The Barbican in London opens the first UK institutional solo exhibition of German-American artist Julia Phillips this Friday. The show, titled "Inside, Before They Speak," is installed in The Curve gallery and features newly commissioned works that span sculpture and drawing.
Oman has chosen artist, architect, and curator Haitham Al Busafi to represent the country at the 61st Venice Biennale in 2026. Al Busafi will curate and present his own monumental installation, Zīnah, in the national pavilion, commissioned by the Omani Ministry of Culture, Sports and Youth. The work transforms a traditional Omani horse harness into an interactive spatial experience using sand, metal, and sound.
JOOPITER, Pharrell Williams's auction platform, launches its first standalone tattoo auction titled 'Inked: Tattoos by Contemporary Artists,' featuring commissioned designs by sixteen artists including Derrick Adams, Thom Browne, Jeffrey Gibson, and the late Lawrence Weiner. The sale runs from October 22nd to 31st, 2025, with select designs previewed at Dover Street Market during Art Basel Paris. Curated by Sharon Coplan, each tattoo design is accompanied by a signed certificate of authenticity, and a complete set will be reserved for institutional donation.
Hyperallergic's ongoing series "A View From the Easel" features two artists describing their unconventional studio practices. Georgina Arroyo works in a shared academic space at Purchase College, compartmentalizing her process-intensive mold-making and casting work around her job schedule. Linda Jacobson, based in her Venice, California studio for 17 years, works on multiple pieces simultaneously, currently focusing on a large commissioned painting.
The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs (DCLA) has inducted five new members into its Cultural Institutions Group (CIG), an exclusive program that provides long-term operational subsidies to private arts organizations operating on public land. The new members—Bric (Brooklyn), Pregones/Puerto Rican Traveling Theater (Manhattan), the Bronx Children’s Museum, the Noble Maritime Collection (Staten Island), and the Louis Armstrong House Museum (Queens)—represent each of the city’s five boroughs. This is the largest expansion of the program, now totaling 39 members, since the 1970s. A celebratory event was held at Bric on September 30, featuring remarks from DCLA Commissioner Laurie Cumbo and Deputy Mayor Adolfo Carrión Jr., along with musical performances by each institution.
Warsaw is experiencing a significant revival of interest in its Cold War-era neon signs, a movement spearheaded by the city’s Neon Museum. Founded in 2012 by photographer Ilona Karwińska and designer David Hill, the museum has rescued hundreds of historic illuminations that were once discarded as worthless relics of the communist past. Originally commissioned by Soviet-era authorities as a form of "socialist modernization," these signs were designed by leading artists of the Polish Poster School and have now transitioned from propaganda tools to beloved cultural icons.
Dubai-based Palestinian-Canadian artist Samar Hejazi has been commissioned to create mirrored sculptural mannequin heads for the Costume Institute's Spring 2026 exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, opening alongside the Met Gala. Hejazi's reflective works, designed for the exhibition "Costume Art," aim to collapse the distance between viewer and object, creating moments of surprise and questioning about identity, perception, and belonging.
An exhibition at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead is showcasing "Blazing Trails," a project by local artist Sofia Barton originally commissioned for Tyne and Wear Metro trains. The artwork celebrates the hidden heritage of north-east England by depicting lesser-known community leaders, including suffragette Kathleen Brown and Chinatown founders Koon Kiu Cheng and Peter Cheng. The display runs until 27 September in the Baltic's pop-up shop.
The Brooklyn Museum has announced a landmark exhibition titled "Hopi Kachina Dolls: Blessings for a Balanced World," scheduled to open in October 2026. Featuring over 120 objects ranging from the 19th century to the present, the show draws from the museum's extensive Indigenous art collection alongside contemporary loans of ceramics, textiles, and jewelry. The presentation is uniquely structured around the life stages of Hopi women—from infancy to marriage—and includes newly commissioned video interviews with community members.
Yasmin Smith, an Australian artist described as an 'archaeological ceramicist,' presents her solo exhibition *Elemental Life* at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA) in Sydney, running until June 8. The show features sculptural installations that use ceramics and glaze technologies to decode environmental and human histories. Key works include *Seine River Basin (2019)*, commissioned by the Centre Pompidou, which uses ash-glazed stoneware replicas of tree branches to reflect the chemical history of the River Seine, and *Chicxulub (2025)*, which draws on samples from the asteroid impact crater in Mexico to explore mass extinction. Smith’s practice involves extensive field research and collaboration with ecologists, archaeologists, and local communities, creating site-specific glazes that act as chemical records of place and time.
The DePaul Art Museum is presenting "Tengo Lincoln Park en mi corazón: Young Lords in Chicago," an exhibition that chronicles the history of the Young Lords Organization (YLO), a Puerto Rican street gang turned socio-political movement founded by José "Cha Cha" Jiménez. Through artifacts like Jiménez's purple beret, newly-commissioned murals by Sam Kirk, and a range of ephemera, the show traces the YLO's fight against displacement and for social justice in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood, linking past struggles to present-day activism.
