M+ in Hong Kong and Centre Pompidou in Paris Plan New Five-Year Partnership

M+ in Hong Kong and the Centre Pompidou in Paris have announced a new five-year partnership beginning next year. The agreement, announced at M+ on May 15, includes lending artworks for exhibitions, collaborative research and commissions, curator exchanges, and a four-year postdoctoral fellowship. A major exhibition focusing on visual culture in France and Greater China will debut at the Pompidou when it reopens in 2029 or 2030, then travel to M+.

Photographer and Activist Claudia Andujar, Known for Documenting Yanomami People of Brazil, Is the Subject of a New Biopic

A new biopic titled *The Outsider (A Estrangeira)* will tell the story of photographer and activist Claudia Andujar, known for documenting the Yanomami people of Brazil. The film is written and directed by Sandra Delgado, produced by São Paulo’s Maria Farinha Filmes, and stars Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas in the lead role, with Wagner Moura as an executive producer and cast member. The project is based on two decades of research and focuses on Andujar’s journey from Holocaust survivor to Brazilian artist who used photography to resist the military dictatorship’s destruction of Yanomami land in the 1970s.

Hong Kong’s M+ And Centre Pompidou Announce Strategic Partnership

M+, Hong Kong's museum of modern and contemporary art, has announced a multi-year strategic partnership with the Centre Pompidou in Paris. The collaboration includes co-organized exhibitions at M+ starting in 2027, a joint exhibition at the renovated Pompidou around 2030, and a four-year postdoctoral fellowship funded by the Huo Family Foundation, established by philanthropist Yan Huo in 2009. The Huo Research Fellow will focus on twentieth- and twenty-first-century Western and Asian art.

Amy Sherald Comes Home: “American Sublime” Opens at the High Museum

The High Museum of Art in Atlanta opens "Amy Sherald: American Sublime" on May 15, a mid-career retrospective featuring over 35 paintings from 2007 to 2024. The exhibition was originally scheduled to conclude at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., but Sherald canceled that stop after a Trump administration executive order directed Smithsonian institutions to remove so-called "un-American content." The High Museum secured the final slot after the Baltimore Museum of Art, following months of coordination with SFMOMA, Sherald's studio, and Hauser & Wirth. The show includes Sherald's portrait of Breonna Taylor and her iconic Michelle Obama portrait, organized into five thematic sections.

Kick off summer with these 10 must-see NYC art exhibitions

A roundup article highlights ten must-see museum and gallery exhibitions in New York City for the summer season. Featured shows include Carol Bove's interactive installation at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, a dual exhibition of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera at MoMA, Sarah Lucas's public sculpture "VENUS VICTORIA" at the New Museum, and Andreas Schulze's "Cake" at Sprüth Magers Gallery New York. Other notable exhibitions include "Revolutionary Women" at The New York Historical and "Another Wonderland" at the Museum of the City of New York, which presents a restored 1930s Alice in Wonderland mural.

Artist Nathaniel Mary Quinn, admired by the Rolling Stones and Leonardo DiCaprio, returns with hometown show

Artist Nathaniel Mary Quinn, known for his distinctive collage-like composite portraits, is opening his first solo exhibition in his hometown of Chicago at the National Public Housing Museum. Titled "A Love Letter to My Mother," the show honors his late mother and includes a replica of his family's living room in the Robert Taylor Homes public housing project. Quinn, who is represented by Gagosian, has seen his work acquired by major institutions including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago. His art will also appear on the cover of the Rolling Stones' forthcoming album "Foreign Tongues."

Ed Ruscha | Angel (2014) | For Sale

Ed Ruscha's 2014 lithograph "Angel" is being offered for sale through Leslie Sacks Gallery in Santa Monica. The work is a unique color trial proof from an edition of 60, measuring 23 by 16 inches, hand-signed and numbered by the artist, and includes a certificate of authenticity. The listing appears on Artsy, where the price is available on request, and notes increased collector interest over the past 14 days.

Christo, Jeanne-Claude | The Pont-Neuf Wrapped (1976-2020) | Art & Prints

An auction listing for Christo and Jeanne-Claude's limited edition print 'The Pont-Neuf Wrapped' (1976-2020) has closed. The work is an archival digital print on wove paper, part of an edition of 450, accompanied by the exhibition book 'Christo et Jeanne-Claude Paris!'. The listing includes details on the artists' legacy, their monumental public projects like 'The Gates' and 'Wrapped Reichstag', and notes that similar works by Christo are available for purchase from various galleries.

