The Metropolitan Museum of Art is preparing a major spring retrospective dedicated to Raphael, the Italian Renaissance master who died in 1520 before his 40th birthday. This will be his first such exhibition in the United States, aiming to reassess an artist traditionally viewed as a facile, efficient prodigy rather than a deep intellectual.
The article provides a comprehensive weekly entertainment guide, highlighting upcoming cultural events across cinema, music, art, and stage. Key art recommendations include a major Frank Bowling exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum, a Hurvin Anderson survey at Tate Britain, and a drawing-focused exhibition from Bruegel to Rembrandt at Compton Verney.
Powerhouse Arts, a nonprofit creative production facility in Brooklyn’s Gowanus neighborhood, has appointed Liz Munsell as its new Vice President of Curatorial and Arts Programs. Munsell, who previously held senior curatorial roles at the Jewish Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, succeeds Diya Vij following Vij's appointment as New York City’s cultural affairs commissioner. Alongside Munsell, the organization hired Constanza Valenzuela, formerly of High Line Art, as associate curator to support the expansion of its exhibition and residency programs.
Massimiliano Gioni and Beatrice Trussardi have launched the Beatrice Trussardi Foundation, a nomadic art initiative that debuted with an installation by Polish artist Paweł Althamer in a remote 17th-century hut in Switzerland's Engadin Valley. The project, featuring a sculpture of St. Francis and a series of happenings, marks a new chapter for the duo who previously spent two decades staging ephemeral public art projects in Milan. The foundation aims to operate without a permanent home, bringing site-specific contemporary art to unexpected global locations.
This week's obituary column honors the recent passing of twelve significant figures from the global art and culture world. The list includes French experimental composer Éliane Radigue, Japanese graphic designer Kazumasa Nagai, British architect Axel Burrough, Indigenous Australian muralist Elizabeth Close, and Upper East Side gallerist Gertrude Stein, among other artists, patrons, and illustrators.
moma ps1 rooftop sprouts salad party
Artist Julia Sherman and urban farmer Camilla Hammer have transformed the rooftop of MoMA PS1 into a functional salad garden and social space. The initiative recently celebrated its launch with a rooftop party featuring herb-infused cocktails and fresh produce grown on-site. The garden serves as a platform for Sherman’s "Artist-Made" salad series, where notable figures from the art world collaborate on culinary creations.
Kim Gordon, the co-founder of Sonic Youth, is currently the subject of two major exhibitions at Amant in Brooklyn. The first, a solo survey titled "Count Your Chickens," showcases two decades of her multidisciplinary practice including painting, ceramics, and film, while the second, "Folded Group," is a group show she co-curated with Bill Nace featuring artists who bridge the gap between music and visual art.
Nifty Gateway, a once-prominent curated NFT marketplace, has announced its closure after failing to achieve its ambitious goal of converting one billion people into NFT owners. The platform, which initially succeeded by focusing on digital art sales, leveraged social media metrics like Instagram popularity to select artists such as Kenny Scharf, Filip Hodas, and FVCKRENDER, favoring a pop-centric, visually digestible aesthetic.
Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore: Surrealist Lovers Who Defied the German Occupation
Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, two Surrealist artists and life partners, are the focus of a new exhibition at the Contemporary Art Museum of St. Louis. The show, titled "And I Saw New Heavens and a New Earth," presents their collaborative work, including intimate portraits and photomontages, and highlights their daring resistance activities, such as creating anti-Nazi propaganda during the German occupation of Jersey.
Vinegar Syndrome has released a new 4K UHD and Blu-ray restoration of 'Office Killer', the only feature film directed by renowned photographer Cindy Sherman. Originally released in 1997 to critical derision and box-office failure, the film follows a meek magazine editor who begins murdering her colleagues during a period of corporate downsizing. The restoration highlights Sherman's transition from her iconic 'Untitled Film Stills' to the more visceral, abject imagery of her 'Disasters' and 'Sex Pictures' series.
