UAE art guide: 12 museum and gallery exhibitions to see, including Gallery Isabelle's 20th anniversary show

The UAE art scene is currently hosting a diverse array of exhibitions across Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Sharjah, despite regional disruptions. Key highlights include a major Picasso retrospective at Louvre Abu Dhabi, a 10th-century anniversary celebration at 421 Arts Campus titled 'Rays, Ripples, Residue,' and the inaugural photography exhibition at Sharjah Art Foundation’s new Al Manakh venue. These shows range from historical surveys of the human form to contemporary explorations of UAE’s urban development and climate change.

Weekly News Roundup: May 5, 2026

The article reports three major developments in the global art world. Saudi Arabia's Diriyah Company has awarded a $490 million contract for a new flagship space of the Saudi Arabia Museum of Contemporary Art (SAMoCA) in Diriyah, designed by Godwin Austen Johnson. The Sharjah Art Foundation has announced details for Sharjah Biennial 17 (SB17), titled "What remains, sits restive," curated by Angela Harutyunyan and Paula Nascimento, featuring 109 artists and set to open in 2027. Additionally, DATALAND, a new AI art museum founded by Refik Anadol and Efsun Erkılıç, will open on June 20 in Los Angeles, showcasing digital and immersive artworks.

editors picks december 17

Artnet News's weekly roundup highlights six free holiday-themed art installations and events across New York City through early January 2019. Featured works include Bovey Lee's paper snowflake installation 'Flower Knot Snowflake' at 10 Hudson Yards, Studio Cadena's yellow vinyl 'Happy' installation at Flatiron Plaza, David Hoey's window displays at Bergdorf Goodman, a For Freedoms Christmas tree at the New York EDITION hotel, LAB at Rockwell Group's 'Luminaries' light show at Brookfield Place, and a Charles Dickens manuscript exhibition at the Morgan Library & Museum.

Ai Weiwei on Censorship

The art world mourns the passing of Celeste Dupuy-Spencer, a prominent artist and activist known for her politically charged paintings and human rights advocacy, who died at the age of 46. Simultaneously, dissident artist Ai Weiwei has released a new book titled 'On Censorship,' which reflects on his career-long struggle against state persecution and the nuances of freedom of expression. Other notable developments include Gagosian's announcement of a new Upper Manhattan space dedicated to Marcel Duchamp and the detention of artist Criselda Vasquez’s father by ICE.

Rubens Under Construction at the Louvre

Rubens en chantier au Louvre

The Louvre Museum has launched a major four-year restoration project for the monumental 24-canvas 'Cycle of Marie de Médicis' by Peter Paul Rubens. The initiative, funded by the Société des Amis du Louvre with a budget of 4 million euros, aims to restore the works' chromatic power and stabilize their fragile paint layers. The Medici Gallery will close to the public in May, though some stages of the process will be viewable.

Previews: 61st Venice Biennale: In Minor Keys

The 61st Venice Biennale, titled "In Minor Keys" and curated by the late Koyo Kouoh, opens amid global turmoil and internal controversy. Kouoh, who passed away in May 2025, conceived the exhibition around the metaphor of a "creole garden," emphasizing deep affinities between 111 artists from diverse locations such as Dakar, Beirut, and Salvador. The Biennale is overshadowed by recent geopolitical events, including US-Israeli airstrikes on Iran, and faces protests: over 70 participating artists signed an open letter opposing the participation of Israel, Russia, and the US, while the Australian pavilion saw the reinstatement of Khaled Sabsabi after being dropped, and South Africa withdrew its official pavilion over Gabrielle Goliath's femicide project, which she will still present independently.

louvre heist surveillance footage

Newly released surveillance footage shows masked thieves breaking into the Louvre's Apollo gallery in October 2025, using disc cutters to slice open display cases and steal France's crown jewels. The heist occurred under staff observation, with no security guards present, and police have since identified five suspects via DNA evidence, arresting four, though the jewels remain missing. The footage was broadcast on French TV on January 18, 2026, as the museum faces its third staff strike in over a month.

louvre installs bars on heist window

The Louvre Museum has installed security bars on the French window of the Apollo Gallery, the entry point used by thieves in a $102 million jewel heist on October 19. The museum announced the measure on X, showing workers installing the bars before dawn. Additional security upgrades include a mobile police base, distancing devices on the Quai François Mitterrand, and plans for 100 new perimeter cameras by 2026. These steps are part of a $92 million security master plan. Ticket prices for non-E.U. visitors will rise 45% to $37 starting January 14, 2026, to help fund the improvements. The museum also revealed that a 2018 audit sponsored by Van Cleef and Arpels had flagged the balcony's vulnerability, but then-director Jean-Luc Martinez did not act. Louvre president Laurence des Cars offered to resign after the security failures came to light but was asked to stay.

