Giuseppe Penone is preparing for his exhibition 'The Reflection of Bronze' at Gagosian's New York flagship, running from April 22 through July 2. The show, curated by former Whitney Museum director Adam D. Weinberg, features eighteen artworks from 1995 to the present, including the new sculpture 'Marsia (Marsyas)', and is designed to create a forest-like sensory immersion using materials like cork.
This article highlights a curated spring journey through major exhibitions across Europe and the US, focusing on artists represented in the UBS Art Collection. Featured shows include Catherine Opie at the National Portrait Gallery in London, Yin Xiuzhen at the Hayward Gallery, Tracey Emin at Tate Modern, Lorna Simpson at Palazzo Grassi in Venice, and Jean-Michel Basquiat at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark. Each exhibition offers fresh perspectives on the artists' practices, from photography and installation to painting and works on paper.
April 2026 marks a significant month for global art exhibitions, featuring major retrospectives and site-specific installations across Rome, Seoul, London, and Paris. Highlights include Gagosian Rome’s exploration of Francesca Woodman’s surrealist photography, a homecoming retrospective for video-art pioneer Nam June Paik in Seoul, and Senga Nengudi’s performance-based sculptures at London’s Whitechapel Gallery. Additionally, Isaac Julien will debut a new moving-image work at The Cosmic House, while the Fondation Louis Vuitton prepares a large-scale exhibition dedicated to Alexander Calder’s kinetic sculptures.
Conceptual artist Danh Vo discusses his multifaceted practice in a new podcast interview, exploring how his work weaves together personal autobiography, queer identity, and his experience as a Vietnamese immigrant. The conversation delves into his collaborative methods, his use of found objects ranging from religious sculptures to household items, and his upcoming exhibitions at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and White Cube in New York.
The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam has launched a new exhibition titled "Yellow: Beyond Van Gogh’s Colour," running until May 17. The show explores Vincent van Gogh’s profound obsession with the color yellow, featuring eight of his works alongside pieces by contemporaries like Paul Gauguin and Aubrey Beardsley. It highlights Van Gogh's technical use of chrome yellow pigments to capture the "high yellow note" of the Provencal sun and the symbolic association of the color with modernity and life-giving energy.
Newly released documents from the Jeffrey Epstein case reveal that billionaire investor and former Museum of Modern Art chairman Leon Black was a major private collector of works by Vincent van Gogh. The files detail his ownership of at least five significant Van Gogh pieces, including the painting 'Quarry near Saint-Rémy' and the drawing 'Garden with Flowers,' with a combined value exceeding $95 million by 2016.
Conservators at Rotterdam's Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum have discovered that Vincent van Gogh's painting *Poplars near Nuenen* (1885) conceals two earlier compositions: a moonlit view of a church tower and graveyard from July 1884, and a subsequent reworking in Paris in late 1886 that brightened the autumnal landscape. X-ray imaging revealed the original church scene, which Van Gogh painted over after his father's death. The final version, now restored after four years of conservation, goes on display on 7 February.
Major museums worldwide have announced their flagship exhibitions for 2026, featuring a diverse array of artists and historical periods. Highlights include a Frida Kahlo retrospective at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, exploring her rise to icon status; a survey of Ovid's influence on art from Caravaggio to Louise Bourgeois at Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum; a centennial exhibition for Mary Cassatt at the National Gallery of Art; and the largest career survey to date for Tracey Emin at Tate Modern. Other key shows feature Carol Bove at the Guggenheim Museum, Korean national treasures at the Art Institute of Chicago, and exhibitions at the Whitney Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Louvre.
A wave of Van Gogh exhibitions is scheduled for 2026 across the United States, Japan, and the Netherlands. Highlights include "Van Gogh’s Sunflowers: A Symphony in Blue and Yellow" at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (June–October 2026), featuring a rare loan of London's National Gallery version alongside Philadelphia's own. Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum will present "Yellow: Beyond Van Gogh’s Colour" (February–May 2026), while the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo will display all 88 Van Gogh paintings for the first time since 1984 in "Van Gogh, All Our Paintings" (September 2026–January 2027). In Japan, the Kröller-Müller's "The Grand Van Gogh Exhibition" tours Kobe, Fukushima, and Tokyo, and the Van Gogh Museum's "Van Gogh’s Home" is at Nagoya's Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art. Smaller shows take place at the Van Gogh House in Zundert, the Maison du Dr Gachet in Auvers-sur-Oise, and the Foundation Vincent van Gogh Arles.
