Ruminations on Rashid Johnson’s “A Poem for Deep Thinkers”

The article is a reflective review of Rashid Johnson's exhibition "A Poem for Deep Thinkers" at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. The author describes standing before Johnson's work "Falling Man" (2016), a piece incorporating broken mirrors, burned wood, and personal objects like a copy of Harry Haywood's "Black Bolshevik" and shea butter, which prompts meditations on visibility, identity, and Frantz Fanon's "Black Skin, White Masks." The review also examines Johnson's large-scale installation "Antoine's Organ" (2016/2026), which fills a gallery typically reserved for Ellsworth Kelly's minimalist canvases, transforming the space with scaffolding, plants, books, and video monitors.

'Art is just about making trouble': Inside Auckland Art Gallery's bold new show

Auckland Art Gallery is preparing to open "Forever Tomorrow: Chinese Art Now," a major exhibition of contemporary Chinese art curated by Hutch Wilco. The show features works from the White Rabbit Collection in Sydney, including a massive 7-meter-high stone sculpture by Xu Zhen, paintings by Shang Liang, and photography by Pixy Liao, who recently won a 2026 Guggenheim Fellowship. Wilco spent three years organizing the exhibition, which includes playful sculptures, paintings, and multimedia works, with significant logistical challenges in transporting large pieces from China.

Exhibition | Haegue Yang, 'Leap Year' at Hayward Gallery, London, United Kingdom

The Hayward Gallery in London is presenting 'Leap Year', the first major UK survey of internationally celebrated artist Haegue Yang. The exhibition spans Yang's career from the early 2000s to the present, featuring key works from her Light Sculptures and Sonic Sculptures series alongside three new commissions. Yang's practice incorporates a vast range of media—from paper collage and performative sculpture to immersive sensory installations—using household and industrial objects such as drying racks, light bulbs, metal-plated bells, and hanji (Korean paper) to explore themes of labour, migration, and displacement.

Recommissioned Rebels

The exhibition "Monuments," co-organized by The Brick and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA), features ten former Confederate monuments removed from public spaces across the American South. Highlights include Kara Walker's reconfigured "Unmanned Drone" (formerly Charlottesville's Stonewall Jackson monument), Richmond's toppled Jefferson Davis statue, and a graffitied Matthew Fontaine Maury statue. Co-curator Hamza Walker explains the show began after the 2015 Charleston church shooting and gained urgency following George Floyd's murder in 2020, involving complex negotiations with city governments and stewards to secure the politically charged pieces.

MOCAD Reopens with New Exhibitions from Detroit Artists

Detroit's Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCAD) has reopened after an eight-month closure for construction, unveiling four new exhibitions as part of its 2026 Spring Exhibition and 20th anniversary. The renovations include a new HVAC system, educational space, and windows that allow passersby to see inside. The building has been renamed the Julia Reyes Taubman Building in honor of the late co-founder, whose family contributed $1.8 million toward the $3 million first phase. Mayor Mary Sheffield toured the exhibitions at an April 23 media preview, praising the museum's role in community healing and access. Featured exhibitions include "Olayami Dabls: Detroit Cosmologies," the first retrospective of the artist's nearly 50-year career, showcasing his evolution from figurative acrylics to abstract collage.

A World-Class Art Museum Arrives in the Texas Hill Country

A new museum called Arthouse is opening in Marble Falls, Texas, on April 25, 2026, during the town's Paint the Town Festival. Its inaugural exhibition, "Words Matter," features text-based artworks by artists including Faith Ringgold, Ed Ruscha, Terry Allen, and Jenny Holzer, drawn from the collection of oil and gas entrepreneur Mickey Klein and his wife Jeanne, who are longtime art collectors named to ARTnews' Top 200 Collectors list. The building, designed by Lake Flato, is a limestone and metal structure on Main Street that will serve as both a public gallery and an office.

Wohin am Checkpoint Charlie?

