Musician Thom Yorke and artist Stanley Donwood will present a new exhibition titled “No Go Elevator (not without no keycard)” in a small gallery in Venice next month, coinciding with the Venice Biennale. The show marks their first showcase outside the U.K. and features a mix of drawings and a large painting created in London this year, with cryptic textual components and no unifying theme, according to the artists.
The National Portrait Gallery in London is hosting "Catherine Opie: To Be Seen," the first major UK museum exhibition dedicated to the American photographer. The show brings together over 80 photographs spanning 30 years of Opie's career, exploring themes of social, political, and individual identity through studio portraiture, environmental studies, and documentary images.
Tate Britain will stage "The 90s: Art and Fashion" in autumn 2026, guest curated by Edward Enninful, featuring nearly 70 artists, designers, and photographers including Steve McQueen, Damien Hirst, Alexander McQueen, and Vivienne Westwood. The exhibition explores how the decade reshaped British cultural identity through art, fashion, and social commentary, highlighting DIY anti-fashion aesthetics and themes of identity, race, class, and representation. Separately, Gagosian opened a new ground-floor flagship at 980 Madison Avenue in New York, replacing its longtime sixth-floor space after 37 years. A rare 17th-century Mughal astrolabe is heading to Sotheby's London with a £1.5–2.5 million estimate. Fondazione Sozzani launched an award for emerging creative talent. A Manhattan federal jury ordered art publisher Michael McKenzie to pay $102.2 million in damages to the Morgan Art Foundation for producing unauthorized works by Robert Indiana.
Harriet Cooper's guide highlights 16 free art exhibitions in London for spring 2026, including David Hockney's inaugural show at Serpentine North Gallery, a solo display by designer Simone Brewster at the Design Museum, and Somerset House's 'Holy Pop!' exploring modern idolatry. Other featured shows range from Paula Rego drawings to Gilbert & George works, all accessible without admission charges.
The Guardian reports on 'Holy Pop,' a new exhibition at London's Somerset House that celebrates extreme pop fandom through personal shrines and collections. The show features photographer Alice Hawkins's Dolly Parton shrine, including leaves from Parton's garden and hair extensions, alongside artifacts from fans of Prince, the Spice Girls, George Michael, Marc Bolan, and others. Curated by Tory Turk, the exhibition includes visual art by Graham Dolphin and Tox26, as well as films and photos of fans visiting stars' graves and impromptu memorials.
Vanity Fair's Nate Freeman reports on New York's spring art season, where auction houses are poised to sell at least $2.6 billion in art alongside major museum exhibitions (Raphael at the Met, Duchamp at MoMA, Matisse at Acquavella) and the opening of Frieze New York at The Shed. The article follows the social and commercial frenzy, highlighting a David Shrigley gong installation at Anton Kern Gallery's booth and the enduring dominance of New York, where nearly 90% of U.S. art sales occur.
An Artlyst guide highlights several major art exhibitions opening in London in May 2026. Key shows include 'Zurbarán' at the National Gallery (the UK's first major monographic exhibition of the Spanish master in over 30 years), 'Rising Voices: Contemporary Art from Asia, Australia and the Pacific' at the V&A (a collaboration with QAGOMA featuring 40 artists), a James McNeill Whistler retrospective at Tate Britain (the first major European show in 30 years), and 'Winston Churchill: The Painter' at the Wallace Collection. Photo London is also moving to Olympia this year.
James Abbott McNeill Whistler's iconic painting of his mother, Anna, known as 'Whistler’s Mother' or 'Arrangement in Grey and Black No 1', is returning to London for the first time in nearly two generations as part of a Tate Britain exhibition. The article recounts how the portrait was painted in 1871 in Whistler's Chelsea studio during a low point in his career, using cheap paint and a used canvas after a young sitter canceled. The author, who restored the painting for the Musée d'Orsay, details the work's accidental genesis, Whistler's radical minimalist aesthetic, and the initial critical confusion it caused.
