How Tony Albert’s childhood instinct became a radical art practice

Tony Albert, a Girramay/Yidinji/Kuku-Yalanji artist, has spent his life collecting Aboriginalia—kitsch household items from the mid-20th century that feature naive or racist depictions of Indigenous culture. These objects, including ashtrays, velvet paintings, and figurines, form the basis of his upcoming exhibition *Tony Albert: Not A Souvenir* at the Museum of Contemporary Art, curated by Bruce Johnson McClean. Albert's practice transforms these mass-produced artifacts into a powerful critique of colonization, displacement, and erasure.

Yu-Chi Lyra Kuo Shares a Vision for the Future of Art, Technology, and Creativity

Yu-Chi Lyra Kuo, an entrepreneur, investor, Harvard-educated lawyer, former Princeton academic, and board member of the Shed, shares her vision for integrating frontier technologies like artificial intelligence and robotics into the art world. She argues that these tools can enhance human creativity rather than replace it, drawing on her early experiences with Asian antiquities and her pioneering work in blockchain, including co-founding OpenSea 2.0. The article, based on an interview with CULTURED, traces her journey from collecting a jade gourd as a child to advising tech companies and joining the board of the Shed, a Bloomberg-backed cultural center in Hudson Yards.

Member Previews: Willem de Kooning Drawing (Thurs)

The Art Institute of Chicago is offering members exclusive preview access to "Willem de Kooning Drawing" from June 11–13, 2025, before it opens to the public. This is the first exhibition to comprehensively examine de Kooning's drawing practice, featuring works from across his career—from his earliest drawings to late calligraphic paintings—and marks the museum's first solo presentation of the artist since 1969.

Markus Brunetti’s Monumental Photos Venerate European Ecclesiastical Landmarks

Bavarian photographer Markus Brunetti, working with collaborator Betty Schöner, has spent over two decades traveling across Europe in a converted firetruck photo lab to capture monumental composite photographs of basilicas, cathedrals, and other ecclesiastical landmarks. Their process involves taking thousands of meter-by-meter shots of each structure over several years, then meticulously layering and arranging them into high-resolution images that correct perspective to create a striking one-point view. Brunetti's current solo exhibition, "Facades IV" at Yossi Milo gallery in New York City, features recent works including "Roma, Basilica di San Pietro" (2007-2026), which required seven visits over nineteen years to complete.

Interview. Max Goelitz

In an interview marking the sixth anniversary of his gallery, Max Goelitz reflects on the founding and evolution of his two-location operation in Munich and Berlin. He discusses how his decade at Häusler Contemporary, where he served as director, prepared him for the unpredictable nature of running his own gallery. The COVID-19 pandemic forced a strategic pivot from international ambitions to a focus on the local German market, which proved unexpectedly sustainable. Goelitz also addresses the current challenges facing galleries, including generational shifts and a more difficult art market, while advocating for an "old-school" reconsideration of what defines a gallery in times of transition.

John Hitchcock’s sonic and cultural rhythms

The New Britain Museum of American Art in Connecticut will present "John Hitchcock: We are Defined by the Beat" from May 16 to November 29, 2026, marking the artist's first mid-career retrospective. John Hitchcock, an enrolled member of the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma with Comanche and Northern European ancestry, has spent over three decades transforming the sonic and cultural rhythms of his homeland into a distinct visual language. The exhibition explores his integration of visual and sonic forms across printmaking, neon, textiles, sound, video, and installation, featuring series such as "Flatlander" (2011-18), "Bury the Hatchet" (2019-2020), "Blanket Songs" (2022-2023), "Soundscapes" (2021-2024), and "Celebration" (2025). Hitchcock's work pays homage to his ancestors, confronts histories of Indigenous displacement and trauma, and celebrates community, resilience, and survival, drawing on the sounds and landscapes of his ancestral home in Medicine Park, Oklahoma.

