Inside The Met's New 'Costume Art' Exhibition

The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute has announced a new exhibition titled 'Costume Art,' opening to the public on May 10 and running through January 10, 2027. The show inaugurates the Met's nearly 12,000-square-foot expansion adjacent to the Great Hall, providing a permanent home for the Costume Institute's annual spring exhibitions. Featuring nearly 400 objects—half garments and half traditional art like sculpture and painting—the exhibition explores how clothing alters and enhances the human body, dividing 'the body' into 13 types such as 'The Classical Body' and 'The Corpulent Body.' The show includes works from designers like Coco Chanel, Jean Paul Gaultier, Thom Browne, and Alexander McQueen, paired with historical artifacts and contemporary art. The exhibition follows this year's Met Gala, co-chaired by Beyoncé, Nicole Kidman, Venus Williams, and Anna Wintour, which raised a record $42 million for the Costume Institute.

Met Gala 2026: Celebrities Wearing Art — Decoding the Inspirations Behind Their Looks

At the 2026 Met Gala, held on May 4 at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, celebrities interpreted the dress code 'Fashion is Art' with looks inspired by iconic artworks. ROSÉ wore a Saint Laurent gown based on Georges Braque's 'The Birds,' Emma Chamberlain's dress fused Vincent van Gogh's 'The Garden at Arles' and 'The Starry Night,' and Ben Platt donned a jacket reimagining Georges-Pierre Seurat's 'A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte' through bead embroidery.

The Art of Transparency: Reiko Sudō’s Textile Innovation for LACMA

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) commissioned Tokyo-based textile designer Reiko Sudō to create custom curtains for its new David Geffen Galleries, which feature floor-to-ceiling glass windows. Sudō developed sputter-plated chrome textiles—in matte and gloss finishes—that are both transparent and light-protective, solving the challenge of shielding light-sensitive artworks while preserving panoramic views of the surrounding city. The textiles, produced by Sudō’s company NUNO, are now installed as curtains and will also appear in her retrospective "Textile Alchemy: The Art of Reiko Sudō and NUNO" at LACMA opening September 20, 2026.

All the Looks That Made It From the Runway Into the Met’s “Costume Art” Exhibition

The Met Costume Institute Unveils Its New Condé M. Nast Galleries

The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute has unveiled its new 12,000-square-foot Condé M. Nast Galleries, named for the founder of Architectural Digest's parent company. Designed by the architecture firm Peterson Rich Office (PRO), the five-room exhibition space was carved from a former interior courtyard and gift shop, revealing historic brick and masonry facades that highlight the museum's architectural evolution. The galleries debuted alongside the exhibition "Costume Art," which explores the significance of dressed human form in fashion and fine art, curated by Andrew Bolton and celebrated at the Met Gala on May 4, 2026.

Met Museum show at new Costume Institute puts fashion in same spotlight as Egyptian artefacts

The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute has opened its spring exhibition 'Costume Art' in a new 12,000-square-foot space called the Condé M Nast Galleries, located off the museum's Great Hall. The show pairs 200 garments and accessories with 200 artworks from the Met's collection, organized into 13 thematic body types such as Naked and Nude, Abstracted Body, Corpulent Body, Disabled Body, and Mortal Body. Lead curator Andrew Bolton aims to challenge traditional hierarchies by placing fashion on equal footing with fine art. The exhibition's launch is overshadowed by controversy over sponsorship by Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos for the Met Gala.

DATALAND Preview: The World’s First Museum of AI Arts Co-Founded by Refik Anadol

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.

Marina Abramović in Venice: “Don’t treat me like an icon”

Marina Abramović has opened a new exhibition titled "Transforming Energy" at the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice, running concurrently with the Venice Biennale. Curated by Shai Baitel, the show spans the museum’s permanent collection and temporary exhibition spaces, featuring a timeline of the artist’s biography, video works, and interactive installations with crystals and stone objects. Abramović is the first living woman artist to receive a major solo exhibition at the museum, and the exhibition includes a digital avatar and rituals designed to slow down the viewer’s experience.

