The article is about the Salon des Indépendants, a historic French art exhibition society founded in 1884. It provided a platform for artists to exhibit works without a jury, challenging the official Paris Salon's conservative standards.
미국의 광부들 사진전 'Beneath the Surface' 순회: 내셔널 갤러리(DC)-밀워키미술관-에이먼카터미술관(포트워스, TX)
The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., will present 'Beneath the Surface: Mining and American Photography' from May 23 to August 23, 2026, the first exhibition to focus exclusively on the relationship between resource extraction and American photography. Featuring 150 photographs by over 100 artists—including Richard Avedon, Walker Evans, Lewis Hine, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Dorothea Lange, and Gordon Parks—the show spans nearly 200 years, from early daguerreotypes of the California Gold Rush to contemporary large-scale works. After its Washington run, the exhibition will travel to the Milwaukee Art Museum (October 23, 2026–January 18, 2027) and the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, Texas (February 14–May 9, 2027).
White Cube Mason’s Yard in London will present a solo exhibition by the artist duo TARWUK (Bruno Pogačnik Tremow and Ivana Vukšić), running from 9 July to 15 August 2026. The show debuts a major new site-specific installation alongside paintings and works on paper, marking the duo’s first exhibition at the gallery.
Frank To, an award-winning Glasgow-based artist known for using gunpowder to create explosive artworks, has been selected to exhibit at the Royal Cambrian Academy’s 2026 Annual Exhibition in Conwy, Wales. He is one of only four Scottish artists chosen from 148 applicants. To's recent London exhibitions at the Stafford Gallery, Wimbledon, and the Mall Galleries sold out, and his collectors include actor Sir Patrick Stewart and art patron Michel Witmer, who displays To's work alongside pieces by Picasso and Warhol.
The Branch Museum of Design in Richmond, Virginia, has opened a new exhibition titled “Imagining Best Products,” which revisits the radical architectural and graphic designs of the defunct catalog showroom retailer Best Products. Founded in 1957 by Frances and Sydney Lewis, the company commissioned experimental storefronts from architect James Wines and the firm SITE, creating iconic “anti-buildings” that challenged commercial architecture. The show features architectural drawings, models, photographs, sketches, and printed materials, and runs through June 21, 2026.
Five museums across the globe are opening exhibitions this month that celebrate women who have shaped art and culture. The shows include Björk's multidisciplinary "Echolalia" at the National Gallery of Iceland in Reykjavík, Iris van Herpen's New York exhibition, Marina Abramović's historic showing at Venice's Gallerie dell'Accademia, the Tate Modern's first major Frida Kahlo retrospective, and centenary tributes to Marilyn Monroe. The article notes that despite women making up 51% of visual artists worldwide, their work remains underrepresented in public institutions, with 78% of London galleries showing more male than female artists.
Costa Mesa’s Arts Commission delivered a report to the City Council on Tuesday, calling for a significant increase in arts funding as the city updates its arts and culture master plan. Currently, arts programs are primarily funded by a portion of cannabis tax revenue—about $230,000 annually—but actual expenditures are nearly double that, forcing the city to use general fund revenue to cover the gap. Commissioners recommended establishing a public art fund, increasing the cannabis tax allocation, imposing a 1% public art fee on capital projects over $500,000, and potentially using hotel-stay tax revenue to support the arts. They also proposed expanding the arts grants program, funding a consultant to update the master plan, and creating a dedicated arts specialist position.
The article describes a new exhibition at the National Gallery of Art that examines the American experience through visual art. The show brings together works from the museum's collection to explore themes of identity, history, and culture in the United States.
The Museum of Somerset is hosting "A Life in Art: Roger Fry," an exhibition dedicated to the painter, critic, and curator Roger Fry, who introduced post-impressionism to England. The show features nearly 40 of Fry's paintings from a recent Charleston exhibition, alongside works by his wife, Arts & Crafts artist Helen Coombe, whose career and life have been largely overlooked. Through artwork, archival photos, and a film, the exhibition explores Fry's complex personal life, including Coombe's institutionalization for mental illness, and his role within the Bloomsbury Group.
Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo opens a new headquarters on the island of San Giacomo in the northern lagoon of Venice on May 7, 2026. The project combines contemporary art, historic rehabilitation, environmental sustainability, and research, featuring exhibitions, permanent installations, and public programs. The island was purchased in 2018 by Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo and Agostino Re Rebaudengo from Cassa Depositi e Prestiti and transformed into a center for cultural production and ecological experimentation, with free admission and universal accessibility.
