Frieze New York Is an Assembly-Line Salad

At Frieze New York, curator Lucien Zayan searches for artworks exploring the relationship between food and art, finding a piece by Aki Goto at Europa gallery that reflects on sugar, colonization, and cavities. The fair features works like David Lamelas's "To Pour Milk into a Glass" (1972) from Dia Art Foundation and Mungo Thomson's "Snowman" (2023) at Karma, while a performance by Kite (Oglála Lakȟóta) at the Counterpublic triennial booth offers a reprieve from the monotonous fair experience.

Who is Yto Barrada, France's representative at the Venice Biennale with a world-spanning work?

Qui est Yto Barrada, représentante de la France à la Biennale de Venise avec une œuvre-monde ?

Yto Barrada, the artist representing France at the 2026 Venice Biennale, has created a multidisciplinary installation titled "Saturne" for the French Pavilion. The work centers on textiles and natural dyeing, weaving together themes of postcolonial history, migration, craft transmission, and the symbolism of Saturn—from its astronomical mystery to its mythological role as the devourer of children. The installation features wool curtains, Aubusson tapestry, goat skins, wasp-nest sculptures, masks, muzzles, a color chart, and video, all housed in a renovated pavilion designed with the help of numerous artisans. Barrada, born in Paris in 1971 and raised in Tangier, founded the Cinémathèque de Tanger and later The Mothership, a research center focused on textiles and natural dyes. The exhibition is curated by Myriam Ben Salah.

From Agnès Varda to Giuseppe Penone, the strange passion of artists for potatoes deciphered in Aubenas

D’Agnès Varda à Giuseppe Penone, l’étrange passion des artistes pour les patates décryptée à Aubenas

The article explores the exhibition "Des patates" at Le Château – Centre d'Art Contemporain et du Patrimoine in Aubenas, France, which celebrates the humble potato as an artistic subject. It highlights how filmmaker and visual artist Agnès Varda turned potatoes into art with her 2003 Venice Biennale project "Patatutopia," dressing as a potato and scattering 700 kilos of tubers, inspired by her documentary *Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse*. The show also features works by Giuseppe Penone, Michel Blazy, Valérie Geissbühler Pacheco, and Lucas Chanoine, all using potatoes to explore themes of consumption, waste, colonialism, and the cycle of life.

Researchers Identify Enslaved Boy in Joshua Reynolds Painting

Researchers in the U.K. have identified the enslaved boy depicted in Joshua Reynolds's 1748 painting of Royal Navy lieutenant Paul Henry Ourry. For centuries known only as "Jersey," the boy has been identified as George Walker, also called Boston Jersey, through baptismal and admiralty records. Walker was baptized at age 15 in Westminster in 1752, served on HMS Monmouth and HMS Deptford, and was discharged in 1753, after which his fate remains unknown. The research, a collaboration between the National Trust, the National Gallery in London, and Royal Museums Greenwich, also used scientific analysis to reveal Reynolds's original compositional intentions.

Edgar Calel wins 2026 Sam Gilliam Award

Edgar Calel, a Maya Kaqchikel artist from Chi Xot, Guatemala, has been awarded the 2026 Sam Gilliam Award, as announced by the Dia Art Foundation and the Sam Gilliam Foundation. The prize includes $75,000 and a public programme at a Dia Foundation location this autumn. Calel’s multidisciplinary practice—spanning drawing, sculpture, installation, and performance—centers on ancestral knowledge, Indigenous experience, and the legacies of colonialism. He was selected by a jury of curators and foundation leaders, including Jessica Morgan, director of the Dia Art Foundation.

V&A Rising Voices review – can decades of stunning global art really be squished into three rooms?

The V&A Museum in London has mounted an exhibition titled "Rising Voices" that attempts to summarize three decades of the Asia Pacific Triennial, a vast survey of contemporary art from Asia, Australia, and the Pacific organized by Queensland Art Gallery. The show crams works from multiple continents, island nations, and Indigenous cultures into just three rooms, featuring bark cloth paintings from Papua New Guinea, Indigenous Australian abstracts, shark sculptures from the Torres Strait, and Tahitian textiles. Many works address colonialism, political oppression, and tyranny, with artists like Elisabet Kauage, Pala Pothupitiye, and Svay Ken using art as resistance. The exhibition includes pieces by Maryam Ayeen, Abbas Shahsavar, Lila Warrimou, Pennyrose Sosa, Aline Amaru, Brenda V Fajardo, and Heri Dono.