Wrapped for Travel: On "The American Connection" by Peter Halley and "Black Painter, White Figuration" by Maxwell Alexandre

Two simultaneous exhibitions at Almeida & Dale in São Paulo present contrasting visions: American artist Peter Halley's "The American Connection," curated by Antonio Gonçalves Filho, features his signature geometric abstractions using Roll-A-Tex and Day-Glo colors to critique digital confinement and post-industrial surfaces. Brazilian artist Maxwell Alexandre shows works from his "Clube" series, depicting Black bodies navigating exclusionary leisure spaces. The pairing is deliberate, not for aesthetic dialogue but to juxtapose an established international artist with a rising Brazilian talent, timed to coincide with SP-ARTE.

Beyond Body-Con: In the the Met’s Spectacular New Exhibition, “Costume Art,” the Human Form Connects Fashion and Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has opened a new fashion exhibition titled "Costume Art" in its newly established Condé M. Nast Galleries. Curated by Andrew Bolton, the show features faceless mannequin heads by sculptor Samar Hejazi that reflect visitors' own images, encouraging self-reflection and empathy. The exhibition is structured around a typology of bodies, using mannequins of diverse body types modeled after named individuals to challenge traditional beauty standards. It explores the connection between fashion and the human form, positioning the dressed body as a unifying thread across the museum's collections.

Asian Heritage Month 2026 at the Vancouver Art Gallery

The Vancouver Art Gallery is hosting a month-long program of talks, tours, and workshops for Asian Heritage Month 2026, celebrating Asian art and ideas. Highlights include weekly Lunchtime Look tours led by Senior Curator Diana Freundl and a Mandarin-language tour by Lynn Chen, a panel discussion titled "Modernity in Translation: Art, Architecture and Poetry in Iran" moderated by curator Pantea Haghighi with architect Hossein Amanat and Dr. Jeff Derksen, and a hands-on collage workshop by artist Vanessa Lam. The program also previews the gallery's upcoming landmark exhibition "Modern Iran and the Avant-Gardes, 1948–78," opening December 11, 2026, which will be the largest presentation of Iranian modernism ever mounted in Canada, featuring over 30 artists and approximately 100 works.

3 Matisse Exhibitions at the Baltimore Museum of Art Highlight Different Sides of the Artist

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) is presenting three simultaneous exhibitions focused on Henri Matisse, drawing from its world-leading collection of the artist's works. The shows include "Fratino and Matisse: To See This Light Again," pairing Matisse with contemporary artist Louis Fratino; "Matisse and Martinique: Portraits and Poetry," exploring a little-known book illustration series inspired by the artist's 1930 visit to Martinique; and "Matisse in Vence: The Stations of the Cross," featuring 85 rarely or never-before-seen works on paper from Matisse's only architectural project—a chapel in Vence, France. The exhibitions run through 2026, with the Vence show curated by scholar Yve-Alain Bois.

What’s on now at San Francisco museums, May 2026

San Francisco museums are navigating a mix of upcoming exhibitions and financial challenges in May 2026. SFMOMA is closing "KAWS: Family" on May 3 and opening "Matisse’s Femme au chapeau: A Modern Scandal" from May 16 to September 13. The Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts has suspended operations due to funding issues, and SOMArts is also facing a budget gap. Meanwhile, the Museum of Craft and Design presents "Video Craft" through August 16, and the Letterform Archive hosts "Black Memory Scholar: The Language of Storytellers" and "Piet Zwart: Brand Architect." SFMOMA has announced three SECA award winners—CrossLypka, Em Kettner, and Chanell Stone—who will exhibit from December 2026 to May 2027, and the museum continues to showcase "Reimagined: The Fisher Collection at 10" and new installations by Alexander Calder, Claes Oldenburg + Coosje van Bruggen, and Rose B Simpson.

designboom radar: exhibitions to see around the world this may

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.

Try Free Art in Tribeca: A Gallery Walkthrough

A budget-friendly walk through Tribeca's gallery scene highlights two free exhibitions. At Savage Wonderground Tribeca, Brent Owens presents "Fancy Feast," a 24-foot-long banquet table of wooden sculptures mimicking gourmet cat food, with prices ranging from $1,000 to $8,000 but viewing free. At Almine Rech Tribeca, Youngju Joung's "Pause and Flow" features melancholic paintings on traditional Korean paper, memorializing the "moon villages" of displaced working-class citizens from South Korea's urbanization.