The 61st Venice Biennale is underway, and while it is officially a non-commercial exhibition, market forces are increasingly influential behind the scenes. Artnet News host Margaret Carrigan reports on auction houses actively participating in opening week, and highlights Sotheby’s upcoming single-owner sale in London featuring works from billionaire Joe Lewis’s collection, expected to exceed $200 million. Meanwhile, Whitechapel Gallery has created a new economist-in-residence position to address ongoing financial strain in museums.
An unprecedented installation by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, titled "Air Package on a Ceiling," is being exhibited for the first time at Gagosian's Grosvenor Hill space in London, opening May 21, 2026. The work was originally conceived in 1968 for the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia but never realized due to technical constraints. It was rediscovered in 2018 when Lorenza Giovanelli, Christo's former studio manager, found a detailed scale model hidden inside a pedestal. The exhibition also includes early works such as "Wrapped Automobile—Volvo, Model PV-544" (1981), not seen in thirty years, alongside preparatory drawings and collages.
"Gemeinsames Basteln, Anfassen und Hinlegen"
Christie's in New York achieved record auction results, with Jackson Pollock's "Number 7A, 1948" selling for $181.2 million and Constantin Brâncuși's bronze sculpture "Danaïde" reaching $107.6 million, both from the S. I. Newhouse collection. Meanwhile, critic Gesine Borcherdt published a scathing review of the Marina Abramović exhibition "Balkan Erotic Epic" at Gropius Bau Berlin, arguing that museums increasingly demand audience participation—crafting, touching, lying down—under the guise of democracy, which she likens to group therapy and warns carries authoritarian tendencies. In London, makeup artist and designer Isamaya Ffrench opened a hybrid gallery and concept store called Studio Iron, featuring works by Abramović, Paul McCarthy, Kelly Wearstler, and Anne Imhof, aiming to blur boundaries between art, design, and function.
Emma Fineman, a visual artist based in London, is presenting her first solo show at Alexander Berggruen gallery in New York, on view through June 24. The exhibition features 18 paintings that explore her queer identity and self-acceptance, drawing from Christian mythology and the Book of Genesis to celebrate female desire. In a conversation with her sister Chloe Fineman, a cast member on SNL, the two discuss their creative processes, the overlap between comedy and painting, and how they support each other through artistic blocks.
A red-and-black Mark Rothko painting, *Brown and Blacks in Reds* (1957), sold for US$85.8 million at Sotheby’s New York on May 14, becoming the artist’s second-most expensive work at auction. The canvas came from the collection of Robert Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs partner turned gallerist, and was the star lot of a dedicated 11-lot evening sale that totaled US$166.3 million. The winning bid was placed by Sotheby’s chairman Helena Newman on behalf of a telephone client, with the hammer falling at US$74 million against an estimate of US$70–100 million. The painting was originally owned by Joseph E. Seagram & Sons and hung in the lobby of the Seagram Building, a landmark of corporate modernism designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson.
A hand-signed offset lithograph poster by Peter Doig, created for his 2023 exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery in London, is being offered for sale by Alpha 137 Gallery in New York. The poster, signed by the artist in marker and accompanied by a certificate of authenticity, is priced at $5,500. The listing includes a detailed biography of Doig, noting his birth in Edinburgh in 1959, his upbringing in Trinidad and Canada, his studies at Wimbledon School of Art, Saint Martin's, and Chelsea School of Art, and his rise to international prominence as a painter who reinvigorated the medium. It also highlights his major museum exhibitions and auction record of $39.9 million at Christie's in 2021.
Swansea has been confirmed as the only Welsh stop on the British Art Show 10 national tour, with the exhibition taking place at the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery from February 12 to May 16, 2027. Titled 'A Chorus of Strangers,' the show will also feature venues including the new home for Elysium Gallery and potentially Y Storfa, and will explore themes of Moments of Being, Ways of Living, and States of Nature across various media. Curated by Ekow Eshun, the tour launches in Coventry in October 2026 before visiting Swansea, Bristol, Sheffield, and Newcastle-Gateshead.