Lost John Constable Painting Rediscovered in Texas Bound for Auction
A long-lost, large-scale oil study by John Constable for his famous painting *The Cornfield* has been rediscovered and authenticated after decades in a rural Texas museum. Scientific analysis, including pigment tests and infrared reflectography, confirmed the materials and techniques match Constable's own, leading experts to declare it the largest known study for the 1826 masterpiece. The work, which had been mistakenly cataloged as a copy, will now be auctioned by Heritage Auctions in Dallas this June.
picasso burgos cathedral show
The Catedral de Santa María in Burgos is hosting "Picasso: Biblical Roots," an exhibition exploring the enduring influence of Christian iconography on Pablo Picasso. Featuring 44 works loaned from major institutions like the Reina Sofía and the Thyssen-Bornemisza, the show traces the artist's journey from his early academic religious paintings in Spain to the subtle theological motifs found in his later Cubist and post-war works.
art oscar picks whitney biennial star pat oleszko wet paint
This installment of the Wet Paint gossip column reports on several high-profile developments within the New York and Los Angeles art scenes. Key highlights include internal museum deliberations at the Whitney Museum regarding Precious Okoyomon’s provocative installation for the upcoming Biennial, which features dolls hanging from nooses, and sightings of former Artforum editor David Velasco meeting with Whitney director Scott Rothkopf. Additionally, the column tracks celebrity sightings at Frieze Los Angeles and confirms Lotus L. Kang as the artist for Bvlgari’s pavilion at the Venice Biennale.
Two Renoir exhibitions at Musée d’Orsay explore the joy of human connection
The Musée d’Orsay in Paris is opening two concurrent exhibitions dedicated to Pierre-Auguste Renoir, titled 'Renoir and Love: A Joyful Modernity (1865-85)' and 'Renoir Drawings'. The shows focus on the first two decades of his career, featuring major works like 'Luncheon of the Boating Party' and rarely seen pieces from private collections, such as 'Confidence'. The exhibitions will later travel to the National Gallery in London and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
The 2026 Whitney Biennial has opened to an early critical consensus of being "above average," though critics suggest the exhibition requires significant time to process. Curated by Marcela Guerrero and Drew Sawyer, the show emphasizes a subtle atmospheric mood rather than overt spectacle, featuring a diverse array of installations, sculptures, and multimedia works that span multiple floors of the museum and its exterior.
Garth Greenan Gallery has announced it will relocate from Chelsea to SoHo in September, marking the gallery's 15th anniversary. The move involves opening two distinct spaces across from each other at 10 and 25 Greene Street, nearly tripling the gallery's current footprint to over 3,500 square feet of exhibition space. The new locations, situated in landmarked cast-iron buildings, will debut with solo exhibitions by Rosalyn Drexler and Cannupa Hanska Luger.
The fifth edition of the Every Woman Biennial, titled "I Will Always Love You," concludes its run at La MaMa Galleria in New York. Featuring over 200 female and non-binary artists, the salon-style exhibition showcases a diverse range of media including neon sculpture, textiles, and video, alongside a series of high-energy performances. Notable participants include Michele Pred, Nadya Tolokonnikova of Pussy Riot, and Swoon, with the event maintaining its tradition of honoring the legacy of Whitney Houston while providing an inclusive platform for contemporary creators.
Jonas Wood has unveiled a new series of paintings at Gagosian in Beverly Hills that transforms global tennis courts into geometric abstractions. Derived from years of photographing tournament broadcasts and Nintendo games, the works strip away players and equipment to focus on the flat bands of color, white lines, and nets that define the sport's architecture. The collection represents a systematic exploration of the ATP and WTA tours, utilizing the tennis court as a formal vehicle for color theory and composition.
beeple robot dogs nationalgalerie berlin
Digital artist Beeple is set to make his German institutional debut at Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie with "Regular Animals" (2025), an installation featuring ten robotic dogs with heads modeled after tech moguls like Elon Musk and iconic artists like Pablo Picasso. The sculptures, which gained viral fame at Art Basel Miami Beach, use AI to process their surroundings and "defecate" stylized prints for visitors. The 11-day pop-up presentation will place Beeple’s work in dialogue with Nam June Paik’s "Andy Warhol Robot" (1994), exploring the intersection of art, media, and mechanical reproduction.
Zanele Muholi has been named the winner of the 2026 Hasselblad Award, widely considered the world’s most prestigious photography prize. The South African photographer and "visual activist" will receive approximately $218,000, a solo exhibition at the Hasselblad Center in Gothenburg opening in October 2026, and a dedicated publication. Muholi’s work is celebrated for its monumental grayscale portraiture that documents and honors the Black LGBTQIA+ community, challenging historical omissions and systemic oppression.
