The 10 best pavilions to see at the 2026 Venice Art Biennale. Artribune's top ten

I 10 migliori padiglioni da vedere alla Biennale d’Arte di Venezia 2026. La top ten di Artribune

Artribune presents its top ten must-see national pavilions at the 2026 Venice Biennale, which features a record 100 participating countries. The article highlights standout projects including Greece's escape room by Andreas Angelidakis critiquing nationalist populism, Belgium's participatory dance installation by Miet Warloop, and Canada's greenhouse-like pavilion by Abbas Akhavan exploring colonial botany. The Biennale, curated by Koyo Kouoh under the theme "In Minor Keys," is marked by last-minute jury resignations leading to public voting for the Golden Lions, as well as protests over the participation of Russia and Israel.

vatican returns cultural objects indigenous groups canada 1234758559

The Vatican will return several dozen cultural objects, including an Inuit kayak, to Indigenous communities in Canada. The objects are housed in the Vatican Museum's Anima Mundi ethnographic collection and have been subject to scrutiny from Indigenous advocates who argue that cultural heritage stolen during colonial periods should be repatriated. The return follows Pope Francis's 2022 "penitential pilgrimage" to Canada, where Indigenous leaders requested the return of war clubs, masks, and wampum belts. The Vatican plans to use a "church-to-church" model, handing the objects to the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, with the understanding that Indigenous communities will be the ultimate custodians. An announcement is expected in the coming weeks, with the objects potentially arriving in Canada by the end of 2025.

getty villa reopen june 27 palisades fire 1234742808

The Getty Villa will reopen on June 27 after closing on January 7 due to the Palisades Fire, which burned 23,448 acres and destroyed many homes of artists and art professionals. Seventeen Getty staff members volunteered to stay on site to protect the museum, sealing galleries and extinguishing small fires, while LAFD water drops and firefighting efforts helped spare the institution. The reopening will feature the exhibition "The Kingdom of Pylos: Warrior-Princes of Ancient Greece," showcasing over 230 works from the Late Bronze Age, including clay tablets in early Greek script and the Pylos Combat Agate sealstone dating to 1450 BCE.

‘A very basic human desire to want some control’: US exhibition explores the power of magic

The Toledo Museum of Art has opened an exhibition titled 'Cursed!' that explores the widespread use of magic spells and objects in ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. The show features amulets, inscribed gemstones, and figurines used for purposes ranging from protecting newborns and winning lawsuits to casting coercive love spells.

Greek PM Mitsotakis at the ‘Thalatta’ Art Exhibition Opening at UN

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Foreign Minister Giorgos Gerapetritis attended the opening of the art exhibition 'Thalatta' at the United Nations in New York on May 20, coinciding with Greece's Presidency of the UN Security Council. The exhibition features 11 contemporary paintings by Greek artists from the National Gallery in Athens, curated around the theme of the sea. Ambassador Evangelos Sekeris delivered welcoming remarks, and Syrago Tsiara, Director of the National Gallery – Alexandros Soutsos Museum, spoke about the sea's role in cultural diplomacy and international cooperation.

Greece Introduces New Law to Combat Art Forgery and Vandalism

Greece has enacted a landmark legislative framework specifically designed to combat art forgery, vandalism, and the trade of counterfeit cultural property. The new law introduces stringent criminal penalties, including prison sentences of up to ten years and fines reaching €300,000, while mandating the destruction of works confirmed as fakes. Key provisions include the creation of an independent registry of forgery experts under the culture ministry and the expansion of legal protections to include historically significant cinemas.

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Rome's new Colosseo-Fori Imperiali metro station opened on Tuesday after 11 years of construction, featuring archaeological treasures uncovered during excavation, including ceramic fragments, statues, oil lamps, stone vessels, and 28 ancient wells. The station, part of Metro Line C, also revealed a nearly 260-foot early second-century military barracks and a home with frescoes and mosaics at the nearby Porta Metronia station. Mayor Roberto Gualtieri attended the opening ceremony, and the city plans to open a museum in the station.

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Bulgarian authorities, with support from Europol, arrested 35 individuals and conducted 131 searches across Bulgaria, seizing over 3,000 cultural artifacts valued at more than €100 million. The operation targeted a criminal network trafficking artifacts from Thracian and Greco-Roman civilizations across Europe, with connections to illegal excavations in Bulgaria and the Balkans. The investigation, which began after a 2020 house raid that uncovered 7,000 artifacts, involved law enforcement from Albania, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, and the UK, and was coordinated from Sofia and Eurojust in The Hague.

