Frieze magazine has published a critic's guide to the 2026 Venice Biennale, highlighting key installations and pavilions to see in the Arsenale and Giardini. Notable entries include fierce pussy’s posters welcoming LGBTQ+ visitors to Venice and Florentina Holzinger’s water-themed Austrian Pavilion. The article is part of Frieze's coverage of the 2026 Venice Biennale, offering curated recommendations for attendees.
The University of Waterloo Art Gallery (UWAG) opened an exhibition titled "i look to the skies," a solo installation by Palestinian-Canadian interdisciplinary artist Jude Abu Zaineh. The work centers on Maqlouba, a traditional Palestinian dish, as a metaphor for diaspora, memory, and cultural preservation. The installation incorporates bioart, video, sculpture, textiles, and petri dishes cultivated from food remnants and foraged materials, creating a contemplative sanctuary that explores themes of exile, migration, and identity under colonial violence.
Cultured magazine's holiday feature spotlights how New York's creative community—including artist Julia Chiang, chef Jess Shadbolt, and designer Todd Snyder—celebrates the season with personal, non-traditional traditions. Chiang and her children craft ornaments from felt and Sculpey clay; Shadbolt serves cheese fondue on Christmas Eve and offers it at her restaurant King; Snyder favors tartan ties and cashmere over typical holiday attire. The article ties these rituals to Rockefeller Center as the city's holiday hub, with shopping recommendations from FAO Schwarz, Anthropologie, and Jupiter.
Coumba Samba, a 25-year-old artist based in New York, is featured in Cultured's 2025 Young Artists list. Her recent installation at Kunsthalle Basel uses 176 steel poles spaced four inches apart to evoke the U.S.-Mexico border wall, referencing policies from the George W. Bush and Trump administrations. Born in New York and partly raised in Senegal, Samba creates work about the permeability and absurdity of international borders. Her show “Red Gas” at Arcadia Missa incorporates found home radiators painted with colors from a photo of former Senegalese President Macky Sall shaking hands with Vladimir Putin at the 2023 Russia-Africa Summit, blending abstraction with global politics.
Cultured magazine has enlisted three top fragrance critics—April Long, Arabelle Sicardi, and Maxwell Williams—to discuss the state of fine fragrance in an era of oversaturation, where over 3,000 new perfumes launch annually and #perfumetok has amassed over 7 billion views. The conversation covers niche perfumery, dupe culture, AI noses, and the central question of when a perfume qualifies as a work of art versus a mere commodity. Each critic brings a distinct background: Long is a New York-based journalist with 15 Fragrance Foundation awards; Sicardi is a beauty philosopher and author of the upcoming book 'House of Beauty'; Williams is both a journalist and a working perfumer trained at the Institute for Art and Olfaction.
CULTURED magazine interviews David Salle at his East Hampton home, discussing his new "Windows" series of paintings debuting at Seoul's Storage by Hyundai Card space as part of the exhibition "David Salle: Under One Roof." The Neo-Expressionist artist explains how the series evolved from an idea for a digital game, placing characters from his "Tree of Life" paintings into apartment windows against backgrounds drawn from details of his own past works spanning 40 years. Salle also reflects on his long history with the Hamptons, first visiting in 1976 through his connection to CalArts dean Paul Brach, and the area's deep ties to Abstract Expressionist history.
CULTURED editor-in-chief Sarah Harrelson and Legacy Investing co-founder Daniel English hosted an intimate dinner at Jean's in New York, bringing together leaders from art, finance, and real estate. Guests included Frieze's Julie Kim, Wells Group founder George Wells, Art Intelligence global director Rick Cappellazzo, and others. The evening featured Oscar Wilde's quote about artists and money printed on bookmarks, and guests received copies of Michael Craig-Martin's On Being an Artist and Michael Findlay's The Value of Art, along with CULT100 totes filled with magazines and products.
Paola Siri Renard presents "Double Star" at nouveaux deuxdeux in Munich, featuring sculptures assembled from fragments of architectural ornaments, equestrian monuments, industrial display systems, and skeletal forms. Her work extracts elements from historical structures—spanning Gothic, Greco-Roman, and Art Nouveau styles—and reconfigures them into unstable, evocative constellations.
The Arts Council of the Valley is launching two concurrent solo exhibitions at the Smith House Galleries in Harrisonburg, Virginia. 'Young Warriors' by Sukenya Best features vibrant portrait paintings that explore themes of resilience and nature, while 'Water’s Journey' by Anna Freeman showcases ceramic and 2D works focused on the intertidal boundaries between land and water. The opening event on May 1 includes artist talks and a live portrait-drawing pop-up by artist Will Stroud.