Alma Allen’s US Pavilion Is One of the Emptiest Shows at the Venice Biennale

Alma Allen represents the United States at the 2026 Venice Biennale with a subdued, apolitical exhibition inside the US Pavilion. The show features roughly 25 sculptures—mostly in bronze, wood, and stone—many titled "Not Yet Titled," and deliberately avoids overt political messaging. This marks a stark departure from the previous two US pavilions, curated by Simone Leigh (2022) and Jeffrey Gibson (2024), which directly confronted colonialism and empire. The Trump administration’s call for proposals explicitly asked for work that "reflects and promotes American values," and Allen’s presentation has been criticized as safe, unremarkable, and lacking the incisive edge of contemporary American art.

Exhibition | Nengi Omuku, 'We Were Like Those Who Dreamed' at Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London, United Kingdom

Pippy Houldsworth Gallery in London presents 'We Were Like Those Who Dreamed,' the second solo exhibition by Nigerian artist Nengi Omuku. The show features new paintings that explore the politics of green spaces in urban centers, particularly Lagos, where rapid urbanization has created a 'concrete jungle.' Omuku transposes figures from contemporary and archival images of Lagos into lush, Impressionistic landscapes painted with pointillist brushstrokes and a Fauvist palette, using the garden as a radical symbol of equality and resistance. She paints on sanyan, a hand-spun Yoruba cloth, working with local artisans in Ilorin to revive the tradition. Works like 'Dream Logic' and 'One Particular Man' address socio-economic tensions, while 'A quiet nation' captures the dichotomy between urban Brutalist architecture and natural foliage.

Kader Attia to Curate 2027 Kochi-Muziris Biennale

French Algerian artist, curator, and educator Kader Attia has been appointed curator of the Seventh Kochi-Muziris Biennale, scheduled to open in Kochi, India, in December 2027. The selection was made by a jury led by Biennale president Jitish Kallat and including Shilpa Gupta, Amrita Jhaveri, Pooja Sood, Tasneem Zakaria Mehta, Mariam Ram, and Rirkrit Tiravanija. Attia, who participated in the 2014 edition of the biennale, is known for his practice addressing social injustice, postcolonialism, and marginalized communities, and previously curated the 2022 Berlin Biennale.

Muscle memory: Natasha Tontey’s wild Venice installation explodes perceptions of Indonesian history

Natasha Tontey's new installation "The Phantom Combatants" at the Ateneo Veneto in Venice reimagines the story of Len Karamoy, a woman who was part of the CIA-funded Permesta resistance movement in North Sulawesi, Indonesia (1957-1961). The 22-minute film, commissioned by the LAS foundation and Amos Rex, features absurdly muscular mutant warriors and draws on Indigenous belief systems, video games, Indonesian soap operas, and B-movie aesthetics to explore themes of autonomy, resistance, and historical perspective.

Pedro Reyes’s new Lacma commission sparks criticism in Mexico

Pedro Reyes's new sculpture 'Tlali' (2026), a four-meter-tall Olmec-inspired volcanic-stone female face installed at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Lacma), has sparked criticism in Mexico. An open letter signed by nearly 80 cultural figures, published on the art criticism site Cubo Blanco, alleges the work is a new version of a 2021 project that was canceled after backlash. That earlier project, 'Tlalli', was meant to replace a Christopher Columbus statue on Mexico City's Paseo de la Reforma but faced opposition from over 300 cultural figures who argued a male, non-Indigenous artist should not represent Indigenous women. The site later became the 'Glorieta de las Mujeres que Luchan', an anti-monument against gender violence.

And We Shall Go Through Their Hills Without Much Delay

This article documents three journeys into and out of Yunnan, China, spanning from 1874 to 2023. It begins with British interpreter Augustus Raymond Margary's failed colonial expedition to establish a trade route, which ended in his violent death and contributed to unequal treaties opening Southwest China. It then follows a Naxi student named Xueshan in 1937, whose railway journey introduced modern timekeeping to the region, and finally describes the construction of the Burma Road, a critical WWII supply route. The narrative concludes with the artist Cheng Xinhao retracing these routes on foot from Kunming toward Burma over a year and a half, reflecting on history, bodily experience, and the layers of infrastructure that have reshaped the landscape.

