Tasmania's Dark Mofo festival for 2026 will feature an exclusive, single-viewer experimental film titled 'Sculpt: Eye of the Duck,' starring Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Rampling. Created by French artist Loris Gréaud, the 50-minute film will be shown to only 90 individuals at a secret, remote location outside Hobart, with viewers transported to the site after securing one of nine daily slots.
The inaugural Making Their Mark forum convened 350 art world professionals at the National Museum of Women in the Arts to address systemic gender inequity. Organized by collector Komal Shah and the Making Their Mark Foundation, the event featured panels with artists, curators, and public figures like Chelsea Clinton and Ava DuVernay. The forum served as a call to action to dismantle the male-dominated art historical canon and reform the systems governing visibility and valuation.
The New Museum in New York has officially reopened following a two-year closure for a major expansion designed by OMA. The renovation doubles the institution's footprint to 60,000 square feet, introducing a central spiral staircase that seamlessly connects the original SANAA-designed building with the new structure. The reopening is marked by the massive group exhibition "New Humans: Memories of the Future," a sprawling survey featuring over 200 artists curated by artistic director Massimiliano Gioni.
Agosto Machado, a seminal figure in the Downtown New York art scene and a veteran of the Stonewall uprising, has died following a brief illness. Known as a 'pre-Stonewall street queen,' Machado transitioned from a community activist and archivist to a recognized artist whose intricate altar sculptures are currently featured in the 2024 Whitney Biennial. His work, which utilizes found objects and ephemera to create shrines for queer icons and AIDS victims, serves as a vital act of 'ancestor worship' and historical preservation for a community often marginalized by mainstream institutions.
MCH Group, the parent company of Art Basel, is launching a new global ideas festival called the Futurific Institute in Basel in 2028, backed by billionaires James and Kathryn Murdoch. Art Dubai has postponed its 20th edition due to regional conflict, while several galleries are opening, closing, or changing locations, including Brooke Benington in London and Timothy Taylor in New York. Additionally, Mexico is demanding eBay remove listings for pre-Columbian artifacts, and institutions like the Royal Academy of Arts and MCA Chicago are announcing key leadership changes.
A series of 20 paintings by self-taught Gullah artist Sam Doyle are a highlight of this year's Outsider Art Fair in New York. The works, priced from $35,000 to $85,000, are presented by The Gallery of Everything and come from the collection of publisher and Intuit Art Museum co-founder Bob Roth.
Paige Powell, a close confidante of Andy Warhol and former associate publisher of Interview magazine, is presenting a new exhibition of her photographs titled "Private Andy: Religious Services" at Jeffrey Deitch in Los Angeles. The show features intimate, often accidental images from 1986-87 that document Warhol's final days, including his volunteer work at a church and his funeral, revealing his spiritual side and the overlap of life and death.
Stephen Friedman Gallery has announced it will close its New York location in Tribeca by the end of February 2026, less than 30 months after its high-profile opening. The gallery framed the decision as a "strategic evolution" intended to consolidate resources at its London headquarters while maintaining a presence at major international art fairs. Despite the closure, the gallery maintains that its artist roster remains unchanged and its influence in the U.S. will continue through institutional exhibitions.
The Making Their Mark Forum recently convened 350 women in the arts—including artists, curators, and over 20 museum directors—at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in Washington, D.C. Organized by collector Komal Shah alongside Cecilia Alemani and Loring Randolph, the invitation-only conference coincided with a traveling exhibition of Shah’s collection at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. The event featured high-profile speakers like Chelsea Clinton and Ava DuVernay, focusing on dismantling structural gender inequities and celebrating the foundational contributions of women to art history.
Confidence in the art market is rising, with a significant increase in dealers expecting sales growth in 2026 according to the latest Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report. The report, authored by economist Clare McAndrew, notes that 43% of dealers anticipate improvement, a 10-point jump from the previous year, though recovery remains uneven due to high costs and trade barriers.
The Brooklyn-based art collective MSCHF concluded its two-year project 'Our Cow Angus,' in which the fate of a live cow was determined by token holders. Purchasers of tokens representing future hamburgers and leather had the option to return them via a 'remorse portal'; when over 50% were returned by the March 13 deadline, the cow was sent to a sanctuary instead of a slaughterhouse.