Four Sámi artists, representing the Indigenous people of Northern Europe, are being highlighted in Finnish museums as Oulu, the European Capital of Culture, hosts exhibitions showcasing their work. The article introduces these artists and their practices, emphasizing their unique perspectives rooted in Sámi culture and traditions.
The article promotes taking mothers to art museums and galleries for Mother's Day weekend, highlighting several venues in the Lowell, Massachusetts area. It features the Fitchburg Art Museum's centennial free admission, with events including a curator talk, a members' mixer with artist Tara Sellios, and a drumming workshop. The New England Quilt Museum in Lowell offers a storytelling event with An Marshal and Luana Rubin tied to its exhibition "Soul Stories: Threads of Existence." The Whistler House Museum of Art is noted for being featured in Artscope Magazine, and the 21st annual Doors Open Lowell event provides access to historic buildings, alongside an opening reception at the Arts League of Lowell Arts Gallery.
The Art Museum at the University of Toronto has opened a new exhibition titled "Land. Sea. Sugar. Salt.: Terrestrial and Aquatic Contemplations of the Caribbean." The show features works by contemporary artists from the Caribbean and its diaspora, exploring the region's complex geography, layered histories, and cultural intersections through themes of land, water, and the legacies of colonial industries like sugar production.
The group exhibition "Containers Love Disorder" at Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen brings together seven artists and collectives active in Switzerland: Michèle Graf & Selina Grüter, Dominic Michel, Mathis Pfäffli, Matthias Sohr, Kelly Tissot, Paulo Wirz, and the collaborative project La Bibliothèque des Ready-Mades, initiated by Anaïs Wenger. The show explores strategies of arrangement, classification, and situatedness through a range of works.
Liliana Moro presents a new installation titled “| senza | soluzione di continuità” at Platea | Palazzo Galeano in Lodi. The work is described as a powerful yet subtle artistic gesture that renegotiates the function of the shop window as a public space, emphasizing responsibility and generosity.
Bel Ami gallery in Los Angeles has opened a new exhibition titled "Everything looks dark now," which takes its name and conceptual framework from Anton Chekhov's play *The Seagull*. The show features a diverse group of artists whose works collectively explore themes of melancholy, reflection, and existential uncertainty, mirroring the atmospheric and introspective mood of Chekhov's text.
Saatchi Yates is partnering with creative director and makeup artist Isamaya Ffrench to launch Studio Iron, a new design gallery whose inaugural exhibition opens April 30 and runs through June 7, 2026. The show presents a dense, post-industrial landscape dominated by steel and iron, featuring works by artists including Jannis Kounellis, Paul McCarthy, Jordan Wolfson, Anne Imhof, Marina Abramovic, Nico Vascellari, and others. Furniture, sculpture, installation, and painting collide in a space that resists categorization, hovering between function and non-function, utility and image.
Artist Otobong Nkanga has unveiled a major new installation titled 'I Dreamt of You in Colours' at the Kunsthalle Basel. The immersive, site-specific work explores themes of memory, landscape, and the extraction of natural resources through a complex tapestry of textiles, drawings, and sculptural elements.
The article highlights Houston's vibrant gallery scene, focusing on the accessibility and social appeal of free art openings. It profiles 87-year-old Patti Lou Richardson, a regular attendee who, along with her family's "art posse," frequents openings at venues like Foltz Fine Art, Monterroso Gallery, and others across neighborhoods such as Montrose, Midtown, and the Arts District. The piece also notes resources like the Mused Houston newsletter and Glasstire magazine that help locals discover weekly events.
Amelia Winata reviews three concurrent group exhibitions in Melbourne galleries: 'Black.2' at Void_Melbourne (15 Nov–20 Dec 2025), 'Family Values' at Futures (6 Dec–20 Dec 2025), and 'Studio Exhibition' at Haydens (6 Dec 2025). The article opens with a metaphor comparing the gallery-goer's experience to the rescue ship Carpathia navigating icebergs, reflecting the glut of end-of-year group shows in Melbourne's commercial spaces. Winata visits each space, describing the deco-chic building housing Void_, the formalist black-themed works by artists like Nick Devlin, Elvis Richardson, Sarah Goffman, and Suzie Idiens, and the broader context of Melbourne's gallery scene.
Spielzeug gallery, founded in 2025 in Bushwick by Evan Karas and Eleanor Hicks, opened a pop-up show titled MAR-A-LAGO FACE on May 13 at a former restaurant on Allen Street in New York. The exhibition critiques the plastic-surgery aesthetics associated with Republican figures like Matt Gaetz, Laura Loomer, Kimberly Guilfoyle, and Kristi Noem, featuring works by queer, trans, and Latin American artists. The opening blurred the line between exhibition and party, with a DJ, themed drinks, and a bouncer checking bags.