A new biography, *Crumb: A Cartoonist's Life* by Dan Nadel, examines the life and work of Robert Crumb, the taboo-breaking underground cartoonist who rose to fame in the 1960s with surreal, satirical comics like *Head Comix*. The book details Crumb's troubled family history, his early career at American Greetings, and his creation of iconic characters such as Fritz the Cat and the Keep On Truckin' images, while also addressing persistent criticisms of sexism and racism in his work.
The article reviews the Van Gogh year in 2025, highlighting several key developments. The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam faces potential closure unless the Dutch government increases its annual building subsidy from €8.5m to €11m, leading the museum to file a legal complaint. At auction, two Van Gogh paintings sold, with "Parisian Novels" (1887) fetching $62.7m at Sotheby's, a record for his Paris period, and eight drawings were sold, including "Sower in a Wheatfield with setting Sun" (1888) for $11.2m. Acquisitions included "Tarascon Stagecoach" (1888) given to LACMA via the Henry and Rose Pearlman Foundation, and "Head of a Peasant" (1885) bought by Korean-born gallery owner Hong Gyu Shin, marking the first known Van Gogh acquisition by a Korean.
Irving Stone's 1934 novel *Lust for Life*, a fictionalized biography of Vincent van Gogh, was published as an Armed Services Edition during World War II for U.S. soldiers. These pocket-sized books, measuring 11cm by 17cm, were designed to fit in uniform pockets and withstand harsh conditions. Over 123 million copies of various titles were printed from 1943 to 1947, with distribution including parachute drops to troops on Pacific islands and handouts to soldiers before the Normandy Landings. The surviving copies are scarce and often damaged, with browned pages and covers marked as U.S. government property, not to be resold.
The Saint Louis Art Museum has opened “Anselm Kiefer: Becoming the Sea,” an exhibition featuring 40 works by the German artist from the 1970s to the present, including over 20 pieces made in the last five years and five monumental site-specific paintings. The show highlights Kiefer's 1991 journey up the Mississippi River during a visit to St. Louis, a formative trip that inspired new works such as the 30-by-27-foot painting *Missouri, Mississippi* (2024), which depicts the artist encountering the Melvin Price Lock and Dam in Alton, Illinois. The exhibition also includes pieces like *Die Milchstraße* (1985-87) and two works dedicated to beat poet Gregory Corso, whose lines about eternal life gave the show its title.
The Philadelphia Museum of Art will host a major exhibition titled *Van Gogh’s Sunflowers: A Symphony in Blue and Yellow* from June 6 to October 11, 2026, bringing together two iconic Sunflower paintings: the museum’s own turquoise-background version (January 1889) and the original yellow-background version (August 1888) from London’s National Gallery. This marks a rare international loan for the London painting, which has only traveled abroad four times since 1924. The exhibition will explore Van Gogh’s use of color and brushwork, and will reunite the two canvases in a triptych arrangement with *La Berceuse* (January 1889, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), as originally envisioned by the artist in a letter to his brother Theo.
Art Week Tokyo returns for its fourth edition from November 5–9, 2025, co-hosted by over 50 venues across the city. Instead of a traditional art fair, visitors can use free shuttle buses to explore participating galleries, museums, and nonprofit spaces, including Pace, Perrotin, Kaikai Kiki Gallery, the Mori Art Museum, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. Highlights include a curated Focus exhibition titled “What Is Real?” by documenta 14 artistic director Adam Szymczyk, a survey show “Prism of the Real” co-curated with M+, a mid-career retrospective for Aki Sasamoto, and special programming such as a guided tour of micro homes by architect Kazuyo Sejima and a pop-up bar designed by Ichio Matsuzawa with a menu by Michelin-starred chef Shinobu Namae.
