Montreal artist Abbas Akhavan's installation "Entre chien et loup" transforms the Canadian pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale into a living climate system, featuring a humid, Amazon-like environment with a pond of Victoria water lilies. The seeds were sourced from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and germinated at the Orto Botanico di Padova, with the lilies growing and blooming over the course of the biennale.
Art in the Berkshires, founded in 2024 as an online resource, has opened a physical gallery and studio space at 8 Castle Street in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. The venture is led by Shany Porras, an abstract painter and founder who serves as gallery director, aiming to make Berkshire creativity more accessible through artist directories, venue listings, and a weekly newsletter.
Anglo-Dutch painter Nick Goss has opened a new exhibition at Josh Lilley Gallery, featuring eleven paintings inspired by Eel Pie Island, a private marshy area on the Thames in Twickenham with a bohemian past—including 1960s rock concerts by The Rolling Stones, The Who, and Pink Floyd, a hippie commune, and a 1972 fire. In an interview with Paul Carey-Kent, Goss discusses how he blends fact and fiction, combining sources from hotel corridors, Pompeii, and the Sergeant Pepper album cover to create ambiguous, layered works that evoke half-remembered histories.
Berlin-based artist Sofia Defino Leiby is currently transitioning her practice between her Alt-Treptow studio and a residency at Defet House in Nürnberg. Her multidisciplinary approach integrates painting, collage, and performance, drawing heavily from a 'running narrative' of personal notes, found ephemera, and high-end materials like Schmincke paints. The work often features visceral, layered compositions that utilize everything from vintage packaging to Swiss Aura-Soma bottle imagery.
The arts and mental health charity Hospital Rooms has announced a comprehensive year-long program for 2026 to celebrate its 10th anniversary. The initiative features a nationwide artist edition project titled "10 Posters for 10 Years," involving ten world-renowned artists including Antony Gormley. Key events include a launch at White Cube in July, followed by a major exhibition at Victoria Miro and a fundraising auction at Bonhams in September, all aimed at supporting the charity's Future Fund for mental health environments.
Gabrielle Bejani, a Lebanese Palestinian artist based in South London, created a new series of works in response to the November 2024 ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon that was quickly broken. The series, exhibited as "Deliberate Dreams" at Beirut's Saleh Barakat Gallery in July 2025, uses painting, drawing, and collage to process grief, anger, and guilt over the violence. Bejani incorporates everyday cultural items like bougainvillea and 20th-century Lebanese postage stamps to explore themes of land, identity, and resistance, reclaiming darkness as a source of empowerment rather than a metaphor for evil.
The inaugural Conductor Art Fair debuted at Powerhouse Arts in Brooklyn, running through May 3. Co-curated by fair director Adriana Farietta and PHA president Eric Shiner, the event features 28 gallery exhibitors and 20 special projects, with a focus on representing "the global majority and Indigenous nations." Highlights include an immersive yurt installation by Vuslat and Sana Frini, works by Palestinian artist Khaled Jarrar, Puerto Rican sculptor Margarita Vincenty, Venezuelan artist Esmelyn Miranda, and Bangladeshi artist Bishwajit Goswami. The fair offers affordable booth fees starting at $2,500 for nonprofits and free participation for self-representing artists with a 30% sales donation to PHA.
Artist Sam McKinniss, known for his internet-sourced celebrity portraits exploring fandom and parasocial relationships, is opening a new exhibition titled “Law and Order” at Jeffrey Deitch gallery in New York on September 6. The show shifts focus to figures of crime and justice, including “Hot Felon” Jeremy Meeks, Luigi Mangione, art dealer Mary Boone (as portrayed by Parker Posey in the 1996 film *Basquiat*), and a painting of Alcatraz, the former prison that President Donald Trump has proposed reopening. McKinniss describes the work as tracing the parameters of a top-down worldview in an era of new tyrannies. In an interview with CULTURED, he discusses his studio routine, creative influences like Martha Argerich, and the informal group chat that first sees his works-in-progress.
Kasmin gallery hosted its third annual benefit auction for Artistic Noise, a nonprofit supporting youth impacted by the juvenile justice, foster care, and mental health systems. The event honored artist Jordan Casteel as the inaugural featured artist, with over 40 donated works curated by Olivia Toups, including pieces by Lee Dawson, Julia Garciá, Ficus Interfaith, and Milly Skellington. The auction, which ended today, is projected to surpass its $100,000 goal, funding art therapy and resources for system-impacted young people.
Cultured magazine interviewed five artist-mothers—including Lita Albuquerque, Sheree Hovsepian, and Catherine Opie—ahead of Mother’s Day to explore how motherhood and artistic practice intersect. The artists describe how raising children has made them more efficient, intuitive, and present in their studios, while their art has deepened their capacity for love and patience as parents. Specific examples include Hovsepian turning to photograms during limited childcare hours and Opie creating intimate portraits of her son.