louvre director grilled in senate hearing

Louvre president Laurence des Cars faced a contentious Senate hearing on Wednesday, where lawmakers pressed her about ignored security warnings that preceded the October theft of $102 million in imperial jewels from the Apollo Gallery. Audits from 2017 and 2018 had flagged structural vulnerabilities, but Des Cars claimed she was not informed until after the theft. She defended the museum's response, citing new cameras, increased security training budgets, and an imminent senior security coordinator appointment. Conservative senators Jacques Grosperrin and Max Brisson demanded her resignation, with Brisson walking out when she declined to answer. Former president Jean-Luc Martinez also testified, saying he had not reinforced windows or balcony due to fire-safety concerns, a rationale security experts rejected.

London 20th/21st Century Frieze Week sales achieve a running total of £141.8m / $189.7m / €162.75m

Christie’s 20th/21st Century: London Evening Sale during Frieze Week 2025 achieved £106.9 million, up 30% year-on-year, with a 90% sell-through rate by value. The top lot was Peter Doig’s *Ski Jacket* (1994), sold for £14.27 million after intense bidding, part of the Ole Faarup Collection, which raised £27.3 million total for the Ole Faarup Art Foundation. Other notable sales included works by Lucian Freud, Paula Rego, Gerhard Richter, Pablo Picasso, and Suzanne Valadon, with more than half of all lots selling above high estimate.

art where artists hang out nyc

Cultured magazine surveyed 30 New York-based artists to find out where they hang out in 2026, as affordable and easy gathering places have become scarce. The responses range from iconic spots like the Rose Reading Room at the New York Public Library and the Metropolitan Museum of Art to more offbeat locales such as a karaoke bar on Bowery, a Cantonese noodle house in Chinatown, and a church hosting vogue sessions. Artists including Coco Klockner, Jamian Juliano-Villani, Tiffany Sia, Amanda Ba, Lucy Bull, and others share their personal favorites, highlighting a diverse mix of libraries, restaurants, bars, and community spaces.

lawyer danielle falls art collection young collectors

Danielle Falls, a 32-year-old lawyer and fine art insurance broker, is profiled as a young collector building a contemporary art collection from a non-traditional background. She serves on the Bronx Museum of the Arts board of trustees, chairs its acquisitions committee, and is a patron of Project for Empty Space. Falls discusses her early collecting mistakes, her frustration with exclusivity in the art world, and her commitment to supporting underrepresented artists, particularly women sculptors and those working with unconventional materials and family archives. She has founded the Falls Foundation, a nonprofit private lending collection focused on emerging voices across the Americas.

Going Out: Top 20+ arts & nightlife events, May 21-29

The Bay Area Reporter has published a curated list of over 20 arts and nightlife events taking place from May 21 to May 29. The article serves as a local guide, highlighting a range of cultural activities including visual art exhibitions, performances, and nightlife gatherings in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Sad Cowboy

What Pipeline gallery presents "Sad Cowboy," a group show organized for Miguel Bendaña at The Falstaff Project in El Paso, running from May 28 to July 4, 2026. The exhibition features three Detroit artists—Israel Aten, Cay Bahnmiller, and Dylan Spaysky—whose works explore American mythology, masculinity, and identity through collage, drawing, and sculpture. The title references a collage by Bahnmiller incorporating Amiri Baraka's poem "Sad Cowboy," critiquing the lone cowboy myth. Aten's colossal figures blend medieval iconography with video games, Bahnmiller's text-based works deconstruct language, and Spaysky's carbon paper drawings capture disposable media moments.

The art of chaos

The 61st Venice International Art Biennale has opened in Venice, running until November, amid unprecedented turmoil. The main exhibition, "In Minor Keys," was curated by Koyo Kouoh, who died of cancer shortly after presenting her vision featuring 111 artists including Carsten Höller, Alvaro Barrington, and Laurie Anderson. Her death has eliminated the Lifetime Achievement Award this year. Additionally, the Biennale faces a funding crisis as the EU threatens to withdraw its €2 million subsidy over Russia's participation with 38 artists following the invasion of Ukraine. Iran, Nigeria, and Israel are absent from their pavilions, while the US Pavilion, now organized by the American Arts Conservancy under inexperienced leadership, features self-taught artist Alma Allen.

An old hat gets a new show: ‘Matisse’s Femme au chapeau’ opens at SFMOMA

SFMOMA has opened "Matisse's Femme au chapeau: A Modern Scandal," a new exhibition centered on Henri Matisse's iconic 1905 painting "Femme au chapeau" (Woman with a Hat). The show recreates the atmosphere of the 1905 Salon d'Automne in Paris, where the painting first caused a scandal for its bold, fauvist colors. It reunites the work with three other Matisse paintings from that debut, alongside pieces by contemporaries like André Derain, Albert Marquet, and Jelka Rosen, and later artists inspired by the painting, such as Mickalene Thomas. The exhibition also includes a gallery dedicated to the Haas bequest, which brought the painting to SFMOMA in 1991.

