Are the Visitors' Lions at the Venice Biennale an Opportunity for Art Criticism? Let's Seize It?

I Leoni dei Visitatori alla Biennale di Venezia sono un’opportunità per la critica d’arte. Cerchiamo di coglierla?

The article discusses the newly instituted "Leoni dei Visitatori" (Visitors' Lions) at the Venice Biennale, established after the resignation of the International Jury. The author, Alberto Villa, argues that this change shifts significant influence to art media and critics, as visitors will rely on reviews and recommendations from specialized magazines, websites, and social media to decide which pavilions to prioritize. Villa calls on critics to embrace this responsibility with heightened critical rigor, seeing it as an opportunity to revive the mediating role of art criticism.

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CULTURED magazine's Editor-in-Chief Sarah Harrelson hosted a candlelit dinner at her Los Angeles home to celebrate the release of the Artists on Artists issue. The event was co-hosted by actor Kyle MacLachlan, the issue's digital cover star, and skincare brand Aēsop. Guests included artists Alex Israel, Jennifer Guidi, Callida Rawles, and Lauren Halsey; actors Jeanne Tripplehorn, Jordan Firstman, and Lisa Rinna; art dealers Sara Lee Hantman and Robert Goff; collector Sonya Yu; and other creative Angelenos. The evening featured Ruinart champagne, seasonal fare by Chris Kronner's Mayday group, and Aēsop gift kits as parting favors.

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CULTURED magazine hosted an intimate dinner at Le Meurice's Salon Pompadour in Paris, cohosted by Editor-in-Chief Sarah Harrelson, arts leader Jen Roberts, and collector Jamie Goguen. The event brought together art and design-world figures including gallerists, designers, Sotheby's CEO Charles F. Stewart, and Independent Art Fair founder Elizabeth Dee, with a feast by Alain Ducasse and pastry chef Cedric Grolet. Guests received a copy of the inaugural CULTURED at Home issue and a bottle of Roos & Roos fragrance.

The NMWA Honors 50 Years of the Women’s Studio Workshop

The National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) is honoring the 50th anniversary of the Women’s Studio Workshop (WSW) in Kingston, NY, with an exhibition titled "A Radical Alteration: Women’s Studio Workshop as a Sustainable Model for Art Making." Curated by Maymanah Farhat, the show runs through September and features over 40 objects—including artists’ books, zines, ephemera, and archival materials—dating from 1974 to 2024. The exhibition highlights WSW’s history as a feminist arts organization that supports women, trans, intersex, nonbinary, and genderfluid artists, with a focus on book arts and marginalized communities.

Theaster Gates to create giant frieze for Obama Presidential Center

The Obama Presidential Center has announced a new commission by Chicago-based artist Theaster Gates, who will create a large frieze made of photo-printed aluminum using images from the Johnson Publishing Company archives—the publisher of Ebony and Jet magazines—and the work of photographer Howard Simmons. The installation, set to open in 2026, honors the dignity of Black life and the vibrancy of Black culture throughout the 20th century. Gates has been working with 20,000 photographs from the archive since 2016, and the frieze will be visible from Stony Island Avenue, near his own Stony Island Arts Bank. Other high-profile commissions for the center include works by Julie Mehretu, Maya Lin, Lindsay Adams, Nick Cave, Aliza Nisenbaum, Jenny Holzer, and Idris Khan.

New Alden B. Dow Home and Studio exhibition to highlight acclaimed graphic designer Tim Lewis

The Alden B. Dow Home and Studio in Midland, Michigan, will host a new exhibition titled “A New Vision: The Graphic Art of Tim Lewis” from September 4 to December 31, 2025. The show celebrates the life and career of Tim Lewis, a Midland native and acclaimed graphic designer and illustrator who worked from the 1960s through the 1990s, creating commercial illustrations for major U.S. magazines, album covers for artists like Peter, Paul and Mary, Gordon Lightfoot, and Chuck Berry, and posters for Barbra Streisand’s TV specials. The exhibition includes original artwork and prints, many available for purchase, and opens with a public reception on September 4.

Bonhams To Auction Museum-Quality Work From The Holly Solomon Collection

Bonhams will auction museum-quality works from the collection of legendary New York gallerist Holly Solomon during its Post-War & Contemporary Art daytime sale on May 15, 2025, and its 20th/21st Century Art Evening Sale on May 14, 2025. The lots include pieces by Robert Rauschenberg, Nam June Paik, Christo, Gordon Matta-Clark, Claes Oldenburg, and Richard Pettibone, among others, many of which have rarely been seen.

A Roma fotoromanzi e cliché sono i protagonisti di una mostra femminista a Villa Medici

A retrospective exhibition titled "Fotoromanzo" by French artist Nicole Gravier (born 1949) is on view at Villa Medici, the French Academy in Rome. The show explores Gravier's semiotic dissection of Italian photo-romance magazines from the 1970s, using irony and staged self-portraiture to deconstruct the fabrication of femininity and patriarchal narratives. The exhibition runs concurrently with a separate show dedicated to filmmaker Agnès Varda at the same venue, highlighting parallel feminist inquiries into women's representation.

