Galleries and museums across the United States are presenting a diverse range of exhibitions featuring Black artists during Black History Month. These shows highlight artists working in various mediums, from painting and drawing to installation and tapestry, and are on view in cities including Miami, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, and Chicago.
Six major art exhibitions are opening in London public galleries in February 2026, running through at least May. Highlights include Lucian Freud: Drawing Into Painting at the National Portrait Gallery (12 Feb–4 May), Seurat and the Sea at The Courtauld Gallery (13 Feb–17 May), Chiharu Shiota: Threads of Life at the Hayward Gallery (17 Feb–3 May), Beatriz González at the Barbican Art Gallery (25 Feb–10 May), and Tracey Emin at Tate Modern (26 Feb–31 Aug). These shows span modern masters, contemporary installation, and international voices.
The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) has set a new attendance record with its current exhibition, 'Amy Sherald: American Sublime,' which has drawn 52,597 visitors since opening on November 2. The previous record was held by the 'Matisse/Diebenkorn' show in 2016-2017 with about 45,700 visitors. The exhibition, a mid-career survey of Sherald's work, runs through April 5 and is projected to reach 70,000 attendees. It originated at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and traveled to the Whitney Museum of American Art before arriving in Baltimore, after Sherald canceled its planned stop at the National Portrait Gallery due to censorship concerns.
FOG Design + Art opened its 2026 edition on January 21 with a gala benefit for SFMOMA's education initiatives, drawing strong attendance and sales. The fair, which blends contemporary art and collectible design, featured 85 works acquired by SFMOMA, including pieces by Ruth Asawa, Michael Armitage, Firelei Báez, Dorothea Lange, Gabriel Orozco, and Indigenous artists such as Jaune Quick-to-See Smith and Kay WalkingStick. Galleries like Wendi Norris presented ambitious, institution-worthy works, with a focus on visionary artists and the intersection of art, science, and spirituality.
The article highlights 11 major museum openings and expansions scheduled for 2026, including the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi (designed by Frank Gehry, focusing on modern and contemporary art from West Asia, North Africa, and South Asia), the New Museum in New York (reopening March 21 after a major expansion by OMA), the V&A East Museum in London (featuring a debut exhibition on Black British music history), and the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles. Other notable projects include the Memphis Art Museum and the Drift Museum in Amsterdam, reflecting a global surge in cultural infrastructure.
Fairfield University Art Museum will open a major loan exhibition titled "For Which It Stands…" on January 23, 2026, running through July 25, 2026, as part of the university's commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the United States. The exhibition features over 70 works by diverse artists from the early 20th century to the present day, all centered on depictions of the American flag, including pieces by Jasper Johns, Faith Ringgold, Robert Rauschenberg, Shepard Fairey, Julie Mehretu, Childe Hassam, and a new textile sculpture by Maria de Los Angeles commissioned for the show. Works are lent by private collectors, artists, galleries, and institutions such as the Delaware Art Museum, Yale University Art Gallery, and the Gordon Parks Foundation.
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.
The article previews major New York City museum exhibitions opening in 2026, including a Carol Bove survey at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (March 5–August 2), the first U.S. Marcel Duchamp retrospective since 1973 at the Museum of Modern Art, the New Museum's inaugural show in its OMA-designed expansion titled "New Humans: Memories of the Future," and a Goya exhibition at the Hispanic Society Museum & Library tied to the 250th anniversary of the United States. Each show highlights significant artistic milestones, from Bove's scrap-metal sculptures to Duchamp's readymades and Goya's war commentaries.
Hyperallergic's editors and contributors have compiled their favorite art exhibitions of 2025, spanning cities across the United States, Europe, and Asia. Highlights include shows by Nan Goldin, Noah Davis, Stan Douglas, Yoko Ono, Tishan Hsu, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, and a group exhibition on Japanese American women artists at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The list also features the Louvre's presentation of Cimabue, Fra Angelico's frescos in Florence, a durational performance by Pussy Riot founder Nadya Tolokonnikova in Los Angeles, and works by Cara Romero, Ruth Asawa, Huguette Caland, and H. C. Westermann.
The Studio Museum in Harlem reopened in November 2025 after a seven-year reconstruction, unveiling a new building designed by Adjaye Associates and Cooper Robertson that incorporates architectural elements of Harlem, such as masonry-framed windows and a staircase evoking brownstone stoops. The reopening featured a major exhibition highlighting alumni from its renowned artist-in-residence program, which began in 1968 with Tom Lloyd as the first recipient. Founded by Charles E. Innis and a coalition of artists, activists, and philanthropists, the museum has long served as a nexus for artists of African descent, expanding the canon of Black art during the civil rights and Black Power movements.