Artforum announced the departure of editor-in-chief Tina Rivers Ryan at the end of February. She will be replaced by executive editor Rachel Wetzler and editor Daniel Wenger, who will serve as co-editors, with the editor-in-chief title being retired.
The article reflects on the overwhelming experience of massive group exhibitions, using examples like Lawndale's "The Big Show" (77 artists in 2025), "Hecho en Dallas" (66 artists), and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago's 1999 MFA thesis show (around 150 artists). The author, a gallerist, recounts visiting two recent San Antonio shows—"A Postmodernist Says ¿Que?" at Centro de Artes and "Fan of a Fan 3" at C7 Space—which feature dozens of works hung salon-style, forcing viewers to make choices about where to focus attention.
Six Canadian artists have been awarded the 2026 Rewilding Arts Prize, established in 2023 by the David Suzuki Foundation and Rewilding Magazine. The winners include Nicole McDonald-Fournier, whose project EmballeToi! repurposes old winter coats as plant-growing pots, and the Montreal/Toronto duo Masumi Rodriguez and Elena Kirby, who run community papermaking workshops using invasive plant species. The prize awards $2,000 to each artist and plans to feature their work in a future exhibition, following the inaugural winners' show at the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa.
Margot Robbie made a return to the Met Gala 2026 after a three-year absence, wearing a custom gold Chanel couture gown designed by new creative director Matthieu Blazy. The dress featured nearly 1,100 pieces of embroidery, required 761 hours of craftsmanship, and aligned with the evening's theme 'Fashion Is Art.' The event, held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, also previewed the museum's spring 2026 exhibition 'Costume Art,' curated by Andrew Bolton.
LACMA's new David Geffen Galleries, designed by architect Peter Zumthor, feature custom-tinted concrete walls that break from traditional museum aesthetics. The walls are coated with a transparent, nano-scale mineral glaze developed by Zumthor and Swiss craftsman Marius Fontana, manufactured by German company Keim. The palette—dusky red, vibrant blue, and nuanced black—was inspired by ancient Indigenous American pigments prepared by artist Porfirio Gutiérrez for the museum's exhibition "We Live in Painting: The Nature of Color in Mesoamerican Art." Diana Magaloni, LACMA's Senior Deputy Director for Conservation, Curatorial and Exhibitions, led the conceptualization and application of the glazes, which are designed to enhance the building's interplay of light and shadow without obscuring its raw concrete surfaces.
Sidle House Gallery in Freeport, Maine, opens its 2026 season with a solo exhibition titled “Anne Hebebrand: A World That Is,” on view from May 1 through June 13. The show features cold-wax and oil paintings created over the past seven years, described by the artist as intuitive maps of memory. Related events include an opening reception, an artist talk, a cold wax and oil workshop, and a violin performance by Katherine Liccardo.
The African American Museum, Dallas has announced it will reopen on May 1 following extensive facility improvements, including HVAC upgrades, floor repairs, and technological enhancements. The reopening will be marked by the debut of a major exhibition titled "People Who Make the World Go ‘Round: The Legacy of Sepia Magazine," which showcases over 40,000 images from the museum’s archives featuring Black icons like Aretha Franklin and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
The Sanctus Artem club at Manhattan University recently hosted "The MET MU," a formal art exhibition held in Smith Auditorium. Designed to emulate the high-end atmosphere of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the event showcased a diverse array of student and alumni work, including 2D and 3D art, digital media, and fashion-related projects. The exhibition featured contributions from over a dozen artists and offered a professional gallery experience complete with formal attire and refreshments.
The Lexicon Art in New Delhi is set to host "Dvaita (द्वैत): Dualities," a group exhibition curated by architect and artist Ankon Mitra opening on April 18, 2026. Featuring the work of 11 contemporary artists, the show explores the philosophical concept of dualism through contrasting elements such as light and shadow, geometric and amorphous forms, and gold and silver. The exhibition design moves away from the traditional white cube format, instead utilizing the gallery space to create a physical "dance of dualities" that reflects India’s layered cultural realities.
The DePaul Art Museum (DPAM) is hosting a career-spanning retrospective for New York-based artist Barbara Nessim titled "My Compass Is the Line" before the institution permanently closes in June. The exhibition marks Nessim’s first solo show in Chicago, featuring works from the 1960s to the present that span painting, computer art, and her iconic 1982 Time magazine cover. The show highlights Nessim’s exploration of femininity and sexuality, drawing stylistic parallels to the Chicago Imagists while showcasing her technical versatility.