Tate St Ives to host first UK museum exhibition of groundbreaking artist

Tate St Ives will present the first UK museum exhibition of Aleksandra Kasuba, a Lithuanian American artist (1923–2019), from May 2 to October 4, 2026. The show spans seven decades of her career, featuring early paintings, mosaics, sculptures, and public artworks, including the spatial environment *Spectrum: An Afterthought* and a recreation of her *Live-In Environment*. Works are drawn from the Lithuanian National Museum of Art's collection, where Kasuba donated her pieces.

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The Union Hall Gallery in San Diego's Golden Hill neighborhood recently debuted "Gossip," a multidisciplinary exhibition featuring the work of seven local female artists. The opening reception drew over 100 attendees, signaling a strong community interest in local grassroots art initiatives. Additionally, the city is preparing for the upcoming Barrio Logan Art Crawl, a recurring cultural event that highlights the region's creative scene.

Chicago And Tokyo Artists Elevate Mosaics From Decorative Craft To Fine Art In New Exhibit

The Gallery of Contemporary Mosaics in Chicago has opened a new group exhibition titled "Perspectives from Japan," featuring works by eight Japanese artists, including master mosaicist Toyoharu Kii. Kii, known for his monochromatic white marble pieces, has taught at the Chicago Mosaic School for over a decade and traveled from Tokyo for the show, which runs through July 12. The exhibition aims to highlight the artistic sophistication of mosaic as a contemporary fine-art medium.

In a month of war, Iran’s cultural heritage has suffered huge damage

Iran's cultural heritage sites, including several historic palaces, have sustained severe damage during the recent conflict. The Golestan Palace in Tehran, specifically the Hall of the Marble Throne, and the Chehel Sotoun and Ali Qapu Palaces in Isfahan have suffered extensive destruction to their intricate mirror-mosaic decorations, painted ceilings, and structural elements.

art jordan nassar palestine james cohan show

Palestinian-American artist Jordan Nassar is preparing for a September exhibition at James Cohan gallery, creating a mosaic based on Roman-Byzantine floor decorations displayed at Tel Aviv's international airport. His new works incorporate darker tones—black, gray, deep red, green, and blue—reflecting the escalating crisis in Gaza and the West Bank. The embroidery pieces are made collaboratively with women in the West Bank, though shipping delays and tariff uncertainties have complicated production.

Adrian Ghenie: Roman Campagna | Exhibition review

Adrian Ghenie's exhibition "Roman Campagna" at a Paris gallery presents a series of paintings and charcoal drawings that subvert the romantic cliché of an artist's transformative encounter with Rome. Ghenie populates landscapes inspired by the Appian Way with grotesque, alien-headed figures hunched over smartphones, urinating on monuments, or weeping at sunsets, using brown and grey tones punctuated by bright colors. The works reference Francis Bacon and William S. Burroughs, and include direct allusions to Bacon's reinterpretation of van Gogh's self-portrait, as well as a copy of a Pompeii mosaic. The show also features large charcoal drawings on paper that reveal Ghenie's process of constructing his contemporary, alienated figures.

4000 year old greek vase smashed

A museum visitor at the Heraklion Archaeological Museum on Crete tripped and fell, grabbing a 4,000-year-old Minoan vase to break her fall and completely shattering the artifact. The Greek Culture Ministry reported the visitor suffered minor leg injuries, but restorers are optimistic and believe the vase could be back on display as soon as today. The vase had previously been repaired in antiquity, suggesting it was also damaged thousands of years ago.

3 to See: Ballet at Kravis; Conservation cinema; Boca Museum of Art

The Palm Beach County Cultural Council highlights three deals for MOSAIC (Month of Shows, Art, Ideas and Culture) in The Palm Beaches. Ballet Palm Beach presents 'Giselle' at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts, Audubon Everglades hosts 'Flyway: A Conservation Cinema Series' at Lake Worth Playhouse, and the Boca Raton Museum of Art offers buy-one-get-one-free admission throughout May.

