Zheng Guogu, a prominent Chinese artist, has founded a living art space in Yangjiang, a quiet city in southern China. The museum functions as more than an exhibition venue; it is a dynamic, evolving creative ecosystem where artists from around the world come to live, work, and exchange ideas. Immersed in the local rhythms, participants turn everyday life into an ongoing artistic dialogue.
Hearts Gallery made its debut on May 2, 2026, in Los Angeles with an exclusive group exhibition at Modern Multiples, a historic print studio in Chinatown. The opening attracted artists, collectors, celebrities, and style leaders from fashion, film, and contemporary art, featuring works by Richard Duardo, Erika Galvez, Julian Prolman, Shepard Fairey, Ed Ruscha, Chaz Bojorquez, Estevan Oriol, and others, while celebrating Modern Multiples' legacy with icons like Diana Ross, Madonna, Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol, and RuPaul.
Praise Shadows Art Gallery, a contemporary art gallery focusing on untapped and unrecognized artists, has relocated from Coolidge Corner in Brookline to a larger 2,000-square-foot space on Kingston Street in downtown Boston. The gallery reopened in mid-March after moving in January, with founder and CEO Yng-Ru Chen citing the convenience and breathing room of the new location. The move was facilitated by the Mayor's Office of Arts and Culture and the Downtown Boston Alliance, which aims to fill vacant storefronts with arts businesses and revitalize the neighborhood.
The article reviews "Criminal: An Untold Story of Homelessness, Resistance and Survival," an installation at London's Museum of Homelessness. The show features works by Romany Gypsy poet and artist Gemma Lees, including a caravan installation with china decorated with hostile Sun newspaper headlines about Gypsy and Traveller encampments, and festive bunting printed with historical state proscriptions against nomadic communities dating from the Egyptians Act of 1530 to the 2022 Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act. The exhibition, set largely in the garden of the museum's new home at Finsbury Park's Manor House Lodge, explores how homeless people and nomadic communities have been criminalized over 400 years.
Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu have announced the theme and title for the 2027 Venice Architecture Biennale: "Do Architecture – For the Possibility of Coexistence Facing a Real Reality." The curators posed a series of questions addressing global climate change, the coexistence of land and architecture, natural materials versus modern construction, and urban-rural development conflicts. They emphasized that architecture is not just theoretical but must be practiced firsthand, confronting real reality through real construction. The duo, founders of Amateur Architecture Studio, have a long history with the Biennale, having participated in 2006 and 2010, where they received a Special Mention for their project 'Decay of a Dome.' The twentieth edition of the Architecture Biennale opens in May 2027.
The article reports on a series of significant shifts in Beijing's art world since 2024. UCCA Center for Contemporary Art faced financial troubles; its director and CEO Philip Tinari ended his 14-year tenure to lead Hong Kong's Tai Kwun. Taikang Art Museum also disclosed leadership changes. Smaller venues like DRC NO. 12 and fRUITYSPACE closed due to lease issues. Independent publishing faces sharp restrictions, and art book fairs are being replaced by cultural-lifestyle merchandise events. Official figures show Beijing lost over a million young residents since 2020 due to soaring living costs and tightening regulations.
Art House Productions has unveiled "In The Wind," a large-scale public art installation in Lincoln Park, Jersey City, featuring artist-designed flags with original works by Hudson County artists. Curated by Tina Maneca, the exhibition celebrates the organization's 25th anniversary and includes over 80 artists who live, work, or maintain studios in Hudson County. The flags are installed around Edgewood Lake, moving with the wind to create a dynamic, ever-changing exhibition. All flags are priced at $500 and available for purchase. The installation runs from June through November 2026, with an opening reception on June 5, 2026, during ACCESS JC Fridays.
A collection of Chinese antiques, including an Imperial robe from the 19th century, was discovered in a chest in London after being kept as family mementos for decades. The items were acquired by Nan Brake, a British translator living in Beijing during the 1950s, who purchased them on excursions around the city. The collection, which features Ming dynasty paintings, Qing dynasty embroidered robes, and jade ornaments, will be auctioned by Roseberys on May 12 with an estimated total value of £40,000 ($54,100). The standout piece is a turquoise silk Imperial robe embroidered with nine five-clawed dragons, likely made for a male member of the emperor's family.