Welcome to Venice: the shows you won’t want to miss at the 61st Biennale

The 61st Venice Biennale, titled "In Minor Keys," opens with a keynote exhibition conceived by the late Koyo Kouoh and realized by her team after her sudden death in May 2025. The show spans the Central Pavilion in the Giardini and the Arsenale, featuring 110 artists and collectives. Highlights include Bracha L. Ettinger's installation at the Hotel Metropole, where she transforms a room where Sigmund Freud wrote part of *The Interpretation of Dreams* into a feminist 'borderspace,' and works by artists such as Arthur Jafa, Richard Prince, Issa Samb, Beverly Buchanan, and Daniel Lind-Ramos. The exhibition explores themes of history, colonialism, war, and environmental destruction, aiming for a 'sotto voce' tone that nonetheless delivers powerful, liberating statements.

The best and worst we saw at the Venice Art Biennale 2026. Artribune's hits and flops

Il meglio e il peggio che abbiamo visto alla Biennale d’Arte di Venezia 2026. Top e flop di Artribune

The 61st Venice Biennale, titled "In Minor Keys" and directed by Koyo Kouoh, opened amid significant turmoil: the death of a newly appointed curator, diplomatic tensions over the presence of Russia and Israel, political protests, and the unprecedented collective resignation of the jury, which led to the Golden Lions being awarded by public vote for the first time. Despite this chaotic backdrop, the exhibition—featuring a record 100 national pavilions—has been widely praised for avoiding moralistic pedagogy and instead embracing visual seduction, formal quality, and sensory joy while addressing themes of identity, memory, colonialism, ecological crisis, and violence. The article highlights top and flop moments from the opening week, including strong showings by Biennale president Pietrangelo Buttafuoco and a standout exhibition at Fondazione Prada.

A Vienna una grande mostra dedicata a Daumier, l’artista della satira

The Albertina Museum in Vienna is hosting a major retrospective titled "Honoré Daumier – Mirror of Society," dedicated to the French artist Honoré Daumier (1808–1879). The exhibition features lithographs, drawings, paintings, and sculptures, with significant loans from the Städel Museum in Frankfurt. Daumier, known for his sharp satire and acute social observation, critiqued political abuses and social injustices of 19th-century European society. The show also recalls a previous Daumier exhibition held at the Albertina in 1936, which served as a political statement against Nazi oppression.

NEW ZEALAND PHOTOGRAPHER FIONA PARDINGTON REPRESENTS AOTEAROA AT THE VENICE BIENNALE

New Zealand photographer Fiona Pardington (born 1961, Auckland) is representing Aotearoa at the 61st Venice Biennale with her exhibition *Taharaki Skyside*, on view from May 9 to November 22, 2026, at the Aotearoa New Zealand Pavilion. The show features large-scale portraits of taxidermied birds from museum collections across New Zealand and Australia, focusing on endemic species including the extinct huia and whēkau. Curated by Felicity Milburn and Chloe Cull, the exhibition is presented by the Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa (Creative New Zealand) and Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū.

First Impressions of a Venice Biennale Torn Apart by the Present

The 61st Venice Biennale, titled "In Minor Keys," opens amid turmoil: its curator Koyo Kouoh died of cancer during planning, and the festival jury resigned after a controversial statement about excluding Israel and Russia from prizes, replaced by a Eurovision-style people's choice award. The main exhibition, completed by a team of five collaborators using Kouoh's plans, features over 110 artists and collectives, with highlights including works by Big Chief Demond Melanchon, Tammy Nguyen, Guadalupe Maravilla, Ayrson Heráclito, and a section focused on Michael Armitage's Nairobi Contemporary Art Institute.

