A new exhibition titled "Artists’ Jewelry: From Cubism to Pop, the Diane Venet Collection" has opened at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Florida. It features over 150 pieces of artist-designed jewelry from the personal collection of Diane Venet, including works by Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, Alexander Calder, and Yoko Ono, displayed alongside about sixty companion works from the museum's permanent collection.
MoMA PS1 has opened its major quinquennial exhibition "Greater New York," a sprawling survey featuring early-career artists based in the city. The show, which fills three floors of the former public school, is noted for its gritty, immersive portrayal of contemporary New York life, capturing everyday textures from delivery drivers to urban wildlife.
San Francisco museums are navigating a mix of upcoming exhibitions and financial challenges in May 2026. SFMOMA is closing "KAWS: Family" on May 3 and opening "Matisse’s Femme au chapeau: A Modern Scandal" from May 16 to September 13. The Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts has suspended operations due to funding issues, and SOMArts is also facing a budget gap. Meanwhile, the Museum of Craft and Design presents "Video Craft" through August 16, and the Letterform Archive hosts "Black Memory Scholar: The Language of Storytellers" and "Piet Zwart: Brand Architect." SFMOMA has announced three SECA award winners—CrossLypka, Em Kettner, and Chanell Stone—who will exhibit from December 2026 to May 2027, and the museum continues to showcase "Reimagined: The Fisher Collection at 10" and new installations by Alexander Calder, Claes Oldenburg + Coosje van Bruggen, and Rose B Simpson.
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A major exhibition titled "Calder: Dreaming in Equilibrium" has opened at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, showcasing 300 works by Alexander Calder, including his pioneering mobiles, stabiles, paintings, drawings, and wire portraits. The show marks 100 years since the artist's arrival in France in 1926 and 50 years since his death in 1976. It features iconic pieces such as the 19-foot-long mobile *Triumphant Red* (1963) and his earliest known kinetic sculpture—a brass duck from 1909—alongside works by contemporaries like Barbara Hepworth, Pablo Picasso, and Paul Klee, as well as photographs by Man Ray, Agnès Varda, and Gordon Parks.
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is preparing for the public debut of its $724-million David Geffen Galleries, designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Peter Zumthor. Ahead of the April 19 member opening, public discourse has intensified following a series of reports detailing the building's architecture, the reinstallation of Alexander Calder’s "Three Quintains (Hello Girls)," and the project's massive budget. Reader reactions remain deeply polarized, reflecting a two-decade-long debate over the structure's unconventional design and its impact on the urban landscape.
This episode of The Art Newspaper's podcast 'The Week in Art' features three segments. Chief contributing editor Gareth Harris discusses his new book 'Towards the Ethical Art Museum,' which examines contemporary challenges for museums including provenance, restitution, funding, governance, and community responsibilities. Digital editor Alexander Morrison speaks with curator Carl Brandon Strehlke about the major Fra Angelico exhibition jointly presented by Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi and Museo di San Marco in Florence. Finally, the Work of the Week segment focuses on Cornelia Parker's installation 'PsychoBarn (Cut-Up)' at the Kunstmuseum Basel's group exhibition 'Ghosts: Visualising the Supernatural,' with commentary from curator Eva Reifert.
Untitled Art Houston opened its inaugural edition on Thursday, September 18, with a VIP preview that generated uneven but promising sales. Lower-priced works sold well, with notable transactions including a $415,000 piece by Carlos Cruz-Diez at Sicardi Ayers Bacino, a $125,000 painting by John Alexander at McClain Gallery, and a $150,000 bronze sculpture by Clare Rojas at Jessica Silverman. Other galleries reported sales ranging from $2,000 to $55,000, with some dealers selling out their stands. The fair marks Houston's first new art fair in years, following the demise of the Houston Fine Art Fair and Texas Contemporary Art Fair.