Saad Khan Archives the Detritus of Censored Culture

Saad Khan, a New York-based archivist, has developed Khajistan, an expansive digital and physical archive dedicated to preserving censored and overlooked mass media from South Asia to the Maghreb. The collection features a diverse array of ephemera, including homoerotic imagery, working-class street posters, and banned magazines that are often erased from official cultural records. By documenting everything from WhatsApp forwards to vintage film posters, Khan creates a space where the lived experiences of queer, trans, and working-class individuals in these regions are validated and archived.

art frieze la art production fund

Frieze Los Angeles has announced its 2025 public art program, titled "Body & Soul," developed in partnership with the Art Production Fund. Seven Los Angeles-based artists—including Patrick Martinez, Amanda Ross-Ho, Kelly Wall, Shana Hoehn, Polly Borland, Dan John Anderson, and Cosmas & Damian Brown—will present site-specific installations outside the fair's main venue at Santa Monica Airport. Works include a neon billboard by Martinez addressing ICE raids, a durational performance by Ross-Ho rolling a giant inflatable Earth, and a resurrected newsstand by Wall filled with disappearing glass magazines. The program also features youth art workshops and three prizes for emerging artists.

In Venice you can adopt a magazine to support the periodicals library of the Querini Stampalia Foundation

A Venezia puoi adottare una rivista per sostenere l’emeroteca della Fondazione Querini Stampalia

The Fondazione Querini Stampalia in Venice has launched an initiative called 'Adotta una rivista' (Adopt a Magazine) to support its periodicals library (emeroteca). The campaign invites individuals to sponsor subscriptions to the approximately 200 Italian and international magazines the library receives annually, covering topics from art and architecture to politics and society. The goal is to double the number of donors and ensure the continuity of this dynamic resource for students, scholars, and readers.

New art gallery, shop opens in downtown Belleville on Art on the Square weekend

A new art gallery and retail shop, Public Defender Art + Zines, will open in downtown Belleville on May 15, 2026, coinciding with the Art on the Square festival. Owned by local artists Danny Houk and Stacie Spaunhorst, the space at 123 W. Main St. will feature exhibitions, a retail shop selling indie comics and zines, and future plans for artist residencies and networking brunches. Opening exhibitions include ceramics by Alisha Porter and Sheri White.

Philippine art goes on tour this May

Manila Calling, a traveling art exhibition organized by Manila Collective Inc., launches this May, connecting Manila, Barcelona, Madrid, and Tokyo. The project transforms traditional exhibition spaces into a hybrid of gallery, curated gift shop, and street-level art party, featuring 70 creatives from the Philippines, Spain, France, Italy, and Japan. Participating artists submitted original artworks translated into a unified silk textile installation, alongside limited-edition prints, zines, apparel, and collectible objects. The tour includes stops in Barcelona (May 15-16), Madrid (May 19-20), a month-long exhibit at Centro de Turismo Intramuros in Manila (June 6-27), and a Tokyo stop with a closing celebration in Barcelona in July. A pop-up gift shop in Comuna, Makati precedes the tour on May 8-10.

Two New Exhibitions Will Open At Brno House of Arts Next Week

Two new exhibitions will open at the Brno House of Arts on Tuesday, 28 April, with a public vernissage at 6pm. The first, 'Distorted Image: Chapters from the Beginnings of Video Art', is an international show examining how artists in Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Hungary from the 1960s to the 1990s manipulated analogue and digital images to question truth in media, featuring experimental films, early animations, and independent video magazines. The second, 'Words of Dalibor Chatrný', is a retrospective marking the centenary of the Czech artist's birth, focusing on his 'word works' that explore language and the interplay between reading and seeing, while retaining painterly qualities.

Why Interior Design Magazines Are Booming

The New York Times reports a significant resurgence in print interior design magazines, with titles like Architectural Digest, Elle Decor, and House Beautiful experiencing substantial growth in advertising pages and newsstand sales. This revival is occurring despite the broader print media downturn and a shift towards digital content consumption.

More Than 100 PPS Student Art Pieces Are on Display at the Portland Art Museum This Summer

The Portland Art Museum is hosting the "HeART of Portland" exhibition, featuring over 100 artworks created by students from all 81 Portland Public Schools. The showcase includes a diverse range of media, from ceramics and rug tufting to screen-printed apparel and zines, and for the first time, the student work is being displayed in a professional gallery space within the museum's main building. The exhibition, which opened on Tax Day, serves as a tangible demonstration of the results of the city's unique arts tax.

Free exhibition showcases diversity

A free exhibition titled 'Diversity' has opened at Stamford Arts Centre gallery in St Mary’s Street, running until August 30. Organized by Stamford Diversity Group, the show features a wide range of work including art by HMP Stocken inmates, photographs by Ukrainian artist Oleksii Klitovchenko, paintings by Marina Stognieva, sketches by Ella, dresses by a local Afghan family, a neurodivergency awareness journal, and zines supporting the trans community, alongside poetry and photographic portraits from the group's previous projects.

Res Publica Verlag Seeks Project Manager or Print Production Editor

Res Publica Verlag sucht Projektmanager:in oder Chef vom Dienst Print

Res Publica Verlag, an independent publisher based in Berlin, is hiring a project manager or print production editor for its magazines Cicero and Monopol, as well as special publications. The role involves managing editorial workflows, asset management systems, ad coordination, and serving as a liaison between the publishing house and editorial teams. The position is for 30 hours per week, starting August 1, 2026, with an optional onboarding from July 1, 2026.

Bookstore opens new chapter on Southside with grand opening Saturday

Pennington’s, a new hybrid bookstore, coffee shop, and art gallery, is celebrating its grand opening on Chattanooga’s Southside. The multi-use space features a curated selection of independent press books and zines alongside a dedicated gallery area managed by painter Ellie Wical. The venue aims to serve as a community hub, offering local pottery, prints, and future art classes.