The article covers the Berlin Gallery Weekend, highlighting a cluster of exhibitions around Checkpoint Charlie. It features light art, political sculpture, textile experiments, and spatial interventions. Among the participants is Galerie Max Goelitz, which presents James Turrell's light installation series "Small Elliptical Glass 'First Cause'" (2024) at its Berlin space in Rudi-Dutschke-Straße, as part of the "Perspectives" section.

What not to miss at the 2026 Venice Biennale

The article highlights five standout pavilions and installations at the 2026 Venice Biennale. Florentina Holzinger's Austrian pavilion features extreme, nude performances including a woman submerged in a urine-purified tank, drawing police attention. Sanya Kantarovsky presents eerie paintings and a Murano glass sculpture in a historic palazzo. Gabrielle Goliath's 'Elegy'—a hypnotic mourning performance for women killed in violence—was banned by South Africa but staged with London's Ibraaz. Carrie Schneider's 1.5km photographic curl in the Arsenale references Chris Marker's 'La Jetée'. Lydia Ourahmane's delicate sculptural show uses materials sourced from Venice, including a bead curtain made by inmates.

Heading for Brittany! 5 art galleries to visit in Rennes

Cap sur la Bretagne ! 5 galeries d’art à visiter à Rennes

Beaux Arts Magazine highlights five art galleries to visit in Rennes, France, a city already known for its Musée des Beaux-Arts, art centers 40mcube and La Criée, and a spectacular Frac designed by architect Odile Decq. The featured galleries include Oniris, which celebrates 40 years and the centenary of artist François Morellet in 2026; Jonathan Roze, a newcomer from Paris now located on Place du Parlement; Mica, a gallery in Saint-Grégoire run by former cabinetmaker Michaël Chéneau; and Divet, an even older gallery with a strong Breton identity.

Francois Boisrond prend de la hauteur

French artist François Boisrond, a key figure of the 1980s Figuration libre movement, presents his new series "Ouvrages d'art" at Galerie Maïa Muller in Paris. The series reinterprets monumental architecture—including the Millau Viaduct, the Pont de Normandie, Mont Saint-Michel, Notre-Dame, and the Eiffel Tower—using drone-sourced images. Boisrond employs a new liquid acrylic technique that creates a matte, flat finish, producing works that appear hyperrealistic from a distance but dissolve into impressionistic or pixelated abstraction up close. The exhibition, extended through May 16, 2026, features large-format paintings priced between €25,000 and €50,000.

Montclair Art Museum Names Kate Kraczon Chief Curator

The Montclair Art Museum (MAM) has appointed Kate Kraczon as its new Chief Curator, effective June 15, 2026. Kraczon, a nationally respected curator with over two decades of experience, joins MAM from Brown University, where she served as Director of Exhibitions and Chief Curator of the David Winton Bell Gallery. At Brown, she oversaw a program of more than 7,000 works and developed partnerships with major institutions including the Andy Warhol Foundation and the Terra Foundation for American Art. Her previous roles include Laporte Associate Curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania, where she organized over 30 exhibitions.

Maddy Inez’s Mystic Ceramics Tell the Hidden Stories of Ancestral Plants

Ceramist Maddy Inez, daughter of artist Alison Saar and granddaughter of assemblage pioneer Betye Saar, creates hand-built biomorphic ceramic sculptures inspired by mysticism and ancestral knowledge. Her works have recently grown in scale, reflecting a deepening exploration of hidden stories tied to ancestral plants.

May 2026 Opportunities: Open Calls, Residencies, and Grants for Artists

Colossal's May 2026 opportunities roundup lists multiple open calls, residencies, and grants for artists worldwide. Featured opportunities include the Scenerium 2026 Art Award (deadline May 7), the Hopper Prize offering $4,500 and $1,000 artist grants (deadline May 12), and the SaveArtSpace Billboard Art Open Call curated by Gigi Chen (deadline May 7). Other listings include the YICCA Art Prize, CIFRA Award, Cass Art Prize for the U.K. and Ireland, Sunshine Coast National Art Prize in Australia, an opportunity to get published in Artistonish magazine, and the Abbey Mural Prize.

