A group of Louisiana artists from Orleans Gallery on Julia Street in New Orleans is preparing to travel to the Venice Biennale, the world's oldest, largest, and most prestigious art exhibition, which has been held since 1895. The artists, led by coach Cayman Clevenger, will show their work at the Biennale from May through November, marking a major milestone for the gallery, which has been open for less than a year.
Yelena Popova's solo exhibition 'Moments of Grace' opens at Osnova gallery's new space in Valencia, Spain, marking a decade of collaboration between the artist and the gallery. The show brings together works from several of Popova's major series, including 'Painting Installations' (2012-2017), 'Evaporating Paintings', 'Post-Petrochemical Paintings', and three jacquard-woven tapestries, tracing her practice over the past fifteen years. Popova approaches each project as part of an interconnected body of work, comparing her logic to garden cultivation—a layered, cyclical process. Her cross-disciplinary research focuses on the material conditions of painting, exploring temporal transformations like evaporation, oxidation, and decay, as well as the dynamics between image, surface, and space.
Perché la ricchezza culturale italiana non entra mai davvero nei conti e nei bilanci pubblici?
Italy has exceeded the European Commission's structural adjustment path by 0.1 percentage points of GDP, reopening fiscal scrutiny. Amid this debate, the article highlights a deeper issue: Italy's immense cultural heritage is drastically undervalued in public accounts. For example, the Pompeii Archaeological Park is recorded at just €48.9 million, the Colosseum at under €15 million, and the Uffizi at about €2 billion—figures based on outdated 2002 ministerial criteria that bear no relation to actual economic or cultural worth. The State General Accounting Office, with the University of Roma Tre and EU technical assistance, has proposed a new methodology to value cultural assets by discounting their future net financial flows, including direct revenues and indirect tourism-related returns.
"In meinem Auntieversum sind alle frei, es gibt keine Regeln"
Wenhui Lim, a Singapore-raised artist and former architecture designer, creates AI-generated images and videos featuring older Asian women she calls 'Aunties.' Her surreal 'Auntieversum' depicts these figures bathing in oversized ramen bowls, playing with pastel jellyfish, and driving sushi cars—a fantastical parallel universe where they are free from societal and familial expectations. Lim began the project in early 2023 as a personal exploration to reconcile her own feelings toward the aunties in her life, who often made blunt comments about her appearance while also plying her with food.
Pavlina Vagioni's exhibition *Oikeiōsis*, presented by the Hellenic Diaspora Foundation at the Venice Biennale, takes its name from a Stoic concept about recognizing belonging and expanding care outward. The show is structured in two rooms: the first, named Neikos (strife), features a fragmented plexiglass cube that reflects visitors in multiplied form, evoking separation. The second, Philotes (harmony), contains warm rock-salt seats and a layered vocal soundscape that activates the Tartini effect—a psychoacoustic phenomenon where two frequencies produce a phantom third tone, symbolizing collective kinship. The salt seats will physically change over the Biennale's six-month run, accumulating the memory of each visitor.
Gallery 1882, located in Chesterton, Indiana, is hosting a new exhibition featuring contemporary artists from across the United States. The show brings together a diverse range of works, highlighting emerging and established talents in a local gallery setting.
The Santa Monica College (SMC) Emeritus Art Gallery will present the SMC Emeritus Annual Student Art Exhibition 2026 – Part 1, running from May 14 to June 19. The exhibition features works by 47 student artists from SMC's noncredit Emeritus program for older adults, with a free opening reception on May 14 from 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Due to high participation, the show is split into two parts, with Part 2 opening online on June 11.
Photographer Irina Werning has spent 18 years traveling across Latin America to document Indigenous women with exceptionally long hair for her series "Las Pelilargas." Her new book, published by GOST Books, features nearly 90 portraits taken between 2006 and 2024, starting with the Kolla community in Argentina. Werning sought subjects by posting signs in remote mountain towns and organizing hair competitions, capturing a tradition rooted in ancestral beliefs that hair connects to life, thoughts, and the land.
“Come si cura una mostra sul genocidio?”: Faisal Saleh e la domanda palestinese che attraversa la Biennale di Venezia
At the 2026 Venice Biennale, a collateral exhibition titled “Gaza – No Words – See the Exhibit” presents 100 embroidered works using the traditional Palestinian technique of Tatreez. Curated by artist Faisal Saleh, founder of the Palestine Museum US, the show transforms embroidery from decoration into political testimony, reconstructing scenes from Gaza over the past two and a half years: shrouded bodies, killed children, mothers bidding farewell, bombed hospitals. The exhibition is housed at Palazzo Mora and has been called by many visitors “the real Palestinian Pavilion” of the Biennale, though it is not an official national pavilion.
The article reviews 'Forge', a new crime thriller directed by Jing Ai Ng, which follows Chinese American siblings Coco and Raymond Zhang who forge early 20th-century landscape paintings and sell them as authentic works in South Florida. The film features FBI agent Emily (Kelly Marie Tran) investigating the scheme, while the forgers navigate a world of wealthy collectors, a hurricane-destroyed art collection, and a family legacy of deception. The movie is described as 'Miami Vice' for the art-world crowd, with a dusky palette and pulsing soundtrack set against the backdrop of Art Basel Miami Beach's booming art market.
