S’pore artist Ho Tzu Nyen among medallists for inaugural Art Basel Awards, could get major commission

Singapore artist Ho Tzu Nyen has been named one of six medallists in the established artist category at the inaugural Art Basel Awards, announced on May 16. The 49-year-old shares the honor with artists including Cao Fei and Ibrahim Mahama. The two-round awards process will culminate in December with a shortlist of Gold medallists announced in Miami, and Ho is in line for a potential major commission from Art Basel. He was also recently appointed artistic director of the 16th Gwangju Biennale.

‘Degenerate’ or ‘woke,’ Paris museum exhibit shows what happens to art in the crosshairs of politics

The Picasso Museum in Paris has opened an exhibition titled "Degenerate Art: Modern Art on Trial Under the Nazis," the first such show in France, running until May 25. It features works by Van Gogh, Klee, Picasso, Kandinsky, Chagall, and others that were condemned by Hitler and the Third Reich as "degenerate" — targeted for destruction, sale, or concealment. The exhibition is organized thematically around Nazi persecution, including sections on race, museum purges, and the art trade, and highlights the fates of artists like Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, who died by suicide, and Otto Freundlich, who was murdered in a concentration camp.

Ford Foundation Gallery and NXTHVN presents THIS IS NOT A RETREAT! NXTHVN Through the Years

The Ford Foundation Gallery and NXTHVN present "THIS IS NOT A RETREAT! NXTHVN Through the Years," an exhibition opening June 5, 2025, at the Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice in New York. The show features work by alumni artists from the first five years of NXTHVN's intensive 10-month fellowship program, which has supported 41 artists and 12 curators since 2018. Co-founded by artist Titus Kaphar and impact investor Jason Price, the exhibition is curated by Marissa Del Toro and spans drawing, painting, prints, installation, etchings, and sculpture. A concurrent group show, "The Things Left Unsaid," featuring NXTHVN's Cohort 06 Fellows, runs from May 8 to June 21, 2025, at James Cohan Gallery.

Vincent Valdez and KB Brookins picked for ACLU Texas's artist-in-residence programme

The ACLU of Texas has selected Austin-based writer and artist KB Brookins and San Antonio-born painter Vincent Valdez as its artists-in-residence for 2026. Chosen from nearly 200 applicants, each will receive $30,000 to create works addressing criminal law reform, immigrants' rights, and equality for LGBTQIA+ individuals. Valdez will focus on portraits of local community leaders for his New Americans series and produce 'Know Your Rights' poster packets, while Brookins will tackle the pretrial carceral system through community organizing and workshops.

Artists Across America Are Creating Stunning Floral Arrangements Inspired by Paintings, Sculptures and Artifacts

Museums across the United States are hosting "Art in Bloom" exhibitions, where floral artists create custom arrangements inspired by artworks in museum collections. The Cincinnati Art Museum recently held its show with 65 arrangements alongside pieces ranging from sculptures to oil portraits, including a sugar flower installation by Amsterdam-based artist Natasja Sadi. Other institutions like the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston—which started the tradition in 1976—and the Minneapolis Institute of Art also participate, with artists like Amy Kubas drawing inspiration from works such as a Japanese block print.

HommeGirls’s First Store Brings a Streetwear-Chic Slant to Chinatown

HommeGirls has opened its first brick-and-mortar store in New York's Chinatown, a 250-square-foot space designed by Rafael de Cárdenas. The shop features an operational dry cleaner's rack rotating above a Portaluppi-style marble floor, floor-to-ceiling mirrors, and a vintage Italian valet stand, reflecting the label's blend of discipline and disorder. The article also covers Miya Ando's solo show at Saint Laurent Rive Droite Los Angeles, Flamingo Estate's new candle inspired by a New York holiday, and the Met's upcoming "Sargent and Paris" exhibition.

Swiss Bührle Foundation reaches settlement with heirs of Jewish collector over Manet’s ‘La Sultane’

The foundation overseeing the Bührle collection has reached a settlement with the heirs of Jewish collector Max Silberberg, allowing Édouard Manet's painting 'La Sultane' (c. 1871) to remain on display at the Kunsthaus Zurich. The painting was purchased in 1953 by Emil Bührle, a Swiss arms dealer who sold to both Allies and Nazis during WWII and benefited from slave labor. Silberberg, forced to sell his villa to the SS in 1935 and later deported to Auschwitz, had consigned the work in 1932, but his heirs argue the 1937 sale to dealer Paul Rosenberg was a consequence of Nazi persecution. The settlement terms are confidential.

