Naomi Beckwith, deputy director and chief curator of the Guggenheim Museum, has announced her four-person artistic team for Documenta 16, set to open in Kassel, Germany, in June 2027. The team includes Carla Acevedo-Yates, Romi Crawford, Mayra A. Rodríguez Castro, and Xiaoyu Weng, who will collaborate on the exhibition, publication, and programming for the quinquennial.
Michele Oka Doner, an 80-year-old artist known for her public installations, is preparing to unveil "Talisman," a new work composed of 300 illuminated heads that will create a sacred grove on the Park Avenue Mall at 66th Street in New York this spring. In an interview with CULTURED, she discusses the engineering challenges of the project, including weight limits imposed by the MTA due to the tunnel beneath the mall, and reflects on her earlier public works such as the mile-long floor installation at Miami International Airport and "Radiant Site" at the Herald Square subway station, which she won a national competition for in 1987.
A long-lost 1970 Harry Bertoia hanging sculpture, commissioned for a mall in Flint, Michigan, has been restored and installed in the atrium of General Motors’ new global headquarters in Detroit. The 26-foot-tall work, made of brazed steel rods in Bertoia's signature "sunlit straw" technique, was discovered in 2017 in the basement of a demolished mall, damaged and covered in dust. The city of Southfield purchased it, and after extensive restoration, it now hangs in GM’s Hudson’s Detroit building.
Linda Dresner, the influential fashion retailer known for her minimalist, gallery-like boutiques, has died at the age of 88. Operating high-end spaces on New York’s Park Avenue and in Birmingham, Michigan, Dresner was a pioneer in treating avant-garde fashion as fine art, curating collections from designers like Comme des Garçons, Yohji Yamamoto, and Maison Margiela long before they became household names.
Borough of Manhattan Community College's Shirley Fiterman Art Center will present two concurrent exhibitions from September 10 to December 20, 2025: Courtney McClellan: Simulations and Victoria Dugger: Late Bloomer. McClellan's installation features photographs of mock courtrooms at law schools across the American South, exploring performance and the law through what she calls 'applied fiction.' Dugger's mixed-media works, including painting and sculpture, use playful yet grotesque imagery to interrogate growth, identity, and embodiment as a Black, disabled woman. Both artists, who live and work in Georgia, will participate in an opening discussion and reception on September 10.
Dr. Kelly Bushey will deliver the final Gallery Talk titled “The Agnostic and The Atheist” at the Besser Museum for Northeast Michigan on May 28, as part of a four-part lecture series accompanying the museum's exhibition *Divine Comedy Reenvisioned*. The talk explores Salvador Dalí's transition from surrealism to neo-classicism, influenced by his encounter with Sigmund Freud and his renewed spiritual perspective, offering insight into his illustrations of Dante Alighieri's *Divine Comedy*. The exhibition remains on view through July 18.
The Grand Rapids Art Museum (GRAM) has announced its summer exhibition 'Decadent Spirit: French Art at the Turn of the Century,' on view from May 29 to September 6. Featuring over 130 works spanning 1880 to 1910, the show highlights artists such as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Pierre Bonnard, Jules Chéret, Hector Guimard, and Théophile Alexandre Steinlen, alongside early film pioneers Auguste and Louis Lumière, Georges Méliès, and Alice Guy-Blaché. The exhibition includes works on paper, painting, sculpture, metalwork, interior and urban design, and early film, exploring the cafés, streets, theaters, and domestic scenes of fin-de-siècle Paris. It closes with an 1899 French motorcar, symbolizing the era's new mobility.
Paul Farber, founder of Monument Lab, discusses his new exhibition "Rising Up: Rocky and the Making of Monuments" at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The show moves the iconic Rocky statue inside the museum and examines how a fictional boxer's statue became Philadelphia's most famous work of art, exploring broader questions about collective memory and public commemoration. Farber also reflects on the dismantling of the Frank Rizzo statue and how unintentional monuments like the Berlin Wall shape cultural discourse.
A new exhibition of glass sculptures by Dale Chihuly opens Saturday at the Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park in Grand Rapids, Michigan. This is the third time the venue has hosted Chihuly's work, with pieces installed across 12 outdoor locations on the 158-acre campus, plus an indoor gallery show titled "CHIHULY: Radiant Forms" requiring a separate ticket. The outdoor exhibit is included with general admission and runs from May 2 to November 1, 2026.
A series of major exhibitions are on view in Doha, coinciding with the Art Basel Qatar event. These include Rirkrit Tiravanija's interactive bakery installation at MIA Park, two major surveys of architect I.M. Pei's work at AlRiwaq Gallery and the Museum of Islamic Art, and a group show titled "we refuse_d" at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art.
