Cecilia Vicuña: Minga for the Sea

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.

The Center for Creative Photography acquires nine significant archives

The Center for Creative Photography (CCP) at the University of Arizona has announced the acquisition of nine significant photography archives, including the legacies of Laura Aguilar, Jack Dykinga, Jody Forster, Frank Gohlke, Mark Klett, Nathan Lyons, Stephen Marc, Patrick Nagatani, and Susan Wood. This marks one of the largest expansions of CCP's holdings in recent years, adding to its renowned collection that already includes archives of Ansel Adams, W. Eugene Smith, and others. The archives contain not only prints but also correspondence, notebooks, and teaching materials, and will be processed over the next several years for researcher access.

New for 2026: Philly's Newest Museums, Galleries & Attractions

Philadelphia is celebrating America's 250th anniversary (the Semiquincentennial) in 2026 with the opening of several new museums, galleries, and attractions. These include Calder Gardens, a dedicated space for Alexander Calder's work on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway; Ministry of Awe, an immersive six-story art experience by Meg Saligman in a former bank; a new permanent Indigenous gallery at the Penn Museum; and a Netflix House experience at King of Prussia mall. The article also mentions the First Bank of the United States museum, the Philly Pride Visitor Center, and the Pennsylvania Hospital Museum as part of the city's anniversary additions.

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.

What does a painting sound like? The Clyfford Still Museum has lots of ideas.

The Clyfford Still Museum in Denver is opening a multisensory exhibition called "Still in Sound" on May 16, curated by Bailey Placzek and British artist Ben Coleman. The exhibition pairs the museum's vast collection of abstract expressionist works with sound-driven experiences. Additionally, the museum commissioned a world-premiere symphony, James Clarke's "Symphony No. 2," which will be performed by the Colorado Symphony at Boettcher Concert Hall on May 7. The program also includes music that inspired Still himself, such as works by Beethoven and Mahler, drawn from the artist's personal record collection.

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

The All-Women Exhibition Putting Penzance On The Art Map This Summer

An all-women exhibition titled 'Making Her Mark: A Celebration of Women in Art' has opened at Penlee House Gallery & Museum in Penzance, Cornwall, as the first stop on a three-part UK tour. The show features over 60 works by female artists from the 19th century to the present day, including Tracey Emin, Barbara Hepworth, Elizabeth Forbes, and Laura Knight. It is a collaboration between Penlee House, Worcester City Art Gallery & Museum, and Kirkcaldy Galleries, curated jointly by the three venues with local leadership from Penlee House deputy director Katie Herbert. The exhibition is part of Art Fund's £5.36 million Going Places programme and will travel to Worcester and Kirkcaldy in 2026 and 2027.

Alberto Aguilar’s Translational Rhythms at the Chicago Cultural Center

Alberto Aguilar's exhibition "I just really want to tell you this one thing" at the Chicago Cultural Center presents a sprawling, experimental installation that reinterprets his own work across decades. The show features eleven other artists who have each taken one of Aguilar's earlier paintings and created new versions, displayed alongside the originals. Curated by Elise Butterfield, the exhibition explores themes of translation, transformation, and artistic dialogue, with works spanning from 1997-2002 and 2020-2026.

PHOTOS: Artistic liberties on display at the Met Gala

The 2026 Met Gala, held on May 4 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, featured celebrities including Beyoncé, Naomi Osaka, and Emma Chamberlain in elaborate, art-inspired ensembles under the dress code 'Fashion is art.' Beyoncé wore a custom Olivier Rousteing sculptural skeleton dress, Osaka stunned in a Robert Wun white sculptural dress with red feathers, and Chamberlain arrived in a hand-painted Mugler gown. Co-chairs Anna Wintour, Nicole Kidman, and Venus Williams also attended, with Williams wearing a gown referencing a Robert Pruitt portrait of herself. The event raised funds for the Costume Institute's exhibition 'Costume Art.'

Garden Party: Nature on Paper

The McNay Art Museum in San Antonio presents "Garden Party: Nature on Paper," an exhibition running from May 7 to August 9, 2026, that explores humanity's relationship with the natural world. Featuring prints, drawings, photographs, paintings, and sculpture from the museum's permanent collection, the show includes works by René Magritte, Rufino Tamayo, Kara Walker, Luis Jiménez, and Honoré Daumier. Organized by Elizabeth Kathleen Mitchell, the exhibition is divided into two narratives: one celebrating nature's abundance through gardens and flowers, and another examining human extraction through hunting and exploitation imagery.