Julia Stoschek Foundation to Close in Berlin

The Julia Stoschek Foundation will close its Berlin outpost at the end of October 2025, after a decade of operation. The Düsseldorf-based nonprofit, which holds one of the world's largest collections of time-based art, opened the Berlin space in 2016 and welcomed over 450,000 visitors across 22 exhibitions, including solo shows by Meriem Bennani, Stan Douglas, Arthur Jafa, and Mark Leckey. The foundation cited a "strategic realignment" that will shift focus to projects elsewhere in Germany and abroad. Its Düsseldorf space is currently closed for renovations and expected to reopen next year.

Check out these art exhibits on display in Boulder, Longmont

A comprehensive roundup lists dozens of art exhibitions currently on view in Boulder, Longmont, and Lafayette, Colorado, spanning venues from commercial galleries and nonprofit art centers to libraries and museums. Featured shows include "Tres Voces, Un Corazón" at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, featuring three members of one family—Sylvia Montero, Tony Ortega, and Cipriano Ortega; "We Choose Earth" by Jorge Vinent at Ana’s Art Gallery; and "Black Futures in Art – Genome Speaks What Erasure Cannot Silence" at the Collective Community Arts Center. Other highlights include "Threaded Narratives" by the Colorado South Asian Artist Group, "Unfinished" by Lewis TallBull at the Dairy Arts Center, and "Boulder Eats! Traditions Along the Front Range" at the Museum of Boulder.

See exhibition by Erin Jane Nelson, ‘Living and Working,’ at UAB’s AEIVA through Sept. 26

The Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts (AEIVA) at the University of Alabama at Birmingham presents “Living and Working,” a survey exhibition of artist Erin Jane Nelson, running through September 26. This is Nelson’s largest solo exhibition to date and her first survey, spanning a decade of her practice across photography, textiles, and ceramics. The exhibition will travel to the Knoxville Museum of Art in August 2027, and AEIVA is co-publishing an exhibition catalog with Institute 193. The opening reception is May 21, and free community programming includes summer drop-in tours, a pinhole camera workshop, Science Nights in partnership with the Birmingham Zoo, and a chamber music event.

Carole A. Feuerman | Miniature Serena (with Blue-Green Tube) (2021) | For Sale

Carole A. Feuerman's sculpture "Miniature Serena (with Blue-Green Tube)" (2021) is being offered for sale. The work is an oil on resin piece with 24K gold leaf cap, table-top scale, measuring 10 x 17 x 8 inches, from a variant of 10. Feuerman, born in 1945, is an American sculptor and author credited with co-founding the Hyperrealist movement in the late 1970s, known for figurative works of swimmers and dancers. Her public sculptures have been displayed globally, including at Central Park, the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution, the Venice Biennale, and the State Hermitage Museum. She has received multiple awards, including the Medici Award, and her works are in the permanent collections of 31 museums and owned by notable figures such as Steven A. Cohen, former President Bill Clinton, and Dr. Henry Kissinger.

Exhibition | Kelly Akashi, 'Heirloom' at Lisson Gallery, 508 West 24th Street, New York, United States

Kelly Akashi presents her first exhibition with Lisson Gallery in New York, titled 'Heirloom,' featuring a new body of work that explores loss, grief, and absence through sculpture. The exhibition includes bronze, Corten steel, flame-worked glass, and carved stone pieces, many inspired by her garden and personal artifacts like an inherited stone ring and her grandmother's lace tablecloth. It coincides with her participation in the 2026 Whitney Biennial and a commission for John F. Kennedy International Airport's New Terminal One.