Giovanni Segantini at the Marmottan Monet Museum: our photos from the exhibition on the painter of the Alps

The Marmottan Monet Museum in Paris has opened a major retrospective of Giovanni Segantini, an Italian painter known for his Symbolist and Divisionist Alpine landscapes. Titled "I Want to See My Mountains," the exhibition runs from April 29 to August 16, 2026, and features over 60 works including oil paintings, pastels, and drawings, plus around 30 works on paper from European collections. Curated by Gabriella Belli and Diana Segantini, the show traces Segantini's artistic journey from his early days in Italy to his time in the Engadine Valley in Switzerland, where he found inspiration in mountain landscapes. The exhibition is divided into ten sections and also includes a contemporary tribute to Anselm Kiefer, whose works create a dialogue with Segantini's vision.

In Pictures: Prince Albert II and Princess Caroline open Monaco Art Week 2026

Prince Albert II and Princess Caroline of Hanover opened the 8th edition of Monaco Art Week on Monday evening at the New National Museum of Monaco. The event, running until May 1, transforms the Principality into an open-air art trail with fourteen participating venues, including Artcurial, Sotheby's, Almine Rech Gallery, and the Hôtel des Ventes de Monte-Carlo, spread across La Condamine, Monte-Carlo, and Larvotto. The royal siblings toured the current exhibition "The Feeling of Nature," which explores works from Nicolas Poussin to contemporary art, featuring painting, sculpture, jewellery, and design. The week will culminate with the opening of the Art Monte-Carlo fair at the Grimaldi Forum, marking its 10th edition under the artistic direction of Stefano Rabolli Pansera.

George Morrison painting highlights May 7, 2026 Heritage sale

Heritage Auctions will offer George Morrison's painting *Palisade* (1958) as the highlight of its May 7, 2026 Modern & Contemporary Art Signature Auction. The 76-lot sale features a global survey of postwar and contemporary abstraction, including works by Takeo Yamaguchi, Fritz Winter, Andy Warhol, Tom Wesselmann, Wayne Thiebaud, Fernando Botero, David Bates, KAWS, and George Rickey.

Music & Maker's Night with “Get Surreal (A Surreal Lens)” Tour, May 14

The Figge Art Museum in Davenport, Iowa, is hosting a Music & Maker's Night on May 14, featuring a guided tour of the exhibition "Get Surreal (A Surreal Lens)" led by Co-Senior Curator Joshua Johnson. The event includes an art-making activity and live music in the museum's Quad City Bank & Trust Grand Lobby. The exhibition explores how photographers from the earliest days of the medium have used techniques like montage, double exposure, and digital manipulation to distort reality and create dreamlike imagery, featuring works by artists such as Alan Cohen, György Kepes, Olivia Parker, and Emmet Gowin.

Italian Renaissance masterpieces debut in Beijing exhibition

An exhibition titled 'Homage to the Virtuosos: From Leonardo da Vinci to Caravaggio - Masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance' has opened at the National Art Museum of China in Beijing, featuring 36 Renaissance masterpieces from Italy's Uffizi Galleries. The show includes works by Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Caravaggio, with many pieces traveling to China for the first time. The exhibition is jointly curated by the National Art Museum of China and the Uffizi Galleries, and is divided into three thematic sections tracing the evolution of Renaissance painting, from early Florentine masters through Mannerism to Venetian and Caravaggio's revolutionary works.

New museum dedicated to AI promises an ethical approach

Dataland, billed as the world's first museum dedicated to AI art, is set to open on June 20 in Los Angeles at The Grand LA, a Frank Gehry-designed complex. Co-founded by Turkish-American artist Refik Anadol, the 35,000-square-foot privately-funded museum will feature five immersive galleries. Its inaugural exhibition, *Machine Dreams: Rainforest*, is an audiovisual experience based on millions of images and sounds of nature, inspired by a visit Anadol and co-founder Efsun Erkılıç made to the Amazon rainforest. Anadol is known for his generative AI piece at MoMA in 2022 and a projection on the Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Nick Cave’s “Mammoth” Collection of Objects Is a Public Deep Dive Into Personal History

Nick Cave's immersive solo exhibition "Mammoth" is on view at the Smithsonian American Art Museum through January 3, 2027. The show features a vast, illuminated table covered with hundreds of everyday objects—faux fruits, bejeweled vegetables, wooden canes, glass fish, toy trucks, and leather slippers—arranged with deliberate purpose. Alongside these collected items, Cave has constructed mammoth hides and bones, and a video projection brings the ancient creatures to life. The exhibition draws deeply on Cave's personal history growing up in Missouri, with memories of his grandparents' farm and his family's traditions of making, quilting, and craftsmanship informing the assemblage.

