New York Art Week 2026 is set to be a packed event, with major art fairs including Frieze, TEFAF, and Independent all scheduled within a single week this May. The art world will arrive directly from the Venice Biennale, and New York galleries are opening their major spring exhibitions to coincide with the influx of curators and collectors.
The 2026 Whitney Biennial has opened, featuring 71 artists and collectives, with eight emerging as immediate standouts. Among them are Jacolby Satterwhite, celebrated for his immersive digital worlds; Lotus L. Kang, whose site-specific installation incorporates decaying materials; and Jes Fan, who explores biology and identity through sculptural forms. Other notable artists include Tiona Nekkia McClodden with her ritualistic film work, the collective Indigenous Futures, and figurative painter Cynthia Daignault. Their works collectively address themes of technology, the body, memory, and ecology.
Time magazine has named artist Cao Fei and photojournalist Lynsey Addario to its 2026 list of the 100 most influential people in the world. Cao Fei is recognized for her multidisciplinary work exploring digital technology and modernity, while Addario is honored for her decades of courageous reporting from global conflict zones, including her Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the war in Ukraine. The list also acknowledges prominent art patrons Susan and Michael Dell.
Qatar has announced the launch of a new quadrennial art event called Rubaiya Qatar, set to debut in November 2026. The inaugural edition will feature a curated exhibition titled “Unruly Waters,” organized by Tom Eccles, Ruba Katrib, Mark Rappolt, and Shabbir Husain Mustafa. The event will take place across Qatar, centered at the Al Riwaq pavilion near the Museum of Islamic Art. A preview performance by artist Rirkrit Tiravanija, titled "untitled 2025 (no bread no ashes)," was unveiled in Doha, involving communal bread baking with diverse bakers. The quadrennial aims to reflect Qatar's cultural diversity and its historical connections to maritime trade routes.
Agnes Gund, a towering art collector and patron of New York's Museum of Modern Art, died Thursday in Manhattan at age 87. Following the announcement, artists and cultural workers including Roxana Marcoci, Glenn Ligon, Lorna Simpson, and Hoor Al Qasimi honored her memory on social media, recalling her friendship, generosity, and commitment to social justice. Gund spearheaded MoMA's 1990s expansion, founded the arts education nonprofit Studio in the School in 1977, and in 2017 sold Roy Lichtenstein's "Masterpiece" (1962) to launch the Art for Justice Fund, a $100 million grant initiative for criminal justice reform.
Agnes Gund, one of the most influential art patrons in the United States, has died at 87. Her collecting and philanthropy transformed the American art world, particularly at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), where she served as president from 1991 to 2002 and remained a life trustee. Gund helped fund MoMA's 2004 expansion, designed by Yoshio Taniguchi, and played a key role in bringing MoMA PS1 under the museum's aegis in 1999. She was a longtime donor of over 250 works to MoMA, including pieces by Jasper Johns, Elizabeth Murray, and Julie Mehretu, and appeared on the ARTnews Top 200 Collectors list every year from 1990 to 2018.
The article examines the narrative that figurative painting died and made a comeback, arguing instead that it never truly disappeared. It traces the art market's pendulum swing from zombie formalism around 2014 to a surge in figurative painting by 2015, fueled by collectors seeking new, affordable works to flip quickly. The piece highlights emerging painters like Gina Beavers, Mira Dancy, Jamian Juliano-Villani, and Greg Parma Smith, and notes that the boom created auction stars whose prices later crashed, as reported in a 2024 New York Times article.
Christie's 21st century evening sale on May 14, 2025, generated $96.4 million against a presale low estimate of $79.5 million, with 39 lots offered and a sell-through rate of 90% before withdrawals. The top lot was Jean-Michel Basquiat's 'Baby Boom' (1982), which sold for $23.4 million with fees, consigned by collector Peter M. Brant. Marlene Dumas's 'Miss January' (1997) achieved $13.6 million, setting a new record for the most expensive living female artist, surpassing Jenny Saville's previous record. Other notable sales included Simone Leigh's 'Sentinel' (2020) at $5.7 million, while works by Ellsworth Kelly and Felix Gonzalez-Torres failed to sell.
This Hyperallergic newsletter covers multiple New York art stories: Joe Macken's 50-foot hand-built wood replica of New York City now on long-term view at the Museum of the City of New York, Tuan Andrew Nguyen's towering Buddha sculpture on the High Line referencing the destroyed Bamiyan Buddhas, and the MoMA PS1 survey "Greater New York." It also reports on CONDUCTOR, New York's first art fair committed to the global majority, a new experimental artist-run space called The Gallery in Brooklyn, and reviews of Mark Milroy at JJ Murphy and Kim Gordon at Amant.
MoMA PS1 has opened its major quinquennial exhibition "Greater New York," a sprawling survey featuring early-career artists based in the city. The show, which fills three floors of the former public school, is noted for its gritty, immersive portrayal of contemporary New York life, capturing everyday textures from delivery drivers to urban wildlife.