Nearly a month after the theft of the French crown jewels, the Louvre Museum has announced emergency security measures following a meeting of its Board of Directors, requested by French Minister of Culture Rachida Dati and chaired by museum director Laurence des Cars. The measures span four categories: security governance, site protection, police coordination, and technical/human resources. Plans include hiring a security coordinator, installing additional cameras and anti-ram devices, conducting security audits, deploying remote monitoring equipment, increasing surveillance patrols, and boosting the training budget by 20 percent. A security master plan, estimated to cost €80 million ($92 million), will be announced next month, though the eight stolen jewels remain unrecovered and four suspects are in custody.
The Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) has named 21 recipients for its 2026 Awards to Artists, selected from a record 160 applicants. The grants total nearly $42,000 and are divided into three categories: the Clare Hart DeGolyer Memorial Fund (up to $1,500 for artists aged 15–25 in a five-state region), the Arch and Anne Giles Kimbrough Fund (up to $3,500 for Texas artists under 30), and the Otis and Velma Davis Dozier Travel Grant (up to $6,000 for professional Texas artists over 30). All awardees are current Texas residents, with 16 based in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. A public celebration will be held at the DMA on May 19, 2026.
A roundup of current art exhibitions and calls for work in Taos, New Mexico, highlights shows such as "Nicolai Fechin: Figures, Nature, and Expression" at the Taos Art Museum, "Taos Reimagined: Modernist Experiments in the High Desert," and "Rag Made Quilts" at the Taos Public Library. Other featured venues include 203 Fine Art, Stables Gallery, Revolt Gallery, and the Wheaton Museum of World Artifacts, with openings and deadlines spanning through fall 2026.
MoMA's Young Learners team, in collaboration with the New York City Art Teachers Association/United Federation of Teachers (NYCATA/UFT), is presenting "The Art of the Educator" at the Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Education and Research Building. The exhibition celebrates the artistic talents of NYC public school teachers, showcasing how their personal art practice enriches their teaching. Organized by David Rios and Larissa Raphael, the show features works selected by a panel including Jackie Cruz, Albert Justiniano, Lisa Kaplan, and Jacob Rhodes.
미국의 광부들 사진전 'Beneath the Surface' 순회: 내셔널 갤러리(DC)-밀워키미술관-에이먼카터미술관(포트워스, TX)
The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., will present 'Beneath the Surface: Mining and American Photography' from May 23 to August 23, 2026, the first exhibition to focus exclusively on the relationship between resource extraction and American photography. Featuring 150 photographs by over 100 artists—including Richard Avedon, Walker Evans, Lewis Hine, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Dorothea Lange, and Gordon Parks—the show spans nearly 200 years, from early daguerreotypes of the California Gold Rush to contemporary large-scale works. After its Washington run, the exhibition will travel to the Milwaukee Art Museum (October 23, 2026–January 18, 2027) and the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, Texas (February 14–May 9, 2027).
Kunstnernes Hus in Oslo presents 'Minga for the Sea,' a major new commission by Chilean artist, poet, and activist Cecilia Vicuña, running from May 29 to August 9, 2026. This is Vicuña's first major presentation in Scandinavia, featuring two large horizontal quipus made from locally sourced raw wool, one dedicated to the Southern Hemisphere/Chile and the other to the Northern Hemisphere/Sápmi. The quipus incorporate contributions from Indigenous and environmental defenders, including poems, drawings, and videos, forming a polyphonic archive of cultural resistance against destructive resource extraction and pollution of marine environments.
DATALAND, the world's first museum of AI arts co-founded by artist Refik Anadol and Efsun Erkılıç, will open to the public on June 20, 2026, in downtown Los Angeles. Located in the Frank Gehry-designed building The Grand LA within the Grand Avenue Cultural District, the 35,000-square-foot venue will debut with the inaugural exhibition "Machine Dreams: Rainforest," an immersive 360-degree experience based on millions of images and sounds of nature. The custom AI model powering the exhibition was trained on data collected from 16 rainforests worldwide, with data partnerships established with the Smithsonian, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Getty, iNaturalist, and the Natural History Museum in London.
Tokyo Art Beat has curated a selection of the best art exhibitions opening across Japan in May 2026, with a heavy concentration in Tokyo. Highlights include a retrospective of nihonga painter Kawai Gyokudō at the Yamatane Museum of Art, a Gaudí exhibition at 21_21 Design Sight, the third edition of the Tokyo Architecture Festival, a solo show of illustrator Mizumaru Anzai at Play! Museum, painter Yoko Matsumoto's first large-scale museum solo at Fuchu Art Museum, a Hiroko Koshino retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, a Van Gogh exhibition at Ueno Royal Museum, and a qipao fashion history show at the Japan-China Friendship Center Art Museum.
Designboom has published its monthly roundup of must-see art exhibitions around the world for May 2026. Featured shows include Nick Doyle's 'Collective Hallucinations' at Perrotin, Nicola Turner's 'Time’s Scythe' in collaboration with Annely Juda Fine Art at YSP, and Katharina Grosse's 'I Set Out, I Walked Fast' at White Cube. The article also includes a tribute to Georg Baselitz, the influential German painter who recently passed away at 88, and a guide to the 61st Venice Art Biennale 2026.
