A collection of 666 artworks by 135 Afro-Brazilian artists has been voluntarily repatriated to Brazil from Detroit, Michigan, marking the largest return of its kind in the nation's history. The works, which include sculptures, paintings, and ritual objects, were returned to the National Museum of Afro-Brazilian Culture (Muncab) in Salvador after being held in the United States for three decades.
The Milton Rhodes Center for the Arts in Winston-Salem is set to debut "By Any Means Necessary," a collaborative exhibition featuring local artists Owens Daniels, Leo Rucker, and Affee Vickers. Opening February 27, 2026, the show integrates digital photography, traditional portraiture, and mixed-media sculpture to explore themes of activism, personal identity, and community history. Each artist utilizes a distinct medium—from Daniels’ layered digital canvases to Rucker’s historical murals and Vickers’ engineered material studies—to address the central question of what causes individuals are willing to pursue at any cost.
The gallery at Eastern Connecticut State University is hosting the annual exhibition of the Prison Arts Program, featuring over 600 works by 161 incarcerated artists. The collection includes diverse media ranging from traditional drawings and crochet to intricate sculptures fashioned from unconventional materials like bread, dental floss, and soap. Managed by Community Partners in Action, the program facilitates artist collectives within state prisons, providing supplies and a collaborative environment for those behind bars.
The Columbia Center for the Arts in Hood River is hosting "Black Infinity House," an immersive exhibition curated by August Oaks that showcases the work of over 30 Black Oregon-based artists. The installation is designed as a domestic space featuring a studio, living room, and porch, displaying a diverse range of media including fabric art, wood-burned illustrations, painted portraits, and handmade jewelry.
Korean-born, Los Angeles-based artist Ken Gun Min is set to debut his third solo exhibition, 'Strange Days of a Quiet Sun,' at Nazarian/Curcio in Los Angeles. The showcase features a new body of work including a monumental double-sided folding screen and paintings that utilize Min's signature technique of combining embroidery, beading, and hand-applied materials with traditional pigments. The exhibition explores themes of sadness and estrangement through the astronomical metaphor of a 'quiet sun,' blending Western art history with East Asian traditions.
The James Wise Gallery at Norfolk State University has unveiled "Define Yourself!", a traveling exhibition organized in partnership with the Chrysler Museum of Art. Inspired by James Baldwin’s "The Fire Next Time," the show features 15 works by artists including Kara Walker, Emma Amos, and Carl Van Vechten that explore themes of Black identity, media representation, and double consciousness. The initiative is part of the Atlantic Coast Cohort, a program funded by the Art Bridges Foundation to share museum collections with historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs).
Artist Victoria Dugger has launched her third solo exhibition, "Freak Flags," at Sargent’s Daughters in New York. The show features six mixed-media works that reimagine the American flag through a maximalist, Southern Gothic lens, utilizing materials like gingham, glitter, nipple tassels, and barbed wire. Drawing inspiration from Jasper Johns’s iconic flag paintings, Dugger’s versions replace traditional colors with hot pinks and bright greens, with several displayed upside down to signal national distress.
Portugal has repatriated three pre-Columbian artifacts to Mexico, marking the first time the country has returned unlawfully acquired antiquities to the Mexican government. The returned items include a Shaft Tomb Culture female figure, a Maya painted vessel, and a Zapotec funerary urn representing the deity Cocijo. The objects were recovered through the cooperation of Portuguese judicial authorities and the Mexican embassy after being flagged at auctions and in various cities including Lisbon, Guimarães, and Évora.
The University of North Texas abruptly canceled artist Victor Quiñonez's (Marka27) exhibition 'Ni de Aquí Ni de Allá' at its College of Visual Arts and Design shortly after its opening. The show, which explores dual identity and cultural heritage, was taken down and covered with paper, with the university providing no explanation for its removal, leading to confusion and frustration for the artist.
The article is a transcript or description of a podcast episode featuring an interview with photographer Catherine Opie. She discusses her artistic journey, influences, and the themes central to her work, including identity, community, and representation within LGBTQ+ communities and American society. The podcast also promotes her upcoming 2026 exhibitions at the National Portrait Gallery in London and the Fridericianum in Kassel.
Sotheby's second auction in Saudi Arabia, 'Origins II,' achieved a total of $19.6 million, nearly doubling its low estimate. The sale, held in Diriyah, saw strong demand for Saudi and MENA artists, with a third of works sold to local collectors, signaling a shift from the previous year's reliance on international blue-chip art.
Graduate students in the University of North Texas's MFA Studio Art program are withdrawing their upcoming thesis exhibitions in protest. Their action is a direct response to the unexplained cancellation of artist Victor "Marka27" Quiñonez's solo show, "Ni de Aquí, Ni de Allá," which addressed Mexican-American identity and violence by ICE. The school papered over the gallery windows and removed the exhibition page without providing a public rationale to the artist or the community.
The F.E. McWilliam Gallery in Banbridge, Northern Ireland, has opened a new exhibition titled 'Constellations: Selected Work from Crawford Art Gallery, Cork.' The show features 14 artists from across the island of Ireland, including established figures like Isabel Nolan (Ireland's representative at the 2024 Venice Biennale), Nick Miller, Amanda Coogan, and Corban Walker, alongside rising stars such as Laura Fitzgerald and Dragana Jurišić. The works, linked by themes of nature, domesticity, and gender, range from film to drawing and highlight the contemporary holdings of the Crawford Art Gallery's collection.
The Museum of Modern Art in New York is presenting the exhibition "Wifredo Lam: When I Don't Sleep, I Dream," featuring the iconic Cuban Surrealist painter. The show includes his seminal work *The Jungle*, acquired by MoMA in 1946, and explores his complex artistic identity.