ASA, an anonymous photographer, captured a candid iPhone X image in Bastia, Corsica, during the summer of 2018. The photograph shows a woman walking through strong sunlight, reduced to a silhouette against burned facades. ASA waited patiently for the right passerby, later imagining the woman might be heading to a romantic appointment, though they emphasize the work is about shape, movement, and contrast rather than identity.
Serpentine has launched "I DIDNT REALISE YOU THOUGHT LIKE THAT," a new online game and critical thinking tool by artist and game designer Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley. Available from May 21, 2026, on web and mobile platforms, the project extends the world of Brathwaite-Shirley's acclaimed "THE DELUSION" and explores polarization, identity, and social connection beyond the gallery. Developed with nonprofit Beyond Code Collective and supported by Glass Castle Foundation, the game places players in a post-apocalyptic universe where they encounter fictional characters and make decisions that shape narratives and determine multiple endings, drawing on real-world materials from news cycles, social media, and community testimonies.
Artist Chandra Bhattacharjee presents a new body of work titled "A Star Amongst Too Many" at the Sarala Birla gallery within the Birla Academy of Art and Culture in Kolkata. Curated by Uma Ray, the exhibition features large-scale charcoal drawings that depict marginalized figures such as ragpickers, trash collectors, beggars, and street vendors. The works use black-and-white charcoal with occasional bursts of yellow and rust—the latter symbolizing neglect—to highlight the overlooked lives of these individuals. The show runs until May 24, 2026.
An art exhibition titled "El Arte de la Resistencia" opened in Tucson, featuring artwork created by migrant children who have participated in La Ristra's art therapy program. The show includes life-size paintings, such as a boy's self-portrait with an excavator in his belly symbolizing his deported father's work, and a colorful cactus painted by another child. The exhibition, held in a small gallery near Fourth Avenue and Seventh Street, runs until May 17, 2026, with original pieces for sale to benefit the young artists and prints sold to raise funds for La Ristra, a nonprofit providing emotional support to migrant families.
The Santa Monica College (SMC) Emeritus Art Gallery will host the SMC Emeritus Annual Student Art Exhibition 2026 – Part 1 from May 14 to June 19, with a free opening reception on May 14 from 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. The exhibition features works by 47 student artists from SMC's noncredit Emeritus program for older adults, which was founded in 1975 and serves over 3,000 students annually. Due to high participation, the exhibition is split into two parts, with Part 1 displayed in the gallery and Part 2 opening online on June 11.
At the 2026 Venice Biennale, visitors encountered provocative performances and installations addressing war, climate anxiety, and human coexistence. Highlights include a naked performer acting as a human bell clapper in Florentina Holzinger's "Seaworld Venice" at the Austrian Pavilion, lifelike baby dolls in Ei Arakawa-Nash's caregiving-focused work at the Japanese Pavilion, and drone-powered flying carpets in Moldova's pavilion that transform symbols of war into tools of peace. The Nordic Pavilion also presented surreal installations exploring coexistence and environmental fears.
A group of artists has announced a strike to protest Israel's participation in the upcoming Venice Biennale. The action is intended to draw attention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and to pressure the Biennale organizers to exclude Israel from the event, reflecting growing tensions around cultural boycotts in the art world.
Artist Jessica Smith, originally from Texas, is opening her first solo exhibition in Salt Lake City titled "35 Years of Not Painting" at the Salt Lake City Public Library's Lower Urban Room Gallery from May 11 to June 21. After a high school art teacher censored her work, Smith abandoned painting for decades, turning to theater and later creating personalized picture books for her son with autism. She returned to art during the COVID-19 pandemic, painting portraits of admired figures like Mr. Rogers, Tupac Shakur, and Stevie Nicks. Smith is an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation and has become TERO Certified, allowing her to be listed as a potential artist for tribal commissions. She credits the Urban Indian Center of Salt Lake as a key support system.
At the 2026 Venice Biennale, Somalia has established its first-ever national pavilion, commissioned by the Somali government to showcase the richness of Somali culture through the theme of Saddaxleey, a triadic form of Somali poetry and proverbs. The pavilion features works by Somali Swedish artist Ayan Farah, UK-based Somali Danish multidisciplinary artist Asmaa Jama, and Somali British poet Warsan Shire. However, a collective of queer Somali artists, curators, and culture workers called Warbixinta Cidda has publicly criticized the pavilion for overrepresenting the diaspora, selecting an all-male advisory board, and appointing an Italian co-curator instead of Somali curators, raising concerns about representation and neocolonialism.
The article covers multiple art events and opportunities across the Gulf region and beyond. It highlights Saudi artists participating in the exhibition "What’s between, between?" at Doha's Media Majlis Museum, curated by Jack Thomas Taylor and Amal Zeyad Ali, which explores Gulf Futurism. Additionally, it announces a two-part group exhibition "Global Positioning System" opening at Hayy Jameel in Jeddah, featuring over 40 artists from more than 20 countries. The article also reports on an internship opportunity for Saudi architects and designers at Rome's MAXXI Museum, offered by Saudi Arabia’s Misk Art Institute.
