How JR Transformed Paris’s Oldest Bridge Into a Massive Grotto

French artist JR has transformed Paris's Pont Neuf, the city's oldest bridge, into a massive inflatable grotto titled *La Caverne du Pont Neuf* (2026). The installation measures 120 meters long, 20 meters wide, and up to 18 meters tall, and will be open to the public from June 6 to June 28. It incorporates sound design by Thomas Bangalter of Daft Punk, augmented reality via Snap Inc., and a Bloomberg Connect guide. Over 800 people helped realize the project, which was fabricated from 18,900 square meters of fabric and 20,000 cubic meters of pressurized air by French firm Air Toiles Concept. The work concludes a five-year series of large-scale trompe l'oeil pieces by JR and pays homage to Christo and Jeanne-Claude's *The Pont Neuf Wrapped, Paris* (1975–85), with the blessing of their foundation.

Betye Saar’s Birthday Present

Betye Saar, the iconic assemblage artist, is donating her collection of Black dolls to the New York Historical on the occasion of her 100th birthday. The article also covers strong performance art at the Venice Biennale, including works by Florentina Holzinger and Miet Warlop at the Austrian and Belgian pavilions, amidst a fraught edition marked by the death of artistic director Koyo Kouoh, canceled pavilions, and protests. Additional features include a review of Ceija Stojka's exhibition at the Drawing Center and a profile of sculptor Edmonia Lewis.

Rocked on their heels: how exhibitions can change the course of artists’ lives

Alyce Mahon's new book, *Dorothea Tanning: A Surrealist World*, explores how the 1936 MoMA exhibition *Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism* profoundly transformed the young artist Dorothea Tanning, who described being "rocked on my run-over heels" by the experience. The article also recounts similar life-changing exhibition encounters for contemporary artists Lorna Simpson and Hurvin Anderson, as discussed on *The Week in Art* and *A brush with…* podcasts, highlighting how specific shows shaped their artistic trajectories.

$50,000 Driskell Prize Goes to Cheryl Finley of Spelman College

Cheryl Finley, the director of visual arts and culture at Spelman College and head of the Atlanta University Center Art History + Curatorial Studies Collective, has been awarded the 2025 David C. Driskell Prize by Atlanta’s High Museum of Art. The prize, established in 2005, includes $50,000 and honors figures who have made significant contributions to African American art and art history. Past recipients include Alison Saar, Naomi Beckwith, Amy Sherald, Mark Bradford, and Rashid Johnson. Finley has led the AUC Art Collective since 2019, co-organized the “Black Portraiture[s]” academic convening since 2013, and authored books such as Committed to Memory: The Art of the Slave Ship Icon.

‘Woman Impressionist’ No More: A New Catalogue Raisonné Restores Eva Gonzalès’s Legacy

The Wildenstein Plattner Institute (WPI) has released a new digital catalogue raisonné for French painter Eva Gonzalès, correcting long-standing misattributions and omissions from the 1990 printed edition. The project reattributes works like *Apples in Basket* (previously assigned to Belgian painter Isidore Verheyden) and adds newly discovered pieces, including a portrait of Madame Georges Haquette and Gonzalès’s sketchbooks now held by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. WPI executive director Elizabeth Gorayeb emphasizes that the digital format allows for iterative updates and brings overlooked figures in Gonzalès’s orbit to light.

Cheryl Finley Wins 2026 David C. Driskell Prize

Atlanta's High Museum of Art has named Spelman College professor Cheryl Finley the winner of its 2026 David C. Driskell Prize. Finley will receive an unrestricted $50,000 cash award and be honored at a gala on September 19 at the High Museum. The prize, named after the renowned African American artist and scholar David C. Driskell, has been awarded annually since 2005 to recognize outstanding contributions to African American art. Finley is the Walton Endowed professor in the department of art and visual culture at Spelman and has directed the Atlanta University Center Art History + Curatorial Studies Collective since 2019, building a pipeline for emerging Black arts professionals.

Harmony Hammond Wrote the Book on Lesbian Art 20 Years Ago. Here’s What Comes Next.

Harmony Hammond, the 82-year-old artist and writer, is preparing for her seventh solo exhibition with Alexander Gray Associates, titled "Rust Never Sleeps," opening June 5 in the gallery's new Tribeca space. A new volume dedicated to her writings, *Still Dangerous! The Harmony Hammond Reader*, will be published this fall by Duke University Press. In an interview, Hammond discusses her ongoing textile-based abstraction practice, her frustration with being pigeonholed to the 1970s, and the recent surge of interest in textile art as seen in exhibitions like "Woven Histories" and "Unravel."