Major Exhibition Surveys 60 Years of Chicano Art Across the United States

The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture in Riverside, California, has opened a major exhibition titled "We the People: Chicano Art in the U.S.A.," surveying 60 years of Chicano art across the United States. Organized by artist and curator Benito Huerta, the show features 126 works by 61 artists drawn from the collection of Cheech Marin, the museum's permanent holdings, recent acquisitions, and artist loans. The exhibition spans painting, sculpture, installation, printmaking, and mixed media, including works by historic collectives like Los Four and Con Safo alongside contemporary artists, exploring themes of migration, labor, cultural memory, identity, and everyday life.

miart’s Three-Tier Experiment Reflects a Changing Milan

The 30th edition of the miart art fair in Milan took place from April 17-19 at a new venue, the Allianz MiCo conference hall. The fair introduced a disruptive three-tiered layout across three floors, dividing its offerings into Emergent and Established sections, and featured a mix of early 20th-century modern masters and contemporary works, distinguishing it from Italy's other major fair, Artissima.

In Pictures: sculpture gets a leg up at Frieze Los Angeles

Frieze Los Angeles 2025 is showcasing a diverse array of sculptural works that emphasize tactile materials and bodily forms. Highlights from the fair include Vincent Pocsik’s architectural mirrors at Nazarian Curcio, Shana Hoehn’s public installation featuring human limbs emerging from a fallen tree, and Alejandro García Contreras’s intricate ceramic spiderwebs. The presentation underscores a trend toward figurative sculpture that blends personal symbolism with physical presence, with several works already finding buyers among notable collectors.

Felix Art Fair brings good vibes—and healthy sales

The Felix Art Fair returned to the Hollywood Roosevelt hotel in Los Angeles, maintaining its reputation for a relaxed, community-focused atmosphere. Gallerists utilized the hotel's cabana suites and upper floors to showcase a diverse range of works, with a notable emphasis on artists blending craft, design, and fine art. The fair's unique hotel-based model continues to attract both returning participants and twenty first-time exhibitors who appreciate the lower overhead costs compared to larger fairs like Frieze.

Looking Beyond the Conflict: What's driving contemporary artists from Sri Lanka?

Contemporary artists from Sri Lanka are gaining visibility across South Asia through gallery exhibitions, institutional shows, and art fairs. At Experimenter in Colaba, Pushpakanthan Pakkiyarajah's solo show 'No Race, No Colour' features installations like 'Charred Hyphal Mat' that explore organic communication and wounded ecologies rooted in the country's three-decade civil war. At the Art Mumbai fair, Hema Shironi uses fabric and green mesh to address post-war reconciliation, while earlier in Delhi, the twin exhibitions 'Homes Wrapped in Cloth, Borders Raised in Flags' and 'After Aphantasias' by Shrine Empire showcased similar themes. Artists such as Anoli Perera, Kingsley Gunatillake, Pala Pothupitye, and others are collectively presenting nuanced perspectives on memory, ecology, and joy beyond the conflict.

CSUN Art Exhibits to Focus on Los Angeles, Place and People

California State University, Northridge's Art Galleries presents two new exhibitions exploring Los Angeles, place, and people. The Main Gallery hosts "The Journey is the Destination: Recording Los Angeles," featuring photography, mixed-media, site-specific installations, and sculptures by artists including Marisela Norte, Debra Scacco, Fía Benitez, Aaron Douglas Estrada, Vincent Enrique Hernandez, Erick Medel, and Pamela Smith Hudson. Curated by Holly Jerger, the show challenges colonial mapping conventions and highlights gentrification, environmental depletion, and stereotypes affecting historically neglected parts of the city. In the West Gallery, "The Warmth of the Sun: A Recent Survey of Tierra Del Sol Artists" runs through October 15, the first of a three-part series spotlighting local San Fernando Valley art organizations, with subsequent exhibitions featuring Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural and 11:11 Projects.

Three artists, three questions: Contemporary art

Three Israeli artists—Ronit Porat, an evacuated photographer working with archival materials; an emerging artist using shrapnel from rocket shells as art material while serving as an IDF reservist; and a young artist opening a new exhibition after a break—are profiled in this column by Basia Monkaj. Each answers three questions about inspiration, the definition of art, and what makes their work unique, set against the backdrop of the ongoing war in Israel and the centenary of Surrealism.