Artist Topher Campbell's large-scale sculpture *My Body Is An Archive*, commissioned by Tate Modern for his exhibition *Topher Campbell My ruckus. Heart!*, faces destruction if a new home is not found by the end of October 2025. The polished mahogany and collage work, which weighs over a ton, was temporarily housed at Birmingham Museums Trust after the show closed in January 2025, but the trust can no longer store it due to warehouse pressures. Campbell has launched a Go Fund Me campaign, which has raised 85% of its £2,000 target, to cover transport and storage costs.
Abu Dhabi's 421 Arts Campus, an independent arts platform supporting emerging artists from the UAE and the SWANA region, celebrates its 10-year anniversary on November 15, 2025. Over the past decade, it has supported over 1,500 creative practitioners, presented more than 50 exhibitions, commissioned hundreds of new works, and delivered around 2,000 programs including residencies, grants, and public events. It has also mentored over 60 interns and worked with more than 250 regional designers through its Dukkan421 design store.
Billings artist Jon Lodge opened his solo exhibition "Carbon Strata" at the Yellowstone Art Museum (YAM) on September 5, 2025. The sprawling multimedia show fills one of the museum's largest galleries with works climbing walls, filling skylights, and spilling onto windows and outdoor spaces, exploring abstraction and the elemental concept of carbon as a unifying thread in life and matter. Lodge, an 80-year-old multimedia creator with a decades-long career, has a long history with YAM as a supporter, donor, and collaborator, including a solo show in 1999.
York Public Library in York, Maine, is hosting 'Creative Joy,' a solo exhibition of works by artist Dustan Knight, running from September 4 through October 31, 2025. Knight, who holds an MFA from Pratt Institute and an MA in art history from Boston University, has over 40 years of creative exploration and a three-decade teaching career at institutions including the New Hampshire Institute of Art and Maine College of Art. The exhibition features her expressive, abstract landscapes inspired by New England's coastal light, alongside narrative and playful works, and includes a reception with the artist on September 16.
A public art installation from Fort Worth, Texas, titled "Do Something Good For Your Neighbor," has been selected for display at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition — La Biennale di Venezia in Venice, Italy. The weathered steel pavilion, located on Lake Como in Fort Worth's historic Como neighborhood, was designed by Matt Niebuhr and David Dahlquist of the Art Studio at RDG Planning & Design. Built in 2021 and owned by Fort Worth Public Art, it is one of 54 projects featured in the exhibition "PORCH: An Architecture of Generosity," commissioned by the U.S. State Department and organized by the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design at the University of Arkansas, in partnership with DesignConnects and the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. The installation honors community leaders William H. Wilburn, Sr. and Amon G. Carter Sr., and features custom carved benches with phrases from a historic local newspaper.
The Fabric Workshop and Museum (FWM) in Philadelphia, in partnership with Mural Arts Philadelphia, presents "Jesse Krimes: Elegy Quilts," an exhibition featuring works from the artist's ongoing Elegy Quilt series (2020-present). The show debuts a newly commissioned quilt, "Riverside" (2026), created from used clothing collected from incarcerated people. Krimes, a Bucks County-based multidisciplinary artist who experienced incarceration himself, gathers donated clothing and textile fragments from currently and formerly incarcerated individuals and reconstitutes them into patterned quilts that meditate on memory, loss, and resilience. The exhibition also includes collages made during workshops with graduates of Mural Arts' Restorative Justice reentry program, which informed both the quilt and a forthcoming public mural in Philadelphia's Spring Arts District, to be unveiled June 3.
Richard MacDonald, the internationally acclaimed figurative sculptor known for his bronze works of dancers, athletes, and performers, is celebrating his 80th birthday with a two-day event on June 5 and 6, 2026, in Monterey, California. The celebration takes place at his studio and foundry, featuring a private invitation-only evening on June 5 for close friends, family, and leading collectors, followed by a public cocktail event on June 6. Activities include live performances, guided studio and foundry tours, a live bronze pour demonstration, and the unveiling of new sculptures, including a commissioned piece for the Weaver of Change Foundation in Singapore.
The 2026 Venice Art Biennale is proceeding with a posthumous main exhibition, "In Minor Keys," curated by the late Cameroonian-born artistic director Koyo Kouoh, who died in May 2025. The event features 100 national participations, including seven first-time countries, and has reinstated Russia's pavilion after its voluntary withdrawal following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
The European Union has threatened to withdraw a €2m grant from the Venice Biennale following the foundation's decision to allow Russia to reopen its national pavilion for the first time since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. EU commissioners Henna Virkkunen and Glenn Micallef, supported by 22 European culture ministers, argue that the Biennale must not provide a platform for Kremlin propaganda or individuals who justify military aggression. The Russian pavilion's return is reportedly being organized by the Gnesin Russian Academy of Music under the direction of the Russian Ministry of Culture.
