The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) has opened a new café operated by the upscale organic grocery chain Erewhon on its W.M. Keck plaza. The café, located in the plaza's northeast pavilion with a view of Alexander Calder's 1964 sculpture, opened for member previews on April 19th and will be accessible to the general public starting May 4th, running through the summer season.
The Centre Pompidou Hanwha is scheduled to open its doors in Seoul in June 2026, following a three-year construction period. Located within the iconic 63 Building in the Yeouido district, the 10,000-square-meter facility replaces a former aquarium with a four-story "box of light" designed to maximize natural illumination.
The Brooklyn Museum is opening a new edition of 'Iris van Herpen: Sculpting the Senses,' building on a 2023 retrospective at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. The exhibition features over 140 haute couture designs by Dutch fashion designer Iris van Herpen, known for merging high-tech materials like laser-cut Plexiglas with biological elements such as glowing algae and plastic bubbles. It includes recent collections like 'Sympoiesis' and works by artists including Kenny Nguyen, Wim Delvoye, and Tara Donovan, alongside a soundscape by Salvador Breed. The show runs from May 16 to December 6.
Artist Nicola Turner has unveiled a site-specific installation titled "Time’s Scythe" within an 18th-century chapel at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. The work features massive, creature-like forms made from hand-stitched recycled wool and horsehair that appear to crawl and surge through the building's architectural openings, spilling from balconies and wrapping around the exterior.
British artist Anouska Samms has publicly criticized the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York over a copyright dispute involving a dress displayed in the Met Gala opening exhibition. Samms claims the museum included a garment called the Nervina Hair Dress, which she says is a copy of her collaborative work Hair Dress, created with fashion designer Yoav Hadari during their residency at the Sarabande Foundation. The Met had expressed interest in acquiring the original dress for its Costume Art exhibition but shelved those plans in December. Samms says she was not credited or paid, while Hadari acknowledges her IP rights over the textile but asserts the design and construction are his own. The Met has declined to comment, directing the artists to resolve the matter themselves.
London-based artist Anouska Samms has accused the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute and curator Andrew Bolton of displaying a garment in the spring 2026 exhibition "Costume Art" that she claims is a counterfeit of her collaborative work. Samms says the piece, titled Corpus Nervina 0.0, was inspired by a 2023 hair dress she co-created with fashion designer Yoav Hadari for his label Psycheangelic. Despite a contract giving Samms sole ownership of the hair-based textile's intellectual property, the museum's wall label credits only Hadari and states Samms's textile was not used. Samms's lawyer, Jon Sharples, says the museum initially expressed interest in acquiring the original dress but later shifted to a remake after Hadari reported water damage, then stalled entirely before the exhibition opened.
The Museum of Image and Sound (MIS-RJ) on Rio de Janeiro's waterfront opens to the public on May 8 after 16 years of development. The 10,000-sq.-m building, designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, features eight floors with panoramic views of Copacabana Beach and a façade honoring Roberto Burle Marx. The project faced multiple delays, funding suspensions, and controversy over urban redevelopment, including backlash when a nightclub on the site was demolished in 2010. Work resumed in 2021, and the $62.5 million museum was completed with public and private funds from donors like Itaú, Vale, and Rede Globo.
The Guardian's weekly entertainment guide highlights two major art exhibitions opening in May 2025: 'Aleksandra Kasuba' at Tate St Ives (2 May to 4 October) and 'Zurbarán' at the National Gallery, London (2 May to 23 August). The Kasuba show is the first UK presentation of the Lithuanian American artist's proto-immersive 'spatial environments,' featuring early paintings, mosaics, and installations focused on utopian social harmony. The Zurbarán exhibition presents a blockbuster survey of the 17th-century Spanish Baroque master, known for his intense religious subjects and dramatic chiaroscuro.
The Bienal de São Paulo has appointed Amanda Carneiro and Raphael Fonseca as chief curators for its 37th edition, opening in fall 2027. Both are Brazilian curators: Carneiro is a curator at MASP and previously assisted Adriano Pedrosa on the Venice Biennale's main exhibition; Fonseca, based in Lisbon, also curates the Taiwan Pavilion in Venice and works at Culturgest and the Denver Art Museum. The selection follows the success of Cameroonian curator Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung's 2023 edition.
The V&A East Museum is set to open in Stratford, London, marking a significant milestone for the East Bank cultural quarter. This £135m project joins the V&A East Storehouse and other major institutions in a transformed area of East London, aiming to attract younger and more diverse audiences through accessible art and design collections.
