Toledo muralist Chris "Chili" Rodriguez is opening the Mind and Soul Gallery & Studios in the historic Gardner Building on Madison Avenue. The grand opening on Saturday, May 16 will feature artwork from over 40 local and nationally known artists, live music, food trucks, raffles, and a scavenger hunt, with an after-party running until 1 a.m. Rodriguez and his team spent six months renovating the 6,000-square-foot space.
Artist Emily Strong will be featured at the Hunterdon Art Museum starting Sunday, May 17. The exhibition showcases her work, though specific details about the pieces or theme are not provided in the article.
Wexford artist Kate Kos has been selected to exhibit her painting 'Gunnera & Hemlock' at the 196th Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA) exhibition in Dublin, which runs from May 25 to August 9, 2025. The mixed media piece, created during the Doneraile ArtFest in North Cork, won first prize and the People's Choice award at that festival. Kos also recently relocated her studio and gallery from St. Michael's Road to McDermott Street in Gorey, celebrating both milestones with an opening event attended by locals.
The South Orange Performing Arts Center (SOPAC) will open the INSPIRED MINDS: Young Artist Exhibition in its Herb + Milly Iris Gallery on May 14, 2026, with a free public reception at 5:00 PM. Over 300 students from 20 area high schools submitted more than 1,000 original works across media including photography, digital art, painting, drawing, sculpture, fiber arts, and ceramics; 70 pieces were selected for the exhibition. The show is sponsored by the Iris Family Foundation and features professional installation, a formal reception, and opportunities for students to sell their work.
Victoria artist Tanya Bub is organizing a benefit exhibition titled "Wild Art for the Big of Heart" at the Victoria Gage Gallery from May 12 to 31, 2026. The show features 10 sculptures or installations, each representing a different local charity focused on people in need, animals, and the environment. Buyers can choose which charity receives 25% of the purchase price. Bub, who has been making art in Victoria since 2019, aims to highlight lesser-known organizations like Soap for Hope, and participating charities will host public events such as film screenings and talks.
Two Holyoke artists, Natasha Colón Ortiz and Lora McNeece Barrett, have created a new exhibition titled 'Waterpower' at City Hall, featuring paintings inspired by the city's historic three-level canal system. The show, which includes original works by both artists, will open with a reception on May 1, 2025. Colón Ortiz and Barrett, who once shared a teacher-student relationship, now collaborate as colleagues after being recommended by residents in response to Mayor Joshua A. Garcia's call for ideas to revitalize the mayor's office space.
The Leslie Powell Gallery in Lawton, Oklahoma, will open two art exhibitions in May 2026. "Beauteous Maximus" features paintings by New Zealand-born Polynesian artist Tania Landers, whose work explores memory, identity, and generational storytelling through vibrant colors and collage. "Between the Front Door and the Kitchen Sink" showcases artwork by Texas artist Abigail Rainey, focusing on themes of home, inheritance, and the sacred within the mundane. Both exhibitions open with a reception on May 16 and run through June 26.
The fourth edition of the Young Teachers Support Program, founded by 92-year-old oil painter Jin Shangyi in 2017, culminates in the exhibition "Asking Tao and Forging Realms" at the Art Museum of the Chinese Academy of Oil Painting in Beijing. The program provides financial support for selected young art teachers from Chinese colleges to travel to Europe for classical study in museums, followed by field trips to China's border regions, resulting in new works displayed in a group show featuring nine artists.
The Herndon Gallery at Antioch College is opening a group exhibition titled 'Rightstarter: Resistance, Rap and the Golden Era,' curated by artist Joshua Whitaker. The show, launching with a reception on May 9, explores the rap counterculture of the late 1980s and early 1990s, featuring works by artists from Dayton and beyond. It includes drawings, paintings, sculpture, installations, video, and performance, with a live jazz performance by G. Scott Jones and the Freedom Ensemble. The exhibition highlights how hip-hop served as a platform for social commentary against the backdrop of Reaganomics, the crack epidemic, the war on drugs, and the AIDS crisis.