The article announces the exhibition 'Seeing, Again' at Tang Contemporary Art in Beijing, running from May 16 to June 27, 2026. The show features artists Melody Park, Goyoung, Vibeke Slyngstad, Ruo-Hsin Wu, Yasuhito Kawasaki, and Yoshikatsu Ikeuchi, whose works across painting and sculpture explore themes of perception, memory, and the recovery of Walter Benjamin's concept of 'aura' in an age of image saturation. The exhibition is structured as a continuous sensory reawakening, inviting viewers to slow down and engage with art beyond habitual consumption.
At the opening reception of "Fermata: Hong Kong in Venice," a Collateral Event of the 61st Venice Biennale, Hong Kong's Secretary for Culture, Sports and Tourism, Miss Rosanna Law, delivered a speech celebrating the exhibition. The event marks Hong Kong's 25th year of participation in the Biennale, featuring artists Kingsley Ng and Angel Hui, who present five new site-specific installations that explore stillness and overlooked rhythms of everyday life, in resonance with the Biennale's theme "In Minor Keys." For the first time, the Hong Kong Museum of Art co-organized the exhibition with the Hong Kong Arts Development Council, curating a dialogue between the two artists.
More than 100 seniors from the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign will showcase their final projects at Krannert Art Museum from May 9 to May 16. The Bachelor of Fine Arts Exhibition features work across all disciplines, including art education, art history, graphic design, industrial design, and studio art. Graphic design students Rinnell Borges and Natalie Mora created the exhibition's branding and catalog under the theme "Myth of Originality," drawing inspiration from fellow students' work and university archives. Individual projects include Borges's syrup packaging concept, Mora's communication guide for Latino communities, Caroline Dorion's charcoal drawings of draped female figures, and Sylvie Leyerle's children's book about her adoption from China.
A trio of Midwest photographers—Qingjun Huang, Natalie Jackson, and Matthew Terry—will showcase their latest works at the Quad City Arts Center in Rock Island, Illinois, from May 8 through June 19. The exhibition, titled "Huang, Jackson, & Terry," features Huang, a Peoria-based freelancer born in China with international exhibition credits including Christie’s London and the Benaki Museum; Jackson, a portrait and fine arts photographer from Peoria who serves on the board of the Contemporary Art Center of Peoria; and Terry, a Davenport-based contemporary photographer and Academy of Art University graduate whose work has been shown in galleries across the U.S. and Europe.
An exhibition at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead is showcasing "Blazing Trails," a project by local artist Sofia Barton originally commissioned for Tyne and Wear Metro trains. The artwork celebrates the hidden heritage of north-east England by depicting lesser-known community leaders, including suffragette Kathleen Brown and Chinatown founders Koon Kiu Cheng and Peter Cheng. The display runs until 27 September in the Baltic's pop-up shop.
The Beijing Dangdai Art Fair opened on Thursday at the National Agricultural Exhibition Center, running through Sunday. It features a wide range of works from late artist Zao Wou-ki’s tiny sketch drafts to large-scale installation art and robot pieces co-developed by artists and tech companies. Galleries from Beijing’s 798 art zone, other Chinese cities, and international institutions are participating. The fair also marks the launch of the 2026 Beijing Art Season, which includes Beijing Design Week and Gallery Weekend Beijing, and offers an off-site exhibition at WONDER · China World Mall through May 31.
The Italian Cultural Institute in Beijing hosted a lecture on May 12, 2026, featuring Zhou Zhiwei, a Chinese painter based in Italy, who shared his four-decade artistic journey. Zhou, born in Shanghai in 1954, studied under renowned oil painters Yu Yunjie and Liu Kemin before entering the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice in 1980, where he learned from masters like Bruno Saetti and Emilio Vedova. He also trained with Pietro Annigoni and Riccardo Tommasi Ferroni, mastering fresco and tempera grassa techniques. The event was chaired by Federico Antonelli, cultural counselor of the Italian Embassy in China, who recalled Zhou's first exhibition at the institute in 1984. Zhou discussed his solo exhibition 'Notes along the Way,' which explores the Mediterranean through an Eastern lens, blending classical Italian painting with Chinese tradition.