Calder Gardens, a $70 million space dedicated to Alexander Calder, will open on September 21 in Philadelphia, the artist's hometown. Designed by Herzog & de Meuron, the complex features subterranean galleries and open-air pavilions surrounded by gardens, with no wall labels and rotating works from the Calder Foundation, MoMA, and the Whitney Museum. The project, led by Calder's grandson Alexander S. C. Rower and philanthropist Joseph Neubauer, revives a plan that stalled in the mid-2000s.
The Art Students League of New York, founded in 1875, is celebrating its 150th anniversary with an exhibition titled "Shaping American Art: A Celebration of the Art Students League of New York at 150." The show features 87 works by famous alumni and instructors, including Alexander Calder, Louise Bourgeois, Norman Rockwell, Tony Smith, and Robert Rauschenberg, drawn from the school's collection and supplemented by loans. Curated by Esther V. Moerdler and Ksenia Nouril, the exhibition spans the school's main gallery, lobby, registration office, and café, highlighting the League's unique open-enrollment, non-degree atelier model that has instructed some 200,000 students since its founding.
DEL AMOR QUE MUEVE EL SOL Y LAS OTRAS ESTRELLAS. ENTREVISTA A AMALIA CROSS
The Museo de la Solidaridad Salvador Allende (MSSA) in Santiago has inaugurated a major collection-based exhibition titled "Del amor que mueve el sol y las otras estrellas," curated by art historian Amalia Cross. The show revisits the museum's unique history—from its origins during Salvador Allende’s presidency and the international "Operation Truth" to its period of exile following the 1973 coup and its eventual return to Chile. Featuring works by global icons such as Alexander Calder, Lygia Clark, and Yoko Ono, the exhibition emphasizes movement and collective action across various mediums including sculpture, video, and installation.
The exiled Belarus Free Theatre will stage a major exhibition titled "Official. Unofficial. Belarus." as an official collateral event at the 61st Venice Biennale. In the absence of a formal national pavilion, the group show will occupy the Church of San Giovanni Evangelista, featuring works by artists like Sergey Grinevich and Vladimir Tsesler that utilize religious iconography and prison materials to critique state surveillance and political repression.
An Alexander Calder mobile, *Big Horizontal Red* (1956), estimated at $5–7 million, is set for auction at Christie’s on May 12. The work’s provenance traces through Perls Galleries, the Texas Institute for Rehabilitation and Research, and a private New York collection, but a source reveals that its 1997 purchaser, Patricia Halterman, was the granddaughter of Magda Goebbels, wife of Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. Christie’s declined to comment on the consignors but stated it conducted careful evaluation and diligence.
The Vatican has announced a star-studded lineup of musicians and artists for its pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale, titled "The Ear Is the Eye of the Soul." Curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Ben Vickers in collaboration with Soundwalk Collective, the exhibition features commissioned sound works from figures including Brian Eno, FKA Twigs, Patti Smith, and the late Alexander Kluge. The project is inspired by the 12th-century mystic Saint Hildegard of Bingen and will be staged across two historic Venetian locations: the Mystical Garden of the Discalced Carmelites and the Complesso di Santa Maria Ausiliatrice.
Wie Alexander Calder die Skulptur in Bewegung setzte
The Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris has launched a major retrospective titled "Rêver en Équilibre," dedicated to the American sculptor Alexander Calder. Featuring over 300 works, the exhibition traces Calder’s journey from his 1926 arrival in Paris to his invention of the "mobile," a term coined by Marcel Duchamp. The show includes iconic large-scale hanging sculptures like "Rouge triomphant," wire figures from his famous "Cirque Calder," and rarely seen private loans, alongside paintings and jewelry that highlight his engineering background and poetic approach to abstraction.
The Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris is presenting a major retrospective of Alexander Calder's work, titled "Calder. Rêver en Équilibre" ("Calder. Dreaming in Balance"). The exhibition, marking the 50th anniversary of the artist's death and the centenary of his first arrival in France, features nearly 300 works, including his iconic mobiles and stabiles.