Sandra Gamarra: “Réplica” Is Not a Copy

Sandra Gamarra Heshiki's exhibition "Réplica" at MASP in São Paulo opens with an unplanned replica of Francisco Laso's "Habitante de las cordilleras del Perú" (1855), which could not travel from Lima due to bureaucracy. Gamarra produced an inverted, altered version, establishing a critical distinction between copying and responding. The exhibition is organized into sections that parody the classical chronology of encyclopedic museums—"Pre-colonial," "Colonial," "Post-independence," "Modern," and "Contemporary"—transforming the museum into an object of analysis. Gamarra's paintings engage with colonial iconographies, such as the pinturas de castas, by inscribing racial classifications directly onto the figures, making the colonial verdict inseparable from the bodies depicted.

7 artists to have on your radar at Gallery Weekend Berlin 2026

Gallery Weekend Berlin returns for its 22nd edition from May 1 to 3, 2026, featuring 50 galleries across 66 locations throughout the city. The event showcases both established and emerging artists from over 30 countries, with highlights including Martine Syms's pop-up boutique at Sprüth Magers, Göksu Kunak's performance-based exhibition at Ebensperger, and a new sector called Perspectives featuring James Turrell. Other notable presentations include Wynnie Mynerva's exploration of love and colonialism at Société, Monty Richthofen's city-wide performance at Dittrich & Schlechtriem, and Hanna Stiegeler's intimate screenprinted canvases at Sweetwater.

Pio Abad Explores Home and Diaspora for the 2026 Venice Biennale

Filipino artist Pio Abad is presenting a series of intricate, hand-drawn works at the 2026 Venice Biennale as part of the exhibition "In Minor Keys," conceived by the late curator Koyo Kouoh. The works, created over four years with a 0.3-millimeter pen, include pieces such as "I’m Singing a Song That Can Only Be Born After Losing a Country" (first shown at the Ashmolean Museum in 2024), "Banua" (his first drawing on fabric), and "1897.76.36.18.6," which reflects on the looting of the Benin Bronzes. Abad, born in the Philippines and based in London, explores themes of migration, memory, exile, and the itinerant nature of objects and language.

Exhibition | Naomi Rincón Gallardo, 'Sonnet of Vermin' at Hayward Gallery, London, United Kingdom

Naomi Rincón Gallardo presents her first solo exhibition in London, 'Sonnet of Vermin,' at the Hayward Gallery. The show features her 2022 film following a group of animals from Mesoamerican myths—Bat, Snake, Scorpion, and a choir of frogs—as they navigate dystopian landscapes in Oaxaca, communicating via radio signals and calling for solidarity amid social and ecological devastation. Rincón Gallardo works across video, performance, drawing, and sculpture, weaving cuir/queer resistance, pre-colonial folklore, DIY aesthetics, music, and dance into surreal narratives that critique colonialism and exploitation.

Venice Biennale 2026: The Pavilions Not to Be Missed

Biennale de Venise 2026 : les pavillons à ne surtout pas manquer

The 61st Venice Biennale, curated by Koyo Kouoh as an invitation to slow down and reconnect with emotions, features a constellation of contemplative and powerful proposals across the city. Notable national pavilions include the Holy See transforming a monastic garden into an immersive sound experience by Soundwalk Collective, Canada exploring colonial heritage through giant water lilies by Abbas Akhavan, and Austria electrifying the Giardini with radical performances by Florentina Holzinger. Other highlights include Spain dissecting collective memory through postcards, Poland imagining new forms of language between human and underwater worlds, and India's pavilion exploring notions of home.

CUANDO LOS OBJETOS HABLAN. MUSEO HECHIZO, DE JUAN JOSÉ SANTOS

Juan José Santos's book "Museo hechizo" (Metales Pesados, 2025) challenges the perceived neutrality of the Western museum, presenting it as an institution shaped by colonial logics of classification, extraction, and representation. The essay centers on the concept of "lo hechizo"—understood as both artisanal precariousness and disruptive enchantment—and explores small, community-based Latin American museum experiences that operate from precarity, reciprocity, and care. Santos argues that the museum is a space of conflict where voices, narratives, and ways of constructing history are contested, and he proposes thinking of the museum through its minor, situated, and alternative forms in Latin America.

S&M-inspired Greek Pavilion in Venice confronts its fascist chains

The Greek Pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale, titled "Grecia" and conceived as a drag artist, presents an S&M-inspired installation by artist and architect Andreas Angelidakis. The immersive space features a red neon-lit floor, soft sculptures resembling beanbags, fragmented marble columns wrapped in chains, and souvenirs bearing images of queer artists and the late activist Zak Kostopoulos (Zackie Oh). The pavilion aims to deconstruct the idea of a fixed national identity, exploring themes of queerness, fascism, and historical trauma.