The National Museum of African Art, part of the Smithsonian Institution, has opened "Here: Pride and Belonging in African Art," its first major exhibition dedicated to African LGBTQ+ art. Featuring 60 works by artists from over a dozen countries across Africa and its diaspora, the show includes paintings, sculptures, textiles, photography, film, and video. Co-curated by Serubiri Moses and Kevin D. Dumouchelle, the exhibition highlights collaboration, joy, and lived experience, with artists such as Zanele Muholi, Toyin Ojih Odutola, Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Jim Chuchu, Ṣọlá Olúlòde, and Leilah Babirye. Originally scheduled to open in May 2025 to coincide with WorldPride in Washington, the exhibition was postponed to January 2026 due to a Smithsonian budget situation, but ultimately opened as planned.
Patricia Li, writing for Vogue Circle, shares a curated guide to art and design destinations in Venice beyond the main venues of the Venice Biennale. Her recommendations include the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Gallerie dell’Accademia, Palazzo Grassi and Punta della Dogana (part of the Pinault Collection), the newly opened Fondazione Dries Van Noten, and Fondazione Prada, each hosting special exhibitions timed to the Biennale.
Woody De Othello's first major solo public exhibition in New York, titled "Guardian Spirit," has opened at Brooklyn Bridge Park, presented by Public Art Fund. The exhibition features monumental redwood totems standing 20 to 22 feet tall, carved with chainsaws and grinders, alongside bronze sculptures created between 2021 and 2025. The works explore themes of ritual, spirituality, and the elemental forces of wind and water, drawing inspiration from nkisi, ritual objects from Western and Central Africa. The exhibition runs from May 5, 2026, to March 8, 2027, with sculptures installed at Pier 1 and the Manhattan Bridge View.
Maine's art museums are presenting a packed summer season with numerous exhibitions, including the collaborative show "By Design: The Worlds of Betsy James Wyeth" organized by the Colby College Museum of Art, Farnsworth Art Museum, and Brandywine Museum, which explores the design influence of Andrew Wyeth's wife. Other highlights include the largest survey of Carl Spinchorn at the Ogunquit Museum of American Art and Bates College, "Shadow of the Eagle" at the Abbe Museum examining Native American perspectives on the Revolutionary War, and retrospectives of Phyllis Graber Jensen and Spindleworks Art Center at Bates College and Bowdoin College respectively. The Center for Maine Contemporary Art features new abstract sculptures by Bianca Beck, while Colby Museum also presents "Imagining an Archipelago" focusing on art from Cuba, Guam, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and their diasporas.
Laura Freeman, chief art critic for The Times, shares her personal list of nine favorite UK museums and galleries, ranging from London institutions like Sir John Soane’s Museum and the V&A to smaller venues such as Pallant House in Chichester and Kettle’s Yard in Cambridge. She emphasizes character and collection over flashy renovations, noting that her picks are based on decades of visits, family outings, and emotional resonance.
At the 2026 Met Gala, held on May 4 at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, celebrities interpreted the dress code 'Fashion is Art' with looks inspired by iconic artworks. ROSÉ wore a Saint Laurent gown based on Georges Braque's 'The Birds,' Emma Chamberlain's dress fused Vincent van Gogh's 'The Garden at Arles' and 'The Starry Night,' and Ben Platt donned a jacket reimagining Georges-Pierre Seurat's 'A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte' through bead embroidery.
The New Museum in New York has opened "New Humans: Memories of the Future," an exhibition curated by Chief Curator Massimiliano Gioni that explores a century of art predicting the fusion of humans and machines. The show features works by artists including Anicka Yi, Francis Picabia, Constantin Brancusi, and Marcel Duchamp, alongside robots and technological artifacts that blur the boundaries between bodies and technology. The exhibition is housed within OMA's newly expanded museum space on the Bowery.
The 2026 Met Gala, held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art under the theme 'Costume Art,' featured Black celebrities and socialites interpreting the human form as art on the red carpet. Notable attendees included Beyoncé in a skeletal silver gown by Olivier Rousteing, Colman Domingo inspired by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Rihanna in a custom Maison Margiela 'living sculpture' by Glenn Martens, and Venus Williams co-chairing the event while wearing a look referencing her own portrait by Robert Pruitt. Others like SZA, Tschabalala Self, and Cardi B offered surreal or literal nods to art history and body imagery.
The National Gallery in London will stage its first exhibition of modern German paintings, 'German Expressionism: Modern Painting 1900–1918', in spring 2027, before traveling to the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin in autumn 2027. This is the first UK and Ireland exhibition since the 1960s to cover both key Expressionist groups, Die Brücke and Der Blaue Reiter, featuring over fifty international loans from institutions such as Berlin's Neue Nationalgalerie, Brücke Museum, and the Art Institute of Chicago, alongside works from private collections.