Art Fund has launched a UK-wide touring programme called Going Places, backed by £5.36 million from the National Lottery Heritage Fund and the Julia Rausing Trust. The first exhibition, *Making Her Mark: A Celebration of Women in Art*, opened at Penlee House Gallery & Museum in Penzance, featuring over 60 works from three museum collections alongside community responses. It will travel to Worcester City Art Gallery & Museum and Kirkcaldy Gallery through 2027. The programme plans 12 major touring shows over five years, with six already scheduled, including exhibitions on green spaces, journeys, radical living, art and nature, and community making.
Between 1874 and 1886, a group of avant-garde artists in Paris—including Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Camille Pissarro, and Berthe Morisot—organized eight independent exhibitions as a rebellion against the government-sponsored Salon. Rejected by the Salon's conservative jury, which favored academic standards, these artists pooled resources to stage their own shows, initially held at photographer Nadar's atelier on the boulevard des Capucines. The exhibitions had fluctuating lineups and varied titles, and the term "Impressionist" was only applied retrospectively by art historians in the 20th century.
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Dataland, billed as the world's first museum dedicated to A.I.-generated art, will open on June 20 in downtown Los Angeles. Founded by digital artists Refik Anadol and Efsun Erkiliç, the 35,000-square-foot museum is located in the Grand LA complex designed by Frank Gehry. Its inaugural exhibition, "Machine Dreams: Rainforest," features immersive, multisensory installations powered by an open-access A.I. model called the Large Nature Model, trained on millions of nature images. The exhibition includes soundscapes incorporating oral histories of the Yawanawá people and the last recorded call of the extinct Kaua‘i ‘ō‘ō bird.
A guide published in April 2026 lists free admission days at San Francisco museums and gardens for May 2026. Participating institutions include the Asian Art Museum, Legion of Honor, de Young Museum, SFMOMA, Conservatory of Flowers, San Francisco Zoo, GLBT Historical Society Museum, Museum of Craft and Design, Museum of the African Diaspora, SF Botanical Garden, and Japanese Tea Garden. Many venues also offer recurring free days for Bay Area residents, EBT cardholders, and library card holders through programs like Museums for All and Discover and Go.
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The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., has received a $116 million donation from the Mitchell P. Rales Family Foundation to fund its 'Across the Nation' lending program. The gift, the largest programming-related donation in the museum's history, will support shipping, installation, and other costs associated with sending artworks on two-year loans to smaller regional museums across the United States, from Alaska to Florida.
The article is a guide listing museums and monuments in Paris and the Île-de-France region that offer free admission, either permanently or on specific occasions like the first Sunday of each month. It highlights venues such as the Paris Museum of Modern Art (MAM), the Petit Palais, the Musée Bourdelle, and Notre-Dame cathedral, detailing their collections and practical visiting information.
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) has opened its new David Geffen Galleries, a radical reinvention of the museum experience. The installation, conceived by director Michael Govan and architect Peter Zumthor, abandons traditional chronological and departmental silos, instead creating a continuous, curving flow of art from across time, place, and medium. Visitors are encouraged to wander and get lost, forging their own connections between works.
The Art Institute of Chicago is hosting a major retrospective of Christina Ramberg, a pivotal figure in the Chicago Imagist movement. Co-curated by Thea Liberty Nichols and Mark Pascale, the exhibition features approximately 100 works, representing nearly 80% of the artist's total career output. The lecture by Nichols highlights Ramberg’s multidisciplinary practice—spanning painting, quilting, and printmaking—and her deep engagement with an informal archive of ephemera and source material.
The Norton Museum of Art is celebrating the 15th anniversary of its "Recognition of Art by Women" (RAW) series with a solo exhibition by painter Danielle Mckinney titled "Shelter" and a retrospective of past participants. Since its inception in 2011, the RAW initiative has provided a significant platform for mid-career women artists, featuring notable figures such as Jenny Saville and Rose B. Simpson. Mckinney’s exhibition, curated by J. Rachel Gustafson, explores themes of domestic and mental interiority through intimate, spotlighted paintings that often reference art historical canon.
The estate of Irene Monat Stern has made the painting 'Untitled' (circa 1970s) available for sale, highlighting the artist’s unique contribution to the Color Field movement. A Holocaust survivor who settled in Southern California, Stern developed a signature technique of staining unprimed canvas with acrylics to create organic, blossom-like forms. Her work is characterized by a sense of weightlessness and spatial depth that distinguishes her from contemporaries like Morris Louis and Helen Frankenthaler.
The Orlando Museum of Art has launched its annual "Art in Bloom" festival, a multi-day event where floral designers create living arrangements inspired by specific works in the museum’s permanent collection and current exhibitions. Organized by the Council of 101, the showcase features floral interpretations of pieces by artists such as James Rosenquist, Beatriz Milhazes, and Howard William Mehring, alongside fashion displays, pop-up shops, and silent auctions.