Lady Pink, a pioneering graffiti artist, is creating the inaugural mural commission for MoMA PS1 in Queens, New York. The mural, set to be unveiled on June 26, 2025, features a surreal composition of a stone foot, a subway platform, and the Brooklyn skyline, paying homage to the lost 5Pointz graffiti site. Lady Pink, who began tagging subway cars in 1979 and was included in MoMA PS1's 1981 'New York/New Wave' exhibition, is working on-site with assistants, using both brushes and spray paint.
Chicago's annual art week unfolded with gallerist Daisy Sanchez documenting the scene for Artnet News's 'Wet Paint in the Wild' column. Sanchez, who recently co-opened Hans Goodrich gallery with Peter Anastos, attended the Renaissance Society's annual benefit, EXPO Chicago, and after-parties. The week featured artists including Joanne Greenbaum, Leah Ke Yi Zhang, B. Ingrid Olsen, and Isabelle Frances McGuire, with appearances by curators Myriam Ben Salah, Karsten Lund, and Giampaolo Bianconi, among others.
Taiwanese artist Li Chen is the subject of a major solo exhibition at Asia Art Center in Beijing, titled “Heavenly Realm, Mortal World: Spiritual Journey through the Mundane World—Li Chen Ink-Black Sculpture 2020–2023,” on view through June 8, 2025. The show features smaller-scale works rendered in Ink-Black, contrasting transcendent heavenly realms with the complexities of the mortal world, and marks Li Chen's first solo show in Beijing in six years.
Marcel Duchamp remains one of the most influential figures in contemporary art, a century after his readymades like *Fountain* (1917) challenged definitions of art. MoMA is opening a major retrospective on April 9, co-organized by Ann Temkin and Michelle Kuo, exploring Duchamp's conceptual legacy. The article profiles four contemporary artists—including Cory Arcangel—who are extending Duchamp's ideas into digital and conceptual realms, such as Arcangel's modified Nintendo game *Super Mario Clouds* (2002).
Hyperallergic has published its comprehensive Fall 2025 New York Art Guide, recommending over 80 exhibitions across all five boroughs. Major highlights include the reopening of the Studio Museum in Harlem after a seven-year renovation, the debut of the new New Museum on the Bowery, and multiple exhibitions marking the 100th anniversary of Robert Rauschenberg's birth at the Guggenheim and the Museum of the City of New York. The guide also features shows by Monet at the Brooklyn Museum, Renoir at the Morgan, and Ruth Asawa and Wifredo Lam at MoMA, along with public art installations by Mika Rottenberg and Lady Pink on the High Line and MoMA PS1 facade.
New York City is hosting a packed week of art fairs in May 2025, including Frieze at The Shed, Independent Art Fair at Pier 36, TEFAF New York at the Park Avenue Armory, and NADA New York at the Starrett-Lehigh Building. The fairs feature hundreds of international galleries, with Frieze emphasizing Central and South American exhibitors, Independent exploring a dystopian theme, TEFAF offering antiquities and fine art, and NADA celebrating its 12th edition with 121 galleries. The article also notes recent major exhibitions at the New Museum, Whitney Biennial, MoMA PS1, The Met, and MoMA, and includes a guide to Upstate New York art destinations.
Maxwell Rabb's article for Google News highlights 11 must-see museum exhibitions opening worldwide in fall 2025. Among the featured shows are Ayoung Kim's "Delivery Dancer" video trilogy at MoMA PS1 in New York, the largest UK survey of Kerry James Marshall's work titled "The Histories" at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, and "Strange Realities: The Symbolist Imagination" at the Art Institute of Chicago, which explores the Symbolist movement across Europe. The article also mentions other major retrospectives and thematic exhibitions spanning Symbolism to Nigerian modernism.
This article profiles six visionary women shaping the art world in 2025, beginning with British designer Es Devlin, known for her immersive stagecraft and large-scale installations. It highlights her recent role as global artistic lead of the Women’s Pavilion at Expo 2025 in Osaka, where she created a participatory sound installation. The piece also features Tokini Peterside-Schwebig, founder of ART X Lagos, West Africa's leading international art fair, which celebrates its tenth anniversary in 2025. Peterside-Schwebig is a cultural entrepreneur and collector who has expanded the fair into initiatives like ART X Live!, the Access ART X Prize, and a school program for underprivileged children.
This article highlights 11 must-see museum exhibitions in New York for spring 2025, including shows at Amant, the American Folk Art Museum, the Guggenheim, the Hill Art Foundation, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and MoMA PS1. Featured artists include Madalena Santos Reinbolt, Rashid Johnson, Sam Moyer, Jennie C. Jones, and Andro Eradze, with works spanning textiles, sculpture, sound installations, and mixed media.
The article highlights ten exhibitions to see in May 2025, including the Venice Architecture Biennale curated by Carlo Ratti, which explores intelligence in natural, artificial, and collective forms, alongside a parallel show by AMO/OMA at Fondazione Prada. It also covers Gallery Weekend Berlin, featuring Sky Hopinka's new film and photographs at Tanya Leighton, an exhibition by exiled Russian journalists Meduza at Kunstraum Kreuzberg, and a study group on Palestinian agrarian initiatives at Spore Initiative.