Artist Jan Tichy has created a major exhibition titled "Darkness" at the Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University, opening January 30, 2026, and running through late July. The exhibition transforms the museum's main floor galleries by blacking out Zaha Hadid's iconic angular windows and entrances, using projections and modulated lights to simulate a 24-hour day-night cycle. Tichy, who previously worked with the museum on a Flint water crisis project in 2017, collaborated with MSU researchers—including the Department of Entomology—to create works inspired by academic studies, such as photographic prints made from insects collected on the museum grounds over a year.
Phillip Bahar has been appointed as the fourth director of the Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University, succeeding previous leadership since the museum opened in 2012. In an interview with WKAR's Inside The Arts, Bahar discussed his vision for the museum, emphasizing his role as an institutional curator rather than a hands-on curator of exhibitions, and his commitment to supporting artists at all career stages, from established figures like Zaha Hadid to emerging and mid-career artists such as Diana Al-Hadid.
The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) has opened "Contemporary Anishinaabe Art: A Continuation," a major exhibition featuring over 60 Anishinaabe artists from Michigan and the Great Lakes region. The show, running from September 28, 2025, to April 8, 2026, includes nearly 100 contemporary artworks and was sparked by a request from artist Kelly Church, whose black ash top hat was donated to the DIA in 2020. Church collaborated with DIA Assistant Curator Denene De Quintal and a Native advisory board—the "Council of the Three Fires"—to select artists, blending established figures like Frank Big Bear and George Morrison with lesser-known artists receiving their first major institutional exposure.
A new art exhibition titled “This Bitter Earth: Living in Harmony with Nature” opens on September 12 at MW Gallery in downtown Flint, Michigan. The show features artworks from the Mott-Warsh Collection by artists including Ron Adams, Bisa Butler, Nick Cave, Maren Hassinger, Pope.L, and Howardena Pindell, exploring humanity's complex relationship with the natural world and the four classical elements. A featured video installation, “Zion” by South African artist Mohau Modisakeng, addresses themes of displacement and belonging. The exhibition runs through January 24, 2026, with free admission.
60% of Sudan’s National Museum Looted, Report Says
Over 60% of the holdings of the Sudan National Museum in Khartoum have been looted during the country's ongoing civil war. The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, which controlled the capital for two years, deliberately targeted high-value portable objects like gold and jewelry, stripping storage areas while leaving less portable artifacts behind. Although the museum building remains standing, tens of thousands of antiquities from its collection of 150,000 objects were plundered, with some appearing for sale online.
National Geographic has launched a traveling exhibition and book titled "Women of Vision," curated by senior photo editor Elizabeth Krist. The show highlights the work of 11 award-winning female photojournalists—Erika Larsen, Kitra Cahana, Jodi Cobb, Amy Toensing, Carolyn Drake, Beverly Joubert, Stephanie Sinclair, Diane Cook, Lynn Johnson, Maggie Steber, and Lynsey Addario—featuring images ranging from indigenous Sami people in Sweden to conflict zones and urban scenes. It opened at Michigan's Cranbrook Institute of Science, where it runs through December 30, before traveling to the Palm Beach Photographic Center.
The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore has appointed Katherine Larson as its chief collections and curatorial affairs officer, a newly created senior role. Larson will also serve as senior curator of Ancient Art, overseeing curatorial operations, collections, conservation, research, the exhibition calendar, and fundraising, beginning March 30.
A new exhibition at the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) titled “American Sampler: The Art, Language and Legacy of Protest” features posters, pamphlets, and video from 1960s and ‘70s left-wing protest movements, including the Black Panthers, Vietnam War protesters, and the anarchist Yippies. Guest curator Julie Ault organized the show using materials from U-M’s Labadie Collection, which holds radical literature. Conservative commentator Bobby Mars, writing for the Michigan Enjoyer, criticizes the exhibit for allegedly glorifying violence and anti-American sentiment, arguing that the museum’s framing encourages today’s students to protest against the government.
Detroit-based artist Elonte Davis and Hungarian curator Kriszti Sarusi are among several creatives reflecting on the personal and social impact of their recent projects. Davis highlighted his 2026 community-centered initiatives, including his solo exhibition 'Homeroom: Detroit Taught Me First' and workshops at the Detroit Institute of Arts, while Sarusi discussed 'Floating Reality,' an exhibition series designed to provide space for underrepresented artists through a collaborative collective.
Chicago-based artist Jan Tichy has created a new exhibition titled 'Darkness' at Michigan State University's Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum. The project is the result of a nearly nine-month collaboration with four MSU labs, most prominently the Department of Entomology, where Tichy worked with researchers and students to incorporate insects and scientific methods like blacklight sampling into the artwork.
The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) has opened "Contemporary Anishinaabe Art: A Continuation," its first major Native American art exhibition in over three decades. The show features 90 works from more than 60 Anishinaabe artists from Michigan and the Great Lakes region, including pieces by Maggie Thompson, Jim Denomie, David Martin, and Jodi Webster. The exhibition runs through April 8, with free admission for residents of Macomb, Oakland, and Wayne counties.