SFMOMA’s ‘Matisse’s Femme au chapeau: A Modern Scandal’ revisits an old controversy

SFMOMA has opened 'Matisse’s Femme au chapeau: A Modern Scandal,' an exhibition that revisits the 1905 debut of Henri Matisse's iconic painting at the Salon d’Automne in Paris, which sparked the Fauvist movement. The show reconstructs Gallery VII of that salon, reuniting works by all ten original artists—including Matisse, André Derain, and Maurice de Vlaminck—and places the painting in dialogue with contemporary artists to trace its lasting influence. The painting, which was purchased by collectors Leo and Gertrude Stein at the 1905 salon, entered SFMOMA’s collection in 1991 as a bequest from Elise S. Haas and never travels, making this the exclusive venue for the exhibition.

Picasso–Klee–Matisse: Masterpieces from the Museum Berggruen

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston will host the U.S. debut of "Picasso–Klee–Matisse: Masterpieces from the Museum Berggruen" from May 20 to September 13, 2026. The exhibition features over 95 works by Pablo Picasso, Paul Klee, Henri Matisse, Alberto Giacometti, and other postwar European avant-garde artists, drawn from the collection assembled by famed gallerist and collector Heinz Berggruen. It explores Berggruen's relationships with artists and his Paris gallery, Berggruen & Cie, and includes thematic galleries on still life, portraits, and the human figure, as well as a dedicated space on Berggruen's life story.

Joan Miró | Silence (1967) | For Sale

Joan Miró's 1967 lithograph 'Silence' is being offered for sale by Epicentrum Art Gallery for €6,000. The work is a limited edition print on Arches paper, hand-signed by the artist, and comes with a certificate of authenticity. Miró, a leading Surrealist and pioneer of automatism, created the piece during a prolific period of his career, and it is part of an edition of 100.

An old hat gets a new show: ‘Matisse’s Femme au chapeau’ opens at SFMOMA

SFMOMA has opened "Matisse's Femme au chapeau: A Modern Scandal," a new exhibition centered on Henri Matisse's iconic 1905 painting "Femme au chapeau" (Woman with a Hat). The show recreates the atmosphere of the 1905 Salon d'Automne in Paris, where the painting first caused a scandal for its bold, fauvist colors. It reunites the work with three other Matisse paintings from that debut, alongside pieces by contemporaries like André Derain, Albert Marquet, and Jelka Rosen, and later artists inspired by the painting, such as Mickalene Thomas. The exhibition also includes a gallery dedicated to the Haas bequest, which brought the painting to SFMOMA in 1991.

Independent Opens With Solo Presentations, Early Sales and (Most Importantly) Breathing Room

Independent art fair opened on May 14, 2026, at a new location in Lower Manhattan’s Pier 36, offering a larger, less central venue than its previous Tribeca home. The fair emphasizes solo presentations, which make up 70 percent of the booths, and features tightly focused displays. Gallerist Susanne Vielmetter reported early sales and museum reservations for works by Samuel Levi Jones, Robert Pruitt, and Nate Lewis. Brazilian gallery Almeida & Dale shares a booth with David Nolan Gallery, showcasing Chakaia Booker and Miguel Rio Branco, while New York dealer Charles Moffett reported strong interest in late Swiss artist Silvia Heyden’s tapestries.

The Divine Powers of “Chicken Linda”

Performance artist Linda Mary Montano, now in her 80s, invited writer Taliesin Thomas into her home in Saugerties, New York, which functions as a living shrine filled with altars, experimental sculptures, and religious iconography. Montano, who calls herself “Chicken Linda” to connect with the Holy Spirit, discussed her six-decade career as an endurance performance artist, her Catholic faith, her studies with guru Shri Bhramananda Saraswati, and her influential early years in San Francisco during the First Wave feminist art movement. She also recounted personal tragedies, including the murder of her former husband Mitchell Payne, which led to her video work “Mitchell’s Death,” now in the collections of MoMA and the Museum of Conceptual Art, Los Angeles.

“Gaza Love” Monument Unveiled in Paterson, NJ

Artist and activist Kyle Goen's sculpture "Gaza Love" (2014) was permanently installed outside the South Paterson Library Community Center in Paterson, New Jersey, as part of the city's newly dedicated Gaza Square on Main Street. The unveiling took place on Palestine Day, May 17, and commemorates Paterson's large diasporic Palestinian community. The sculpture, which borrows the typography of Robert Indiana's LOVE series and the colors of the Palestinian flag, originated during protests against the 2014 Gaza War and has been used in organizing spaces for over a decade, including during the 2021 Strike MoMA movement.

