Le Journal des Arts' issue n°677 (May 15, 2026) leads with the opening of the Venice Biennale amid a tense climate. Other top stories include the final adoption of a French law on the restitution of cultural property looted during colonization, the V&A East museum's strategy to attract younger audiences, a report on how Monet's legacy in Giverny does not benefit everyone locally, and an analysis of the structuring market for works by the Nabis artists.
The Musée d'Orsay in Paris has opened a new dedicated gallery, Room 10b, to display works from its MNR (Musées nationaux Récupération) collection—artworks looted or acquired under dubious circumstances during the Nazi era. The room features detailed labels and educational texts, with some works shown verso to reveal provenance labels. The initiative is funded by the American Friends of the Musée d'Orsay and the Musée de l'Orangerie with €1 million over four years, and includes a fake Monet, a Degas subject to a restitution claim, a Rodin sculpture, and a debated Cézanne. The museum's provenance research team, led by Inès Rotermund-Reynard, collaborates with the French Ministry of Culture's M2RS mission.
The 61st Venice Biennale opened amid intense controversy after its president, Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, announced the return of the Russian pavilion, which had been absent since the start of the Ukraine war. The European Commission suspended its €2 million subsidy for the 2028 edition, and the entire Biennale jury resigned on April 30. Buttafuoco later declared the Russian pavilion would remain closed, but protests erupted during the pre-opening days (May 6–8), drawing 28,000 professionals. Pussy Riot members, Femen activists, and the Free Nations League staged demonstrations, while the Israeli pavilion remained open despite a letter signed by nearly 200 artists calling for its exclusion.
Michel-Ange et Rodin en « couple artistique »
The Louvre Museum in Paris presents a major exhibition pairing Michelangelo and Auguste Rodin as an "artistic couple," curated by Chloé Ariot of the Musée Rodin and Marc Bormand of the Louvre. The show features over 200 works, including three marble sculptures by Michelangelo—the Slaves and a Christ on the Cross—alongside drawings, plaster casts, and works by Rodin such as the monumental Balzac. It also includes pieces by contemporaries and later artists like Joseph Beuys, Jana Sterbak, Giuseppe Penone, and Bruce Nauman to trace the sculptors' shared legacy.
This issue of Le Journal des Arts (n°676, May 2, 2026) covers a range of contemporary art news in France and internationally. Headlines include a critical look at the Whitney Biennial's perceived neutrality, the increasing complexity of art taxation in 2025, an interview with Bourges mayor Yann Galut about scaling down the Bourges 2028 project, the unveiling of a contemporary gallery at Angers Cathedral, the abandonment of the Frigos artists' site in Paris, and a profile of auctioneer Hubert L'Huillier.
La Biennale de Venise fait le plein
The Venice Biennale has reached full capacity, with all exhibition spaces and pavilions fully booked for the upcoming edition. The article reports on the overwhelming demand from participating countries and artists, highlighting the logistical challenges and the record number of national pavilions confirmed for the event.
Le Journal des Arts reports on a new exhibition titled "La nature morte" (Still Life), presented by a gallery as a continuation of its previous monographic shows on Boetti and Burri and the thematic exhibition "On Fire." The exhibition focuses on the classical genre of still life, positioning it as a field of experimentation that accompanies the renewal of painting in the 20th century. It brings together three artists—Picasso, Morandi, and Parmiggiani—who, though not from the same school or direct lineage, each explore the subject through distinct artistic languages: Picasso asserts the presence of the object, Morandi delves into its meditative and silent dimension, and Parmiggiani pushes the reflection toward a form of disappearance. The show is curated by Cécile Debray, president of the Musée national Picasso-Paris, and involves collaborations with institutions such as the Museo Morandi.
Cécile Debray, president of the Musée national Picasso-Paris, discusses a rare collaboration with galleries to present a three-artist exhibition in Venice during the Biennale. The show brings together Pablo Picasso, Giorgio Morandi, and Claudio Parmiggiani around the theme of the object and still life, highlighting unexpected philosophical and poetic connections. Debray explains how the selection of 14 Picasso works balances iconic pieces with lesser-known ones, including sculptures, to create a dialogue with Morandi's rigorous, serial approach and Parmiggiani's metaphysical art.
