Kansas City is preparing for a significant surge in artistic activity as several major exhibitions and art fairs are scheduled to launch across the city. The upcoming schedule features a mix of large-scale museum presentations and commercial art fairs, providing a platform for both local creators and national artists to showcase their work to the public.
Students from Becket Washington School and their families gathered at the Becket Arts Center for the opening of a dedicated exhibition featuring student artwork. The show, hosted in the center's upstairs gallery, highlights the creative output of local youth and remains open to the public through April 26.
The City of Gainesville and The Arts Council of Northeast Georgia partnered to host a public art showcase on the downtown square. The event featured a diverse range of works from local creators, transforming the city's central hub into an open-air gallery for the evening.
Gisborne-based artist Melanie Tangaere Baldwin has unveiled her latest solo exhibition, Ā Mua, at the Tairāwhiti Museum. The showcase features a departure from her previous multi-disciplinary work, focusing heavily on sculptural hand-stitched textile art that depicts powerful female forms, alongside light boxes exploring the symbolism of fire.
The Crowsnest Pass Public Art Gallery has issued an open call for its Annual Juried Summer Exhibition, titled "Sight and Sound." This year’s theme celebrates the 100th anniversary of the Crowsnest Pass Community Orchestra by inviting artists to explore the intersection of visual art and music. Submissions are open to all artists until May 31, with a jury selecting approximately 16 participants based on originality, composition, and thematic relevance.
The Jidar Street Art Festival has concluded its latest edition in Rabat, Morocco, transforming the capital’s urban landscape into an expansive open-air museum. This year’s event featured twelve large-scale murals created by a diverse roster of local and international street artists, alongside a program of workshops and guided tours designed to engage the public with contemporary urban art.
The Army Museum in Paris is hosting "Explorations: A State Affair?", a comprehensive exhibition running from April 15 to August 16, 2026. The showcase traces three centuries of French global expeditions, from the aftermath of the Seven Years' War in 1763 through the space race to contemporary missions focused on climate change and resource security. Featuring a diverse array of artifacts including maps, scientific instruments, military uniforms, and paintings, the exhibition highlights the military's central role in scientific discovery, territorial expansion, and state power.
The London Jesuit Centre is hosting "Paintings of Prayer and Protest," an exhibition featuring the works of artists Helen Elwes and Martin Jarvis. The show coincides with a special Mass for the Care of Creation at Farm St Church in Mayfair, marking the anniversary of Pope Francis' death. Both artists, members of Christian Climate Action and the Laudato Si' Movement, present works that blend ecological activism with spiritual devotion, including painted banners used in climate marches and contemporary icons addressing rainforest devastation.
Orange County Arts & Cultural Affairs is launching a new solo exhibition titled “Standing Firm” featuring the work of artist Robert Rell. Hosted at the Orange County Multicultural Center Art Gallery in Orlando, the exhibition opens with a public reception on April 15, 2026, and showcases Rell’s evolution from a comic-inspired youth to a painter influenced by the creative freedom of Newark’s graffiti scene.
The annual ArtFields Festival has launched in Lake City, South Carolina, turning the small agricultural town into a massive open-air gallery. The event features hundreds of artworks displayed across local businesses, warehouses, and professional galleries, drawing thousands of visitors to a community once known primarily as a hub for green bean auctions.
Artists Adam Russell and Kelly Lever, the duo behind Key West Pottery, are reuniting for a joint exhibition titled 'Coastline' at JAG Gallery in Key West. Opening April 8, the show features a collection of paintings that explore the intersection of land and sea, drawing inspiration from the couple's global travels. While the two maintain distinct individual styles, the works reflect a creative collision born from their shared studio practice and personal partnership.
Singaporean artist Suzann Victor has unveiled a major installation at Art Basel Hong Kong, showcasing her signature blend of large-scale spectacle and deep conceptual inquiry. The Sydney-based artist, recognized as a pioneer of contemporary art in Southeast Asia, utilizes her multidisciplinary practice to challenge viewers to confront the enduring psychological and cultural impacts of postcolonialism.
The Vacaville Art Gallery is preparing to host its annual "Set the Table" event, a fundraiser and exhibition where artists create and display unique table settings. The event serves as a key financial driver for the non-profit gallery, supporting its year-round operations and community programming. Meanwhile, MI Art Studios in Fairfield is opening a new exhibition titled "Beyond Time," featuring works by local artists that explore themes of temporality and memory.
A new exhibition titled 'Give Me a Ring: A Telephone Retrospective' has opened at the San Francisco Airport Museum. The show explores the history, design, and cultural impact of the telephone through a collection of artifacts and artworks.
The Other Art Fair is returning to Dallas for its second edition, taking place at the Fashion Industry Gallery from May 2-5. The event will feature 135 independent and emerging artists, offering them a platform to sell their work directly to the public.
The annual Art Aloud exhibit has returned to Colorado Springs, transforming local businesses like Poor Richard’s into temporary galleries that merge visual art with the spoken word. Celebrating its 19th year, the event features a diverse roster of 40 to 60 participants ranging from seasoned professionals like Bill Young to first-time exhibitors. The curated selection focuses on whimsical and unconventional works that challenge traditional gallery norms, often pairing installations and photography with poetry.