Artist Meg Webster has collaborated with the Dia Art Foundation and Japanese fashion house Comme des Garçons to release her first signature perfume. The fragrance, inspired by Webster’s sensory earthworks made of soil and salt, features woodsy and petrichor notes housed in a silver tetrahedral box that mirrors her sculptural vocabulary. To celebrate the launch, a 2017 sculpture by Webster will be installed at the Comme des Garçons boutique in Chelsea, Manhattan.
Indira Cesarine, the founder of The Untitled Space in Tribeca, reflects on a decade of operating her gallery as a platform for marginalized voices and feminist-driven programming. The gallery grew out of Cesarine’s work as an editor and curator, specifically following the success of her 2009 publication, The Untitled Magazine, and early exhibitions that highlighted the lack of representation for women in the art market.
art oscar picks whitney biennial star pat oleszko wet paint
This installment of the Wet Paint gossip column reports on several high-profile developments within the New York and Los Angeles art scenes. Key highlights include internal museum deliberations at the Whitney Museum regarding Precious Okoyomon’s provocative installation for the upcoming Biennial, which features dolls hanging from nooses, and sightings of former Artforum editor David Velasco meeting with Whitney director Scott Rothkopf. Additionally, the column tracks celebrity sightings at Frieze Los Angeles and confirms Lotus L. Kang as the artist for Bvlgari’s pavilion at the Venice Biennale.
frida kahlo making of an icon
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, has launched a major exhibition titled "Frida Kahlo: Making of an Icon," which explores the artist's transformation from a relatively unknown figure during her lifetime into a global cultural phenomenon. Curated by Mari Carmen Ramírez, the show features over 200 objects related to "Frida mania" alongside works by 80 contemporary artists who have been influenced by her legacy. The exhibition traces her life from her childhood in Mexico City and her tumultuous relationship with Diego Rivera to her emergence as a symbol for various social movements.
Hollis Taggart is hosting a retrospective of Frank Diaz Escalet, a Puerto Rican-born artist whose unique practice involved creating intricate figurative compositions from inlaid leather. Raised in New York and later based in Maine, Escalet transitioned from a master leather craftsman catering to celebrities like the Rolling Stones to a fine artist focused on the lives of everyday people. The exhibition showcases his self-taught technique of cutting, dyeing, and conjoining leather shapes to create vibrant scenes of Puerto Rican culture and urban life.
Van Doren Waxter in New York is hosting "Portraits," a solo exhibition dedicated to the late American abstract painter Jackie Saccoccio. The show features five paintings and seven works on paper that showcase Saccoccio’s mature style, characterized by a physically demanding process of dragging, pressing, and dripping paint. These works bridge the gap between gestural abstraction and the psychological depth of traditional portraiture, drawing inspiration from both Abstract Expressionism and Roman Baroque aesthetics.
A major retrospective of Beryl Cook's work, titled "Pride and Joy," is on view at The Box in Plymouth, UK. The exhibition showcases the self-taught artist's vibrant paintings of plus-sized, joyful women in social settings, challenging the long-held art-world snobbery that previously excluded her work from major institutions like the Tate.
The Gochman Family Collection, a significant patron of Indigenous art, has announced plans to open two new exhibition spaces totaling 10,000 square feet in Katonah, New York. Scheduled to debut this fall, the venues will showcase selections from a rapidly growing collection of over 750 works by Native artists from the U.S. and Canada. To lead this expansion, the organization has appointed Laura Phipps, a former associate curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art, as its inaugural director.
Sculptor Alma Allen has officially joined Perrotin, a move that follows his high-profile departure from former galleries Mendes Wood DM and Olney Gleason. The transition comes as Allen prepares to represent the United States at the 2026 Venice Biennale with the exhibition "Alma Allen: Call Me the Breeze," curated by Jeffrey Uslip. The artist reportedly split with his previous representation after they opposed his acceptance of the Biennale commission under the current political climate.
D Lan Galleries is returning to TEFAF Maastricht in 2026 following a landmark debut that generated nearly $1.4 million in sales. The Melbourne and New York-based gallery will showcase 13 masterworks by prominent First Nations Australian artists, including Emily Kam Kngwarray, Sally Gabori, Johnny Warangkula Tjupurrula, and Gordon Bennett. The presentation spans works from the 1970s to the present, highlighting the evolution of Indigenous Australian art on the global stage.