The 2026 Met Gala, held on May 4 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, featured celebrities including Beyoncé, Naomi Osaka, and Emma Chamberlain in elaborate, art-inspired ensembles under the dress code 'Fashion is art.' Beyoncé wore a custom Olivier Rousteing sculptural skeleton dress, Osaka stunned in a Robert Wun white sculptural dress with red feathers, and Chamberlain arrived in a hand-painted Mugler gown. Co-chairs Anna Wintour, Nicole Kidman, and Venus Williams also attended, with Williams wearing a gown referencing a Robert Pruitt portrait of herself. The event raised funds for the Costume Institute's exhibition 'Costume Art.'
The Skylands Museum of Art in Lafayette, New Jersey, presents "FINI...pas fini!" from May 16 to September 26, 2026, a temporary exhibition of over 30 works by the internationally recognized artist Leonor Fini (1907-1996). Drawn from the museum's permanent collection, the show includes original drawings, etchings, silkscreens, and lithographs featuring portraits, sphinxes, female figures, cats, and fantastical beings. Special events include an opening reception on May 16 and a gallery talk by art appraiser Carol Curci, a friend and authority on Fini, who will discuss the artist's life and work.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute has announced its latest exhibition, "Costume Art," opening May 10. Curated by Andrew Bolton, the show brings together garments and objects from across the museum's curatorial departments to explore the relationship between fashion and the human body. The exhibition is organized into thematic sections including the Naked & Nude Body, Classical Body, Abstract Body, Reclaimed Body, Pregnant Body, Corpulent Body, and Disabled Body, featuring works by designers such as Walter Van Beirendonck, LÛCHEN, Georgina Godley, Ann-Sofie Back, Di Petsa, Alessandro Michele for Gucci, and Vivienne Westwood, alongside historical art objects from Greek ceramics to Mesopotamian sculptures.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute has opened its spring exhibition 'Costume Art' in a new 12,000-square-foot space called the Condé M Nast Galleries, located off the museum's Great Hall. The show pairs 200 garments and accessories with 200 artworks from the Met's collection, organized into 13 thematic body types such as Naked and Nude, Abstracted Body, Corpulent Body, Disabled Body, and Mortal Body. Lead curator Andrew Bolton aims to challenge traditional hierarchies by placing fashion on equal footing with fine art. The exhibition's launch is overshadowed by controversy over sponsorship by Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos for the Met Gala.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has opened "Lillian Bassman: Bazaar and Beyond," an exhibition on view through July 26 that examines the career of photographer Lillian Bassman. Curated by Virginia McBride, the show highlights Bassman's work at Harper's Bazaar and Junior Bazaar, as well as her independent photography known for radical darkroom manipulations. The exhibition was made possible by a gift of 70 works from Bassman's estate, produced in collaboration with her children Lizzie and Eric Himmel, and marks a homecoming for the artist who drew inspiration from the Met's galleries.
The Musée d’Orsay in Paris has opened a new gallery dedicated exclusively to artworks suspected of being looted or forcibly sold during the Nazi occupation of France. Among the 13 works on display is Edgar Degas's *Dinner at the Ball* (1919), originally owned by Jewish collector Fernand Ochsé, who was deported to Auschwitz with his wife in 1941. The painting passed through multiple hands before being identified as one of over 100,000 artworks plundered by the Nazis. The museum has assembled a team of six provenance researchers to spend three years tracing the original owners of these works, which are part of the "MNR" (Musées nationaux récupération) collection—some 2,200 pieces deemed too important to sell but whose owners remain unknown.
A new exhibition titled "Nervous Breakdown" at the Wilhelm-Hack-Museum in Ludwigshafen, Germany, presents the most comprehensive collection of Raymond Pettibon's album cover art to date. The show draws from over 200 works in the collection of Stefan Thull, spanning Pettibon's record, CD, and cassette covers from 1979 to the present, including iconic designs for Sonic Youth's "Goo" and Black Flag's logo. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue published by the museum and David Zwirner Books.
DATALAND, the world's first museum of AI arts co-founded by artist Refik Anadol and Efsun Erkılıç, will open to the public on June 20, 2026, in downtown Los Angeles. Located in the Frank Gehry-designed building The Grand LA within the Grand Avenue Cultural District, the 35,000-square-foot venue will debut with the inaugural exhibition "Machine Dreams: Rainforest," an immersive 360-degree experience based on millions of images and sounds of nature. The custom AI model powering the exhibition was trained on data collected from 16 rainforests worldwide, with data partnerships established with the Smithsonian, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Getty, iNaturalist, and the Natural History Museum in London.
Marina Abramović has opened a new exhibition titled "Transforming Energy" at the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice, running concurrently with the Venice Biennale. Curated by Shai Baitel, the show spans the museum’s permanent collection and temporary exhibition spaces, featuring a timeline of the artist’s biography, video works, and interactive installations with crystals and stone objects. Abramović is the first living woman artist to receive a major solo exhibition at the museum, and the exhibition includes a digital avatar and rituals designed to slow down the viewer’s experience.