Documenta has announced the first all-woman curatorial team for its 16th edition, set to take place in Kassel, Germany, from June 12 to September 19, 2027. Artistic director Naomi Beckwith, deputy director and chief curator of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, selected four curators—Carla Acevedo-Yates, Romi Crawford, Mayra A. Rodríguez Castro, and Xiaoyu Weng—to develop the exhibition, publications, and programming. Each curator brings distinct expertise: Acevedo-Yates focuses on diaspora and cultural production; Crawford on race and American visual culture; Rodríguez Castro on writing and editing; and Weng on globalization, feminism, and decolonization.
The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) is opening its first major Native American art exhibition in over three decades, featuring 90 works from more than 60 Anishinaabe artists from Michigan and the Great Lakes region. The exhibition, on view from September 28, 2025 to April 8, 2026, includes pieces such as Jessica Leigh Gokey's "She Loves" and Norval Morrisseau's "Punk Rockers," and was developed with guidance from an Anishinaabe advisory board.
Carol LaChiusa, a 95-year-old artist from Grosse Pointe Farms, is the subject of a new exhibition titled "Carol LaChiusa: A Journey in Art" at the Grosse Pointe Congregational Church Arts Ministry Gallery. The show features approximately 28 works spanning her career from age 15 to just months ago, including her 1947 painting "Down by the Tracks," which earned her a scholarship to the Cleveland School of Art. A public reception with the artist will be held on August 7, featuring jazz by the Matthew Daher Trio, and the exhibition runs through September 7.
Michigan State University's Broad Art Museum is presenting "Nabil Kanso: Echoes of War," the first Michigan exhibition of the Lebanese-American artist's work. On view through June 29, the show spans over four decades of Kanso's large-scale, expressive paintings that document the human toll of war, including works addressing the Lebanese Civil War, the Gulf War, and the Syrian conflict. Curated by Rachel Winter in collaboration with the Nabil Kanso Estate and professor Salah Hassan, the exhibition features "Scorching Sparks" (1980s), a painting never before publicly exhibited. Winter first encountered Kanso's work in 2022 and worked with his family to bring the show to fruition, timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Lebanese Civil War and Arab American Heritage Month.
Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park in Grand Rapids, Michigan, will host "CHIHULY at Meijer Gardens" from May 2 to November 1, 2026, featuring the largest exhibition of Dale Chihuly's work ever held at the institution. The show includes 12 large-scale outdoor installations, over 80 indoor glass pieces, and 40 related drawings, with a 30-foot tower and glass boats in the Japanese Gardens. This marks the third Chihuly exhibition at Meijer Gardens, following shows in 2002 and 2010, and is one of only two 2026 exhibitions of the artist's work worldwide—the only one in America.
The article reviews Carole Harris's solo exhibition "This Side of the River" at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD), curated by Abel Gonzalez Fernandez. The show features twenty fiber pieces and archival materials spanning from 1966 to the present, tracing Harris's creative evolution and her responses to Detroit's social and urban changes. It highlights early works like "Potpourri" (1976) and "Black Jack" (1976) from her 1977 debut at Gallery 7, a Black Power-era space founded by Charles McGee, and later pieces such as "Down the Road a Piece" (2003) that mark her shift toward improvisational, abstract compositions.
Detroit will host its first contemporary art fair, Season, from 25-28 September at Michigan Central, the city's renovated former train station. The fair debuts with 11 galleries and a special exhibition featuring ten local artists, evolving from Detroit Art Week, which was launched in 2018 by curator and entrepreneur Amani Olu. Olu, a collector himself, reimagined the festival as Season to fill a gap in the local cultural landscape, offering affordable booth costs of $2,500 and an online viewing room. Participating galleries include four from Michigan, four from New York City, and one each from Buffalo, Pittsburgh, and Toronto, alongside talks, studio visits, and large-scale installations.
A bronze statue of RoboCop, the cyborg protagonist from Paul Verhoeven's 1987 film, has been installed in Detroit nearly 15 years after a grassroots campaign began. The 11-foot, 3,500-pound monument was sculpted by Detroit artist Giorgio Gikas of Venus Bronze Works, funded by a 2012 Kickstarter that raised over $67,000, and finally placed at Eastern Market after years of legal hurdles and location changes.
A new collaborative exhibition titled *Tension & Tenderness: The Domestic Surreal* has opened at Ferris State University’s Kendall College of Art and Design (KCAD) in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The show unites artists Michael Pfleghaar and Lisa Walcott, who explore the hidden forces within everyday domestic life. Pfleghaar’s paintings blend queer-coded interiors and still-life scenes with abstract elements, while Walcott’s kinetic sculptures repurpose household objects like brooms and drying racks to evoke gravity, breathing, and tension. The exhibition is curated by KCAD Exhibitions Director Michele Bosak and runs through November 15 in the KCAD FLEXgallery.