's engagement with theater and the materiality of his forms.
The US Pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale features sculptor Alma Allen's exhibition "Call Me the Breeze," curated by Jeffrey Uslip. The show presents untitled, amorphous sculptures in bronze, wood, and stone, including Colorado Yule marble. The selection process was controversial: after the Trump administration excluded the National Endowment for the Arts, the State Department initially picked artist Robert Lazzarini and curator John Ravenal, but that plan collapsed. The American Arts Conservancy, a new nonprofit led by Jenni Parido (a former pet food store operator with Mar-a-Lago ties), then took over, hiring Uslip, who approached Barbara Chase-Riboud and William Eggleston before settling on Allen. Donors include businessman John Phelan and fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger.
Andrew Durbin reviews the national pavilions at the Venice Biennale, contrasting a vacuous US presentation with incisive and moving installations from Britain and Germany. The article critiques the lack of meaningful engagement in the US pavilion while praising the depth and emotional resonance of the British and German contributions.
Alex Burchmore reviews 'The Hooligans,' an exhibition that explores the Maoist concept of hooliganism in the context of contemporary Chinese art. The show features works by artists like Xiao Lu, who famously fired a gun at her installation during the 1989 'China/Avant-Garde' exhibition, as well as Zhu Yu and He Yunchang, known for incorporating human body parts and surgical procedures into their art. The exhibition contrasts these transgressive acts with more market-friendly works, such as Zhu Yu's gilded plate paintings and Hu Yinping's commercial-style figurines, highlighting the tension between artistic rebellion and commercial success.
The Guardian reviews Aura Satz's art film "Preemptive Listening," which explores the cultural and political meanings of sirens as warning devices. The film features a drone shot of a siren in a residential area, a soundtrack by composer Laurie Spiegel, and commentary from British-Egyptian actor Khalid Abdalla on sirens during the 2011 Arab Spring protests. It also covers sirens on Nakba day in Palestine, a US activist linking emergency vehicle lights to danger for Black women, clocks frozen at the time of the Fukushima disaster, and a Maori activist discussing environmental catastrophe. The reviewer finds the film's ideas interesting but notes it lacks coherence as a feature-length experience, suggesting it would be better suited to a gallery setting.
Josiane M.H. Pozi's exhibition "PORTRAIT O.A.Y.G." at Carlos/Ishikawa in London is reviewed through an unconventional, fragmented narrative that blends a play script with critical observation. The review describes Pozi's video works, including "Rhythmic Stimming" (2025) and "Restaurants" (2023), which capture mundane domestic scenes and personal artifacts. The text shifts between a first-person account of meeting the artist and a scripted dialogue between characters J and E, reflecting the exhibition's themes of identity, selfhood, and the poetic potential of everyday objects.
The article reviews 'Costume Art,' an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art that explores the intersection of fashion and the human form. It examines how garments and accessories are presented as sculptural objects, highlighting the dialogue between clothing and the body through historical and contemporary pieces.
The 82nd Whitney Biennial has opened, drawing attention for its weird, provocative nature that leaves viewers wanting more. The exhibition, held at the Whitney Museum of American Art, features a range of contemporary works that challenge conventional boundaries and spark dialogue.
An immersive pop-up exhibition titled 'Relic' is on display at 28 Broad Street in Nottingham City Centre, led by local street artist Kid30 and featuring collaborators Detail, Ging, Boaster, Grim Finga, Dizzy Ink, Lambhorse, and 2 Foot. The exhibition transforms a partially renovated building into a dystopian 'museum of found objects from the after years 2035-2055,' combining sculpture, audio production, and parody to critique consumer culture and envision a bleak future. Highlights include a pirate radio soundtrack, a model village by Roadman Rails, and satirical reimaginings of brands like Apple, Netflix, and Coca-Cola.
Theresa-Anne Mackintosh’s solo exhibition, "Now is not Forever," recently debuted at the Wits Art Museum (WAM), featuring a provocative blend of older paintings and new sculptures. The show centers on anthropomorphic figures and the erasure of senses, notably in the "hear no evil, see no evil, do no evil" series, where body parts are painted over to symbolize the avoidance of moral decay. These works, alongside vivid sculptures representing the artist's alter egos, challenge viewers to look past aesthetic surfaces to confront the inherent chaos and dysfunction of contemporary society.
A new exhibition titled 'Paper Trails: Unfolding Indigenous Narratives' has opened at the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA), part of the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA). The show features works by contemporary Indigenous artists who utilize paper as a primary medium to explore themes of history, memory, and cultural identity, moving beyond text-based narratives to create visceral, sensory experiences.