Black Artists Featured in Monet to Matisse Exhibition at Birmingham Museum of Art

The Birmingham Museum of Art (BMA) has opened its presentation of the traveling exhibition "Monet to Matisse: French Moderns, 1850–1950," which features over 100 masterworks from the Brooklyn Museum. Uniquely, the BMA version includes more than 40 additional works from its own collection, among them paintings by two Black American artists—Henry Ossawa Tanner and Charles Ethan Porter—who lived and worked in France during the period. Curator Dr. Maggie Crosland emphasized the importance of including these artists to highlight the contributions of Black Americans to French modernism, especially given the political climate that drove many to Paris between 1850 and 1950.

Montclair Art Museum Announces Retirement of Longtime Chief Curator Dr. Gail Stavitsky

The Montclair Art Museum (MAM) has announced that Dr. Gail Stavitsky, its Chief Curator, will retire on July 1, 2026, after a tenure of more than 30 years. Stavitsky joined MAM in 1994 as Curator of Collections and Exhibitions, was promoted to Chief Curator in 1998, and curated over 200 exhibitions, including landmark shows such as "Cézanne and American Modernism" (2009) and "Matisse and American Art" (2017). Her recent exhibitions include solo shows for vanessa german and Tom Nussbaum, and she co-curated "Shifting Terrain: Perspectives on Land in North America." She also oversaw major acquisitions and the care of the museum's collections of George Inness and Morgan Russell.

Musée d’Orsay displays Renoir and Degas works looted by Nazis

The Musée d’Orsay in Paris has opened a new gallery dedicated exclusively to artworks suspected of being looted or forcibly sold during the Nazi occupation of France. Among the 13 works on display is Edgar Degas's *Dinner at the Ball* (1919), originally owned by Jewish collector Fernand Ochsé, who was deported to Auschwitz with his wife in 1941. The painting passed through multiple hands before being identified as one of over 100,000 artworks plundered by the Nazis. The museum has assembled a team of six provenance researchers to spend three years tracing the original owners of these works, which are part of the "MNR" (Musées nationaux récupération) collection—some 2,200 pieces deemed too important to sell but whose owners remain unknown.

Emily Carr University spotlights the first graduating class of its next century at The Show 2026, from May 13 to 27

Emily Carr University of Art + Design is presenting The Show 2026, an annual exhibition featuring final projects from more than 400 graduating students across Fine Arts, Media Arts, and Design. Running from May 13 to 27 at the ECU campus in Vancouver, the free public event showcases works in painting, sculpture, performance, interaction design, animation, film, and sound, marking the university's centennial year and the first graduating class of its second century.

Raymond Pettibon, the Artist Behind Some of the Most Iconic Album Covers

A new exhibition titled "Nervous Breakdown" at the Wilhelm-Hack-Museum in Ludwigshafen, Germany, presents the most comprehensive collection of Raymond Pettibon's album cover art to date. The show draws from over 200 works in the collection of Stefan Thull, spanning Pettibon's record, CD, and cassette covers from 1979 to the present, including iconic designs for Sonic Youth's "Goo" and Black Flag's logo. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue published by the museum and David Zwirner Books.

Ahead of the Met Gala, an Up-Close Look at “Costume Art”

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.

Monumental Portrait of Late Biennale Curator Koyo Kouoh Unveiled in Venice

A monumental portrait of late Venice Biennale curator Koyo Kouoh, created by American artist Derrick Adams, has been unveiled in Venice ahead of the Biennale's public opening. The collage, titled *Heavy is the head that wears the crown* (2026), is displayed near the Arsenale until September 24. Kouoh, who died unexpectedly in May 2025 at age 57, was the first African woman to curate the Biennale. Adams' work uses golden hues and flattened forms to celebrate Kouoh's legacy, referencing the pressures of leadership and the joy she brought to the art world.

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.

United States Pavilion to Open at the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia With Landmark Solo Presentation by Alma Allen: Call Me the Breeze

The United States Pavilion will open at the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia with a landmark solo presentation by artist Alma Allen, titled "Call Me the Breeze." The exhibition marks the first time the U.S. Pavilion has dedicated its space to a single artist in this context, highlighting Allen's sculptural work that blends organic forms with industrial materials.

United States Pavilion to Open at the 61st International

The United States Pavilion at the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia will open on May 6, 2026, featuring a solo presentation titled "Call Me the Breeze" by American artist Alma Allen. Curated by Jeffrey Uslip and commissioned by the American Arts Conservancy with support from the U.S. Department of State and the Guggenheim Foundation, the exhibition transforms the historic Giardini pavilion with sculptures in bronze, walnut burl, and various stones, including Colorado Yule marble used in the Lincoln Memorial.

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.