Art Week Tokyo, which launched in November 2021 during border closures, has adopted a unique "post-art fair" model that forgoes a traditional art fair in favor of connecting museums and galleries across Tokyo via free buses and inviting international art professionals. The fourth full edition coincides with three major Japanese art festivals—the Aichi Triennale, Okayama Art Summit, and Setouchi Triennale—creating a powerful autumn art season. Key highlights include AWT Focus, a selling exhibition at the Okura Museum of Art curated by Adam Szymczyk, featuring over 50 artists with increased international gallery participation, and the museum exhibition "Prism of the Real: Making Art in Japan 1989-2010" at the National Art Center, Tokyo, curated by Doryun Chong.
Frieze London 2025 has opened with a wide-ranging program spanning contemporary art, photography, antiquities, and performance. Key highlights include the inaugural Echo Soho fair celebrating women-run galleries, the London edition of Dallas Invitational set to open at the former US embassy in 2026, and strong sales at Frieze Masters including a Triceratops skull. Christie's and Sotheby's auctions during the week showed a mixed market: Peter Doig's 'Ski Jacket' sold for £106.9m, but overall estimates and price corrections indicated caution. The fair also features Sophia Al-Maria performing stand-up as winner of the Frieze London Artist Award, a new pricing structure for greater gallery diversity, and a pop-up by The Art Newspaper and L'OFFICIEL.
The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam has opened "Van Gogh and the Roulins: Together Again at Last," the first comprehensive exhibition dedicated to Vincent van Gogh's portraits of postman Joseph Roulin and his family. The show, which runs until January 11, 2026, features the artist's first portrait of Roulin on loan from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, alongside the very wicker armchair on which Roulin posed in 1888. The chair, originally bought by Van Gogh for his Yellow House in Arles, was acquired by the museum in 1969 and is exhibited for the first time since then. The exhibition previously drew 280,000 visitors in Boston.
Berlin-based Polish artist Alicja Kwade opens her studio ahead of a major solo show, revealing the creative process behind her sculptural works that explore time, uncertainty, and reality. Her studio, a historic industrial complex in Oberschöneweide acquired from musician Bryan Adams, houses a team of a dozen full-time employees and up to 30 freelancers, including stone masons, welders, and architects. Kwade's recent high-profile exhibition at Pace Gallery in New York featured suspended stainless-steel cylinders with clocks and distorted reflections, while her best-known works include 2019 sculptures commissioned for the rooftop of The Metropolitan Museum of Art and a contribution to the 2017 Venice Biennale.
The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam has published 103 letters from Dutch Impressionist painter Isaac Israëls to Jo Bonger, Vincent van Gogh's sister-in-law, revealing a previously secret romantic relationship between them. The museum is also presenting an exhibition titled "Captivated by Vincent: The Intimate Friendship of Jo van Gogh-Bonger and Isaac Israëls" (through January 25, 2026), which explores their brief physical relationship in the 1890s and its aftermath, including how Israëls incorporated Van Gogh's paintings into his own portraits—a practice he called "Vincenting." Twelve of these portraits are on display for the first time.
Doris Lockhart, the US-born art collector who played a pivotal role in shaping the Saatchi collection and championing contemporary art in the UK, has died at age 88. Alongside her then-husband Charles Saatchi, she helped introduce postwar American artists like Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, and Robert Rauschenberg to British audiences, and was instrumental in recognizing the Young British Artists (YBAs) of the 1990s, including Damien Hirst and Gary Hume. After their divorce in 1990, Lockhart continued collecting independently, backing emerging talents and expanding her interests to architectural models and drawings.
The British Museum's exhibition "Hiroshige: Artist of the Open Road" (through September 7) showcases over 100 prints by the Japanese master Utagawa Hiroshige, including rare loans that highlight his influence on European avant-garde artists. A key display is Vincent van Gogh's own copy of Hiroshige's "The Plum Garden at Kameido" (1857), on loan from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, along with Van Gogh's squared-up tracing used for his painting. New research by British Museum senior scientist Capucine Korenberg reveals a short pencil line on the print that confirms Van Gogh used this exact copy as a guide for his tracing and subsequent painting.
