Comment | Catherine Opie shows us that in dark times, looking for joy can be radical

The artist Catherine Opie is currently the subject of a major three-decade portrait survey, 'To Be Seen', at the National Portrait Gallery in London. The exhibition highlights Opie’s career-long commitment to representing the LGBTQ+ community, specifically the leather dyke scene in Los Angeles, through a lens that balances defiance with playfulness. Even her most provocative works, such as the 1993 self-portrait featuring a domestic scene carved into her back, are revealed to contain elements of humor and historical allusion that counter the despair of the AIDS crisis and personal heartbreak.

Michael Armitage in Venice, monumental and disturbing. What the exhibition at Palazzo Grassi looks like

Michael Armitage is the subject of a major solo retrospective at Palazzo Grassi in Venice, marking his largest exhibition in Europe to date. Organized by the Pinault Collection, the show features monumental paintings that blend African identity, local Kenyan chronicles, and mythological narratives. Armitage’s work is noted for its physical scale and its ability to transform the chaos of human affairs into a syncretic epic, utilizing traditional materials like Lubugo bark cloth to ground his contemporary subjects.

Desperate, Scared, But Social at UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art

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.

The Unnameable Artists of the Canton Trade System

Art historian Winnie Wong’s new book, *The Many Names of Anonymity: Portraitists of the Canton Trade*, investigates the lives and legacies of 18th and 19th-century Chinese artists who produced works for Western traders under the Canton system. These artists, often dismissed by history as mere copyists or left anonymous in museum "tombstone" labels, created complex works that blended European techniques with Chinese traditions. Wong challenges the reductive category of "Asian export art," proposing instead the term "Canton trade painting" to better reflect the unique atmosphere of cultural exchange in Guangzhou.

Locating Luigi Ghirri

Fashion photographer Alessio Bolzoni and film director Luca Guadagnino have collaborated on 'Felicità', a new book and exhibition at Thomas Dane Gallery featuring 45 previously unseen color photographs by the late Italian master Luigi Ghirri. The project is divided into two portfolios: the first focuses on intimate, abstract details of found objects and surfaces in Modena, while the second expands into larger vistas and populated spaces across Italy during the 1980s.

MoMA PS1’s “Greater New York” Is Gritty, Stunning, and Gutting

MoMA PS1 has launched the sixth edition of "Greater New York," a quinquennial survey featuring over 50 artists living and working in the city. Coinciding with the museum’s 50th anniversary, the 2026 iteration focuses on artists in the formative stages of their careers, emphasizing a gritty, raw aesthetic over the polished, market-driven surfaces often found in major biennials. The exhibition highlights photography and installation work that reflects the city's complex immigrant narratives and evolving urban identity.

Steve DiBenedetto’s Cosmic Sense of the Absurd

Artist Steve DiBenedetto presents a new body of work in his solo exhibition, "Spiral Architect," at Derek Eller Gallery. The show features 17 paintings ranging from large-scale canvases to intimate works, all characterized by a restless movement between abstraction and figuration. DiBenedetto utilizes a process-heavy technique of adding, scraping, and reworking oil paint to create dense, visionary landscapes filled with octopi, cellular forms, and Rube Goldberg-esque machinery.

Gardar Eide Einarsson Leaves You in the Dark

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.

Review: “Boris Lurie: Nothing To Do But To Try” at the Holocaust Museum Houston

The Holocaust Museum Houston is currently hosting "Boris Lurie: Nothing To Do But To Try," an exhibition focusing on the early works of the Holocaust survivor and NO!art movement founder. Organized by the Museum of Jewish Heritage, the show highlights Lurie’s "War Series," featuring paintings, drawings, and never-before-seen ephemera created as a means of processing the trauma of his imprisonment in camps like Buchenwald. The works, ranging from the immediate post-war period to decades later, serve as a visceral record of memory and loss, including tributes to his family members murdered in the Rumbula Forest massacre.

Colours of Time review – Monet meets Mamma Mia in charming French artist comedy

Director Cédric Klapisch’s new film, *Colours of Time* (originally *La Venue de L’Avenir*), is a sentimental French comedy that weaves a fictional romantic history around Impressionist master Claude Monet and pioneering photographer Félix Nadar. The plot follows a group of modern-day descendants who discover a trove of historical secrets in a derelict cottage, leading to a whimsical, time-bending exploration of their ancestors' lives in Belle Époque Paris.

7 Shows to See in Milan Right Now

Gallery Applications Open for Frieze Abu Dhabi

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.

How Delilah Montoya’s art confronts ICE detention abuses

The Albuquerque Museum is hosting a retrospective of Chicana artist Delilah Montoya, titled "Delilah Montoya: Activating Chicana Resistance." The exhibition's centerpiece is "Detention Nation," an immersive installation created in collaboration with the Sin Huellas Artist Collective that simulates the conditions of ICE detention centers. The work features cyanotype images of detainees on prison cots, chain-link fencing, and displays of meager government-issued personal items alongside the official National Detainee Handbook.

François Ozon’s 'The Stranger': A Film Between Surface Aesthetics and Political Reinterpretation

“Lo straniero” di François Ozon. Un film tra estetica delle superfici e rilettura politica

Director François Ozon has adapted Albert Camus’s existentialist masterpiece 'The Stranger' into a new feature film, premiering at the 82nd Venice Film Festival. Shot in stark black and white by cinematographer Manuel Dacosse, the film departs from the 1967 Luchino Visconti adaptation by leaning into a cold, clinical aesthetic inspired by Michelangelo Antonioni. The narrative follows Meursault, an emotionally detached clerk in colonial Algiers, whose impassive reaction to his mother's death and the subsequent senseless murder of an Arab man leads to his legal and moral condemnation.

‘As If’ by Isabel Waidner, Reviewed

Isabel Waidner’s latest novel, 'As If', follows the surreal intersection of two actors, Lewis and Korine, who share an uncanny resemblance and wives with the same name. After meeting in a Central London sublet, the pair decide to swap lives: the younger Korine takes over a high-stakes audition for the grieving Lewis, while Lewis assumes Korine’s domestic and financial burdens. Set against the brutalist backdrop of London’s Barbican and Golden Lane estate, the narrative uses this identity swap to explore the thin line between performance and reality.

Art exhibit review: Fowler’s ‘Mountain Spirits’ highlights indigenous culture in the Philippines

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REVIEW: Now is not forever, when art mimics reality

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.