The Museum of Art Pudong (MAP) in Shanghai has announced "Giorgio Morandi. Solo," the largest and most comprehensive exhibition of Giorgio Morandi in the 21st century, opening June 17 and running through October 2026. Presented with the Museo Morandi in Bologna, the show brings together over 200 works from 39 institutions and private collections worldwide, including more than 140 original artworks by the Italian painter, with over 120 shown in China for the first time. Highlights include Morandi's only known seascape, one of seven self-portraits, a never-before-exhibited portrait of his sister, and his personal star-wheel etching press on loan from descendants of his friend Francesco Bagnaresi.
The University of Melbourne's Buxton Contemporary has opened a new exhibition titled "Poetry goes no further than language," which examines the emergence of conceptual art in China during the mid-1980s and early 1990s. Featuring works by the Beijing collective New Measurement Group and Shanghai artist Qian Weikang, the show also includes a new commission by Victorian College of the Arts graduate Darcey Bella Arnold. Curated by Dr. Carol Yinghua Lu, Director of Beijing's Inside-Out Art Museum, together with artist Liu Ding, the exhibition brings previously inaccessible or little-known works to Australia for the first time.
The University of Melbourne's Buxton Contemporary has opened "Poetry goes no further than language: A historical moment of art becoming art again," an exhibition examining the emergence of conceptual art in China during the mid-1980s and early 1990s. It features works by the Beijing collective New Measurement Group and Shanghai artist Qian Weikang, alongside a new commission by Victorian College of the Arts graduate Darcey Bella Arnold. The exhibition is curated by Dr. Carol Yinghua Lu, Director of Beijing's Inside-Out Art Museum, and artist Liu Ding.
Photographer and curator Jingyi Yu, who earlier this year served as sole juror for the group exhibition "New Year, New [Me]ntal Issues" at A Space Gallery, now presents a new exhibition titled "Not for Sale," co-curated with Qi Ling and opening May 24. The show features work selected from an international open call that received nearly one hundred submissions from artists across the United States, China, Korea, and Europe, including London-based artist and animator Marian Obando. The exhibition centers on pieces made without strategic intention or commercial ambition—private, impulsive, or emotionally driven works that were never intended for public circulation.
Alle Terme di Diocleziano di Roma spopola la mostra di un’artista cinese. Il curatore spiega perché
Chinese artist Wu Jian'an (born 1980, Beijing) is the subject of a major solo exhibition at the Baths of Diocletian in Rome, part of the Museo Nazionale Romano. Titled "Metamorphoses. L'arte che trasforma," the show explores connections between Chinese and Italian cultures, as well as broader Eastern and European traditions. Curated by Umberto Croppi, president of the Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma, the exhibition features works such as the monumental leather installation "The Heaven of Nine Levels" (2008–2009) and the series "The Eternal Cycle – Running Through the Seasons" (2024–2025), which combines intricate paper cutouts, silk, wax, and cotton thread. The artist, who represented China at the 57th Venice Biennale in 2017, was inspired by the ancient Roman spaces, creating a dialogue between his contemporary pieces and the site's classical mosaics and architecture.
A retrospective exhibition titled "Imprints of History — A Retrospective Exhibition of Luo Yi's Works" opened on Thursday at the art museum of Minzu University of China in Beijing. The show features over 100 paintings by Luo Yi, a veteran fine arts professor at the university and a pioneer of higher education in ethnic groups' fine arts in China. The exhibition systematically presents his artistic achievements and academic lineage, including works in oil, gouache, ink, and color, spanning his 70-plus-year career.
Ella Maillart, photographe baroudeuse des années 30 mise en lumière dans une exposition à Lausanne
Ella Maillart, a Swiss photographer and adventurer from the 1930s, is the subject of a new exhibition in Lausanne. Born in Geneva in 1903, Maillart was an Olympic sailor and champion skier before turning to travel and photography. She journeyed across the Soviet Union, Central Asia, and China, often by train, ski, or camel, documenting remote cultures and political landscapes. Her travels included a 6,000-kilometer trek from Beijing to Kashmir with British writer Peter Fleming, and a road trip from Geneva to Kabul with friend Annemarie Schwarzenbach. The exhibition highlights her photographs and writings, which blend geographical exploration, political chronicle, and personal meditation.
The Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis is hosting a public tour on May 14, 2026, as part of its Graduation Weekend programming. The tour will explore the exhibition "Looking Back Toward the Future: Contemporary Photography from China," which features over forty large-scale photographs by fourteen Chinese artists created between 1993 and 2006. The exhibition is organized into three thematic sections—The Presence of the Past, East and West, and Performance and the Body—examining how artists used photography and performance to critique China's post-1989 sociopolitical and cultural shifts. This is the first time these works are on view at the museum, and they represent a significant recent addition to its contemporary Chinese art collection.
Medicine Hat artist Poul Nielsen, 78, is exhibiting his work in Venice, Italy, as part of the exhibition 'Anima Mundi (Rituals)' held in conjunction with the Venice Biennale. Nielsen, who has shown his art in around 100 solo and collaborative exhibitions across decades, began his international career with a show in Copenhagen in 2000 and has since exhibited in England, the United States, and China. His current series, 'Atmospheric Possibilities,' was started around 2015 after his retirement from teaching at Medicine Hat College, where he helped develop a pioneering program merging fine art and graphic design.
The article reports on the return and expansion of a major independent art fair, now located on the far side of Chinatown. It highlights six standout artists whose works are featured at the fair, emphasizing the event's stylish and curated atmosphere.
The Today Art Museum in Beijing hosted an exhibition titled "Dialogue through Art," featuring works by Azerbaijani artists. Organized by the Embassy of Azerbaijan in China in collaboration with the Innovation Art and Travel Center and the AYDANI Art Gallery, the show included paintings, sculptures, digital art, and animation by both established and emerging Azerbaijani artists.
Arario Gallery Shanghai presents Huang Hankang's solo exhibition 'The Sky Remains as the Bird Departs,' running from May 15 to July 4. The show uses Shanghai as a dynamic 'processing system' where images, histories, and cultures are constantly received, translated, and reorganized. Through installations and paintings, the exhibition compresses multiple visual and historical threads, featuring works such as 'Gate of Flesh and Soul,' which juxtaposes Giuseppe Castiglione's hybrid visual language with the Cathay Theatre and fragments of George Washington's dentures, and 'Overlaid Life,' which contrasts a Song Dynasty crystal rabbit with cultivated orchids. Other pieces like 'Void Resonance' and 'Nameless Mark' explore perception, the body, and cultural mediation.
The 9th edition of Printemps Asiatique (Asian Spring) will take place from June 3 to 12, 2026, across Parisian galleries, museums, and auction houses. Modeled on New York’s Asia Week and London’s Asian Art, the festival features a shared calendar of exhibitions, tours, talks, and auctions, with nearly thirty galleries, ten museums and art venues, and thirteen auction houses participating. This year, Korea is the spotlight country, with dedicated exhibitions and artistic itineraries. Key venues include the Musée National des Arts Asiatiques - Guimet, Musée Cernuschi, Musée des Arts Décoratifs de Paris, and Musée du Louvre, alongside auction houses such as Christie's, Sotheby's, Bonhams, and others.
In spring 1975, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City hosted the second American stop of "The Exhibition of Archaeological Finds of the People's Republic of China," a landmark traveling show of ancient Chinese artifacts including jade, silk, and bronze sculptures. The author, then a University of Missouri-Kansas City economics student, worked behind the scenes at the museum, describing an unusual interview conducted while gardening and his task of touch-painting gallery walls with a dry brush to cover visitor smudges before opening.
An exhibition at the Kasthuri Sreenivasan Art Gallery in Coimbatore showcases around 70 works by five artists of the Kongu Oviya Kalai Kuzhu: V. Rajendhran, Kumanan, Murugesan, Ramamoorthy, and Govindarajulu. The show features a wide range of styles—from realistic animal portraits and textured floral canvases to charcoal sketches of crows and Rajasthani-themed paintings—employing techniques such as knife work, spray painting, and texture painting with clay. Rajendhran’s works focus on textile design, Kumanan presents acrylics and seed-covered sculptures, and Ramamoorthy offers a series of crow sketches. The exhibition is part of the AURORA Series 2026 and runs through May 17.