The first UK museum presentation of Aleksandra Kasuba’s work: her exhibition Shelters for Senses open at Tate St Ives

Tate St Ives has opened 'Shelters for the Senses', the first UK museum presentation of Lithuanian-American artist Aleksandra Kasuba (1923–2019). Curated by Tate St Ives Director Anne Barlow in collaboration with LNMA curator Elona Lubytė, the exhibition spans seven decades of Kasuba's work, including early paintings, mosaics, public artworks, architectural designs, and spatial environments. A reconstruction of her 'Live-In Environment' (1971) is featured, alongside works donated to Lithuania and kept by the LNMA. The show runs until 4 October.

Snuffboxes stolen in Paris daylight robbery to go on display at V&A

Five 18th-century gold snuffboxes recovered after a violent daylight robbery in Paris are set to go on public display at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The objects were stolen in November 2024 from the Musée Cognacq-Jay during a high-profile heist that targeted pieces from the Rosalinde & Arthur Gilbert Collection, the Louvre, and the UK Royal Collection. Following an extensive police investigation and delicate restoration work by Parisian goldsmiths to repair damage sustained during the theft, the items will headline the opening of the V&A’s newly revamped Gilbert Galleries.

What To Expect at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science’s New Brick Planet Exhibition

The Denver Museum of Nature and Science has opened "Brick Planet: A Magical Journey Made With LEGO® Bricks," a temporary exhibition by award-winning Lego artist Sean Kenney. Featuring 1.5 million bricks, the show includes life-size animal sculptures like a polar bear, a ruby-throated hummingbird, and a Galapagos tortoise, along with interactive elements such as a "Mystery Mosaic." Kenney, a former Lego Masters guest judge, has toured his Lego exhibitions globally since 2012, with this installation emphasizing nature and environmental responsibility.

Francis Kéré's design for Las Vegas Museum of Art revealed

The Las Vegas Museum of Art (LVMA) has revealed renderings for its new 60,000-square-foot building, designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Francis Kéré. Set to open in 2029 at Symphony Park in downtown Las Vegas, the four-floor museum features a stone mosaic façade sourced from the Red Rock Mountains, a shaded front porch, a canyon-like grand staircase, and galleries inspired by Modernist architect Paul R. Williams. Baobab trees, symbolizing community, inform the design. The $200 million capital campaign, supported by the late Elaine Wynn and other trustees, has passed the halfway mark. The museum is a partnership with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Lacma) and will showcase works from its collection, with Lacma director Michael Govan serving as a founding trustee. A satellite exhibition, Family Album, is currently on view, and a 15,000-square-foot gallery and media lab will open next year.

New exhibit celebrates ceramics at CU Boulder

The CU Art Museum at the University of Colorado Boulder will host 'Shaping Time: CU Ceramics Alumni 2000–2020,' an exhibition opening September 5, 2025, celebrating the ceramics program's legacy. The show features works by alumni from the past two decades, curated by faculty Jeanne Quinn, Scott Chamberlin, and Kim Dickey, who have taught together for 25 years. The exhibition explores themes of environment, domesticity, and material meaning, and includes a symposium on September 5.

Chicken buckets, baked beans, liters of coke: the final meals of death row inmates

Artist Julie Green spent 22 years painting the last meals of 1,000 death row inmates on ceramic plates, resulting in the exhibition "The Last Supper" at the Boise Art Museum. The cobalt-blue images on second-hand white plates include specific requests like tacos, doughnuts, fried chicken, and lobster, drawn from newspaper accounts of executions. The exhibition features plates from across the U.S., including two from Idaho, and was inspired by Green's reading of a 1999 newspaper article about a condemned man's final meal.

In Romagna, debate over the artistic legacy of the Fascist era

In Romagna c’è discussione attorno all’eredità artistica del Ventennio fascista

Recent developments in Romagna, Italy, have sparked debate over the artistic legacy of the Fascist era. The 102-meter-long Flight Mosaics at the former Aeronautical College in Forlì are now open to the public, and the Conad-Città di Forlì Auditorium, converted from a former GIL cinema, will inaugurate on May 13, 2026. Regional President De Pascale has announced initial funding to secure the Colonia Varese in Cervia, a Rationalist masterpiece, while long-awaited consolidation work has begun on the Casa del Fascio in Predappio, Benito Mussolini's birthplace. A 2010 plan to turn the Casa del Fascio into a cultural center documenting Fascism has stalled due to political changes and bureaucratic hurdles.