The article provides a roundup of current and upcoming exhibitions at San Francisco museums and galleries in July 2025. Highlights include 'People Make This Place: SFAI Stories' opening July 26 at SFMOMA, 'Jess Young: Return' at 500 Capp Street, and 'Ferlinghetti for San Francisco' at the Legion of Honor. Shows closing soon include 'Yuan Goang-Ming: Everyday War' at the Asian Art Museum and 'Wayne Thiebaud: Art Comes from Art' at the Legion of Honor. The gallery scene is covered with mentions of Voss Gallery, Incline Gallery, and Hosfelt Gallery, along with ongoing exhibitions like 'Kunié Sugiura: Photopainting' and 'Ruth Asawa: Retrospective' at SFMOMA.
A Hug from the Art World in Chelsea is presenting a long-term exhibition of Scottish Abstract Expressionist Alan Davie (1920–2014), focusing on his work from 1959 to 1971. Gallery founder Adam Cohen, who discovered a Davie painting in his father Frank Cohen's collection, curated the show to highlight what he considers Davie's most influential period, when his style evolved into a psychedelic, complex visual language amid the rise of Pop Art and Minimalism.
The Royal Academy of Arts in London is hosting "Kiefer/Van Gogh" (28 June–26 October), a focused exhibition pairing Anselm Kiefer's monumental multimedia works with Vincent van Gogh's paintings and drawings. The show, curated by Julien Domercq, features seven huge Kiefer pieces including the 8.4m-wide "The Starry Night" (2019) and a single sculpture, alongside 11 Van Gogh works—five on loan from the Van Gogh Museum. It previously ran at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, where it drew 340,000 visitors. The London iteration is smaller but includes different works, with a central room dedicated to Van Gogh's pieces spanning his career.
Art Basel returned to Basel for its 55th edition in June 2025, featuring 289 top international galleries from 42 countries and territories. The fair attracted 88,000 visitors, including collectors, curators, and representatives from over 250 museums and foundations. Highlights included Arturo Kameya's storytelling installation at GRIMM in the Statements section and Lothar Hempel's series of painted aluminum works at Anton Kern Gallery in the Kabinett sector, alongside large-scale installations in Unlimited and public projects in Parcours.
Post-Minimalist sculptor Joel Shapiro died on 14 June in Manhattan at age 83 from acute myeloid leukemia. Best known for vibrant, humanoid sculptures built from wooden beams that balance abstraction and figuration, Shapiro completed over 30 public commissions, including *Loss and Regeneration* (1993) at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. His career began with fingerprint drawings that caught gallerist Paula Cooper's attention, leading to a 1982 mid-career retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art. He later showed at Pace Gallery and other major venues, with his most recent solo exhibition at Pace in New York in September 2024.
Artist Arlene Shechet discusses her dual role as creator and collector in an interview with The Art Newspaper ahead of Art Basel. She is installing her welded aluminum sculpture *Midnight* (2024) in the fair's Unlimited section, a work originally commissioned for her show at Storm King Art Center. Shechet reveals that she uses a portion of her sales to buy works by other artists, citing pieces by Fred Sandback, Barry Le Va, Joan Jonas, Kinke Kooi, and Marlon Mullen in her collection. She also mentions a regret over not purchasing a Louise Bourgeois drawing for $5,000 and names a medieval Book of Hours as her dream museum acquisition.
Photographer Cindy Sherman has launched the Cindy Sherman Legacy Project (CSLP), a formal initiative to preserve her photographic works by offering to destroy and replace damaged prints with new, artist-approved reprints. The project, announced on June 16, includes condition assessments, a controlled replacement process, and an online catalogue raisonné. Collectors can submit works for evaluation at a New York facility; eligible prints are destroyed and replaced with mint-condition reprints signed by Sherman, with a $10,000 administrative fee plus production costs. The fee is waived for non-profit institutions.
The May 2025 roundup of Black art news reports the deaths of two influential figures: international curator Koyo Kouoh and artist-curator Evangeline J. Montgomery, who died at 94. Montgomery's career spanned metalwork, fiber art, and photography, and she was a key advocate and mentor in the African American art community, later working at the U.S. Information Agency. Other highlights include historian Edda L. Fields-Black winning a Pulitzer Prize for her book on Harriet Tubman, the acquisition of Adam Pendleton's entire "Who is Queen" installation by MoMA, and Kapwani Kiwanga winning the Joan Miró Prize. The Met Gala also featured Black dandy style inspired by the Costume Institute's exhibition "Superfine: Tailoring Black Style."