MFA's Nude Exhibition Challenges Art History's Gender Norms

The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, has opened a new exhibition that challenges traditional gender norms in art history, featuring a dozen artists who disrupt the conventional nude. The show includes Xandra Ibarra's performance "Nude Laughing," where she paraded naked through the museum's European galleries, and works by Betty Tompkins, whose "Fuck Paintings" and "Women Words Painting" series confront misogyny and the male gaze. The exhibition juxtaposes these contemporary pieces with historical works like Jean-Léon Gérôme's "Moorish Bath" to highlight entrenched racial and gender hierarchies in art.

The Frist Art Museum opens new exhibitions this summer

The Frist Art Museum in Nashville is opening three new exhibitions this summer. 'International Surrealism from Tate: Fifty Years of Dreams' (May 22–Aug. 30) features surrealist works from the Tate collection, including pieces by Salvador Dalí, René Magritte, and Joan Miró, marking 100 years since the first surrealist exhibition in Paris. 'Anila Quayyum Agha: Interwoven' (May 22–Aug. 30) is a mid-career retrospective of the Pakistani American artist's immersive light installations and beaded drawings. 'An Indigenous Present' (June 26–Sept. 27) showcases works by fifteen Indigenous artists, curated by artist Jeffrey Gibson and curator Jenelle Porter.

Mario Schifano, the artist who anticipated Arte Povera and beyond. What the exhibition in Rome looks like

The Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome has opened a major retrospective of Mario Schifano, curated by Daniela Lancioni and titled simply "Mario Schifano," running until July 12. The exhibition reconstructs the career of the Italian artist (1934–1998), who worked across painting, film, and music, and highlights his role as a precursor to Arte Povera. A centerpiece is the reconstructed dining room Schifano created for the Rome home of Marella and Gianni Agnelli in 1968, featuring 14 canvases and a planned but unrealized sand-filled room with a pyramid, a detail revealed by film producer Ettore Rosboch in a conversation with the curator.

Art in Chicago: A Guide for Collectors, Curators and the Curious

This article introduces a comprehensive guide to Chicago's art world, published by a local outlet. The guide features multiple sections exploring the city's art history, key institutions, and lesser-known venues, including feature stories on the Hyde Park Art Center, the Arts Club of Chicago, the National Museum of Mexican Art, the South Side Community Art Center, the Renaissance Society, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. It also includes a massive 22-page "Art Geography" directory of museums, nonprofits, galleries, and alternative spaces, written by seasoned art critics. The editor, Brian Hieggelke, acknowledges the daunting task of covering a hometown art scene after forty years, but aims to provide both a resource for newcomers and fresh insights for longtime locals.

Matisse: The Pursuit of Harmony

Acquavella Galleries in New York presents "Matisse: The Pursuit of Harmony," an exhibition running from April 9 to May 22, 2026, featuring fifty works by Henri Matisse including paintings, sculptures, and works on paper. The show is organized across two floors, with early pieces on the ground floor north gallery, sculptures and early works on the second floor north, later works on the second floor south, and a concluding display of the four bronze castings of Matisse's "Back" series on the ground floor south. Key highlights include the painting *Male Model* (ca. 1900) paired with the bronze *The Serf* (1900–04), and the portrait *Mademoiselle Yvonne Landsberg* (1914), which demonstrate Matisse's transformative approach to traditional genres.

North America’s Longest-Running Exhibition of International Art Has Landed at the Carnegie Museum

The 59th Carnegie International, titled "If the word we," has opened at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, marking North America's longest-running exhibition of international art. Featuring 61 artists and collectives from countries including Brazil, Benin, China, Indonesia, Lebanon, Peru, Taiwan, and South Africa, the exhibition explores the theme of "we" as an evolving proposition. It includes nearly 40 newly commissioned projects—the largest number in the International's history—spanning painting, photography, sculpture, installation, video, and theater. Notable works include Jonathan González's performance "The Strikebreakers" and Georges Adéagbo's installation "Le Socialism Africain," which uses discarded objects to examine Western power and colonial legacies in Africa.

Art and Soul: Showcasing Three Inspiring Women Artists

The Oakland Museum of California (OMCA) will present a major exhibition of East Bay artist Mildred Howard titled "Mildred Howard: Poetics of Memory" from June 12 through October 18. The show spans over 50 years of Howard's career, featuring sculpture, public art, and immersive installations, including large-scale works made from found objects like skillets, shoes, and glass bottles. Key pieces include "Blackbird in a Red Sky (aka Fall of the Blood House)" and "Ten Little Children Standing in a Line (One Got Shot, and Then There Were Nine)." Howard, a 2025 Guggenheim Fellow, explores themes of memory, home, Black identity, and the African American experience, often using house-like structures to prompt dialogue about belonging and sanctuary.