Meet Paris’s new art vanguard

The article profiles a new wave of artist-run spaces and independent art venues that have emerged in Paris over the past decade. It highlights collectives like Le Wonder, which began in 2013 and has moved through several post-industrial locations before settling in Bobigny in 2023, and DOC, founded by graduates of the École nationale supérieure d’art de Paris Cergy in 2015. Smaller initiatives such as Tonus, run by artist-graphic designers Jacent, and the bookstore-publisher After 8 Books, which grew out of the earlier space castillo/corrales, are also featured. The Anglo-French duo behind Goswell Road, Coralie Ruiz and Anthony Stephinson, round out the portrait of a decentralized, peer-driven ecosystem.

Canadian art museum gets $36m funding boost for expansion from provincial government

The Ontario provincial government has announced a C$50 million ($36 million) investment to expand and modernize the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg, Ontario. This is the first capital investment from the province in 43 years, and it will fund repairs, upgrades, and expansion of the 70-year-old building, increasing capacity for programs and events. The museum, founded in 1966, is Canada's largest publicly funded art museum focused exclusively on Canadian and Indigenous art, housing over 7,000 works including pieces by Tom Thomson, the Group of Seven, and First Nations, Métis, Inuit, and contemporary artists.

Sébastien Allard à la tête du département des Peintures du Louvre

Sébastien Allard has been appointed interim head of the Paintings Department at the Musée du Louvre, effective April 14. The 47-year-old specialist in 19th-century art previously served as deputy to Vincent Pomarède, who moved to a new role overseeing museum mediation. Allard's permanent appointment awaits confirmation by Culture Minister Aurélie Filippetti, on the recommendation of Louvre director Jean-Luc Martinez. Meanwhile, the search for a director of the Research and Collections Support division continues, with recruitment expected to be external.

At the Grand Palais, the Paris Book Festival Puts Comics in the Spotlight

Au Grand Palais, le Festival du livre de Paris met la bande dessinée à l’honneur

The Festival du livre de Paris returns to the Grand Palais from April 17 to 19, 2026, marking a continued transformation from a massive trade fair into a curated cultural event. This year’s edition features 450 publishers and places a significant emphasis on comic books (BD), highlighted by two thematic exhibitions on the Balcon d’Honneur and a dedicated youth village. The program also includes a culinary-themed nocturne and the "Cabaret Extra!" performance series produced in collaboration with the Centre Pompidou.

“Where it doesn’t reach” at Lo Brutto Stahl, Paris

Lo Brutto Stahl in Paris is hosting a group exhibition titled "Where it doesn’t reach," featuring the works of Hélène Janicot, Park McArthur, and the late conceptual artist Bas Jan Ader. The show creates a dialogue between contemporary sculpture and installation by Janicot and McArthur and historical lens-based media by Ader. Notably, the exhibition's reach extends beyond the Parisian gallery space to include a presence in Basel.

"Eine Idee, die gut ist, kann fast alles verändern"

Henrike Naumann's final major artistic project, the German Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, is completed posthumously by friends after her death from cancer at age 41. Meanwhile, the sudden death of curator Koyo Kouoh at 57 has left her team to finish the central exhibition "In Minor Keys" for the Biennale, opening May 9. The US Pavilion is openly crowdfunding for its 2026 presentation by sculptor Alma Allen, citing opaque funding under the Trump administration. Israel's foreign ministry has accused the Venice Biennale jury of boycotting its artist Belu-Simion Fainaru by excluding countries whose leaders face International Criminal Court charges.

New Currents: Liu Shuai

Liu Shuai, a multimedia artist from Shandong province, China, presented an interactive installation titled "The Kiss" (2025) at VILLA tbh in Shanghai during the 15th Shanghai Biennale (2025–26). The work, co-created with carpenter bees, features bamboo stalks punctured by the insects and transformed into hanging instruments. It was part of the biennale's "City Projects" and housed in Liu's temporary studio within the Shanghai Botanical Garden, offering a poetic exploration of interspecies collaboration.

In the Shadow of Geniuses

Dans l’ombre des génies

A podcast episode from France Culture's "Affinités Culturelles" series, titled "Ces femmes d'artistes à l'ombre de l'histoire de l'art," examines the lives and artistic contributions of women who were partners to 20th-century masters Edward Hopper and Pablo Picasso. It focuses on figures like Joséphine Hopper, Françoise Gilot, and Dora Maar, exploring how they were often relegated to the roles of muses and models, with some sacrificing their own creative careers for their relationships.