An original Andy Warhol exhibition poster from 2021 is being offered for sale by Baldwin gallery, with locations in London, Miami, and Dubai. The offset lithograph on paper measures 19.7 × 27.6 inches, is in mint condition, unsigned, and includes a Certificate of Authenticity. Priced at £650, the work ships from London with domestic shipping at £45 and international at £55, and is covered by the Artsy Guarantee.
Ed Ruscha's 1983 work "A Particular Kind Of Heaven" is being offered at auction through Tate Ward, with current bidding at £100. The piece is an exhibition poster from the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, measuring 61 x 92 cm, and is part of Tate Ward's Urban and Contemporary Art London sale. The listing also shows multiple other Ruscha works available from various sellers, including posters and prints from EHC Fine Art Auction, Blond Contemporary, and Baldwin.
Christie’s London will host “The Meeting Ground,” a non-selling exhibition of works from the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA) in New Delhi, from July 16 to August 21, 2025. The show features Indian modernists such as M.F. Husain, S.H. Raza, K.G. Subramanyan, and F.N. Souza, alongside contemporary South Asian artists, Indigenous art practitioners, and diaspora artists. Admission is free. The exhibition follows a series of record-breaking auction sales for South Asian art, including Husain’s *Untitled (Gram Yatra)* (1954) sold at Christie’s New York for $13.8 million in March 2025 and Raja Ravi Varma’s *Yashoda and Krishna* (ca. 1890s) sold at Saffronart for $17.9 million.
Artists Hilary Powell and Dan Edelstyn are auctioning off their work from the past 15 years this Saturday to raise at least £250,000 for a community-led renewable power station in Clacton, the constituency of Reform UK leader Nigel Farage. The auction, which will be conducted by former YBA Gavin Turk, includes a gold Ford Transit van wreckage containing fake banknotes that the pair blew up in 2019 as part of their film *Bank Job*, now reconstituted as a mobile sculpture. An online auction runs until 31 May, but currently only £750 has been raised.
This episode of The Art Newspaper's podcast 'The Week in Art' covers three major stories: the spring auction results in New York, which saw record prices for works by Jackson Pollock, Constantin Brancusi, and Mark Rothko; the opening of the largest James McNeill Whistler exhibition in Europe in over 30 years at Tate Britain in London, which will later travel to the Van Gogh Museum and The Mesdag Collection in the Netherlands; and a feature on Edvard Munch's 1922 frieze from the Freia Chocolate Factory, currently on loan to the Munch museum in Oslo for the exhibition 'Edvard Munch and the Chocolate Factory.'
Flare Up, a group exhibition co-curated by Mariana Lemos and Natasha Hoare at CCA Goldsmiths in London, showcases art centered on illness, chronic conditions, disability, neurodivergence, and deafness. The show features works by artists including Benoît Piéron, Avril Corroon, Derek Jarman, Christine Sun Kim, Jesse Darling, and the collective Freestylers, exploring themes such as near-death experiences, crip memes, government bureaucracy, and the fluctuating nature of symptoms. Highlights include Piéron's bunting made from hospital sheets, Corroon's installation on poverty and health, and Jarman's 1992 painting Act Up.
The Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA) in New Delhi will take over Christie’s London headquarters this summer for a month-long non-selling exhibition titled "The Meeting Ground: Scenes from the KNMA Collection" (16 July-21 August). The show will feature 180 works by 60 Indian, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi artists from the 1950s to the present, drawn from billionaire collector Kiran Nadar’s vast collection of South Asian Modern art. The exhibition anticipates the delayed relocation of KNMA to a new 100,000 sq. m building near Delhi airport, designed by David Adjaye and now about 60% complete, with former Louvre Abu Dhabi director Manuel Rabaté appointed to run the museum.
Christo's posthumous exhibition "Air" at Gagosian in London finally realizes a 1960s concept to contain air within a room, using a massive polyethylene sack suspended from the ceiling that forces visitors to physically engage with the space. The show also includes early wrapped bubble works and a preserved wrapped Volvo, tracing the artist's lifelong fascination with making the invisible tangible.