À New York, le Metropolitan Museum of Art absorbe la Neue Galerie et sa collection de Klimt, Schiele, Kokoschka…

On May 14, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Neue Galerie in New York announced a historic merger set for 2028. The Neue Galerie, founded in 2001 by billionaire Ronald Lauder in a Fifth Avenue mansion, will become part of the Met under the name The Met Ronald S. Lauder Neue Galerie, modeled after the Met's Cloisters. The transfer includes the historic building and a collection of 600 works valued at over $1.5 billion, featuring artists such as Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Ludwig Kirchner, Max Beckmann, and Oskar Kokoschka. Lauder and his daughter Aerin Lauder Zinterhofer are also donating thirteen works from their personal collection, and a $200 million endowment fund has been established.

Art Basel Qatar Announces Artistic Director and Theme for 2027 Edition

Art Basel Qatar has appointed Iraqi curator Wassan Al-Khudhairi as artistic director for its second edition, scheduled for January 28–30, 2027, in Doha. The fair will be themed “between / بين,” exploring states of betweenness and fluid cultural encounters, and will feature a scaled-up Special Projects sector with large-scale, site-specific works, alongside solo gallery presentations. Al-Khudhairi, a specialist in modern and contemporary Arab art, previously served as founding director of Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha and held curatorial roles at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis.

Venice show brings together two leading figures from the Polish avant-garde

A collateral exhibition at the 2024 Venice Biennale, titled "Tadeusz Kantor (1915-1990) Emballage Cricotage and Madame Jarema," brings together two towering figures of the Polish avant-garde: Tadeusz Kantor and Maria Jarema. Organized by the Starak Family Foundation at the Procuratie Vecchie, the show features over 60 works spanning paintings, monotypes, sculptures, theatre props, and costumes, culminating in a room dedicated to Kantor's seminal theatre piece "The Dead Class" (1975). Jarema's work was shown at the 1958 Venice Biennale, and Kantor exhibited in the Polish pavilion in 1960; the exhibition highlights their intertwined, interdisciplinary practice and their foundational role in post-war Polish avant-garde art.

Alexander James Dissects Painting’s Most Enduring Shape in Hong Kong Exhibition

British artist Alexander James presents *Dissecting the Square*, a new exhibition at Phillips Gallery in Hong Kong, running until 31 May 2026. The show features a series of paintings, sculptures, and installations that explore the square as a geometric form, inspired by a moment when sunlight dissected an empty canvas in his studio. James divides canvases into quadrants, creating works that balance order and disruption. The exhibition also includes Josef Albers’ *Homage to the Square: In Time* (1967) and a sculpture by Sean Scully, placing James’s practice in dialogue with art historical precedents.

‘A once-in-a-generation opportunity’: Europe’s biggest exhibition of James McNeill Whistler in 30 years will open in London this week

Tate Britain in London is opening a major retrospective of James McNeill Whistler, the largest exhibition of his work in Europe in 30 years. Featuring 150 works spanning painting, drawing, printmaking, and design, the show includes iconic pieces like *Arrangement in Grey and Black No.1* (commonly known as *Whistler's Mother*) and *Nocturne: Blue and Gold - Old Battersea Bridge*. For the first time, the exhibition examines Whistler's teenage years and also displays his personal notebooks, easel, paint palette, and collections of East Asian ceramics and Japanese prints. The exhibition runs from May 21 to September 27, 2026.

Peggy Guggenheim in London: The Making of a Collector

The Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice has opened "Peggy Guggenheim in London: The Making of a Collector," the first major museum exhibition focused on Guggenheim's brief but influential 18-month tenure as a gallerist in pre-war London. From January 1938 to June 1939, her gallery Guggenheim Jeune at 30 Cork Street mounted twenty exhibitions, including Vasily Kandinsky's first UK solo show, the first British group collage exhibition, and a controversial sculpture show debated in Parliament. Organized by Gražina Subelytė and guest curator Simon Grant, the show brings together approximately one hundred works—paintings, sculptures, prints, photographs, puppets, and archival material—many reunited for the first time since their original presentation.

Tate Britain opens Europe’s largest James McNeill Whistler retrospective in 30 years

Tate Britain has opened the largest European retrospective of James McNeill Whistler in over 30 years, featuring 150 works across painting, drawing, printmaking, and design. The exhibition traces Whistler's career from his student days at the Imperial Academy of Arts in St Petersburg and West Point to his bohemian years in Paris and London, highlighting his pioneering nocturnes, the iconic *Arrangement in Black and Grey: Portrait of the Painter’s Mother* (known as *Whistler’s Mother*), and rarely seen sketchbooks. It reunites a familial triptych of portraits and assembles the largest-ever collection of his nocturnes, exploring his radical approach to composition and color.