Gagosian gallery in London will present the first-ever UK exhibition of Nan Goldin's complete series 'The Ballad of Sexual Dependency' (126 prints, 1973-1986) at its Davies Street location from January 13 to March 21, 2025. Simultaneously, the gallery's Grosvenor Hill space will host 'Richard Avedon: Facing West,' featuring 21 portraits from Avedon's 'In the American West' series, including several unseen since 1985. Both exhibitions mark the 40th anniversary of the publication of the two landmark photography books.
This December, Los Angeles presents a diverse array of art exhibitions that engage with contemporary social issues, cultural protest, and new possibilities. Highlights include Alan Luna's subversive reinterpretations of Mexican history and American modernism at the new La Plaza Projects, a group show at The Box featuring nearly 200 artists challenging normative sexuality, and Daniel T. Gaitor-Lomack's assemblages at Night Gallery that poetically repurpose discarded objects from LA streets. Other notable shows include Edith Dekyndt and Richard Long's dialogue on nature at Okey Dokey Konrad Fischer, and Sam Shoemaker's performance-based mushroom boat project at Fulcrum Arts.
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.
Pipilotti Rist's major installation *4th Floor to Mildness* has opened at the Portland Art Museum's Crumpacker Center in its West Coast premiere and only second U.S. exhibition. The immersive work features underwater film projected onto two biomorphic screens, a soundtrack by experimental musician Soap&Skin/Anja Plaschg, and raft-like beds for visitors to lie on while experiencing floating imagery and moving light circles. The exhibition was adapted from its original 2022 presentation at the New Museum in New York, with local production partners including Portland Garment Factory and Figure Plant contributing to the installation.
Van Gogh's drawing 'Sower in a Wheatfield with setting Sun' (July 1888) will be auctioned at Sotheby's New York on 18 November with an estimate of $8m-$10m. The work, which belonged to the late cosmetics heir and collector Leonard Lauder, is expected to set a new auction record for a Van Gogh drawing if it exceeds the $8.8m achieved by 'La Mousmé' in 2021. The drawing was originally made for the artist Émile Bernard and later passed through notable hands including dealer Ambroise Vollard and critic Théodore Duret before entering the Lauder collection. It will be sold alongside 23 other major works from Lauder's collection, including three important Gustav Klimt paintings, in a sale expected to fetch over $400m.
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.
The Broad museum in Los Angeles will present 'Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind' in spring 2026, marking the artist's first solo museum exhibition in Southern California. Organized in collaboration with Tate Modern, London, the show spans Ono's seven-decade career across visual art, music, and activism, featuring participatory works like 'Wish Trees for Los Angeles' on the East West Bank Plaza and materials from her peace campaigns with John Lennon, including 'Acorn Event' (1968) and 'Bed Peace' (1969).
Galerie magazine has curated a list of eight must-see solo gallery shows across the United States for November, highlighting exhibitions from New York to Los Angeles. Featured artists include Robert Storr, whose return to painting is showcased at Vito Schnabel Gallery in New York with a series of geometric canvases titled "Fits and Starts"; Katherine Bradford, whose figurative works are on view at CANADA in New York; and the late Robert Kobayashi, whose bricolage pieces are displayed at Susan Inglett Gallery in New York, curated by his daughter. Other notable shows include Flora Yukhnovich at Hauser & Wirth in Downtown Los Angeles.
Cliff Lauson, a curator, participates in 'A brush with...' and shares his personal connection to art, citing Rodney Graham's self-portrait 'My Late Early Styles (Part I, The Middle Period)' as the single work he would live with. He reflects on formative cultural experiences, including working with Northwest Coast First Nations communities at the UBC Museum of Anthropology and seeing the ballet 'Tree of Codes' by Wayne McGregor with Olafur Eliasson and Jamie xx, which inspired his later collaboration on the exhibition 'Infinite Bodies'. Lauson also discusses his recurring engagement with Brian O'Doherty's book 'Inside the White Cube' and his unusual background as a curator who worked on a Star Wars film during his Clore Fellowship at Industrial Light and Magic.
Christie's will auction over 40 works from the collection of the late Stefan Edlis and his wife Gael Neeson, beginning with the 21st Century Evening Sale on 19 November and the Post-War & Contemporary Art Day Sale on 20 November in New York, with additional offerings continuing through 2026. The collection, housed in the couple's Chicago residence, includes iconic pieces by artists such as Ed Ruscha, Urs Fischer, Jeff Koons, Cindy Sherman, and Diego Giacometti, reflecting a blend of avant-garde, Pop, and Art Deco design.
Paris is hosting a busy week of art fairs, headlined by Art Basel Paris returning to the Grand Palais from October 24–26, 2025, under outgoing director Clément Delépine. The fair features 206 galleries across three sections, public programs at nine iconic venues including an inflatable Kermit the Frog by Alex Da Corte and a participatory installation by Harry Nuriev, and a talks series hosted by Edward Enninful. Satellite fairs include Design Miami Paris at L’Hôtel de Maisons, the dealer-run 7 Rue Froissart co-founded by Brigitte Mulholland and Sara Maria Salamone, and others like Paris Internationale and Asia Now.