NYC Transit Museum Turns MetroCards Into Art

The New York Transit Museum's Grand Central Gallery is presenting "Inspired by MetroCard," a free exhibition running through October 2026 that transforms the city's iconic fare card into works of art. The show features paintings, collages, mosaics, and wearable pieces created from thousands of MetroCards by artists including VH McKenzie, Nina Boesch, Juan Carlos Pinto, Barbara Kruger, Nina Vishneva, and Thomas McKean. Curator Jodi Shapiro organized the exhibition, which is located in the museum's gallery and store within Grand Central Terminal's Shuttle Passage.

December First Friday 2025: 20+ art show openings, markets and concerts

LancasterOnline reports on the December First Friday 2025 event in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, featuring over 20 art show openings, markets, and concerts. The monthly gallery walk and cultural celebration brings together local galleries, artists, and musicians for a night of visual art, live performances, and community commerce.

Ancient Greek and Roman Statues Found in Alexandria

An excavation in the Moharam Bek neighborhood of Alexandria, Egypt, has uncovered a significant trove of artifacts from the Greek, Roman, and Byzantine periods, including statues of deities such as Bacchus, Asclepius, and Minerva, as well as coins, lamps, ceramic vessels, a public bathhouse, mosaic flooring from a Roman villa, and advanced water systems. The discovery was announced by Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities and reported by Greek City Times, with officials from the Supreme Council of Antiquities highlighting the site’s comprehensive view of ancient residential and service architecture.

Historic Monument Honors New York's First Arabic-Speaking Community

New York City unveiled its first commemorative public artwork under Mayor Zohran Mamdani's administration on April 30, honoring the historic "Little Syria" neighborhood in Manhattan's Financial District. The monument, titled "Al Qalam (The Pen): Poets in the Park," is a mosaic installation and sculpture by French-Moroccan artist Sara Ouhaddou, created over the past decade. It celebrates nine members of the enclave's literary community, including Lebanese-American poet Khalil Gibran, who co-founded the writers' association Pen Bond in 1920. The $1.6 million artwork sits in Elizabeth H. Berger Plaza, within the blocks where immigrants from Greater Syria settled in the late 19th century before being displaced by tunnel construction in the 1940s.

house of griffins ancient rome restoration

The House of Griffins, an ancient Roman residence on Rome's Palatine Hill dating back to the 2nd and 1st centuries B.C.E., is opening to the public on March 3 after a major restoration. Discovered by archaeologist Giacomo Boni in the 19th century, the domus features vivid frescoes, mosaic floors, and a stucco lunette with griffins. The Colosseum Archaeological Park led the restoration in 2024, reinforcing structural integrity and conserving wall paintings. Visitors cannot access the underground chambers directly; instead, they will experience a real-time, remote tour via a livestream narrated by a guide with a video camera.

rome new metro stations mini museums

Rome has opened two new subway stations on Line C—Colosseo/Fori Imperiali and Porta Metronia—that double as mini museums, showcasing over 500,000 artifacts unearthed during two decades of excavation. The stations, located 100 feet underground, feature displays of ancient ceramics, frescoes, mosaic floors, and the remains of a Roman military compound and thermal baths, curated by the Colosseum Archaeological Park and Sapienza University. Commuters can view the artifacts without a ticket in the station atriums, and future stations on the line will incorporate additional archaeological finds.

rome colosseum metro station archaeology

Rome's new Colosseo-Fori Imperiali metro station opened on Tuesday after 11 years of construction, featuring archaeological treasures uncovered during excavation, including ceramic fragments, statues, oil lamps, stone vessels, and 28 ancient wells. The station, part of Metro Line C, also revealed a nearly 260-foot early second-century military barracks and a home with frescoes and mosaics at the nearby Porta Metronia station. Mayor Roberto Gualtieri attended the opening ceremony, and the city plans to open a museum in the station.

libya national museum red castle reopens after 14 years

Libya’s National Museum, also known as the Red Castle Museum (As-Saraya Al-Hamra), has reopened in Tripoli for the first time since the 2011 revolution that ended Muammar el-Qaddafi’s rule. The museum, the largest in North Africa, closed at the onset of Libya’s military instability during the Arab Spring. Its 10,000-square-meter gallery houses artifacts spanning prehistory through Greek, Roman, and Islamic periods, including millennia-old mummies. Renovations began in 2023, with a full public reopening scheduled for early 2026; currently admission is limited to students.