Belinda Gray, founder of breast cancer charity Art For Cure, shares her story ahead of the charity's latest exhibition at Wyken Vineyards. After her own breast cancer diagnosis and treatment, Gray launched Art For Cure in 2014, initially hosting an exhibition in her home and garden that drew 2,000 visitors and raised £100,000. The charity has since sold over £3 million worth of art through exhibitions and online sales, with a percentage of each sale donated by artists to fund UK breast cancer research and support services. Gray, who had no prior art-world experience, now leads a voluntary team of 10 people staging annual public exhibitions at unique venues.
The Clymer Museum of Art in Ellensburg reopened on Friday after renovations, featuring a new exhibition titled "Plastic Souls" by Margot Massey, a junior at Central Washington University pursuing a Bachelor of Fine Arts. The show explores themes of artificiality and performance in social media, with paintings depicting actors, cowboys, showgirls, and rodeo clowns, and will later include two life-size figurative sculptures. The museum closed in January for renovations, which expanded wall space by roughly 30% and created a new gallery near the entrance for rotating student exhibitions.
The Surrey Art Gallery in British Columbia is presenting a new exhibition titled "In the Shadow of the Pavilions: Expo 86 and Contemporary Art," running from April 18 to June 7, 2026. The show features over 50 artists, including a project by Michael de Courcy who took 1,700 photos of Expo 86 visitors, and works by Henri Robideau, a self-described 'Gianthropologist' who photographed giant roadside attractions across Canada in the 1980s.
Georgia foster teens have created a traveling art exhibit called the See Me project, sponsored by the nonprofit Georgia Appleseed, which has collected roughly 50 paintings, poems, and sculptures since 2023. The young artists, many first-time participants, explore themes of healing, hope, family, and belonging, often signing their works anonymously. The exhibit has been displayed at the Georgia Capitol, universities, community centers, and law firms, with artists paid $250 for their contributions.
A new exhibition titled "From Hermès to Home" at the Waco Welcome Center showcases the work of internationally acclaimed artist Kermit Oliver alongside local artists Cade Kegerreis and Vincent Thomas, who were mentored by Oliver. Oliver is the only American artist to have designed scarves for Hermès, and the show features his iconic scarf designs alongside paintings and self-portraits by all three artists, marking the first time their work has been exhibited together. The exhibition coincides with a limited-edition re-release of Oliver's scarf design "Faune et Flore du Texas" and the upcoming publication of a book about him by Texas A&M University Press.
To mark the 130th anniversary of Louis Vuitton's Monogram canvas, the Parisian auction house Gros & Delettrez is hosting a free exhibition of rare travel trunks and accessories from May 18 to 20, 2026. The display features iconic pieces including two expedition bed trunks (one from 1911 with the initials 'B.B.'), a library trunk, a desk trunk, and other travel innovations designed between 1880 and 1930, all before they go up for auction on May 21.
Botanica, the Wichita botanical garden, is preparing to open a large-scale outdoor sculpture exhibition titled 'Origami in the Garden' on Saturday, running through September 26. Created by artists Kevin and Jennifer Box of Santa Fe, New Mexico, the show features 18 works inspired by the Japanese art of paper folding, including sculptures of a bison, horses, a pegasus, and rising cranes. The exhibition is included with general admission, and Mother's Day offers free entry for moms. Additionally, Botanica is hosting 'Symphony in the Gardens' on May 15 with the Wichita Symphony Orchestra, themed 'American Landscapes' in honor of the nation's 250th anniversary.
The Annette Howell Turner Center for the Arts in Valdosta hosted its 39th Annual Spring Into Art Gala on April 13, drawing hundreds of attendees. Over 150 regional artists submitted more than 300 original works for the region's most prominent art exhibition, which remains on display through June 10. Cash prizes totaling $6,000 were awarded across four categories, with Joe Morgan winning Best of Show for his painting "Lobster Lottery." The exhibition was curated by Madison Caldwell, and admission to the galleries is free.
The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery in Toronto has opened a new interactive exhibition titled "Colourful Parachutes: Imagining Alternative Futures Through the Power of Play," running until September 7. The show features 10 international and local artists and breaks the traditional gallery rule of "do not touch" by inviting visitors to play, climb, and alter the artworks. Curated with children in mind, the exhibition includes works like Harold Offeh's immersive installation "The Mothership Collective 2.0," which uses music, video, and interactive elements to encourage imaginative thinking about the future.
A major exhibition of rarely seen works by Scottish painter John Bellany has opened at the John Gray Centre in Haddington, East Lothian. Curated by his widow Helen Bellany and Alexander Moffat RSA, the show features early and lesser-known pieces, many never publicly displayed before. It runs until September 19 as part of the Royal Scottish Academy's RSA200: Celebrating Together project, marking the RSA's 200th anniversary. Loans come from the Bellany estate, Alexander Moffat's private collection, East Lothian Council Museums Service, and the Royal Scottish Academy.