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The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office returned eight artifacts to Peru during a ceremony at the Peruvian consulate in New York on May 15. The repatriated items include funerary objects illegally taken from tombs in northern Peru during the 1960s and ’70s, a copper mask believed to represent the Moche deity Ai Apaec (circa 300 BCE) from the looted Loma Negra site, and a ceramic portrait vessel from the Chavín culture (1000–700 BCE). This is the second time New York officials have returned a group of works to Peru.

parties art swiss institute 2025 gala

The Swiss Institute held its 2025 Benefit Gala at the Rainbow Room in Rockefeller Center, honoring artists Theaster Gates and Andro Wekua, patron Yan Du, Printed Matter (under Executive Director Lesley A. Martin), and the late curator Koyo Kouoh. The evening featured an a cappella performance by Tonewall, a paddle raise, a seated dinner, and an art auction led by Simon de Pury, with works by Chloe Wise and Michèle Sandoz. Attendees included collectors Maja Hoffmann, Eva Dichand, and Carola Jain; artists Chloe Wise, Tschabalala Self, and Sarah Morris; and other cultural figures.

Andreas Angelidakis on Representing Greece at the 61st Venice Biennale

Artist Andreas Angelidakis will represent Greece at the 61st Venice Biennale in 2026 with a project titled 'Escape Room'. He plans to split the Greek Pavilion in two, referencing the National Schism in Greek history, and will create an immersive experience that explores the building's dual identities as a national symbol and an exhibition space, set to the soundtrack of Frankie Goes to Hollywood's 'Relax'.

Karachi celebrates global creativity

The fourth edition of the international art exhibition 'Peace & Pieces' opened in Karachi on Thursday, inaugurated by Mayor Barrister Murtaza Wahab as part of the 39-day World Culture Festival 2025. Held at the Ahmed Pervez Art Gallery, the exhibition features works by global artists including Kelechi Nwaneri (Nigeria), Adjaratou Ouedraogo (Burkina Faso), Sofia Maria Xenaki and Aglaia Perraki (Greece), alongside Pakistani artists such as Amin Gulgee, Akram Spaul, Basil Habib, Hamza Qazi, and Haider Ali Naqvi. The event was attended by Marc Piton, Counsellor for Cooperation and Cultural Affairs at the French Embassy, and drew a diverse crowd of art enthusiasts.

Right royal style: 90 years of Queen Elizabeth II’s fashion to go on show at Buckingham Palace

The Royal Collection Trust will mount an exhibition titled "Queen Elizabeth II: Her Life in Style" at the King's Gallery at Buckingham Palace in London in spring 2026, marking the centenary of the late monarch's birth. The show will feature around 200 pieces, including the dresses she wore at her 1947 wedding and 1953 coronation, both designed by Norman Hartnell, along with diplomatically significant gowns, everyday attire, and never-before-exhibited colorful prints from the 1970s by Ian Thomas. Sketches and correspondence with her couturiers will also be on display.

Ancient art on wheels: how Mumbai's leading museum is sending miniature exhibitions by bus into the Indian countryside

Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS), formerly the Prince of Wales Museum, has retrofitted three public buses as mobile mini-museums to bring curated exhibitions into the Indian countryside. The buses travel across Maharashtra and beyond, carrying miniature displays that foreground objects and material culture, encouraging viewers to build narratives from artifacts rather than starting with pre-written histories. The initiative grew out of a 2024 exhibition, "Ancient Sculpture of India, Egypt, Assyria, Greece and Rome," co-curated with the J. Paul Getty Museum, Berlin State Museums, and the British Museum.

UK Heritage Department feared ‘mass restitutions’ when Stone of Scone was returned to Scotland

Newly released UK government files reveal that in 1996, the Department of National Heritage strongly opposed Prime Minister John Major's decision to return the 13th-century Stone of Scone to Scotland. The department's cultural property unit head, Lynn Gates, warned that the return would set a 'precedent to mass restitution,' triggering claims from Greece for the Parthenon Marbles, Egypt for the Rosetta Stone and Sphinx's Beard fragment, and Nigeria for the Benin Bronzes, with fears of further demands from Ethiopia, India, Pakistan, and other nations. The internal memo criticized Major for failing to consult the department before agreeing to the transfer from Westminster Abbey.

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Greek authorities have arrested Athens-based art dealer and television personality Giorgos Tsagarakis following an investigation into a suspected criminal network involved in the theft, forgery, and illegal trade of antiquities. The arrest, executed by the Organized Crime Division, led to the seizure of hundreds of paintings, ancient ceramics, Byzantine artifacts, and a rare 1745 gold-plated Gospel manuscript. Investigators were reportedly alerted to the illicit items after Tsagarakis posted a video of the artifacts on social media.