Treasures from the worlds of fashion and art collide at an extraordinary new exhibition in Lisbon

A new exhibition titled 'Art & Fashion' has opened at Lisbon's Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, curated by Eloy Martínez de la Pera Celada. It juxtaposes masterpieces from the museum's permanent collection—spanning ancient Egyptian artifacts to Rembrandt and Impressionist works—with historic and contemporary fashion pieces, including garments from Charles Frederick Worth, Yohji Yamamoto, Dries Van Noten, Alexander McQueen, and Sarah Burton's debut at Givenchy. The show is organized by regional provenance and temporarily replaces the museum's usual display while its Brutalist building undergoes renovation.

Inuk artist launches first solo exhibition in U.K. gallery

Inuk artist Laakkuluk Williamson has opened her first solo exhibition, titled *Nuliaminik Neqilik*, at Mimosa House gallery in London. The show draws on a Greenlandic tale of a cannibal and his seventh wife, Masaannaaq, as a metaphor for Inuit resistance against colonial powers. It features beadwork, photography, film, vocal performances, and enlarged replicas of historic Inuit objects from the British Museum. The exhibition opened with an immersive performance at the British Museum and was curated by fellow Inuk artist Taqrilik Partridge. After its London run, the show will travel to the Nuuk Art Museum in Greenland and then to Ottawa.

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.

A Painting by Gerard van Honthorst in Utrecht

Un tableau de Gerard van Honthorst à Utrecht

The Centraal Museum in Utrecht has acquired a painting by Gerard van Honthorst, titled *Extase de Marie-Madeleine* (c. 1618-1620), purchased from Cantore Galleria. The work was previewed at TEFAF Maastricht, where the museum also announced a major retrospective dedicated to the artist, titled "Gerard van Honthorst - En tout point différent de Rembrandt," which opened on April 25.

Stano Filko “Painting” at Layr, Vienna

Stano Filko's exhibition "Painting" at Layr in Vienna challenges the persistent binary opposition between painting and conceptualism. The show presents Filko's work from around 1980, a period when debates over the merits of painting versus conceptual art were at their peak, offering a nuanced perspective that complicates this historical divide.

Who’s Afraid of____? at Turquoise

Turquoise gallery in New York is presenting a group exhibition titled "Who’s Afraid of____?" from March 27 to May 10, 2026. The show features works by Anna-Sophie Berger, K.P. Brehmer, David Diao, Gaylen Gerber, Joseph Grigely, John Heartfield, Nandi Loaf, and Alicia Riccio, with images courtesy of the artists, The Heartfield Community of Heirs / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, and the gallery.

72 Hours in Venice: Palazzos, Protests, and a Biennale on the Brink

The article recounts a journalist's 72-hour visit to the Venice Biennale, beginning with a protest by Pussy Riot and Femen at the Russian Pavilion. The action features pink smoke, chants of "Blood is Russia's art," and a guerrilla performance of the song "Disobey," set against a backdrop of internal Biennale strife—including juror resignations over countries whose leaders face ICC arrest warrants (Netanyahu and Putin). The narrative also notes the presence of alt-right figures like Ryan Coyne and sculptor Alma Allen's troubled U.S. pavilion representation.

A Decade of Contemporary Art: Gallery Weekend Beijing Turns 10

Gallery Weekend Beijing (GWBJ) will celebrate its 10th anniversary with the 2026 edition running from May 22 to May 31, opening with three VIP days before going public on May 26. Founded in 2017, the event features curated exhibitions from 30 galleries and 10 non-profit institutions across Beijing, anchored in the 798 Art District and extending to Caochangdi and the CBD Art District. A new Academic Committee—comprising Guo Xi, Leng Lin, Tian Yuan, Xi Tao, and Yang Beichen—selected the participating galleries, with 25 returning from previous editions and five newly nominated. Highlights include institutional presentations at UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Red Brick Art Museum, and SONG Art Museum, as well as a special exhibition titled "Nirvana" by Ouyang Chun.