The Italian Ministry of Culture has acquired a rare double-sided Renaissance painting by Antonello da Messina, 'Ecce Homo; Saint Jerome in Penitence,' for $14.9 million in a private sale with Sotheby's New York. The work was withdrawn from a planned public auction, and its final institutional home is now the subject of a heated debate among major Italian museums and the artist's hometown.
An exhibition titled 'Pride in Full Colour' is being held at the gallery in the Edna O'Brien Library in Scarriff, County Clare, Ireland. It runs from February 21 to March 20, 2026, and features portraits of local LGBTQIA+ community members alongside vibrant banners created by young people from the Clare Youth Service.
Students at the University of North Texas (UNT) staged a protest in the form of a funeral for freedom of speech at their College of Visual Arts and Design gallery. They were responding to the unexplained removal of the exhibition "Ni de Aquí, Ni de Allá" by street artist Victor Quiñonez (Marka27). The students, dressed in black, laid flowers on a Mexican flag and wrote messages to administrators, delivering eulogies for the silenced artwork and expression.
The Historical Museum at Fort Missoula is launching a new exhibition titled "Treasure Trove" to celebrate the museum's 50th anniversary and local history. The show features local artists who selected artifacts from the museum's "Everyday Treasures" gallery and reinterpreted them through their own artistic mediums.
The San Diego Museum of Art (SDMA) is marking its 100th anniversary with a special exhibition titled 'SDMA: 100 Years.' The show, curated by Lucas Perez, traces the institution's chronological evolution from its origins after the 1915 Panama-California Exposition, through its founding in 1926 as the Fine Arts Gallery, to its present-day identity. It features rediscovered archival materials, including early children's art and photographs documenting periods like its conversion into a naval hospital during World War II.
The San Diego Museum of Art is marking its 100th anniversary with a special exhibition titled 'SDMA: 100 Years.' The show, curated by Lucas Perez, traces the institution's history from its origins following the 1915 Panama-California Exposition, through its founding in 1926 as the Fine Arts Gallery, to its present-day identity, featuring archival discoveries like early children's art and photographs from its time as a naval hospital during World War II.
The University of North Texas College of Visual Arts and Design canceled the exhibition 'Ni De Aquí Ni De Allá' by artist Victor Quiñonez just before its scheduled opening. The show, which includes works critical of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), was removed after the university terminated its loan agreement with Boston University Art Galleries, offering no public explanation for the decision.
Students at the University of North Texas staged a protest in the form of a funeral for freedom of speech at their College of Visual Arts and Design gallery. They were responding to the unexplained removal of the exhibition "Ni de Aquí, Ni de Allá" by street artist Victor Quiñonez (Marka27). The students, dressed in black, laid flowers on a Mexican flag and wrote messages to administrators, delivering eulogies for the silenced artwork and expression.
Miart, Milan's international modern and contemporary art fair, is marking its 30th anniversary with significant changes for its 2026 edition. The fair is moving to a new venue, the South Wing at Allianz MiCo designed by Mario Bellini Architects, and adopting a more compact, three-floor layout designed to foster cross-presentation and dialogue. It has also announced a new theme, "New Directions," inspired by the jazz legacies of John Coltrane and Miles Davis, and a fresh graphic identity from design studio Leftloft.
The Milan art fair Miart is marking its 30th anniversary with significant changes for its 2026 edition. The fair is moving to a new venue, the South Wing at Allianz MiCo, designed by Mario Bellini Architects, and will feature a more compact, three-floor layout designed to foster cross-presentation. It has also announced a new theme, "New Directions," inspired by the jazz legacies of John Coltrane and Miles Davis, and will include 160 galleries from 24 countries.
The inaugural exhibition "The City is Our Studio" by the Urban Sketchers Doha community opened at Lusail's Art Factory in Qatar. The show features works created en plein air by the group's members, who practice on-location drawing and painting to capture the essence of Doha's landscapes and everyday life.
Galleries and museums worldwide are presenting a series of exhibitions to mark Black History Month, highlighting the contributions of Black and African diasporic artists. These shows explore themes of identity, history, and liberation, ranging from the vibrant works of AFRICOBRA co-founder Wadsworth Jarrell to Ifeyinwa Joy Chiamonwu's intimate portraits of her Igbo community, and a major photography exhibition at MoMA.
The Trump administration removed the Pride flag from the flagpole at the Stonewall National Monument in New York City, a site commemorating the birth of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement. The action, reportedly carried out by the National Park Service, followed a memo restricting "non-agency" flags at federal sites.
The World Monuments Fund (WMF) has pledged $7 million for 2026 to fund 21 new heritage preservation projects globally. These projects, selected from its 2025 Watch List and other sites, range from restoring mural paintings at the Church of Saint-Eustache in Paris and gardens at Safdar Jang’s Tomb in New Delhi, to repairing earthquake damage in Japan and supporting community-led stewardship at Bear’s Ears National Monument in Utah.
The University of North Texas abruptly cancelled the solo exhibition "Ni de Aqui, Ni de Allá" by artist Victor Quiñonez in its College of Visual Art & Design Gallery just nine days after its opening. The university covered the gallery windows with brown paper, removed all promotional material from its website and social media, and informed the artist via a misspelled email that it had terminated its loan agreement with Boston University Art Galleries, which originated the show. The artist was not notified in advance and learned of the closure from students.
The Citadelle Art Museum in Canadian, Texas, will open a contemporary figurative portrait exhibition titled 'Human Resonance: Portraits with Presence' on February 14, 2026. The show, running through June 13, features internationally known painter David Kassan's portraits of Holocaust survivors, alongside works by artists Chelsie Murfee, Annie Murphy-Robinson, Shana Levenson, Barbara Hack, Karen Offutt, and Tanja Gant.