Exhibition commemorates Frederic Church 200th

The Olana Partnership opens "Frederic Church: Global Artist" on May 17 at Olana State Historic Site in Hudson, New York, commemorating the 200th anniversary of Frederic Church's birth (1826–1900). The exhibition brings together monumental oil paintings, drawings, oil sketches, and photographs from Church's global travels, with loans from major institutions including the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, The New York Historical, and the Terra Foundation for American Art. It is organized by Elizabeth Kornhauser, Tim Barringer, and Jennifer Raab, and is part of the broader Frederic Church 200 initiative.

Raymond Pettibon, the Artist Behind Some of the Most Iconic Album Covers

A new exhibition titled "Nervous Breakdown" at the Wilhelm-Hack-Museum in Ludwigshafen, Germany, presents the most comprehensive collection of Raymond Pettibon's album cover art to date. The show draws from over 200 works in the collection of Stefan Thull, spanning Pettibon's record, CD, and cassette covers from 1979 to the present, including iconic designs for Sonic Youth's "Goo" and Black Flag's logo. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue published by the museum and David Zwirner Books.

One Fine Show: “Wes Anderson, The Archives” at the Design Museum in London

The Design Museum in London has opened "Wes Anderson: The Archives," the first major museum exhibition dedicated to the filmmaker. Featuring over 700 pieces of ephemera—including costumes, props, stop-motion puppets, miniature models, paintings, and Anderson's notebooks and storyboards—the show draws from a personal archive he has built since 1998. The exhibition, a collaboration with la Cinémathèque française in Paris where it premiered last year, has been expanded by some 300 additional objects for its London run. It runs through July 26, 2026.

This Y/Project Suit Defines The Met’s “Costume Art” Exhibition

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has announced its 2026 exhibition "Costume Art," which will inaugurate the new Condé M. Nast Galleries. Curator Andrew Bolton explains the show will focus on the dressed body's connection to art history, emphasizing materiality and corporeality over visuality. A key preview piece is a Y/Project suit from FW22, designed by Glenn Martens and Jean Paul Gaultier, featuring a trompe-l'oeil nude male figure that will be displayed alongside a 1st–2nd century CE marble statue of Diadoumenos. Other sections include "The Naked Body," "The Aging Body," and "The Anatomical Body."

Zurbarán at the National Gallery is more agony than ecstasy

The article reviews the exhibition 'Zurbarán' at the National Gallery in London, arguing that the show fails to capture the spiritual intensity and emotional power of the Spanish Baroque painter's work. It criticizes the curatorial choices, suggesting the display feels flat and lacks the ecstatic religious fervor that defines Zurbarán's best paintings, leaving viewers with a sense of agony rather than transcendence.

the eight Impressionist exhibitions

Between 1874 and 1886, a group of avant-garde artists in Paris—including Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Camille Pissarro, and Berthe Morisot—organized eight independent exhibitions as a rebellion against the government-sponsored Salon. Rejected by the Salon's conservative jury, which favored academic standards, these artists pooled resources to stage their own shows, initially held at photographer Nadar's atelier on the boulevard des Capucines. The exhibitions had fluctuating lineups and varied titles, and the term "Impressionist" was only applied retrospectively by art historians in the 20th century.

How ‘Continnum’ reimagines art in domestic spaces

The exhibition 'Continuum,' curated by artist-curator Gauri Minocha at The Art Hub Gallery in Gurugram, presents over 100 artworks by South Asian artists within a refurbished house turned home gallery. Works are displayed across rooms, hallways, stairways, and terraces, moving away from the traditional white cube model to allow viewers to experience art in a domestic setting. The show spans from the 1950s to 2026, featuring modern masters like Ram Kumar, Jamini Roy, and Rubin Mondal, with each room defined by a distinct color palette and mood.

painting unfolds across earth, canvas, and space in katharina grosse’s london exhibition

Katharina Grosse's exhibition 'I Set Out, I Walked Fast' at White Cube London presents a continuous environment where painting extends beyond the canvas into space. The show features new works, archival material, and a large in-situ installation that combines mounds of earth, a partially submerged canvas, and a bronze-cast sculpture into a single painted field. Grosse uses an industrial spray gun to apply acrylic pigments, creating works that blur boundaries between surface, site, and viewer. The exhibition avoids chronological order, instead connecting pieces from different periods to form a spatial network where individual works function as nodes.