The monumental Whitehall Ceiling at London’s Banqueting House, painted by Peter Paul Rubens, is set to reopen to the public following a comprehensive two-year renovation and conservation project. Managed by Historic Royal Palaces, the initiative included the installation of advanced climate control systems to preserve the 17th-century canvases, structural stabilization of historic plaster, and the addition of a lift to provide the first-ever step-free access to the Main Hall.
The third edition of the Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale has opened in Riyadh’s JAX District under the title 'In Interludes and Transitions.' Curated by Nora Razian and Sabih Ahmed, the exhibition features over 65 artists from 35 countries, focusing on themes of migration, oral storytelling, and the movement of ideas across borders. The show is housed in repurposed 1970s industrial warehouses with a scenography designed by Formafantasma that emphasizes intimacy despite the monumental scale of the venues.
The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) Los Angeles has acquired "Unmanned Drone" (2023), a significant bronze sculpture by Kara Walker. The work was created by dissecting and reassembling a decommissioned 1921 monument of Confederate General Stonewall Jackson, which was removed from Charlottesville, Virginia, following the 2017 "Unite the Right" rally. The acquisition was announced alongside more than 150 other new additions to the museum's permanent collection, including major works by Cynthia Daignault and Paul Pfeiffer.
A major exhibition titled 'Monuments' is on view at two Los Angeles venues, The Geffen Contemporary at Moca and The Brick. The show places nine decommissioned Confederate monuments, some already defaced, into dialogue with works by 19 contemporary artists, most of whom are Black. The centerpiece is Kara Walker's 'Unmanned Drone' (2023), a radical reworking of a removed statue of Confederate general Stonewall Jackson, which occupies its own venue at The Brick.
The World Monuments Fund and Knoll have awarded the 2026 World Monuments Fund/Knoll Modernism Prize to the Australia-based architecture firm Architectus for its conservation of Africa Hall in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The building, completed in 1961 and designed by Italian architect Arturo Mezzedimi, serves as the headquarters of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and was commissioned by Emperor Haile Selassie. The decade-long, $57 million restoration project, completed in October 2024, involved local experts, restored original furniture and stained-glass windows by artist Afewerk Tekle, and modernized the structure while preserving its modernist vision. The jury also awarded its first Stewardship Award for Modernist Homes to the Umbrella House in Sarasota, Florida, designed by Paul Rudolph.
The 24th edition of Guatemala’s Bienal de Arte Paiz, titled "The World Tree" and curated by Eugenio Viola, runs until 15 February across 11 venues in Antigua and Guatemala City. It features 46 artists from 30 countries, with 31 commissioned works, making it the largest and longest edition in the biennial's history. The organizing non-profit, Fundación Paiz, has also created its first permanent exhibition venue, which soft-launched with a performance by Cuban artist Carlos Martiel.
François-Xavier Lalanne's 1976 'Hippopotame Bar,' a whimsical copper, steel, and wood cabinet shaped like a hippopotamus with hidden compartments, sold for $31.4 million at a Sotheby's auction on December 10, 2025. Originally commissioned by the late oil heiress and philanthropist Anne Schlumberger, the piece sparked a 26-minute bidding war that far exceeded its $7–10 million estimate, making it the most valuable design object ever sold at auction and shattering Lalanne's previous auction record.
The Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami has opened "Hiba Schahbaz: The Garden," the first major retrospective of Karachi-born, Brooklyn-based artist Hiba Schahbaz. Curated by Jasmine Wahi, the exhibition spans 15 years of Schahbaz's practice, including loans from private collections, studio works, and new commissions. Anchored by the concept of the jannat (Paradise Garden) rooted in Islamic tradition and Sufi poetry, the show is organized around the elements of earth, water, fire, and air. Schahbaz, trained in the Indo-Persian miniature tradition, works with water-based pigments and tea on handmade paper, and her practice has evolved from small formats to large-scale works, including a 45-foot-by-14-foot mermaid painting commissioned for the Miami show.
Kat Lyons has opened her first US institutional solo show, "Full Earth," at Marquez Art Projects (MAP) in Allapattah, Miami. The exhibition features newly commissioned large-scale oil paintings that draw on the ecology, history, and mythology of the Florida Everglades, blending personal narrative with environmental commentary. Lyons, who rarely depicts humans, instead populates her canvases with native and invasive animal species, using them as protagonists in visual fables that explore humanity's relationship with nature.
The 36th Bienal de São Paulo has opened with a site-specific installation by Nigerian-American artist Precious Okoyomon, titled "Sun of Consciousness. God Blow Thru Me – Love Break Me" (2025), which features a spiraling path of moss-covered earth and waterfalls evoking Brazil's deforested Cerrado region. The biennial, curated by Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung with an international team, includes 125 artists—97 international and 28 Brazilian—with more than half of the works commissioned for the exhibition. Notable presentations include a career-spanning display of over 20 paintings by British artist Frank Bowling, alongside works by Brazilian artist Gervane de Paula, who has the largest presence in the show.