Acclaimed Wilkes Artist Ward Nichols dies

Ward Hampton Nichols, a celebrated artist from North Wilkesboro, North Carolina, died on May 5 at the age of 95 at the Kate B. Reynolds Hospice Home, surrounded by his children. A few weeks before his passing, a celebration of his life, legacy, and art was held at the Wilkes Art Gallery. Nichols, born in 1930 in Welch, West Virginia, taught himself to draw as a child and later served in the U.S. Navy during the Korean conflict, where he designed a NATO shoulder patch and co-founded a shipboard newspaper. After his service, he pursued a lifelong passion for art, painting until January of this year, and was also an avid aviator and sports car enthusiast.

Exhibitions Coming to Houston Institutions in Summer 2026

Art museums and institutions across the Greater Houston area are opening a series of new exhibitions for summer 2026. Highlights include the Czech Center Museum Houston's solo show of travel photography by Clarice Marik Snokhous; Art League Houston presenting Marisol Valencia's installation "No Longer, Not Yet" and Juvana Soliven's "Subject to Surviving"; Houston Center for Photography featuring Simon Silva's "Madre Patria"; the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston launching the first survey of Mary Ellen Carroll's work; and the Moody Center for the Arts at Rice University hosting Masako Miki's first Texas exhibition.

More than 30 exhibitions on display in May at art centers from Marco Island to Sarasota

More than 30 exhibitions are on display in May at art centers across Southwest Florida, from Marco Island to Sarasota. Venues like Art Center Sarasota host shows featuring member, regional, and nationally renowned artists, including the "North Sarasota County Schools Spring Art Show" with over 1,500 student artists, solo exhibitions by Anja Palombo and Cat Tesla, and the "Architects Who Art" show co-curated by Morris Hylton III.

Studio Visit: Ding Yi on his major Venice exhibition ‘Cosmotechnics’

Artist Ding Yi, known for his decades-long dedication to the cross motif in abstraction, is preparing for his major Venice exhibition 'Cosmotechnics' at the Fondazione Querini Stampalia. The show, running from 9 May to 22 November 2026, features key archival works alongside a new series of twelve black-and-white basswood relief paintings and two stone steles carved with his signature cross pattern. Ding Yi reflects on his artistic journey, which began in 1988 at the Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts, and his shift from strict geometric grids to more intuitive, cosmic-inspired compositions.

10 exhibitions to look out for in May

Warren Feeney's article highlights 10 exhibitions opening in May 2026, primarily in Christchurch, New Zealand. Featured shows include Stone Maka's 'MONO' at Jonathan Smart Gallery, exploring Tongan tapa cloth traditions; Jess Nicholson's 'Ka maumahara te uku (the clay remembers)' at CoCA Toi Moroki, focusing on Ngāi Tahu culture and land connections; and a group exhibition 'Indigo' at Art on the Quay, featuring seven Central Otago artists. Other notable shows include Jane Barry, Sandra Hussey, and Laurie Roodt's 'Three Exhibitions' at Chambers Art Gallery, and Stephanie Postles' 'What These Walls Remember' at City Art Depot's new Up Stairs space.

Museum diplomacy in action at ICOM UK 2026: museums in a changing world

ICOM UK hosted its 2026 annual conference in Oxford, bringing together delegates from over 20 countries to explore the theme of 'Museum Diplomacy.' Keynote speaker Dr. Sascha Priewe of the Aga Khan Museum and ICOM Canada framed the current geopolitical moment as a 'GZERO World,' where no country is willing or able to lead globally, and discussed how sanctions, export controls, and shifting alliances are straining international museum collaborations. Sessions featured case studies from the Science Museum Group and International Arts & Artists, emphasizing that trust and networks, not grand gestures, are essential for enduring partnerships.

"Transformations" Art Exhibit at Wilton's browngrotta arts Explores Inventive Uses of Materials in Art

Wilton gallery browngrotta arts will present "Transformations: Dialogues in Art and Material" from May 9-17, 2026, a Spring exhibition exploring how artists transform materials such as clay, silk, steel, bark, seaweed, bamboo, and horsehair. The show features nearly three dozen international artists, including Kiyomi Iwata, John McQueen, Marian Bijlenga, Toshiko Takaezu, and Kay Sekimachi, whose works demonstrate what curator Glenn Adamson calls "material intelligence"—a deep understanding of material properties and possibilities. Co-curator Tom Grotta notes that artists often start with the same material yet arrive at remarkably distinct outcomes, revealing how artistic vision reshapes substance itself.