Fairfield University Art Museum To Present James Welling: Cento

Fairfield University Art Museum will present "James Welling: Cento," a major exhibition of over 60 photographs by the renowned contemporary photographer, from September 25 to December 12, 2026. The show focuses on the classical world, featuring images of ancient Greek and Roman architecture and statuary, printed on plastic sheets and hand-altered with oil paint and pigment. It includes works from the Cento series (2019-2021) and the Personae series (2021-2022), alongside historic plaster casts from the museum's collection.

Joseph Raffael: white ground paintings

Nancy Hoffman Gallery will present *Joseph Raffael: white ground paintings* from May 21 to June 27, 2026, featuring a series of works from the 1960s. After a bout of hepatitis and his father’s death, Raffael abandoned abstraction to create fragmented, photorealistic compositions on white grounds, first exhibited at Stable Gallery in 1965. The show includes pieces like *Monkey, brassiere and figure* (1964) and *Homage to Frank O’Hara* (1967), reflecting his psychoanalytic exploration and fragmented state of mind.

Come, let's play human

Komm, wir spielen Mensch

The Kunsthaus Zürich is presenting a retrospective of Venezuelan-American artist Marisol (1930–2016), whose playful yet formally sophisticated sculptures blend abstraction, figuration, and everyday objects. The exhibition traces her career from early shows at Leo Castelli's gallery through her participation in the 1961 and 1963 Museum of Modern Art group exhibitions, her 1968 'European year' representing Venezuela at the Venice Biennale and featuring on the 4th documenta, to her subsequent decades-long disappearance from the European art scene.

The Pain Behind the Colors

Der Schmerz hinter den Farben

Henry Taylor is the subject of a major exhibition at the Musée Picasso in Paris, where his monumental paintings addressing racism, poverty, hope, and pain are displayed in dialogue with art history. The article describes a key work featuring Martin Luther King Jr. in a park scene, with small adult-faced figures and a limousine of white men watching, highlighting Taylor's narrative style.

Opinion: In galleries across Canada, too much art is being hidden away

Don LePan, a novelist, book publisher, and painter, argues that public art galleries across Canada are failing to display their permanent collections, using the MacKenzie Art Gallery in Regina as a prime example. During a visit in early March, LePan found that none of the gallery's extensive permanent collection—which includes works by Group of Seven artists, European masters like Picasso and Gauguin, and modernists such as Agnes Martin—was on view. Instead, the entire exhibition space was devoted to three special shows: a photographic and conceptual art exhibition by Plains Cree artist Joi T. Arcand, a selection of works by 2025 Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts recipients, and an Indigenous art exhibition. LePan praises these exhibits but criticizes the gallery's decision to completely exclude its permanent collection.

Nancy Graves - En galerie

Nancy Graves (1939-1995), a major figure in American art who first gained recognition in 1969 at the Whitney Museum in New York, is the subject of a gallery exhibition presenting works from 1977 to 1990. Her multidisciplinary practice encompasses sculpture, painting, drawing, and film, drawing on scientific and cultural references. The featured works showcase an experimental approach based on layering, assemblage, and dynamic colors reminiscent of Abstract Expressionism, inspired by art history, archaeology, and her travels. Graves refused a fixed style, instead exploring the memory of forms and their reinterpretation in a free, layered visual language that is now being rediscovered.

Lee Miller at the Musée d'Art moderne de Paris: A Photographer Between War, Beauty and Chaos

Lee Miller au musée d’Art moderne de Paris : une photographe entre guerre, beauté et chaos

Lee Miller, the American photographer who transitioned from fashion modeling and surrealist experimentation to war photography, is the subject of a major retrospective at the Musée d'Art moderne de Paris. The exhibition covers her career from 1929 to 1955, highlighting her early work as a model for designers like Patou, Chanel, and Schiaparelli, her collaboration and romantic relationship with Man Ray, and her harrowing experiences documenting World War II. After the war, Miller abandoned photography and lived in obscurity until her death in 1977, when her archive was rediscovered and her significance to both history and art history was fully recognized.

What You (Maybe) Didn't Know About Édouard Manet

Ce que vous ne saviez (peut-être) pas sur Édouard Manet

Édouard Manet (1832–1883), a pivotal figure bridging realism and impressionism, is the subject of a feature article in Beaux Arts Magazine. The piece explores lesser-known aspects of his life and career, including his near-miss as a naval officer, his rivalry with Gustave Courbet, his refusal to join the impressionist exhibitions despite close ties to the movement, and his deep fascination with Spanish culture. It highlights his scandalous works like *Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe* (1863) and *Olympia*, the latter entering the Louvre after a subscription launched by Claude Monet in 1889.