The National Gallery of Art’s Dear America Needs a Postscript

The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. has opened "Dear America," an exhibition organized around the themes of "Land," "Community," and "Freedom" that attempts to survey the entire history of the United States through its collection. The show features works by artists including Mitch Epstein, Victoria Sambunaris, Sedrick E. Huckaby, and Nancy Andrews, with sections on the American landscape, industrialization, and diverse communities. However, the review notes that the exhibition feels overly literal, with American flags prominently featured and a sense of ticking off boxes rather than offering a challenging or intellectually rigorous presentation.

Koyo Kouoh’s Legacy Shapes the 2026 Venice Biennale

Koyo Kouoh, the first African woman to curate the Venice Biennale, was appointed curator of the 2026 edition and began shaping the main exhibition titled 'In Minor Keys' in October 2024. She died of cancer in May 2025 at age 57, but the Biennale organizers have committed to realizing her vision. The exhibition features 111 artists, collectives, and organizations from cities including Nairobi, New Orleans, Kingston, New Delhi, Beirut, and Bangkok, many of them her longtime collaborators. Kouoh was also the founder of Raw Material Company in Dakar and executive director and chief curator of the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (MOCAA) in Cape Town.

May Arts Calendar 2026

The May Arts Calendar 2026 highlights a wide range of visual art exhibitions and events in the Seattle area, including group and solo shows at galleries such as Gallery B612, Visual Arts Gallery No. 85, JG Art Gallery, Piano Nobile, ArtXContemporary Gallery, and Common Objects. Notable exhibitions include "Layered Being: A Celebration of AAPINH Heritage" at Gallery B612, "Moving As One" by Tetsuo Aoki, "Material Meditations" featuring woodworker Andy McConell, blacksmith Maria Cristalli, and mixed media artist Jill Kyong, and "TADAIMA: 'I'm Home'" at MOHAI, which explores Japanese American history through dolls. The calendar also features a solo show by Yaminee Patel and a group show titled "Moga" at Fresh Mochi, celebrating Japanese and Japanese American artists.

New exhibits coming to the Norton Museum

The Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach is hosting two new exhibitions through October, both part of its Recognition of Art by Women exhibition series. One is a solo show featuring 40 paintings by Danielle McKinney, an emerging artist who is also opening a show at Marianne Boesky Gallery in New York. The other exhibition is not named but continues the museum's focus on women artists. Chief Curator Rachel Gustafson discussed the shows on a local news segment, also promoting the museum's Art After Dark program on Friday nights with extended hours and reduced admission.

Why our country needs the artist Lubaina Himid right now: "I had to figure out how to represent Britain"

Lubaina Himid has been selected to represent Great Britain at the Venice Biennale, taking over the British Pavilion. The announcement came just before Christmas 2024, shortly before the opening of her first solo exhibition in China at the UCCA Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing, which features major works including 'Naming the Money' (2004). Himid, who was born in Zanzibar and raised in London, is a Turner Prize-winning artist known for centering Black narratives and marginalized histories through theatrical, life-size cut-out figures.

No Hay Banda: Vandria Borari, Petra Feriancová, Karoliina Hellberg, and Sofia Silva, 29th May – 26th June 2026, CFA, Milan, Italy. Private View: 28th May 2026.

CFA in Milan presents "No Hay Banda," a group exhibition running from 29 May to 26 June 2026, featuring four international artists: Vandria Borari (Brazil/Germany), Petra Feriancová (Slovakia), Karoliina Hellberg (Finland), and Sofia Silva. The show brings together ceramicist and Indigenous activist Borari, whose work includes the Yupirungáwa series and the Fluid Forest project; Feriancová, a Slovak artist who represented the Czech and Slovak Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale; and Hellberg, a Finnish artist who recently won the Visual Artist Award from the Marcus Collins Memorial Fund. The private view is scheduled for 28 May 2026.

Scaled back Art Dubai 2026 reveals wide impact of Iran war

Art Dubai 2026 has announced a significantly scaled-back edition for its 20th anniversary, now running from May 15 to 17 at Madinat Jumeirah with a VIP day on May 14. The fair will feature just 50 galleries—a 60% drop from pre-war expectations—and will be free for all visitors for the first time. Two-thirds of participants are Middle East-based, with all Indian galleries canceling due to safety concerns, shipping risks, and lack of insurance. A new “risk-sharing” model allows galleries to pay a percentage of sales capped at their booth fee, while half of withdrawn galleries’ fees are refunded and half credited toward 2027.