Gala Porras-Kim: Future spaces replicate earlier spaces

Gala Porras-Kim presents her first exhibition at kurimanzutto in Mexico City, titled "Future spaces replicate earlier spaces," running from April 11 to June 13, 2026. The show brings together works that examine how museums and conservation institutions reclassify objects removed from their original contexts, using reconstruction and resituating to explore their spatial, material, and temporal conditions. Central to the exhibition is the installation "The motion of an alluvial record" (2024), which recreates the humid marshland atmosphere of the Yucatán Peninsula inside the gallery, contrasting with the controlled climates of museums. Other works include drawings replicating wall decorations from the Techinantitla complex in Teotihuacan, which were fragmented and sold on the black market, and graphite drawings of objects by artist Brígido Lara, whose "original interpretations" of Totonac ritual clay objects were mistakenly catalogued as Pre-Hispanic artifacts in major museums.

5 Artists to See at Converge 45

New York curator Lumi Tan has organized the 2026 Converge 45 triennial in Portland, Oregon, titled "Here, To You, Now." Running from August 27 across more than 15 venues, the triennial prioritizes performances and time-based artworks over traditional gallery exhibitions, featuring both local and visiting artists. Tan, whose background includes stints at the Kitchen, Luna Luna, and Frieze New York, selected five standout artists: Lex Brown (presenting an operatic video and installation), Trisha Baga (a 3D video installation about AI and parenting), Rose Salane (archival works involving Princess Diana’s shoes), and Linda K. Johnson (a choreographer mapping Portland’s dance network).

Artists take a satirical look at the financial crisis in a new London show

Three emerging artists—Jenna Bliss, Buck Ellison, and Jasmine Gregory—present a multi-media exhibition titled 'Genuine Fake Premium Economy' at London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA). The show satirically examines the societal and economic fallout of the 2008 financial crisis, using works that critique capitalism, inheritance, and art-world stereotypes. Gregory repaints Patek Philippe ads to expose class structures, Bliss films a fictional art fair that blurs reality and fiction, and Ellison creates lightboxes for a fictional private bank, manipulating corporate language and philosophy.

Three Filipino artists make the Sovereign Asian Art Prize 2026 shortlist

The Sovereign Asian Art Prize, now in its 22nd year, has announced its 2026 shortlist of 30 artists from 12 Asia-Pacific countries and territories. Among the finalists are three Filipino artists: Joey Cobcobo, Josephine Turalba, and Alvin Zafra. Cobcobo's nominated work, "Ika-8 Utos: Wag Kang Kukurap (Thou Shall Not Steal)," addresses corruption in the Philippines using a recycled canvas walked on by the public. Turalba, a transdisciplinary artist, has exhibited at Art Basel Hong Kong 2025 and serves as director of the Artistic Research Center at Philippine Women's University. The prize is run by the Sovereign Art Foundation, with proceeds from shortlisted works supporting its Make It Better charity program for children in Hong Kong.

Hotel Room Transforms into Media Art Exhibition Space

South Korea's only media art fair, Loop Plus, was held from April 23 to 26 at the Grand Josun Busan Hotel in Haeundae, Busan. The fair transformed 26 hotel rooms on the 13th floor into exhibition spaces, featuring media artworks from 19 international galleries including Tang Contemporary Art, Esther Schipper, Chiwen Gallery, and Baek Art. Highlights included a 38-minute video installation by Russian artist group AES+F titled *‘Inverso Mundus’*, presented by Tang Contemporary Art, which humorously subverts societal absurdities. The event also included artist booths for Kang Lee-yeon and Lucia Levolino, and institutional booths for the Justice Foundation and Gwangju Media Art Platform. A related festival, Loop Lab Busan 2026, runs until June 28 across multiple venues in Busan.