The article explores the enduring relevance of still life and vanitas in contemporary art, tracing their evolution from the biblical proclamation "Vanity of vanities; all is vanity" through modern masters like Paul Cézanne, Pablo Picasso, and Giorgio Morandi to contemporary practitioners such as Claudio Parmiggiani. It highlights how artists continue to use everyday objects—compotes, skulls, pitchers, apples—as vehicles for formal experimentation and philosophical reflection, with still life serving as a minimalist device that allows infinite plastic research.
Gagosian Gallery in London has reconstructed Christo's unrealized 1968 work "Air Package on a Ceiling" for the first time. The installation, measuring 16 by 10 meters, was originally conceived for the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia but never built due to technical constraints. The maquette and drawings were rediscovered in 2018 by studio manager Lorenza Giovanelli, hidden under a base in Christo's New York studio, and the full-scale work was realized in collaboration with the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation.
The Louvre Museum in Paris is undertaking an ambitious restoration of Peter Paul Rubens's monumental cycle of 24 paintings depicting the life of Marie de Médicis. The project, which will take four years and cost €4 million funded by the Société des Amis du Louvre, begins this autumn with the paintings being restored in situ in the Médicis Gallery. The gallery will close in May to prepare the space as a restoration workshop, where two teams of 10–15 restorers will work simultaneously on cleaning, relining, and filling gaps. The last major restoration of the cycle dates to the 1950s, and recent diagnostics revealed yellowed varnish, discordant repaints, and flaking paint layers that risk irreversible loss.
L’ouverture du Berlin Modern repoussée à 2030
The opening of the Berlin Modern museum has been delayed to 2030 due to construction setbacks and cost overruns. According to German media outlet Monopol, the project has been plagued by humidity issues, including mold, algae, and bacteria on new surfaces, caused by winter dampness, concrete sensitivity, and faulty ventilation. Originally launched in 2019 with a planned opening in mid-2020, the museum's completion has been repeatedly pushed back, with costs soaring from an initial €200 million to over €500 million, making it the most expensive museum ever built in Germany. The building, designed by Swiss firm Herzog & de Meuron, is located at the Kulturforum and will house 20th-century art collections from the Nationalgalerie, the Marx Collection, the Pietzsch Collection, and holdings from the Kupferstichkabinett and the Kunstbibliothek.
French artist JR has begun installing a monumental trompe-l’oeil work titled *La Caverne du Pont Neuf* (2026) on Paris’s Pont Neuf, transforming the city’s oldest bridge into an immersive cave. The project reimagines the bridge as a limestone quarry cave, referencing the stone from which the bridge and many Parisian buildings were constructed. The work pays homage to Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s iconic *The Pont Neuf Wrapped* (1985) and will be visible both day and night throughout the summer.
The National Portrait Gallery in London will open a landmark exhibition this June celebrating Marilyn Monroe's 100th birthday. The show features portraits by artists including Andy Warhol, Pauline Boty, and Marlene Dumas, alongside works by over twenty major 20th-century photographers such as Cecil Beaton, Richard Avedon, and Eve Arnold. Monroe's personal effects, including books, scripts, and clothing, will also be displayed.
Artist Tschabalala Self will co-chair the 2026 Met Gala, marking her first attendance at the event, which launches the Costume Institute's new exhibition “Costume Art.” She collaborated with designer Brandon Blackwood, a friend, to create her gown and style her look for the evening.
An unrealized work by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, recently discovered in Christo's atelier, will be presented for the first time at Gagosian in London. Titled *Air Package on a Ceiling*, the installation features a 52-foot-long, 33-foot-wide inflated form wrapped in rope, softly illuminated from within to resemble half a cloud protruding from the ceiling. The piece is realized from the original 1968 model and preparatory drawings and collages.
Lithuanian interdisciplinary artist Lina Lapelytė will present a large-scale sonic installation and performance titled "We Make Years Out of Hours (2026)" at Berlin's Hamburger Bahnhof — Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart, opening May 1st during Berlin Gallery Weekend 2026. The work is the second iteration of the Chanel Commission, with performances scheduled on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays through January 10, 2027, and a public preview on April 30th.
Julius von Bismarck's first Australian solo exhibition, "This is not the storm," opens at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA) in Melbourne on Friday, 17 April. The Berlin-based artist blends art, science, and environmental themes to challenge conventional perceptions of nature as a social construct.