The Barely Fair, a miniature art fair in Chicago, has successfully concluded its fifth edition. The event features 40 exhibitors presenting artworks within 16-square-inch booths, offering an accessible and experimental alternative to large-scale commercial fairs.
Pinta has launched Pinta Experience, a new boutique travel unit offering three-to-five-day immersive programs centered on Latin American art ecosystems. These curated itineraries provide participants with exclusive access to art fairs, private collections, artist studios, and gallery tours, moving beyond traditional cultural tourism to foster direct networking with local curators and gallerists.
A diverse array of international photography festivals and exhibitions are scheduled for May 2026. Key events include Bieler Fototage in Switzerland, focusing on vulnerability as a social condition; Photo London, which is relocating to the Olympia and introducing new curated sections; Hard Copy New York at the ICP, exploring photocopied imagery; Fotofestival Lenzburg, an open-air exhibition in Switzerland; and several other events across Europe and the US.
The Loop Plus media art fair has launched its second edition in Busan, South Korea. The fair, dedicated exclusively to new media art, is confronting fundamental market challenges, specifically the public and collector uncertainty about whether such technologically dependent works can be owned and collected. It aims to build the market and ecosystem for the genre.
The Minneapolis Institute of Art has opened a major exhibition, 'Modern Art and Politics in Germany 1910-1945: Masterworks from the Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin.' The show, curated by Tom Rassieur, presents a chronological journey through German art from the Expressionist era through the World Wars, featuring key works by artists like Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Vassily Kandinsky, and Franz Marc. It highlights groups like Der Blaue Reiter and uses deliberate pairings, such as portraits of Jewish art dealers by Otto Dix and Lovis Corinth, to explore themes of societal tension, propaganda, and identity.
PHI in Montreal presents two spring/summer 2026 exhibitions: "Come See, Lies Lies" by Paola Pivi and "Other Worlds" by Jakob Kudsk Steensen. Pivi's show features surreal installations including wall-mounted shoes, suspended velvet mattresses, and a metal house with TV screens broadcasting false statements, blending fairy tale and satire. Steensen's exhibition comprises six major works from the past decade, using virtual reality, video games, and sound installations to explore ecological themes and digitized environments like Bora Bora and volcanic seabeds. Both exhibitions open April 23, 2026, and run through September 13, 2026.
Loïc Gouzer's auction app Fair Warning is launching a new sales format called "No Warning." The system eliminates bidding wars; a work is listed with a price, and buyers can either purchase it immediately or submit a single, binding offer. The highest offer is presented to the seller, who decides to accept or reject it, with no public record of the sale unless disclosed by the parties. The first test of the format is a 1999 Elizabeth Peyton watercolor priced at $400,000.
The international architectural competition for the Louvre Museum's $778 million 'New Renaissance' renovation project is set to relaunch in mid-May, according to a report in Le Figaro. The jury will convene on May 13 to assess proposals from five shortlisted firms, ending a period of uncertainty and delays caused by staff unrest, leadership upheaval following a major jewel theft, and the French municipal elections. The project, championed by President Emmanuel Macron, aims to modernize the museum and reduce overcrowding.
A plein air art contest is being held in Alton, Illinois, from May 1–31, 2026. Artists over 16 are invited to create works on-site at up to eight Rivers Project recreation areas. For a $25 submission fee, they can enter their work for prizes, and all submissions will be exhibited at the National Great Rivers Museum through August.
The Independent art fair in New York is featuring a significant presentation of designs by Rei Kawakubo and her label Comme des Garçons. The works, which include garments and sculptural objects, are being presented as a curated exhibition within the fair, challenging traditional art fair categories.
Billionaire collector and National Gallery of Art trustee Mitchell P. Rales has donated $116 million to the museum. The gift, the largest programming endowment in the institution's history, will fund the 'Across the Nation' initiative, which loans works from the National Gallery's permanent collection to small and midsize museums across the United States for two-year periods at no cost to the borrowing institutions.
The 2026 Met Gala, scheduled for May 4, will serve as the fundraiser for the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute, with a theme inspired by the new exhibition "Costume Art." The event is co-chaired by Beyoncé, Nicole Kidman, Venus Williams, and Anna Wintour, with lead sponsorship from Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos, and will inaugurate the museum's new Conde M. Nast Galleries.
À Bordeaux, le MADD dévoile sa sublime métamorphose et rend hommage à une étoile filante du design
The Musée des Arts décoratifs et du Design (MADD) in Bordeaux has unveiled a significant architectural renovation and expansion of its public spaces. The project, led by the architecture firm Antoine Dufour, transformed the 18th-century Hôtel de Lalande, creating a new open-air passage, a café-restaurant, a ticket office-shop, and improving accessibility and circulation between the historic mansion and the adjacent former prison used for temporary exhibitions. The redesign emphasizes natural light, reveals original stone walls, and incorporates contemporary, clearly distinguishable interventions.
The Association of International Photography Art Dealers (Aipad) has opened the 45th edition of The Photography Show at New York's Park Avenue Armory. The fair features around 65 exhibitors in its main section, with a new Focal Point sector highlighting 13 solo presentations by boundary-pushing artists. Returning participants include major New York photography galleries, alongside first-time exhibitors and galleries returning after an absence.