Sculptor Alma Allen has officially joined Galerie Perrotin, a major international blue-chip gallery, ahead of his representation of the United States at the upcoming Venice Biennale. The move follows a period of representation turnover, as Allen was recently dropped by Olney Gleason and Mendes Wood DM after accepting the prestigious commission. Perrotin will provide essential logistical and operational support for the U.S. Pavilion, with Allen’s first solo exhibition at the gallery’s Paris location scheduled for this fall.
The Golestan Palace, a UNESCO World Heritage site in Tehran, has sustained damage following US-Israeli airstrikes targeting the Iranian capital. According to Iran’s cultural heritage minister, Reza Salehi-Amiri, the Qajar-era complex suffered damage to its historic windows, doors, and mirrors due to blast shockwaves and debris. The escalation of the regional conflict has further impacted cultural hubs across the Middle East, with debris falling near Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Island and major institutions in Qatar and the UAE temporarily closing their doors.
Artist and activist Michele Pred has opened a solo exhibition at Nancy Hoffman Gallery in New York, showcasing a body of work that addresses the erosion of civil and reproductive rights. The exhibition features her signature electroluminescent wire-stitched vintage handbags, sculptures made from found objects like wooden gavels and disarmed bullets, and large-scale inflatable abortion pill sculptures. Pred’s practice, rooted in her upbringing between California and Sweden, utilizes approachable domestic objects to deliver urgent political messages regarding bodily autonomy and social justice.
Ludovic Nkoth is the latest artist featured in the FLAG Art Foundation’s “Spotlight” series, which showcases a single, previously unexhibited work paired with a commissioned text. The featured painting, "Stars under the border" (2026), depicts figures in a quiet, mundane moment of rest or labor, exploring the tension between aspiration and systemic limitation. Nkoth’s practice, rooted in his Cameroonian heritage and New York base, utilizes nuanced brushwork and color to investigate the psychological complexities of the Black diasporic experience.
cosima von bonin loewe paris
German artist Cosima von Bonin collaborated with Loewe for its Fall/Winter 2026-2027 womenswear show at the Château de Vincennes during Paris Fashion Week. The artist’s signature plush sculptures, including oversized octopuses and bug-eyed scallops, occupied front-row seats and populated the runway set. Beyond the scenography, von Bonin’s zoomorphic motifs were integrated directly into the collection as jewelry, charms, and minaudières.
At 92 years old, Puerto Rican artist Carmen De Monteflores has emerged as a breakout star of the 2026 Whitney Biennial. Her inclusion in the prestigious exhibition was facilitated by her daughter, renowned performance artist Andrea Fraser, who urged curators to view her mother's vibrant, shaped canvases that had been sitting in storage for decades. De Monteflores, who studied at the Art Students League and the École de Beaux-Arts, abandoned her painting career in 1969 due to the lack of opportunities for women, eventually becoming a psychologist and novelist.
The 82nd Whitney Biennial has opened at the Whitney Museum of American Art, featuring 56 artists, duos, and collectives. Curated by Marcela Guerrero and Drew Sawyer, this edition eschews a formal theme in favor of a sprawling, material-diverse exhibition that emphasizes slow looking and political engagement. Early critical reception suggests a stronger, more cohesive showing than the previous 2024 edition, despite a notable absence of traditional painting.
Bottega Veneta unveiled its Winter 2025 collection at Milan Fashion Week, staged within the brand’s new headquarters at the historic Palazzo San Fedele. Creative director Louise Trotter collaborated with British designer Max Lamb to create a massive site-specific installation consisting of 421 sculptural white chairs for the audience. The set design drew inspiration from Lamb’s "60 Chairs" project, where he rapidly fabricated furniture from polystyrene slabs.
Graham Wilson, founder of the Tribeca-based Swivel Gallery, has joined Marc Straus Gallery as a partner and senior director. As a result of this merger, Swivel will close its independent space, and its roster of emerging artists—including Amy Bravo and Kiah Celeste—will transition to Marc Straus. The partnership will be inaugurated with a group exhibition of Swivel artists at Marc Straus’s Lower East Side location on March 19.