Marcel Duchamp and the MoMA Exhibition That Didn’t Ask Questions

Marcel Duchamp's 1917 readymade *Fountain* and its radical questioning of art's definition are the focus of a new retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, curated by Matthew Affron, Michelle Kuo, and Ann Temkin. The exhibition, the first major Duchamp show in the U.S. since 1973, assembles three hundred objects and presents them chronologically, tracing Duchamp's evolution from early paintings to his conceptual breakthroughs. The article highlights how *Fountain* was originally submitted to a no-jury exhibition by the Society of Independent Artists, sparking a debate that ultimately led to its rejection and Duchamp's resignation, a pivotal moment in art history.

Pappi Corsicato's film on photographer Claudio Abate, which recounts the artistic ferment of Rome between the 1960s and 1990s, is now on RaiPlay

È su RaiPlay il film di Pappi Corsicato sul fotografo Claudio Abate che racconta il fermento artistico di Roma tra gli Anni ’60 e ‘90

RaiPlay has released a new documentary film by Pappi Corsicato titled "Claudio Abate. L’obiettivo nell’arte" (2026), which pays tribute to the late photographer Claudio Abate (1943–2017). The film weaves together interviews, archival materials, and footage from Istituto Luce to chronicle Abate's life and work, focusing on his role documenting the vibrant Roman art scene from the 1960s through the 1990s. It highlights his collaborations with key figures such as Jannis Kounellis, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Fabio Sargentini, and the artists of the Pastificio Cerere school, capturing seminal performances, happenings, and installations that defined Arte Povera and other avant-garde movements.

Rediscovering the Eternal City of the 1500s in the drawings of Maarten van Heemskerck. The exhibition in Rome

Riscoprire la Città Eterna del ‘500 nei disegni di Maarten van Heemskerck. La mostra a Roma

A major exhibition at Palazzo Poli in Rome, hosted by the Istituto Centrale per la Grafica, showcases a selection of drawings by Dutch artist Maarten van Heemskerck (1498–1574) from his so-called 'little sketchbook,' now held at the Kupferstichkabinett in Berlin. The show, titled 'Maarten van Heemskerck e il fascino di Roma' and running until June 7, presents the artist's meticulous studies of Roman antiquities made during his four-year stay in the city from 1532, offering a rare visual record of Renaissance Rome's ancient collections before and after the 1527 Sack of Rome.

New Exhibition Explores Immersive Art Created by Women Artists in the 1960s and 1970s

Leeum Museum of Art in Seoul has opened "Inside Other Spaces: Environments by Women Artists 1956–1976," an exhibition that reconstructs immersive environments created by women artists from Europe, Asia, and the Americas. Originally organized with Munich’s Haus der Kunst, the Seoul presentation expands the project with additional works by Korean and Asian artists, including Jung Kangja’s "Muche-Jeon (Incorporeal Exhibition)." The show features reconstructed works by pioneers such as Lygia Clark, Marta Minujín, Nanda Vigo, and Tsuruko Yamazaki, whose 1956 piece "Red" is the earliest environment included. Visitors are invited to physically enter installations made of mirrors, translucent materials, sound, and light, experiencing art that dissolves boundaries between artwork, architecture, and viewer participation.

The Burlington Magazine - n°1478 vol CLXVIII - May 2026

The May 2026 issue of The Burlington Magazine (n°1478, vol. CLXVIII) presents a rich array of scholarly articles, exhibition reviews, and book reviews covering European art from the medieval period to the 20th century. Highlights include Laure Boyer's study of two photographs of Victorine Meurent linked to Manet's 'Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe' and 'Olympia', Axel Moulinier's analysis of Watteau's copies after old masters, and Richard Thomson's essay on a century of Monet in print. Exhibition reviews cover shows on Monet's Étretat coast, Orazio Gentileschi, Cornelius Jonson van Ceulen, Gainsborough, Seurat, Italian Symbolism, and Iliazd. Book reviews range from medieval art and Pietro Bellotti to Helene Schjerfbeck, Roberto Matta, and contemporary jewelry at the Dallas Museum of Art.

Leonora in the Morning Light review – pioneering British artist who fled convention for the surrealists

A new biopic titled *Leonora in the Morning Light* chronicles the life of British surrealist painter Leonora Carrington, who fled her aristocratic upbringing in London to join the surrealist circle in Paris. The film, adapted from Elena Poniatowska's biographical novel, follows Carrington from her affair with the older Max Ernst through her mental health crisis in Spain and eventual settlement in Mexico, where she created art on her own terms. Olivia Vinall portrays Carrington with a fierce, uncompromising spirit, though the film is criticized for uneven storytelling and clunky dialogue.

