The article is about the Salon des Indépendants, a historic French art exhibition society founded in 1884. It provided a platform for artists to exhibit works without a jury, challenging the official Paris Salon's conservative standards.
The exhibition "Flesh and Bones: The Art of Anatomy" at Singapore's ArtScience Museum explores the history of anatomical representation as a cultural construct rather than a universal scientific truth. It juxtaposes Western anatomical atlases from the Renaissance with Chinese meridian (jingluo) systems, featuring works by artist Chiharu Shiota and other historical pieces that reveal how different cultures have visualized the human body through both scientific and spiritual lenses.
The Hestia Artistic Journey National Grant Programme (Artystyczna Podróż Hestii) has announced the winners of its third edition, selecting eight projects from nearly 200 applications across Poland. The programme, subtitled "Opening Time" (Czas otwarcia), supports artists and cultural institutions planning exhibitions that address collective responsibility for global issues. Winners include "Ślady pamięci" by Fundacja Szałfynster in Katowice, exploring memory and dementia; "Głodne drzewa/Thirsty Trees" by Przemek Branas at the Central Museum of Textiles in Łódź, critiquing human greed through eucalyptus metaphors; and "Tymczasowa pława" by Norbert Delman at the State Art Gallery in Sopot, an installation on ecocide using a sunken fishing boat and amber. Each project will present an exhibition between July 2026 and the last quarter of 2027, with increased funding due to exceptional submissions.
Koyo Kouoh's Venice Biennale, titled after ancient wisdom, opens with a focus on healing and historical reimagination. The exhibition features works by artists such as Alexa Kumiko Hatanaka, Khaled Sabsabi, Daniel Lind-Ramos, Guadalupe Maravilla, Kennedy Yanko, and Ayrson Heráclito, alongside a strong emphasis on artist-led schools and institutions like Denniston Hill, blaxTARLINES KUMASI, and RAW Material Company. During the opening, the Koyo Kouoh Foundation was announced, set to launch in Basel to support Pan-African cultural infrastructure. The show includes Refaat Alareer's poem "If I Must Die" and addresses political realities, blending spiritual, ecological, and technological themes to explore collective care and restoration.
White Cube Mason’s Yard in London will present a solo exhibition by the artist duo TARWUK (Bruno Pogačnik Tremow and Ivana Vukšić), running from 9 July to 15 August 2026. The show debuts a major new site-specific installation alongside paintings and works on paper, marking the duo’s first exhibition at the gallery.
Virginia MOCA hosted a free Community Day on Saturday, May 9, at its new Virginia Beach location, in partnership with Virginia Humanities. The event featured inaugural exhibitions including Nina Chanel Abney: The Pursuit of Happiness and Seamless: Art and Design, along with hands-on art making, live performances, artist demonstrations, a U-Haul art gallery, food trucks, and workshops for all ages.
Philadelphia is celebrating America's 250th anniversary (the Semiquincentennial) in 2026 with the opening of several new museums, galleries, and attractions. These include Calder Gardens, a dedicated space for Alexander Calder's work on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway; Ministry of Awe, an immersive six-story art experience by Meg Saligman in a former bank; a new permanent Indigenous gallery at the Penn Museum; and a Netflix House experience at King of Prussia mall. The article also mentions the First Bank of the United States museum, the Philly Pride Visitor Center, and the Pennsylvania Hospital Museum as part of the city's anniversary additions.
An all-women exhibition titled 'Making Her Mark: A Celebration of Women in Art' has opened at Penlee House Gallery & Museum in Penzance, Cornwall, as the first stop on a three-part UK tour. The show features over 60 works by female artists from the 19th century to the present day, including Tracey Emin, Barbara Hepworth, Elizabeth Forbes, and Laura Knight. It is a collaboration between Penlee House, Worcester City Art Gallery & Museum, and Kirkcaldy Galleries, curated jointly by the three venues with local leadership from Penlee House deputy director Katie Herbert. The exhibition is part of Art Fund's £5.36 million Going Places programme and will travel to Worcester and Kirkcaldy in 2026 and 2027.