Tokyo cherry blossom and Holy Week processions: pictures of the day – Thursday

The Guardian's picture editors curated a global selection of photographs for April 2, 2026. The images include scenes of cherry blossoms in Tokyo and Seoul, Holy Week processions in Costa Rica and Venezuela, a NASA rocket launch in Florida, political events in the US and the Middle East, and the aftermath of storms in Greece.

Students Worked on Exhibit of Gowns Worn at La Scala by Maria Callas

Six opera gowns worn by Maria Callas onstage at La Scala in Milan are on display at the Luther W. Brady Art Gallery in Washington, D.C., as part of the exhibition “Callas at La Scala.” The exhibition, located within the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, features costumes from roles including Anna Bolena and Ifigenia, alongside costume sketches by designers Nicola Benois and Piero Tosi and photographs of Callas. Students from the Corcoran School, guided by assistant professor Tanya Wetenhall, contributed by researching, writing labels, and installing the show, while ambassadors from Greece and Italy spoke at the opening.

Is this art Celtic? It’s complicated.

The Harvard Art Museums have launched "Celtic Art Across the Ages," a first-of-its-kind exhibition that challenges traditional Eurocentric narratives focused on Greece and Rome. Spanning from the Iron Age to the modern Celtic Revival, the show features objects like the abstract Heidelberg sandstone head and the bronze Dea Artio sculpture to highlight a visual language defined by ornamentation and deconstruction.

Artistic Licence: John Redmond’s New Sculpture Exhibition Beyond Form

Irish artist John Redmond presents a new collection of sculptures in his exhibition "Beyond Form" at Gormleys Gallery in Dublin, running from May 22 to June 4. The show marks a significant evolution in his practice, as he moves from abstract painting into three-dimensional works for the first time, using mixed materials such as bronze, resin, and marble, with pieces cast at a foundry in Greece.

“Chaos Osmosis” Project Announces Open Call for Artists & Scientists

Nicole Longnecker Gallery in Houston has announced an open call for the third edition of "Chaos Osmosis," an art and science exhibition centered on fluid dynamics. The project is a partnership between the gallery, the Gallery of Fluid Motion in Houston, and the Paradoxluxe curatorial collective, with locations in Greece and Puerto Rico. Selected participants will be featured in a dual exhibition at Nicole Longnecker Gallery and the Houston Museum of Natural Science, opening in October 2025. Houston-region artists and scientists from all disciplines are invited to submit works in any medium, including video, photography, painting, sculpture, installation, and mixed media. The submission deadline is July 30, 2025.

In Greece, the Thessalonikéon Métropolis Archaeological Museum Opens Its Doors

En Grèce, le musée archéologique Thessalonikéon Métropolis ouvre ses portes

The Thessalonikéon Métropolis archaeological museum opened on May 7 in Thessaloniki, Greece, inside the renovated Pavlos Melas barracks (Building A3). Its collection of over 300,000 objects—including ceramics, jewelry, mosaics, sarcophagi, and architectural fragments—was unearthed during the construction of the city's metro system, which began in 2006 and became the largest rescue excavation in northern Greece. The centerpiece is the Decumanus Maximus, a well-preserved Roman-Byzantine commercial street discovered at the Venizelou station, nicknamed "Byzantine Pompeii." The museum's restoration cost about €14.5 million, partly funded by European Union funds, while the total archaeological interventions cost between €75 and €203 million.

The gardens are beautiful but we have stopped designing them. Analysis by architect Gabriele Mulè

I giardini sono bellissimi ma abbiamo smesso di progettarli. L’analisi dell’architetto Gabriele Mulè

Architect Gabriele Mulè analyzes the garden of Bruce Ginsberg in Hampshire, England, describing it as a masterful blend of Eastern and Western traditions. The garden, cultivated for over thirty years, features fluid curves, geometric hedges, a Tibetan stupa, and a labyrinth, embodying the concept of sharawadgi—planting without apparent order—while integrating elements from ancient Greece, the Renaissance, and Buddhist philosophy.

Animalia Exhibition: When Animals Inspire Artists Across the Centuries at the Hôtel de la Marine

The Hôtel de la Marine in Paris will host "Animalia," an exhibition drawn from the Al Thani Collection, from July 1, 2026 to January 10, 2027. Featuring over 120 sculptures, paintings, and decorative works, the show explores how animals have inspired artists across centuries and cultures, from ancient Greece to modern times and from China to the Ivory Coast.