Marilyn Monroe, Iconic Idol

Marilyn Monroe, idole iconique

The Cinémathèque française in Paris is presenting an exhibition dedicated to Marilyn Monroe to mark the centenary of her birth. The show explores her evolution from actress to a globally reproduced image, featuring portraits by renowned photographers and examining her enduring cultural presence.

Al Padiglione del Giappone della Biennale di Venezia vi affidano una bambola da accudire

The Japan Pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale 2026 features an immersive, interactive exhibition titled "Grass Babies, Moon Babies" by Japanese-American artist Ei Arakawa-Nash. Visitors are invited to care for one of 200 dolls, each with a QR code that provides a "diaper poem" linked to the doll's symbolic birth date—reflecting the artist's personal experience of becoming a father in 2024 and broader social dynamics in Japan. The pavilion, curated by Lisa Horikawa and Mizuki Takahashi, evolves over the seven months of the Biennale as a platform for shared care and participation.

Air de Paris, a Radical Stalwart of the French Gallery Scene, Is Closing

After 36 years and over 400 exhibitions, the radical Parisian gallery Air de Paris is closing due to bankruptcy. Co-founders Florence Bonnefous and Edouard Merino decided to shutter the gallery after its financial situation became fragile, compounded by Bonnefous's health issues (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) and their refusal to adapt to the increasingly profit-driven, corporatist art market. The gallery's final show, titled “Oh What a Time,” in Romainville featured works by artists including Joseph Grigely, Amy Vogel, Allen Ruppersberg, Pierre Joseph, Mona Varichon, Pati Hill, Lily van der Stokker, and Trisha Donnelly.

Leonardo Madriz’s Monuments to the Precarity of Now

Artist Leonardo Madriz presents his solo exhibition 'Do Not Be Afraid' at Parent Company, featuring five totemic sculptures constructed from rope, resin, and found objects. These works, which Madriz calls 'sentinels,' use materials like rebar, barbed wire, a fake Rolex, and a fragment of a US flag made in Vietnam to create anthropomorphic forms that appear weary and burdened.

What Remains of Democracy? The Answers of Contemporary Art

Che cosa resta della democrazia? Le risposte dell’arte contemporanea

The article is a cultural essay examining how contemporary art reflects and responds to the perceived global crisis of democracy. It argues that recent socio-political accelerations—including rising nationalism, wars, and unchecked capitalism—have eroded the substantive content of democracy, reducing public space to an extension of individual, screen-mediated identity.

The Biennale of Quiet Tones

Die Biennale der leisen Töne

The 61st Venice Biennale's main exhibition, titled "Gardens, Processions, Art as Expression of Lived Realities," places humanity at its center. Curators revealed minimal biographical details for the 111 participating artists, only noting the oldest (Marcel Duchamp, born 1887) and youngest (Mohammed Z Rahman, born 1997), signaling a deliberate shift away from individual fame toward collective experience.

Einatmen – Ausatmen

Lee Ufan, the renowned Korean artist known for his meditative single brushstroke paintings, is the subject of a feature article in Monopol. The piece visits his home in Kamakura, Japan, where he lives and works in a simple wooden cube house, reflecting the minimalist philosophy that defines his art. The article explores how Lee finds the entire universe in a single brushstroke, and how the art world is increasingly captivated by his serene, contemplative works.

L’œuvre « indocile » du photographe Guido Guidi exposée au BAL

The article announces the exhibition of photographer Guido Guidi's work at Le BAL in Paris, curated by Simona Antonacci, Pippo Ciorra, and Antonello Frongia, with scenography by Cyril Delhomme. The show, titled "Col tempo, 1956-2024," runs from February 20 to May 24, 2026, and was previously presented in a larger version at the MAXXI museum in Rome. Guidi, now 85, is described as the last of a generation of Italian photographers—alongside Luigi Ghirri and Ugo Mulas—who radically redefined photographic language through patient, obstinate reflection on the act of seeing.