The Artists Who Put Their Bodies Into the Work

This article from Google News, dated May 3, 2026, profiles a selection of artists who have used their own bodies as central elements in their work. It draws a connection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art's spring Costume Institute exhibition, "Costume Art," which places fashion in dialogue with other artworks. The roundup includes Marina Abramović, known for her 2010 MoMA performance "The Artist Is Present"; Chris Burden, who staged dangerous works like "Shoot" (1971); David Hammons, creator of the "Body Prints" series; Frida Kahlo, whose painting "The Broken Column" (1944) depicts her own physical pain; Ana Mendieta, whose "Silueta" series used her figure in the landscape; and Yoko Ono, a conceptual artist with a significant body-based practice.

Meet the Mona Lisa! A free new immersive exhibition opens at Hong Kong Heritage Museum

A free immersive digital exhibition titled 'Meet Mona Lisa & Portraying the Renaissance' opens on May 1 at the Hong Kong Heritage Museum, running through July 27. Created in collaboration with the Musée du Louvre and the Grand Palais Immersif, the show is split into two sections: a multimedia journey guided by a narrated Mona Lisa across six chapters, including an interactive photo booth, and a second section featuring over 100 Renaissance treasures from European institutions. Highlights include four original manuscripts of the human body and faces by Leonardo da Vinci, shown for the first time in Hong Kong, alongside loans from the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, the Musée national de la Renaissance, works by mainland artist Xu Lei, and items from the museum's own collection.

India at Venice Biennale 2026 curtain raiser: Many voices, one resonance

India has announced its participation in the 61st Venice Biennale with the India Pavilion exhibition titled 'Geographies of Distance: Remembering Home,' curated by Amin Jaffer. The exhibition, presented by the National Gallery of Modern Art and the Ministry of Culture, will feature works by five artists: Alwar Balasubramaniam, Ranjani Shettar, Sumakshi Singh, Skarma Sonam Tashi, and Asim Waqif. It will run from May 9, 2026, with previews from May 6-8. The pavilion is supported by Isha Ambani, chairperson of the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre, and Sunil Munjal, founder of Serendipity Arts Foundation. Additionally, on May 8, Kochi-Muziris Biennale president Jitish Kallat will announce the curator for its seventh edition.

New Jersey Museum makes TIME's World’s Greatest Places of 2026 list

TIME magazine has named the Princeton University Art Museum to its 2026 list of World's Greatest Places, specifically in the 'Places to Visit' category. The museum, which opened in October 2025 on the Princeton University campus, features a new 146,000-square-foot building with 32 galleries designed by Adjaye Associates. Its collection spans over 5,000 years of global art, including works by Rodin, Manet, Monet, Degas, Kandinsky, and Andy Warhol, alongside contemporary commissions by artists such as Diana Al-Hadid and a monumental Nick Cave mosaic at the entrance.

Lebanon’s Art Scene Is Living in ‘War Mode’

On April 8, 2025, a wave of Israeli airstrikes across Lebanon killed 357 people and injured over 1,200, a day now known as 'Black Wednesday.' Amid the violence, Lebanese artist Abed Al Kadiri, who grew up during Lebanon's civil war and Israeli occupation, has been working with displaced children in shelters, using art to help them process trauma. He collects their drawings and plans to combine them with sketches by other artists reflecting their own war experiences, creating concertina-style books to be exhibited and sold to raise funds for over 1.1 million displaced people.

Summer Previews: The Season’s Most Anticipated Shows

Artforum's editors preview twenty-five anticipated institutional exhibitions opening worldwide between May and August. Highlights include "Fade" at the Studio Museum in Harlem, the latest in its career-making "F show" series featuring seventeen emerging artists of African descent; "Modernity and Opulence: Women of the Wiener Werkstätte" at the Jewish Museum in New York, showcasing over 180 women designers from Austria's famed atelier; "Replica of a Chip: The Weaving Technology of Marilou Schultz" at the Hessel Museum of Art, exploring the intersection of Navajo weaving and microchip history; the 59th Carnegie International at the Carnegie Museum of Art, with 61 artists spread across Pittsburgh venues; and "Mary Ellen Carroll: How to Talk Dirty and Influence People" at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston.

Arthur Jafa and Richard Prince’s ‘Helter Skelter’ Is Pure American Grit

American artists Arthur Jafa and Richard Prince will present a joint exhibition titled "Helter Skelter" at Fondazione Prada's Venetian venue, timed to coincide with the Venice Biennale. Curated by Nancy Spector, the show features over 50 works across photography, video, sculpture, installation, and painting, along with a collaboratively produced zine. It marks the first time the two artists have been exhibited together, exploring themes of authorship, race, and image-making within American popular culture.