The Korea Craft and Design Foundation (KCDF) announced the launch of its "2026 KCDF Craft and Design Open Call Exhibition" on April 27, selecting 10 emerging artists, 6 mid-career artists, and 3 groups through a professional review. The program opens with a solo exhibition by mid-career artist Seo Junghwa, titled "Ambiguity," featuring metal furniture that blurs boundaries between natural and artificial objects, running from April 29 to May 10 at KCDF Gallery. Additional window gallery shows include Jeon Young Eun's "Showcase of Extinction" (April 15–May 10) and Lee Hyungchan's "Supporting [ ]s" (May 13–June 7). Since 2018, the Foundation has supported 154 exhibitions through this initiative.
Graduate artists at Eastern Illinois University presented three-minute thesis statements at the Tarble Museum of Art on Tuesday, part of the 2026 EIU Master of Arts in Studio Art Exhibition. Eleven graduates shared their work, including Holly McReynolds, whose birthday-party-themed paintings explore emotional hardship and nostalgia, and Jacob Owen, who focused on album covers as standalone art. Each presentation was followed by audience Q&A.
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.
Vasilisa Romanenko’s solo exhibition, *Flora & Flight*, is on view at Arch Enemy Arts in Philadelphia through May 31. The show features her detailed acrylic paintings, ranging from six to 28 inches tall, depicting birds like white doves, dark-eyed juncos, and lesser goldfinches amid vibrant blossoms such as peonies, poppies, and hollyhocks. The gallery notes that each bird carries a strong sense of form and character, and each leaf and flower feels varied and alive.
An open-air art exhibition featuring photography and oil paintings was unveiled on May 16, 2026, in Zhijiang Village, Xiaya Town, Jiande City, Zhejiang Province, China. The exhibition breaks from traditional gallery settings by displaying 90 works in fields, forests, and village paths, with most of the artists being local villagers. The artworks highlight rural customs and landscapes of the region.
20e édition des Journées Marteau
The 20th edition of the Journées Marteau (Hammer Days) will take place from May 26 to 31, 2026, across Paris and France. Organized by the Symev, the event invites the public to discover how auctions work and to have objects, jewelry, and artworks appraised. For this anniversary edition, auctioneers are highlighting the color red through a curated selection of lots, while workshops, conferences, and meetings will illuminate the mechanisms of the art market.
La MansA lance son magazine
La MansA – Maison des mondes africains has launched MansA Magazine, a bilingual (French/English) semiannual cultural publication. The magazine, available at newsstands, bookstores, and online, features essays, interviews, and portfolios focused on African and Afro-diasporic art scenes, adopting a critical and documentary approach. The cover of the inaugural issue features Guillaume Diop, the first Black male principal dancer at the Paris Opera.
JR signe l’affiche de Roland-Garros 2026
The French artist JR has been commissioned to create the official poster for the 2026 Roland-Garros tennis tournament. His design blends photography with an illusionistic device, transforming the tennis court into an expanded, almost architectural space, aiming to give the sporting event a more contemporary visual dimension.
Frank O’Hara, the poet and curator at the Museum of Modern Art, was a central figure in the mid-20th-century effort to promote American high art globally as a cultural counterpart to U.S. military and economic power. The article examines how O’Hara’s work, alongside the Abstract Expressionists and other artists, helped establish New York as the capital of the art world, projecting American cultural influence abroad through exhibitions, poetry, and institutional support.
The Counter Extremism Project has acquired the former home of Rudolf Höss, the commandant of Auschwitz, and is now using it to host exhibitions. The current show features the work of a Nazi ornithologist, raising complex and unsettling questions about the ethics of displaying art in a site so deeply tied to the Holocaust.
MoMA PS1's exhibition "Greater New York" presents a sprawling, humorous, and messy celebration of New York City's artistic life, reflecting the city's complexity and instability. The show features a wide range of local artists and works, embracing an amiable chaos that mirrors the metropolis itself.