ancient egyptian pleasure boat portus magnus

Underwater archaeologist Franck Goddio and his Institut Européen d’Archéologie Sous-Marine (IEASM) team have discovered the remains of a 35-meter-long ancient Egyptian pleasure boat, known as a thalamagos, in the submerged Portus Magnus off Alexandria’s harbor. The 28-meter preserved timbers, found seven meters underwater and buried under sediment, represent the first physical evidence of such vessels, previously known only from ancient texts like Strabo's Geography and the Nile mosaic at Palestrina. The ship, built in Alexandria and propelled by oars, features a central pavilion and Greek graffiti from the 1st century C.E., and may have sunk around 50 C.E. during the destruction of the temple of Isis on Antirhodos Island.

gaza artifacts removed school building

Archaeological treasures from Gaza's five main archaeological sites were evacuated from the French Biblical and Archaeological School of Jerusalem's storehouse in Gaza City, following an Israeli order to vacate the building before a threatened military strike. The operation, described by school director Olivier Poquillon as a "high-risk" and "last-minute rescue," involved improvised transport and logistics in a context where almost no international actors remain on the ground. The relics include artifacts from a fourth-century monastery designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

looted antiquities sold facebook marketplace palmyra syria

Thieves in Syria are looting ancient artifacts from archaeological sites like Palmyra, a UNESCO World Heritage city dating back to the 3rd century BCE, and selling them on Facebook Marketplace. The looting has surged since the overthrow of former president Bashar al-Assad in December, with traffickers listing funerary gold, statues, and mosaics alongside ordinary secondhand goods. The Antiquities Trafficking and Heritage Anthropology Research (ATHAR) Project reports that nearly one-third of its 1,500 Syrian cases occurred in December alone, and sales are happening faster than ever—mosaics that once took a year to sell now move in two weeks.

scientists recreate egyptian blue pigment

A team of researchers has successfully recreated Egyptian blue, the world's oldest synthetic pigment, which was used by ancient Egyptians from as early as 3100 B.C.E. The study, published in NPJ Heritage Science, was led by John S. McCloy of Washington State University and Edward P. Vicenzi of the Smithsonian Institution's Museum Conservation Institute, in collaboration with the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. The researchers experimented with various minerals, heating them in ovens at around 1,000 degrees Celsius for up to 11 hours, and used modern microscopy and analysis techniques to compare their results with ancient artifacts from the Carnegie Museum's collection.

From Two Tons of Celadon, Jean Shin Sculpts a Metaphor for the Korean Diaspora

Artist Jean Shin has created "Celadon Landscape," a monumental installation at the Green-House at Green-Wood in New York, using nearly two tons of discarded celadon porcelain fragments donated by studios in Icheon, South Korea. The work features two large bulbous vessels covered in broken shards of cups, saucers, and pots, appearing to emerge from the earth as if unearthed in an archaeological dig. The installation is on view through January 17.

National Carpet Museum opens exhibition titled 'Images Imprinted in Memory' [PHOTOS]

The Azerbaijan National Carpet Museum has launched "Images Imprinted in Memory," a solo exhibition by multidisciplinary artist Madina Gasimova. Supported by the .ART domain, the showcase features 28 works produced over the last five years, including five new carpets woven using the museum's traditional techniques based on the artist's contemporary sketches. The exhibition highlights the fluidity of artistic motifs as they transition across various media, including painting, stained glass, mosaic, and digital formats, accompanied by a sound installation of the carpet-weaving process.

London’s Mosaic Rooms, dedicated to art from the Arab region, reopens after expansion

London's Mosaic Rooms, a non-profit gallery dedicated to art and culture from the Arab world, reopens on February 18 after a year-long refurbishment and expansion. The renovation, funded by the Al-Qattan Charitable Trust, added new facilities including a recording suite, a salon, a family playroom, and an expanded bookshop. A permanent stained-glass window commission by Dima Srouji, 'Four Moons from Home (2026)', greets visitors, and the reopening is inaugurated with a solo exhibition by French-Moroccan artist Bouchra Khalili exploring the Arab Workers' Movement.