MONET TO MATISSE: DEFYING TRADITION to Launch at Art Gallery of South Australia

The Art Gallery of South Australia is set to launch a new exhibition titled 'MONET TO MATISSE: DEFYING TRADITION,' which will feature works by iconic modern artists such as Claude Monet and Henri Matisse. The show aims to highlight how these artists broke away from conventional artistic norms to pioneer new movements in art history.

Sophie Von Hellerman “After a Dream” at Greene Naftali, New York

Greene Naftali presents Sophie von Hellermann's eighth solo exhibition, "After a Dream," featuring pairs of figures drawn from literature, art history, the artist's personal acquaintances, and imaginative constructs. The show explores creative relationships through the charged dynamic of the couple, presenting narrative chimeras that examine different forms of alignment and connection.

Lionel Wendt: The Politics of the Male Nude

ArtReview publishes an essay by Qingyuan Deng analyzing the first US solo exhibition of Lionel Wendt's photographs at American Art Catalogues in Manhattan's West Village. The show presents Wendt's haunting gelatin silver prints of male nudes, still lifes, and solarized images, positioning him as a canonical figure of South Asian modernism. Deng argues that while the exhibition correctly identifies homoerotic desire in Wendt's work, it over-relies on queer theory's framework of opacity and fails to fully address the political radicality of Wendt's practice under British colonial rule in Ceylon, where homosexuality was criminalized under the 1883 Penal Code.

3 art museums celebrate Betsy Wyeth, who made Maine’s landscape her canvas

Three museums are celebrating the legacy of Betsy James Wyeth, the wife of painter Andrew Wyeth, with exhibitions that highlight her role as a designer, preservationist, and creative force behind the environments that inspired her husband's iconic works. The Farnsworth Art Museum and Colby College in Maine, along with the Brandywine Museum of Art in Pennsylvania, are presenting shows that explore Betsy's architectural and landscape sensibilities, including her work on properties like Benner Island, Allen Island, and the Olson House. The exhibitions, titled "By Design: The Worlds of Betsy James Wyeth," run through late 2026 and early 2027.

Amoako Boafo Drew on Venice’s Rich Creative Heritage for His First Solo Show in Italy

Amoako Boafo, the Ghanaian artist known for his finger-painted portraits of stylish Black sitters, opened his first solo show in Italy at the Museo di Palazzo Grimani in Venice during the 61st Venice Biennale. Titled "It doesn’t have to always make sense" and produced by Gagosian, the exhibition runs through November 22 and features Boafo's paintings alongside works by friends and collaborators, including poems by Raphael Worlasi Langani and a sculpture made with Stephen Allotey. The show also includes a video documenting Boafo's life and a "heroine wall" of portraits honoring women he admires, such as curator Koyo Kouoh.

At the Grand Palais, Hilma af Klint, a pioneer of abstraction

The article reports on an exhibition at the Grand Palais in Paris dedicated to Hilma af Klint, the Swedish artist recognized as a pioneer of abstract art. The show presents her visionary works, which predate those of better-known male abstractionists like Kandinsky and Mondrian.

Billy Ireland museum reopens with redesigned galleries, new exhibits

The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum at Ohio State University reopened on May 23 after six months of renovations, featuring redesigned galleries and a new permanent collection titled "The Story of Comics." This exhibition spans over 400 years of cartoon art history, including works by William Hogarth, a large manga collection, and a dedicated mini-gallery for Bill Watterson's "Calvin and Hobbes." A special exhibition by cartoonist Chris Ware, "Life is Complicated," is on display until January 2027, with a public program featuring Ware scheduled for October 17.

Elisabetta Sirani, de Bologne à Melbourne

The National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne has acquired a painting by the 17th-century Bolognese artist Elisabetta Sirani. The work, a private devotional piece, depicts the infant Jesus holding a swallow, a symbol of Resurrection in Christian iconography. The acquisition adds a significant example of Sirani's work to the museum's collection.

Are You a Queer Artist Heading to Fire Island This Summer? Pack This Book.

Cultured magazine highlights a new book, *Fire Island Art: 100 Years*, edited by John Dempsey, president of the Fire Island Pines Historical Society. The volume surveys queer artmaking on Fire Island from the 1930s to the present, featuring canonical figures like Richard Avedon, David Hockney, and Andy Warhol alongside overlooked artists, and includes contemporary voices such as TM Davy, Nicole Eisenman, and Salman Toor. It draws on archival material, newly unearthed pieces, essays, interviews, and primary texts to reframe the island as a cornerstone of queer modernism.