Diriyah Art Futures (DAF) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, has opened applications for its third Emerging New Media Artists Programme, a one-year fully supported residency running from October 2026 to October 2027. Developed in collaboration with Le Fresnoy – Studio National des Arts Contemporains in France, the programme offers emerging artists aged 35 or under access to professional equipment, a production budget, mentorship by international digital artists, and multidisciplinary training in art, science, and technology. The deadline for applications is May 31, 2026, with a focus on applicants from the Middle East and North Africa.
Chilean artist Catalina Bauer presents her exhibition "El volcán, la ballena y otros mundos" at the Sala Capilla of Centro Cultural Montecarmelo in Santiago de Chile, 2026. The show features an immersive installation centered on a whale-like sculptural form that has beached inside the chapel, surrounded by cosmic and natural elements such as stars, ferns, and maranta plants, creating a dreamlike ecosystem that invites tactile and contemplative engagement.
David Hills Gallery in Orleans, Massachusetts, is celebrating its first anniversary with a public event on May 16 at 4 p.m. at its Route 6A location. The celebration includes a talk by local food expert and author Elspeth Hay, a spring refresh of the gallery, and a renewed seasonal presentation of David Hills’ photography, which focuses on commercial fishing and Cape Cod’s waters.
An art exhibition featuring the work of Amundson and Floeter will open on May 22 at Overt Space Gallery. The show brings together two artists whose practices explore themes of materiality and perception, presented in a local gallery setting.
The Fox Clark Gallery is hosting a new exhibition celebrating Bill Double and his 50-year artistic career. The show highlights Double's evolution as an artist over five decades, featuring a range of works that trace his creative journey and contributions to the visual arts.
Ormond Memorial Art Museum is hosting the 2026 'Tradewinds' art show, featuring 138 artworks by Seabreeze High School students. The juried exhibition includes 2D and 3D pieces created in media such as acrylic, ceramic, clay, colored pencil, and glass, with awards distributed at a May 7 reception. The show runs through May 24 and was judged by museum guest curator Ruth Grim.
The third annual Affordable Art Fair Austin will take place from May 14 to 17 at the Palmer Events Center, featuring 28 Texas galleries and a total of 55 galleries from locations as far as Sydney, Australia. Artworks are priced between $100 and $12,000, and the fair includes live painting, an interactive mural, family programming, and a raffle benefiting Dell Children’s Medical Center. Over 30% of participating galleries are Austin-based, with local names such as Art From the Streets, Davis Gallery & Framing, and Wally Workman among them.
Scottsdale Arts has opened 'Visions ’26,' an exhibition at the Center Space gallery inside the Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts, featuring works by 40 high school students from six Valley schools. The show is the culmination of a yearlong mentorship program pairing young artists with 13 professional Arizona-based teaching artists, with instruction from faculty at Arizona State University, the University of Arizona, and Paradise Valley Community College. Participating students, including Emily Pye and Ilana Belogorodsky, created pieces in painting, multimedia, and sculpture, with Pye's mixed-media work 'Le Stagioni' exploring her Italian heritage and Belogorodsky's oil painting 'Refracted' representing childhood emotions.
Artist Janani Balasubramanian and astrophysicist Natalie Gosnell have co-authored a book titled "Art-Science Undisciplined: A Playbook for Transformative Collaboration," published by the University of California Press. The book reimagines collaboration between art and science as a shared, values-based practice rooted in curiosity, experimentation, and joy, rather than treating them as separate disciplines. It draws from the authors' own partnership and the experiences of other interdisciplinary creators, offering practical strategies for building relationships based on mutual respect, trust, and imagination, while addressing real-world constraints like institutional demands and limited resources.
The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) will hold its annual graduate thesis exhibition, RISD Grad Show 2026, from May 21 to 30 at the Rhode Island Convention Center. The show features work from students across 19 advanced degree programs, including Architecture, Ceramics, Graphic Design, Painting, and Sculpture. A digital version will be available online at risdgrad.show starting May 21, with a public opening reception on May 20.