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) has opened a new café operated by the upscale organic grocery chain Erewhon on its W.M. Keck plaza. The café, located in the plaza's northeast pavilion with a view of Alexander Calder's 1964 sculpture, opened for member previews on April 19th and will be accessible to the general public starting May 4th, running through the summer season.
A long-lost portrait of Scottish poet Robert Burns by Sir Henry Raeburn has been rediscovered and is now on display at the National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh. The painting was found at a London house sale last year, consigned to Wimbledon Auctions with a low estimate of £300–£500, but sold for £68,000 after intense bidding. It was purchased by Edinburgh-based art collector William Zachs, who had it restored and brought to Scotland, where experts confirmed it as an authentic Raeburn. The work is a copy Raeburn made in 1803 of a 1787 portrait by Alexander Nasmyth, commissioned by London publishers Cadell & Davies but lost shortly after completion.
Actress and comedian Ego Nwodim will co-chair the Whitney Museum of American Art’s annual Art Party on January 27, 2026. The event, hosted by the Whitney Contemporaries, will take place at the museum’s Gansevoort Street building and feature DJ sets by Raúl de Nieves and The Dare. Nwodim joins co-chairs including artists Martine Gutierrez and Emma Safir, as well as Whitney Contemporaries Steven Beltrani, Micaela Erlanger, and Alexander Hankin. The evening will offer after-hours gallery access, cocktails, and dancing, with proceeds supporting the Whitney’s exhibitions, education, and public programs.
Riyadh Art, a public art initiative led by the Royal Commission for Riyadh City, is expanding its Permanent Collection with 115 new installations planned through 2026 and beyond, adding to the 75 works already installed across the Saudi capital. The collection includes works by international artists such as Alexander Calder, Anish Kapoor, Jeff Koons, Giuseppe Penone, and Ugo Rondinone, alongside Saudi practitioners like Zaman Jassim and Mohammed Al Saleem, with recent additions including Calder's 'Janey Waney' and Nobuo Sekine's 'Phase of Nothingness'.
Two concurrent solo exhibitions at Alexander Berggruen Gallery feature the work of artists Kevin McNamee-Tweed and Tajh Rust. McNamee-Tweed presents enigmatic, tenderly absurd ceramic scenes, while Rust debuts in New York with figurative paintings that explore perception and Black identity through portraits of leisure and experimental silvered glass works.
GRIMM gallery in New York presents "You Must Change Your Life," a group exhibition curated by Tom Morton, running from June 26 to August 7, 2026. The show features an international roster of painters and sculptors including Alexander Tovborg, Elinor Stanley, Sophie Ruigrok, Sara Rossberg, Jhonatan Pulido, Ken Kiff, Matthew Day Jackson, Ted Gahl, Gabriella Boyd, Anderson Borba, Kinga Bartis, Mahesh Baliga, and Charles Avery. The exhibition takes its title from the final line of Rainer Maria Rilke's poem "Archaic Torso of Apollo" (1918), exploring themes of how the past speaks to the present, the animation of materials, the fragment as synecdoche, and the transformative power of visual contemplation.
The Denver Art Museum has unveiled "Conversation Pieces: Stories from the Fashion Archives," an exhibition composed entirely of works from its permanent collection. Featuring approximately 60 mannequins, the show highlights high-fashion garments from the past century, many of which have never been publicly displayed. The curation includes iconic pieces by legendary designers such as Coco Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent, and Elsa Schiaparelli, alongside contemporary works by Alexander McQueen and Carla Fernández.
The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York is presenting "High Wire: Calder’s Circus at 100," a centennial exhibition celebrating Alexander Calder's iconic work "Calder’s Circus" (1926-31). The show brings together the miniature circus figures, wire sculptures, drawings, archival materials, and early abstract works, exploring how the circus inspired Calder's lifelong exploration of balance and movement, leading to his invention of the mobile. The exhibition runs from October 18, 2025, to March 9, 2026, and is co-curated by Jennie Goldstein and Roxanne Smith.