The article explores how the James McNeill Whistler exhibition at Tate in London prompts a reconsideration of the relationship between music and visual art. Whistler titled his works using musical terms like "Arrangement," "Symphony," and "Nocturne," arguing that painting should be abstract and independent of narrative, much like instrumental music. The exhibition, reviewed by Jonathan Jones, highlights Whistler's radical art-for-art's-sake philosophy, which influenced composer Claude Debussy, whose orchestral Nocturnes were directly inspired by Whistler's paintings of light and atmosphere.
Tate Britain has opened a major retrospective dedicated to James McNeill Whistler, the American painter who scandalized Victorian Britain. The exhibition centers on his iconic work *Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1* (commonly known as *Whistler's Mother*), lent by the Musée d'Orsay, and traces his evolution from raw realist scenes of London's docks to radical, abstract celebrations of color and pattern. It includes a reconstruction of *The Peacock Room* and highlights his rivalry with critic John Ruskin, who accused him of 'flinging a pot of paint in the public's face.'
Tate Britain is previewing its new garden at the 2026 RHS Chelsea Flower Show, offering a sneak peek of the forthcoming Clore Garden designed by Tom Stuart-Smith and scheduled for completion in 2027. The show garden features Barbara Hepworth's 1949 sculpture *Bicentric Form*, the first work Tate acquired by the artist, alongside Mediterranean plants adapted to London's warming climate, a wildlife pond, and recycled materials from the Millbank site. After the show, the garden will be relocated to Tate Britain.
In 2002, Lucian Freud unveiled a portrait of a naked and pregnant Kate Moss, a rare celebrity subject for the artist who had turned down Princess Diana. A new film, *Moss & Freud*, dramatizes the unlikely friendship that developed between the aging painter and the supermodel during the creation of *Naked Portrait (2002)*. Directed by James Lucas, the film stars Ellie Bamber as Moss and Derek Jacobi as Freud, and explores their intense studio sessions, personal revelations, and the bond that formed despite their contrasting lifestyles.
TEFAF New York 2026 opened to packed crowds at the Park Avenue Armory, showcasing a mix of historic and contemporary works. Highlights include Gagosian’s solo booth of Kathleen Ryan’s bejeweled “Bad Fruit” sculptures, Thaddaeus Ropac’s presentation of monumental canvases by Danish painter Eva Helene Pade, and Axel Vervoordt Gallery’s spotlight on overlooked Italian painter Ida Barbarigo. The fair also features collectible design and perennial favorites like Alexander Calder mobiles and Alighiero Boetti tapestries.
The V&A Museum in London has mounted an exhibition titled "Rising Voices" that attempts to summarize three decades of the Asia Pacific Triennial, a vast survey of contemporary art from Asia, Australia, and the Pacific organized by Queensland Art Gallery. The show crams works from multiple continents, island nations, and Indigenous cultures into just three rooms, featuring bark cloth paintings from Papua New Guinea, Indigenous Australian abstracts, shark sculptures from the Torres Strait, and Tahitian textiles. Many works address colonialism, political oppression, and tyranny, with artists like Elisabet Kauage, Pala Pothupitiye, and Svay Ken using art as resistance. The exhibition includes pieces by Maryam Ayeen, Abbas Shahsavar, Lila Warrimou, Pennyrose Sosa, Aline Amaru, Brenda V Fajardo, and Heri Dono.
Zineb Sedira's exhibition at Tate Britain presents a cinematic and sculptural homage to La Cinémathèque Algérienne, the Algerian film archive founded in 1965 that became a hub for leftist African filmmakers. The show recreates a 1970s Algerian cafe in Paris, complete with a jukebox, books on revolutionary cinema, and a model movie theater screening a documentary about the archive's director, Boudjemaâ Karèche. Sedira, born in Paris to Algerian parents and based in London, weaves personal and political narratives to explore identity, diaspora, and the role of art in social change.