Abbas Akhavan Transforms the Canada Pavilion Into a Greenhouse, Daring Viewers to Leave Behind Their Preconceptions

Artist Abbas Akhavan has transformed the Canada Pavilion at the Venice Biennale into a functioning greenhouse for his exhibition "Entre chien et loup." The pavilion now houses a 6,000-gallon pool containing giant Victoria water lilies, with modifications including grow lights, water misters, a new ventilation system, and structural reinforcements to support the 25-ton water tank. The installation evokes Victorian-era Wardian cases and London's Crystal Palace, but Akhavan emphasizes that his interest in the lilies began intuitively, not as a commentary on colonialism or empire. The project, developed with curator Kim Nguyen, involved collaboration with Kew Gardens and the Orto Botanico di Padova to cultivate the plants, and the outcome remains uncertain as the lilies may thrive or wither over the exhibition's six-month run.

Somali Cultural Organizations Unhappy With Somalia Pavilion at the Venice Biennale

Somali artists and cultural organizations are protesting the Somalia pavilion at the 2024 Venice Biennale, arguing it excludes artists based in Somalia and relies on diaspora figures and an Italian co-curator, which they view as colonial. The Somali Arts Foundation issued a statement condemning the lack of consultation, while the queer arts collective Warbixinta Cidda criticized the appointment of Italian curator Fabio Scrivanti. Somali American poet Ladan Osman boycotted the pavilion, calling it "anti-indigenous."

L’artista Kader Attia ci racconta la sua opera alla Biennale di Venezia 2026. L’intervista

Kader Attia presents his multimedia installation "Whisper of Traces" at the 2026 Venice Biennale, curated by Koyo Kouoh under the theme "In Minor Keys." The work explores the intersections of magic, spirituality, traditional healing, and digitalization, drawing on Attia's long-standing interest in how colonialism, neoliberalism, and technology have transformed shamanic and healing practices. Attia describes the project as an accumulation of psychic traces from human history, which his mother called "ghosts."

Two exhibitions; one shared dialogue: Weyburn Art Gallery

The Weyburn Art Gallery in Saskatchewan is presenting a dual exhibition running through the end of June, featuring two complementary shows. The first, 'Omentum: A look into the Indigenous Experience of the 21st Century- Exhibition Series, 2019' by Nehiyawak-Métis artist John Brady McDonald, comprises ten paintings that address themes such as Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, cultural appropriation, residential school legacies, and the murder of Colten Boushie. Each painting was personally named by an influential Indigenous figure, including Isaac Murdoch, Rosanna Deerchild, and Dr. Evan Adams. The second exhibition draws from the City of Weyburn’s Permanent Collection, showcasing works by Indigenous artists Michael Lonechild, Ken Lonechild, and Mike Keepness, which explore identity, place, and memory.

In Minor Keys: The 61st Biennale di Arte Venezia Opens Under Koyo Kouoh (1967–2025).

The 61st Biennale di Arte Venezia opens under the posthumous curatorial vision of Koyo Kouoh (1967–2025), the late Cameroonian-born curator who reshaped contemporary African and diasporic art discourse. The central exhibition, spanning the Giardini and Arsenale, features 111 participants including artists, collectives, and artist-led organizations from across the Global South, with works in textiles, film, sculpture, and performance that interrogate colonialism, migration, and ecological repair. The Biennale is also marked by a pronounced presence of African and diasporic narratives across national pavilions, including several first-time pavilions from the African continent.

"Dispossessions in the Americas" Confronts the Colonialism That Invades All Territory

The article reviews "Dispossessions in the Americas," a group exhibition at Wrightwood 659 in Chicago curated by Jonathan D. Katz and Eduardo Carrera. Featuring works from 1960 to 2025, the show examines colonial legacies in the Americas, focusing on the forced dispossession of land, culture, and language from indigenous, Afro-descendant, queer, and trans communities. The review critically questions how a polished, architecturally prestigious venue can coherently display art about socially voiceless communities without falling into voyeurism or fetishization of pain.