Facing Modernity: Degas to Picasso to open at Shepparton Art Museum

Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) in Victoria, Australia, will host the exhibition "Facing Modernity: Degas to Picasso" from 23 May to 20 September 2026. The show features 37 paintings and sculptures from Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, including works by masters such as Paul Cézanne, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and Salvador Dalí. Many of these works are part of a major philanthropic gift from New York-based collectors Julian and Josie Robertson, donated to the Auckland gallery in 2023, and have never before been shown in Australia.

‘A watershed moment’: Major Brisbane art exhibition opens at prestigious London museum

The Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) has exported a major exhibition, "Rising Voices: Contemporary Art from Asia, Australia and the Pacific," to the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. The show, which runs until January 10, 2027, features works collected over 30 years through QAGOMA's Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, including pieces by Australian artists Michael Cook, Naomi Hobson, Shirley Macnamara, Ken Thaiday Sr, and Judy Watson, as well as artists from China, Japan, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Papua New Guinea, and beyond.

Bidding battle for Matisse leads Sotheby’s $303.3m Modern art evening sale in New York

Sotheby’s Modern evening auction on 19 May in New York achieved $303.3m with fees, falling within its pre-sale estimate of $244m to $322.8m. The standout lot was Henri Matisse’s 1919 painting *La Chaise lorraine*, which sold for $48.4m after a ten-minute bidding battle, becoming the second most valuable Matisse painting at auction. Other highlights included Alberto Giacometti’s *La Clairière (Composition avec neuf figures)* at $23.1m, Pablo Picasso’s *Arlequin (Buste, 1909)* at $42.6m, and a Mark Rothko untitled work on paper at $9.27m. The sale also saw strong demand for works by female Surrealists Leonor Fini and Leonora Carrington, while a Rodin sculpture was passed and a Gottlieb painting was withdrawn.

MONET TO MATISSE: DEFYING TRADITION to Launch at Art Gallery of South Australia

The Art Gallery of South Australia is set to launch a new exhibition titled 'MONET TO MATISSE: DEFYING TRADITION,' which will feature works by iconic modern artists such as Claude Monet and Henri Matisse. The show aims to highlight how these artists broke away from conventional artistic norms to pioneer new movements in art history.

Modern and Contemporary Middle Eastern Art: Online - Christie's

Christie's is presenting an online sale titled "Modern and Contemporary Middle Eastern Art: Online" from June 2–16, 2026, in London. The auction features 62 lots by leading modern and contemporary artists from the Gulf, the Levant, Iraq, Iran, and North Africa, including works by Samia Halaby, Saliba Douaihy, Baya, Parviz Tanavoli, Mohamed Melehi, and Abdul Halim Radwi. The sale marks 20 years since Christie's inaugural Middle Eastern art auction in the UAE in 2006.

Robust Sales at Sotheby’s, Phillips Suggest Art Market Upswing

The May 19 evening sales at Sotheby’s and Phillips generated a combined $419.1 million, signaling a potential recovery in the contemporary and modern art market. Sotheby’s brought in $303.9 million—60% more than the previous year—led by a record-breaking $48.4 million Matisse, while Phillips achieved $115.2 million, more than double its 2025 sales. Both auctions saw high sell-through rates, with 98% and 100% of lots sold respectively. Notable lots included a $42.6 million Picasso, a $29.4 million van Gogh drawing, and strong performances by female artists like Lee Bontecou, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler.

Interview with the frontier gallerist who opened his space in Vasto, Abruzzo

Intervista al gallerista di frontiera che ha aperto il suo spazio a Vasto in Abruzzo

Sangallo Fine Art, a modern art gallery located in Vasto, Abruzzo, Italy, is profiled in an interview with its founder Giorgio di Michele Marisi. The gallery, born from a chance encounter and a passion for 20th-century art, has carved out a distinctive space in the periphery of the art world. It is currently presenting the exhibition "Permanenza della materia espansa" (2026), curated by Lorenzo Madaro, which exemplifies its commitment to critical rediscovery and experimental display. Despite being geographically distant from traditional art hubs, the gallery has built a loyal clientele of knowledgeable collectors and international buyers, relying on direct relationships and participation in art fairs.

Tutto venduto e il doppio del ricavo rispetto all’anno scorso. A New York fa boom anche l’asta di Phillips

Phillips held its Modern & Contemporary Art Evening Sale in New York on May 19, 2026, achieving a complete sell-out with a total of $115.2 million. All 41 lots were sold, doubling the result from May 2025 ($52 million). Top lots included Andy Warhol's *Sixteen Jackies* ($16.2 million), Claude Monet's *La Route de Vétheuil, effet de neige* ($9.9 million), and Jackson Pollock's *Untitled* (1948) ($9.2 million). New auction records were set for Lee Bontecou, Pat Passlof, P.S. Krøyer, and Joseph Yaeger, while works by Salman Toor and Cecily Brown also sold above estimates.