The Art Institute of Chicago is considering a major expansion that could involve relocating or reshaping the historic Chicago Stock Exchange Trading Room. Located on the museum's east side, the 5,700-square-foot room is a preserved architectural landmark originally designed in the 1890s and saved from demolition in the 1970s. While no final decisions have been made, museum officials identified this area as having the highest potential for increasing gallery capacity to showcase more of the institution's permanent collection.
Artist Carol Bove has unveiled a hidden Joan Miró mural as part of her new retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. The 19-foot-long ceramic work, titled 'Alicia' (1965–67), was commissioned by Harry F. Guggenheim but has been concealed behind a false wall for over two decades because curators felt it clashed with other exhibitions. Bove integrated the masterpiece into her show by cutting a diamond-shaped aperture into the partition, allowing visitors a rare glimpse of the site-specific piece.
van gogh yellow exhibition
The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam has launched a major exhibition centered on Vincent van Gogh’s profound obsession with the color yellow. The show explores how the artist utilized the hue—from the 'pale sulfur' of his Arles landscapes to his iconic sunflowers and the famous Yellow House—as a symbol of life-giving sunshine and modernity. Beyond Van Gogh’s own masterpieces, the exhibition features works by 19th- and 20th-century masters like Wassily Kandinsky and Hilma af Klint, as well as a contemporary light installation by Olafur Eliasson.
Buckminster Fuller’s iconic 'Fly’s Eye Dome' (1976) sculpture at LongHouse Reserve in East Hampton has collapsed after a severe blizzard. The fiberglass structure, one of only five existing prototypes of its kind, buckled under the weight of heavy snow, leaving its custom-made modular components crumpled and in need of extensive restoration.
tino sehgal
Renowned performance artist Tino Sehgal has launched a major self-titled exhibition at the Museo de Arte de Zapopan (MAZ) in Guadalajara, Mexico. The show’s centerpiece is 'Andador 20 de Noviembre,' a site-specific adaptation of his acclaimed 2012 work 'These Associations.' Staged on a historic pedestrian thoroughfare, the performance involves a 'hive mind' of participants who transition from slow-motion movements to jogging and engaging the public with intimate personal vignettes, creating an immersive experience that blurs the line between audience and performer.
trump arts impact
The Trump administration has initiated a sweeping overhaul of the American cultural landscape, marked by aggressive oversight of the Smithsonian Institution and the termination of numerous National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) grants. Key actions include the disbanding of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the removal of leadership at the National Portrait Gallery, and the implementation of content audits to remove references to Trump's impeachments and information regarding slavery from federal sites. These moves are part of a broader effort to eliminate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives and enforce 'American values' in cultural programming ahead of the nation's 250th anniversary.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has announced a major joint exhibition titled "Krasner and Pollock: Past Continuous," scheduled for this fall. Featuring over 120 works, the show marks the first comprehensive joint presentation of Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner’s entire careers, rather than focusing solely on their years as a married couple. Curated by David Breslin and Brinda Kumar, the exhibition will utilize the Met’s deep holdings alongside significant international loans to trace the evolution of these two Abstract Expressionist titans from their early WPA days to their late-career innovations.
Sotheby’s is offering María Berrío’s mixed-media collage "Act II, Scene 4: Threshold" in its "Contemporary Discoveries" online sale with an estimate of $60,000–$80,000. This specific work previously sold for $380,000 at the Two x Two for AIDS and Art charity auction in 2023, far exceeding its then-retail value of $125,000. The current auction serves as a litmus test for the artist's secondary market resilience following a period of intense speculative trading.
Refik Anadol’s controversial AI installation 'Unsupervised' at the Museum of Modern Art has sparked a heated debate on the nature of art and technology, recently highlighted in a '60 Minutes' segment. While Anadol defends his work as a poetic use of 'data as pigment' that captures viewer attention for an average of 38 minutes, critics and fellow artists raise concerns about the substance and ethics of the medium. The piece, which uses MoMA’s metadata to create morphing abstractions, became a viral sensation that challenged traditional museum engagement.
The Gulf region is rapidly transforming into a primary axis for the international art trade, marked by the upcoming debut of Art Basel Qatar and the rebranding of Abu Dhabi Art as a Frieze event. While state-led museum projects have long dominated headlines, a surge of commercial activity is now taking hold as blue-chip galleries like Pace and David Zwirner join local stalwarts. This expansion comes at a strategic time as traditional markets in the U.S., U.K., and China face contraction.