The article reviews Raque Ford's exhibition "The only one willing to do the hard part" at Fridericianum in Kassel. Ford, born in 1986 in Columbia, Maryland, and based in New York, presents works that blend artistically formed shapes with bold color contrasts and slogan-like text. Using plastic and industrial materials, she creates an aesthetic that oscillates between abstraction and simple visual codes, with layered compositions that challenge conventional boundaries.
Eric N. Mack has created a site-responsive installation titled "A Whole New Thing" for the lobby commission at the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus. The work continues his exploration of abstraction, foregrounding fabric as an expressive, atmospheric, structural, and social medium that reveals a painterly sensibility.
Jack Goldstein (1945–2003), a Canadian-born artist and CalArts graduate, is the subject of the exhibition "Pictures, Sounds and Movies" at Kunst Museum Winterthur. The show highlights his role in the Pictures Generation, a group that in the 1970s rejected traditional art forms by appropriating images from advertising, television, and popular culture, while Goldstein also explored the autonomy of Minimal Art objects.
Chiara Camoni presents "Con te con tutto" (With You, With Everything), the Italian Pavilion at the 61st Venice Biennale. In a conversation with curator Cecilia Canziani and Alessandro Rabottini, Camoni discusses how the project emerged organically from years of friendship, collaboration, and shared thinking, rather than being a staged event.
The Barbican Art Gallery in London is presenting a major retrospective of Colombian artist Beatriz González, marking her first solo show in the UK and her largest-ever exhibition in Europe. The exhibition spans six decades of her work, from the 1960s to the present, showcasing her roles as an artist, curator, art historian, and educator.
Koo Jeong A presents "KANGSE X" at Hauser & Wirth in Zurich, an exhibition that extends from her previous show "ODORAMA CITIES" at the Korean Pavilion of the 60th Venice Biennale. The title derives from the Korean term "KANGSE," meaning spatial strength, and the show encompasses her multifaceted practice across drawing, painting, sculpture, installation, film, and animation, including her earlier work "MYSTERIOUSSS" (2017).
Astrup Fearnley Museet in Oslo presents "Grammars of Light," a major exhibition featuring immersive works by Cerith Wyn Evans, Ann Lislegaard, and P. Staff. The show includes architecturally scaled video projections and luminous sculptures made from repurposed consumer, medical, and industrial lighting, transforming the museum's galleries into sensory environments that challenge perception.
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.
Fatinha Ramos, a Portuguese artist and illustrator based in Antwerp, describes her work as 'visual activism,' creating richly layered illustrations that give voice to minorities and address social issues. She collaborates with major clients including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Tate, Scientific American, the Anne Frank Museum, and MoMA, which commissioned her to illustrate an essay about being compared to Frida Kahlo. Born with osteogenesis imperfecta (brittle bone disease), Ramos spent much of her childhood in hospitals, where drawing became an escape. After 12 years as an art director in advertising and publishing, she now focuses on her own practice, which challenges stereotypes around disability, climate crisis, sexism, and racism. She is currently working on a graphic novel and a series of anatomical glass sculptures based on brittle bone disease.
American artist Beeple (Mike Winkelmann) has installed an interactive piece titled "Regular Animals" at Berlin's Neue Nationalgalerie, featuring robot dogs with hyper-realistic silicone heads modeled after Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Andy Warhol, Pablo Picasso, and Beeple himself. The dogs roam the gallery and "poo" printed AI-transformed images of their surroundings, with each dog's output reflecting the worldview of its human figure—for example, the Picasso dog produces Cubist-style images. The work, first shown at Art Basel Miami Beach 2025, includes QR codes on prints that grant access to free NFTs.
Ho Tzu Nyen has been named the 2026 Grand Prize laureate of the Fukuoka Prize, becoming the first Singaporean artist to receive the JPY five million (USD 31,500) award. The prize, announced on May 22 by the Fukuoka Prize Committee, honors individuals who have made significant contributions to Asian studies and arts and culture. Ho, born in 1976 in Singapore, creates films, performances, and video installations that explore Southeast Asian history and the legacy of Japanese imperialism, often blending folklore with reality. He has represented Singapore at the 54th Venice Biennale and participated in major exhibitions including the Shanghai Biennale, Aichi Triennale, and Sharjah Biennial. He co-curated the Asian Art Biennial in Taiwan and is currently artistic director of the 16th Gwangju Biennale.
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.