The Victoria and Albert Museum is facing intense pressure to become an accredited living wage employer just as it prepares to open its high-profile V&A East site in Stratford. A petition coordinated by Organise and Citizens UK has garnered over 21,000 signatures, calling on Director Tristram Hunt to ensure all staff and contractors receive the London living wage of £14.80 per hour. While the museum meets legal minimum wage requirements, campaigners argue that as a publicly funded institution, it must provide a wage that reflects the actual cost of living in the capital.
The National Gallery of Australia has finally opened 'Ngura Puḻka – Epic Country,' a landmark exhibition of 30 large-scale paintings by Indigenous artists from the Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands. The show’s debut comes after a three-year delay caused by explosive allegations in the media suggesting that white studio assistants had improperly intervened in the creation of the artworks. These claims sparked multiple independent investigations, a $4.4 million defamation lawsuit, and a previous last-minute cancellation of the exhibition in 2023.
The Centre Pompidou Hanwha is scheduled to open in Seoul on June 4, coinciding with the 140th anniversary of diplomatic relations between France and South Korea. Housed in the iconic Tower 63 and designed by architect Jean-Michel Wilmotte, the new institution is a partnership with the Hanwha Foundation of Culture. The agreement includes a four-year brand licensing deal and a schedule of eight monographic exhibitions drawn from the Pompidou’s permanent collection.
Michael Govan, director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), has broken his silence regarding the museum’s controversial new David Geffen Galleries in an interview with Vanity Fair. The $720 million structure, designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Peter Zumthor, is scheduled to open next month following years of heated debate over its unconventional design, the demolition of previous museum buildings, and escalating costs. Govan defended the project’s horizontal, single-floor layout as a necessary evolution for the 21st-century museum, moving away from traditional geographic and chronological hierarchies.
The Whitney Museum of American Art has announced that Leo Castañeda’s video game, Camoflux Recall Grotto, will be featured in the 2026 Whitney Biennial. Ahead of the exhibition's opening, the work is already accessible to the public online, allowing users to engage with a hand-painted digital environment inspired by the Amazon and the Everglades. The game emphasizes "mutualism" and environmental care, tasking players with cultivating "cyberflora" through a meditative, non-violent gameplay loop.
Jean Widmer, the influential French-Swiss graphic designer who created the iconic visual identity for the Centre Pompidou, has died at age 96. Widmer is best known for distilling the complex, high-tech architecture of Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers into a minimalist logo of black lines and a zig-zagging diagonal, a design that has remained unchanged since the museum's opening in 1977. Beyond the Pompidou, his career spanned fashion art direction at Le Jardin des Modes and the creation of France's standardized highway signage system.
The Philadelphia Art Commission has approved a plan to relocate a statue of real-life boxer Joe Frazier to the base of the Philadelphia Museum of Art's steps. This move is intended to replace the iconic statue of fictional boxer Rocky Balboa, which is being moved to the top of the same steps.
Manuel Rabaté, the inaugural director of Louvre Abu Dhabi, has been appointed as the first chief executive and director of the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA) in New Delhi. He will lead the institution as it prepares to move from its current location in a shopping mall to a massive new purpose-built complex designed by David Adjaye Associates, which is slated to open within three years.
The Philadelphia Art Commission has voted to relocate the popular bronze statue of Rocky Balboa from its current position at the bottom of the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art to the top of those steps. The move, budgeted between $150,000 and $250,000, includes the creation of a new 14-foot-tall pedestal. The statue, a fictional boxer played by Sylvester Stallone, has long been a tourist attraction and local icon, though a second casting already exists at the top. The project will be overseen by Creative Philadelphia.
Björk, the Icelandic pop icon and multidisciplinary artist, is opening an exhibition of immersive works titled "Echolalia" at the National Gallery of Iceland, coinciding with the 2026 Reykjavik Arts Festival. The show features installations tied to her forthcoming album and her 2022 album Fossora, including "Ancestress" and "Sorrowful Soil," the latter a tribute to her late mother. Simultaneously, the museum will host "Metamorphlings," the first museum retrospective for James Merry, the embroiderer behind many of Björk's masks, presenting over 80 works from the past decade.
The Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA) has announced a new art fair, the ADAA Fair, set to take place at the Park Avenue Armory from November 12–16, 2026. This follows the cancellation of the 2025 edition of its long-running Art Show, prompted by the end of a partnership with the charity Henry Street Settlement, which had hosted the fair's VIP opening as a fundraiser. The ADAA plans to refocus on supporting visual arts and museums, with the ADAA Foundation continuing to provide grants to U.S. institutions.