Calder Gardens, a new art space dedicated to the work of Alexander Calder, opens this weekend in Philadelphia on Benjamin Franklin Parkway, across from the Rodin Museum. Designed by Herzog & de Meuron with gardens by Piet Oudolf, the building is mostly underground and emphasizes a multi-sensory experience, including curated scents, textured surfaces, and no wall labels. The space will display 50 years of Calder's mobiles, stabiles, paintings, and drawings, rotating works without a fixed schedule.
A new $100 million art center dedicated to Alexander Calder, called Calder Gardens, opens on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia on Sunday, September 21. Designed by architect Jacques Herzog of Herzog & de Meuron with landscape by Piet Oudolf, the building features underground galleries, sunken gardens, and no wall text, encouraging visitors to have a personal, sacred experience with Calder's sculptures, paintings, and works on paper. The Calder Foundation built the space, and the Barnes Foundation administers it in partnership.
The Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College will present "Jamea Richmond-Edwards: Another World and Yet the Same" from September 13, 2025, to June 14, 2026. Curated by Alexander Jarman, the exhibition features a large body of newly created work alongside mixed-media paintings from the past seven years, exploring race, class, and identity. Richmond-Edwards draws on her Detroit roots, incorporating music genres like jazz, soul, Motown, techno, and hip hop, as well as imagery from school marching bands. The title references a 17th-century dystopian novel by Joseph Hall, and the artist adapts its narrative through a fictional character, Iceberg, who leads a voyage to Antarctica to establish an egalitarian society, addressing themes of climate change and self-determination.
The Syracuse University Art Museum will launch its Fall 2025 season on August 26 with four new exhibitions. Highlights include 'What If I Try This?', a survey of Helen Frankenthaler's printmaking career curated by Melissa Yuen, featuring loans from multiple institutions and a gift from the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation. Other exhibitions include Kevin Adonis Browne's multimedia installation 'A Sense of Arrival' on Caribbean blackness, and 'Human/Environment: 4,000 Years of Art', a permanent collection show exploring human-environment relationships. An opening reception on September 11 will feature a talk by Stanford professor Alexander Nemerov.
A first-century CE marble bust, known as the "Head of Alexander," was returned to the Italian government on August 5, ending a seven-year legal battle. The bust, believed stolen from an Italian museum decades ago, was seized in 2018 by the Manhattan District Attorney's Antiquities Trafficking Unit from Safani Gallery in New York. The gallery filed multiple lawsuits against Italy and the Italian Ministry of Culture, claiming unlawful taking and seeking compensation, but all claims were dismissed. The bust, excavated in the early 1900s along Rome's Via Sacra, had passed through multiple cities and auctions, including sales at Sotheby Park Bernet and later for $150,000 by Safani Gallery in 2017.
The article highlights several major museum exhibitions opening during Tefaf New York 2025. At the Brooklyn Museum, "Solid Gold" (through July 6) traces the material's historical and cultural significance across fine art, fashion, jewelry, and design, featuring works from ancient Coclé gold plaques to pieces by Agnes Martin, Louise Nevelson, and Alexander Calder. The Metropolitan Museum of Art presents "Sargent and Paris" (through August 3) for the centenary of John Singer Sargent's death, reuniting his scandalous "Portrait of Madame X" with preparatory sketches and exploring his formative decade in Paris. The Jewish Museum offers "The Book of Esther in the Age of Rembrandt" (through August 10), examining the biblical story's influence on 17th-century Dutch art through works by Rembrandt and his contemporaries.
American painter Joan Semmel is debuting a dual-continent exhibition titled "Continuities," presented simultaneously at Xavier Hufkens in Brussels and Alexander Gray Associates in New York. The show features recent large-scale paintings, including works like "Here I Am" (2025) and "Red Breast" (2025), which utilize saturated hues and layered compositions to explore the artist's own aging body from her own perspective. By presenting related works across two cities, the exhibition mirrors the internal logic of Semmel’s paintings, which often employ doubling and shifting imagery to represent the body as a site of active presence.