Series, documentaries, films… All the art to see on streaming platforms right now

Séries, documentaires, films… Tout l’art à voir sur les plateformes en ce moment

Beaux Arts Magazine has curated a comprehensive selection of art-focused films, documentaries, and series currently available on major streaming platforms like Netflix, Arte.tv, and France.tv. The selection highlights diverse narratives, including the investigative documentary regarding a rediscovered Gustav Klimt portrait of a Ghanaian prince, an AI-assisted exploration of Andy Warhol’s diaries, and the cinematic dramatization of Varian Fry’s efforts to rescue artists like Chagall and Duchamp from Nazi-occupied France.

art charles porch instagram art collecting

Charles Porch, VP of Global Partnerships for Instagram, moved from Venice Beach to a historic West Village brownstone in 2020. He enlisted sculptor-turned-designer Jed Lind to renovate the property, blending vintage furnishings with contemporary artworks collected from emerging artists. The home features pieces by Pierre Augustin Rose, Michael O’Connell, and artworks by Whitney Bedford, Robert Natkin, and Brett Cody Rogers. Porch later married Robert Denning, a philanthropist on the Met’s Board of Trustees, and the couple has since moved to a Chelsea space, combining their collections.

Jenny Holzer and Arthur Jafa among nominees for Art Basel Awards 2026.

Art Basel has announced the 33 nominees for the second edition of the Art Basel Awards, held in partnership with the fashion brand BOSS. The diverse shortlist features high-profile contemporary artists such as Jenny Holzer, Arthur Jafa, and Barbara Kruger, alongside multidisciplinary figures including architect Kulapat Yantrasast and critic Hilton Als.

2026 Art Basel Award Winners Announced

Art Basel has unveiled the 33 medalists for its 2026 global honors program, recognizing a diverse group of artists, curators, and institutions. The selection highlights a strong Southeast Asian presence, including architect Kulapat Yantrasast and filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul, alongside international figures like Laurie Anderson and Julie Mehretu. These awards celebrate practitioners across categories such as Emerging Artist, Established Artist, and Cross-Disciplinary Creator, with winners to be celebrated at the upcoming Basel fair in June.

Ten artists serving life have a story to tell. It’s on the walls of this Center City art gallery.

Ten artists serving life sentences at SCI-Phoenix, a Pennsylvania state prison, have their work on display at Morton Contemporary Art Gallery in Philadelphia in an exhibition titled "The Weight of Time." The show is co-curated by artist Keith Andrews, who has been incarcerated for nearly 30 years, and gallerist Debbie Morton. Andrews' painting "Defiant Mercy" explores themes of time, isolation, and confinement, reflecting his own experience. The exhibition includes nearly 50 works by ten artists, each accompanied by biographies detailing their lives inside and outside the carceral system.

Opening reception at UWAG for "i look to the skies" an installation by Jude Abu Zaineh.

The University of Waterloo Art Gallery (UWAG) opened an exhibition titled "i look to the skies," a solo installation by Palestinian-Canadian interdisciplinary artist Jude Abu Zaineh. The work centers on Maqlouba, a traditional Palestinian dish, as a metaphor for diaspora, memory, and cultural preservation. The installation incorporates bioart, video, sculpture, textiles, and petri dishes cultivated from food remnants and foraged materials, creating a contemplative sanctuary that explores themes of exile, migration, and identity under colonial violence.

Shobhaa De Inaugurates Viveek Sharma's New Solo Exhibition 'Sacred Gestures' at Jehangir Art Gallery

Zen Crafart has opened 'Sacred Gestures', a solo exhibition by contemporary Indian artist Viveek Sharma, at Mumbai's Jehangir Art Gallery. The show was inaugurated by novelist and columnist Shobhaa De and runs from December 2 to 8, 2025. The exhibition features works that blend Lavani-inspired movement, divine feminine symbolism, and pop culture motifs, exploring femininity through dramatic lighting and saturated hues. It follows Sharma's earlier Delhi exhibition 'Silence Please', which received strong acclaim from collectors and cultural figures.

Submissions open for OMAH's Tradition Transformed exhibition

The Orillia Museum of Art & History (OMAH) has opened submissions for the 24th annual Tradition Transformed juried exhibition, inviting Canadian artists to reinterpret the Canadian landscape through the theme of travel or daydreaming. The exhibition runs concurrently with John Gould: Travels of the Body and Mind and honors Group of Seven member Franklin Carmichael. Artists may submit works in all mediums, with entry fees and deadlines through August 22, 2025. Prizes include the Jurors’ Prize ($1,500), Kevin J. Batchelor Emerging Artist Award ($1,000), new Philip Jackman Photography Prize ($500), and Norma Duggan Award ($250). Jurors are Carol-Ann Ryan and Erin Vincent.