6 Artworks That Define the 2026 Venice Biennale’s Main Exhibition

The 2026 Venice Biennale's main exhibition opens this week, curated by Koyo Kouoh—the first African woman to hold the role—who was announced in 2024 but passed away suddenly in 2025. The article highlights six artworks that define her curatorial vision, which connected the international art world to artists and institutions from Africa and the Global South.

Walter Pfeiffer “In Good Company” at Pinacoteca Agnelli, Turin

Pinacoteca Agnelli in Turin will present "Walter Pfeiffer: In Good Company," the first institutional survey in Italy dedicated to the Swiss artist's photographic work, running from April 30 to September 13, 2026. The exhibition features over one hundred photographs spanning from the 1970s to the present, exploring themes of artifice, desire, and the everyday.

Gallery of Peter Zumthor’s LACMA David Geffen Galleries Open in Los Angeles - 4

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) has opened its new David Geffen Galleries, a major building designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Peter Zumthor. The structure, which replaces four older buildings on the museum's campus, is a single-story, concrete-and-glass pavilion spanning Wilshire Boulevard, designed to create a more unified and accessible visitor experience.

Abbas Akhavan Transforms the Canada Pavilion Into a Greenhouse, Daring Viewers to Leave Behind Their Preconceptions

Artist Abbas Akhavan has transformed the Canada Pavilion at the Venice Biennale into a functioning greenhouse for his exhibition "Entre chien et loup." The pavilion now houses a 6,000-gallon pool containing giant Victoria water lilies, with modifications including grow lights, water misters, a new ventilation system, and structural reinforcements to support the 25-ton water tank. The installation evokes Victorian-era Wardian cases and London's Crystal Palace, but Akhavan emphasizes that his interest in the lilies began intuitively, not as a commentary on colonialism or empire. The project, developed with curator Kim Nguyen, involved collaboration with Kew Gardens and the Orto Botanico di Padova to cultivate the plants, and the outcome remains uncertain as the lilies may thrive or wither over the exhibition's six-month run.

New space dedicated to Oleg Prokofiev—whose abstract art was censored by Soviet Russia—opens in London

A new art space called Prokofiev Studio has opened in Hackney, London, dedicated to the Russian artist Oleg Prokofiev. Its inaugural exhibition, 'Bending Time,' presents abstract works from the 1950s that were banned under Soviet censorship and long thought lost. The space was founded by Prokofiev’s children, including composer Gabriel Prokofiev, in collaboration with curator Anzhela Popova. The works were rediscovered in 1994 when Prokofiev returned to his former Moscow home and found them preserved by the new owner.

Paul Waldman, Creator and Curator of Art Museum for Birds, Dies at 89

Paul Waldman, a multifaceted artist known for his transgressive paintings and unique architectural birdhouses, has died at the age of 89. After overcoming childhood dyslexia and a stint as a competitive bodybuilder, Waldman established a significant career in the New York art scene, characterized by his meticulous technique and a fascination with the human form and avian structures.

Somali Cultural Organizations Unhappy With Somalia Pavilion at the Venice Biennale

Somali artists and cultural organizations are protesting the Somalia pavilion at the 2024 Venice Biennale, arguing it excludes artists based in Somalia and relies on diaspora figures and an Italian co-curator, which they view as colonial. The Somali Arts Foundation issued a statement condemning the lack of consultation, while the queer arts collective Warbixinta Cidda criticized the appointment of Italian curator Fabio Scrivanti. Somali American poet Ladan Osman boycotted the pavilion, calling it "anti-indigenous."

Director’s Notes with Adam Golfer | “Camille Henrot: In Movement”

Adam Golfer, the director of the short film "Camille Henrot: In Movement," reflects on the process of creating the documentary. He describes following the artist Camille Henrot over a full year in New York and Paris, capturing her wide-ranging creative process from sketches to paintings, model-making to large-scale sculptures, and the evolution of her film work.