Printed Matter, the nonprofit artists' bookstore and publisher, celebrated its 50th anniversary with a gala at the High Line Hotel in New York. The event featured speeches honoring co-founder Pat Steir and artist Ed Ruscha, performances from the opera *Einstein on the Beach*, and a crowd of notable artists, museum directors, and gallerists including Joan Jonas, Glenn Ligon, MoMA Director Christophe Cherix, and Larry Gagosian. Founded in 1976 by Sol LeWitt, Pat Steir, and Lucy Lippard, Printed Matter has become a vital platform for artist books, operating a bookstore, exhibition space, and one of the world's largest book fairs.
Cultured's spring gallery guide for New York highlights a curated selection of exhibitions across the city, with standout shows including Carol Bove's sculptural installation at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Joan Semmel's retrospective at the Jewish Museum, Jessi Reaves's furniture-based works at the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the group show "Afterlives: Contemporary Art in the Byzantine Crypt" at the Metropolitan Museum. The guide also notes exhibitions by Paul Chan, Nicola Tyson, Doron Langberg, and Yuval Pudik that are closing soon, and extends coverage to shows in Philadelphia and Warsaw.
Cultured's art critic reflects on the best and worst of 2025, highlighting standout moments including Salman Toor's 2007 portrait of Zohran Mamdani (now mayor-elect of New York), the posthumous Jack Whitten survey "The Messenger" at MoMA, and Anne Imhof's epic production "DOOM: House of Hope" at the Park Avenue Armory. The article also notes Mamdani's arts-friendly transition committee and the broader resilience of artists amid political turmoil.
Finnish artist Iiu Susiraja, known for her deadpan self-portraits that blend vulnerability and absurdity, is opening her first New York solo exhibition since her 2023 MoMA PS1 show, titled “A style called a dead fish,” at the gallery Gratin on December 11. The article, an interview by a critic, explores Susiraja’s practice of embracing her “inner clown” through photographs that feature nudity, balloons, and domestic props, often staged in her own home or her parents’ home in Turku. New works include images like “Lift up, Breasts” (2025), where helium balloons are taped to her nipples, and a sculpture involving photocopying machines that will distribute keepsakes during the show.
This article from Cultured magazine is a gallery exhibition guide for New York, highlighting four major shows in the Hudson Valley, Meatpacking District, and Tribeca. It features Stan Douglas's retrospective at the Hessel Museum of Art, Cameron Rowland's "Properties" at Dia Beacon, Christine Sun Kim's mid-career survey "All Day All Night" at the Whitney Museum, and EJ Hill's endurance performance at 52 Walker. Each entry includes a brief critical description of the artist's work and themes, with details on dates and locations.
Artist Fields Harrington, after witnessing a delivery worker get hit by a car in Brooklyn, began photographing the customized bikes of New York City's delivery workers, capturing their gloves, reflective tape, and cultural markers. His series is now featured in MoMA PS1's "Greater New York" exhibition. In a direct act of reciprocity, Harrington convinced the museum to rent a delivery worker's bike and pay its owner, Gustavo Ajche, his usual wage of $21.44 per hour during museum hours. For one week each month, the bike is displayed, and every 21 minutes and 44 seconds, a notification ding sounds, referencing the wage Ajche and his group Los Deliveristas Unidos fought for.
Raúl de Nieves has transformed the industrial architecture of Pioneer Works in Red Hook into a luminous sanctuary through his solo exhibition, "In Light of Innocence." The installation features 50 handcrafted faux stained-glass panels made from acetate and aluminum tape, replacing traditional religious iconography with symbols from tarot, Mexican folklore, and personal text. The centerpiece is a large light box featuring a skeleton that symbolizes transformation and renewal rather than death.
MoMA PS1 has launched the sixth edition of Greater New York, its signature quinquennial survey featuring 53 artists living and working across the city's five boroughs. Marking the institution’s 50th anniversary, this iteration was organized entirely by the museum’s internal curatorial staff rather than outside contributors. The exhibition moves away from the introspective, surrealist themes of the pandemic-era 2021 edition, focusing instead on the social fabric of the city and the systemic challenges facing its residents.
The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has announced its 101st class of fellows, awarding 223 scholars and artists across 55 disciplines for 2026. Selected from a pool of nearly 5,000 applicants, the new cohort includes prominent visual artists such as Sonya Clark, John Miller, American Artist, and Kota Ezawa. The fellowships provide significant financial grants to individuals who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts.
The Dutch photography duo Inez & Vinoodh have launched a major retrospective titled "Can Love Be a Photograph" at the Kunstmuseum Den Haag. Spanning their career since 1986, the exhibition features 150 works that blur the lines between fashion photography, celebrity portraiture, and fine art. To mark the opening, the artists highlighted six defining works—including the digitally manipulated "Thank You Thighmaster" series—that prioritize conceptual depth and psychological mutation over the glossy celebrity culture they are often associated with.