The Portland Art Museum (PAM) is opening a new 24,000-square-foot glass structure called the Mark Rothko Pavilion on November 20, 2025. The $111 million expansion, funded almost entirely by private donations, connects the museum's two existing buildings—the original travertine building designed by Pietro Belluschi and a former Masonic temple—above ground for the first time. The pavilion is named after the artist Mark Rothko, who had his first museum exhibition at PAM in 1932 under his birth name Marcus Rothkowitz. The project was designed by Chicago firm Vinci Hamp Architects and Portland's Hennebery Eddy.
Five must-see UK exhibitions for Black History Month 2025 are highlighted, including 'Nigerian Modernism' at Tate Modern (8 Oct 2025–10 May 2026), which explores the development of Modern art in Nigeria through over 250 works by artists like Ben Enwonwu and El Anatsui; 'Stan Douglas: Birth of a Nation and The Enemy of All Mankind' at Victoria Miro (until 1 Nov 2025), a multi-channel video installation confronting racial perception; and 'Jennie Baptiste: Rhythm & Roots' at Somerset House (17 Oct 2025–4 Jan 2026), the photographer's first UK solo exhibition capturing Black diaspora life. Other shows include works addressing the Caribbean Windrush generation in Cambridge.
To mark the 100th anniversary of Robert Rauschenberg's birth, over half a dozen exhibitions have been organized worldwide, led by the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. Shows include "Five Friends" at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne and "Robert Rauschenberg: Fabric Works of the 1970s" at the Menil Collection in Houston. Michelle White, senior curator at the Menil, has selected five key books that illuminate different facets of the artist's life and career, from Calvin Tomkins's biography to a catalogue on Rauschenberg's early 1950s work.
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.
This episode of The Art Newspaper's podcast 'The Week in Art' covers three major art stories. Alexander Morrison visits the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge to explore 'Made in Ancient Egypt,' an exhibition revealing the untold stories of the craftspeople and techniques behind ancient Egyptian objects. Ben Luke speaks with Katlijne Van der Stighelen about the largest-ever exhibition of Baroque painter Michaelina Wautier at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, which will travel to the Royal Academy of Arts in London. The episode also features Robert Rauschenberg's iconic work 'Bed' (1955), part of the exhibition 'Five Friends' at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, which brings together artists John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, and Cy Twombly.
Tracey Emin's largest-ever exhibition, titled 'A Second Life,' will open at Tate Modern in London in February 2026, featuring over 90 works spanning 40 years. The show includes her iconic installation 'My Bed' (1998), alongside neons, sculptures, paintings, videos, and textiles, tracing her career from her first solo show at White Cube in 1993 to recent works reflecting her recovery from bladder cancer. The exhibition draws heavily on her adolescence in Margate, addressing themes of love, trauma, abortion, and personal growth through an unflinchingly confessional lens.
Dulwich Picture Gallery, the world's oldest purpose-built public art gallery, is opening a new £5m pavilion and sculpture garden in September 2025. The redevelopment includes the ArtPlay Pavilion designed by Carmody Groarke with artists Sarah Marsh and Stephanie Jefferies, a family cafe, and the expanded Lovington Sculpture Meadow featuring works by Amy Stephens, Tai Shani, Nika Neelova, and Harold Offeh. A two-day ArtPlay Festival on September 6-7 will celebrate the unveiling with workshops, printmaking, storytelling, and performances.
Hauser & Wirth, the Swiss mega-gallery, will open its first Northern California location this spring in downtown Palo Alto, inside a former post office at 201–225 Hamilton Ave. The move is widely seen as a bid to be closer to Silicon Valley clients, particularly billionaire philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs, whose Emerson Collective offices are two blocks away. Powell Jobs, rumored to be one of Hauser & Wirth's top clients, shifted her business from Pace Gallery to Hauser & Wirth in 2022. The renovation is led by Paris-based architect Luis Laplace, who is also designing Powell Jobs' renovation of the San Francisco Art Institute. The gallery will be the third Hauser & Wirth in California, joining two Los Angeles locations.
Hauser & Wirth has announced plans to open a new gallery in Palo Alto, California, in spring 2026. The location, a historic former post office at 201–225 Hamilton Avenue, will offer 2,600 square feet of exhibition space, a bookshop, and a program of talks and events. Designed by architect Luis Laplace, it will be the gallery's sixth U.S. outpost and its third in California, joining existing spaces in downtown Los Angeles and West Hollywood. The expansion comes as the broader art market faces contraction, but mega-galleries continue targeting wealthy collector hubs like Silicon Valley.