David Adjaye has publicly spoken out against the sexual misconduct allegations made against him in 2023, calling a Financial Times article that detailed the claims “deeply unfair” and claiming he was caught in a “#MeToo slam.” In an interview with architecture critic Tim Abrahams for the podcast Superhumanism, reported by Dezeen, Adjaye said the FT story destabilized confidence in him and that there was no interest in hearing his side. He did not explain why he believed the reporting was unfair, despite having declined to comment to multiple outlets at the time. The allegations, which included sexual harassment and assault claims from three women, led several institutions to cut ties with Adjaye, most notably the Studio Museum in Harlem, which had just opened a new building designed by his firm.
Hundreds of staff at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) voted to form a union, LACMA United, in association with AFSCME Cultural Workers United District Council 36, calling for higher wages, better benefits, and greater transparency. LACMA leadership declined to voluntarily recognize the union, opting instead for a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) election, which is currently paused due to the federal government shutdown, effectively delaying the unionization effort. The union has filed with the California Public Employment Relations Board (PERB), asserting its status as public sector employees.
Employees at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) have formed a union called LACMA United in association with AFSCME Cultural Workers United District Council 36. In a letter dated October 29 addressed to museum leadership, a supermajority of eligible staff across departments requested voluntary recognition by November 5, citing wages that have not kept up with the rising cost of living and the need for fairer compensation, expanded benefits, and greater transparency. The effort comes ahead of the opening of LACMA's new Peter Zumthor–designed David Geffen Galleries, scheduled for next April.
Taylor Swift fans have flocked to the Wiesbaden State Museum in Germany to see Friedrich Heyser's painting 'Ophelia' (ca. 1900), which the singer referenced in the opening scene of her music video for the song 'The Fate of Ophelia' from her album 'The Life of a Showgirl'. The museum saw hundreds of additional visitors last weekend, with director Andreas Henning expressing surprise and delight at the attention.
Upsilon Gallery, founded by German-Argentine dealer Marcelo Zimmler, will open its first continental European location in Milan on November 18. The 200-square-meter space is situated near Via Monte Napoleone in the Quadrilatero fashion district, joining a wave of international galleries—including Thaddaeus Ropac, Cardi Gallery, and Robilant + Voena—that are betting on Milan's potential to become a global art capital. The inaugural exhibition features four canvases from Osvaldo Mariscotti's Valley series, with a bilingual catalogue edited by critics David Ebony and Alex Grimley, and coincides with twin shows in Upsilon's London and New York outposts.
Avinadav Begin, grandson of former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, is currently exhibiting his latest abstract metal and steel works at Sheetrit & Wolf Contemporary Art Gallery in Tel Aviv. The pieces, which he describes as “openings, apertures,” are neither paintings nor sculptures but heavy hybrid forms weighing up to 220 pounds, resembling rubble and broken window frames. In interviews, Begin has emphasized his identity as an artist rather than a politician, distancing himself from the current Likud party leadership under Benjamin Netanyahu, while acknowledging the influence of the ongoing war and hostage crisis on his work.
The UCCA Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing allegedly withheld staff wages for six months from January to June, according to the South China Morning Post. The institution, founded by the late Belgian collectors Guy and Myriam Ullens in 2007, has faced financial challenges including lower ticket sales, higher international freight costs, stricter rental demands from its landlord in Beijing's 798 Art District, and difficulty collecting payments from international partners. Its Shanghai branch, UCCA Edge, has seen no activity since June after an exhibition co-presented with the Saudi Ministry of Culture. Director Philip Tinari acknowledged a difficult year for museums in China, citing a slower consumer economy, and said the UCCA is working on long-term funding solutions.
Artist Li Hei Di documents her first solo show with Pace Gallery, titled "Tongues of Flare," in Hong Kong through a disposable camera photo diary for Artnet News's "Wet Paint in the Wild" column. The 28-year-old London-based artist shares behind-the-scenes moments from her opening at Pace HK, including dinner with friends, visits to Tai Kwun Museum and M+, and an after party at an ice-cream shop where a custom flavor named Plum_Black_Field was created. The show is set to travel to the Pond Society during Shanghai Art Week in the fall.
New York's American Museum of Natural History is launching a new film at the Hayden Planetarium titled "Encounters in the Milky Way," narrated by actor Pedro Pascal. Opening June 9, the 30-minute show uses data from the European Space Agency's Gaia observatory and contributions from over 20 academic institutions to map the sun's journey through the Milky Way over billions of years. The project involved astronomers, artists, and science visualization experts, with a score by composer Robert Miller and direction by museum trustee Shawn Levy.