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.
DATALAND, the world's first museum of AI arts co-founded by artist Refik Anadol and Efsun Erkılıç, will open to the public on June 20, 2026, in downtown Los Angeles. Located in the Frank Gehry-designed building The Grand LA within the Grand Avenue Cultural District, the 35,000-square-foot venue will debut with the inaugural exhibition "Machine Dreams: Rainforest," an immersive 360-degree experience based on millions of images and sounds of nature. The custom AI model powering the exhibition was trained on data collected from 16 rainforests worldwide, with data partnerships established with the Smithsonian, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Getty, iNaturalist, and the Natural History Museum in London.
The Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill held its annual Spring Fling benefit on April 25, celebrating the 10th anniversary of Access Parrish, an initiative that makes art accessible to visitors of all needs and abilities. The event featured art, dance, music, and food, and honored Bobbie Braun of The Neuwirth Foundation as the museum's inaugural Civic and Community Leader Honoree for her unwavering commitment to the program since its inception in 2016.
The remains of Charlottesville's melted Confederate statue of General Robert E. Lee are now on display at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles as part of the 'Monuments' exhibition. The statue, originally standing in Market Street Park, was acquired by the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center (JSAAHC) in 2021, melted down at a secret location, and shipped to Los Angeles. The exhibition, presented in partnership with The Brick, also features artist Kara Walker's reconstruction of the Thomas Jackson statue. The bronze ingots and slag from the melting process are displayed alongside other works that reimagine Confederate monuments.
Museums across Central Texas are opening a slate of summer exhibitions, including the Blanton Museum of Art's "Art in Every Corner: The Works Progress Administration (1935-1943)," featuring prints and paintings by Thomas Hart Benton, Grant Wood, and Dorothea Lange. The San Antonio Museum of Art will present "Microhistories of the Andes" with Andean artifacts, while the McNay Art Museum hosts "Garden Party: Nature on Paper" with works by René Magritte and Winslow Homer. Women & Their Work in Austin will showcase "MARK," a group drawing exhibition by 25 Texas women artists.
The United States is marking its 250th anniversary in 2026 with a major collaborative exhibition titled *A Nation of Artists*, presented simultaneously at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) and the Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA). The show features over 1,000 works—paintings, photographs, sculptures, and decorative arts—spanning from the late 18th century to the present, including more than 120 rarely seen pieces from the Middleton Family Collection, one of the country's most significant private holdings of American art. PAFA organizes the works thematically around westward expansion, industrialization, and globalization, while PMA, celebrating its 150th anniversary, presents a chronological survey from 1700 to 1960, highlighting international exchange, technological innovation, and shifting cultural economics.
Frieze New York 2026 will return to The Shed from May 13–17, featuring an expansive program of solo, dual, and curated presentations. The fair brings together 33 New York galleries alongside international exhibitors, with strong solo booths by Virginia Jaramillo (Hales), Akinsanya Kambon (Ortuzar and Marc Selwyn Fine Art), and Kelly Sinnapah Mary (James Cohan). Dual presentations include mor charpentier pairing Anas Albraehe and Nohemí Pérez, and Nara Roesler showing Jonathas de Andrade with Marcelo Silveira. Blue-chip galleries like Hauser & Wirth, White Cube, and Gagosian will present works by major artists including Cindy Sherman, Tracey Emin, and Nan Goldin. The Focus section, curated by Lumi Tan, highlights 11 emerging galleries with solo presentations by Antoni Miralda, Seba Calfuqueo, Reika Takebayashi, and Aki Goto.
Paul Farber, founder of Monument Lab, discusses his new exhibition "Rising Up: Rocky and the Making of Monuments" at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The show moves the iconic Rocky statue inside the museum and examines how a fictional boxer's statue became Philadelphia's most famous work of art, exploring broader questions about collective memory and public commemoration. Farber also reflects on the dismantling of the Frank Rizzo statue and how unintentional monuments like the Berlin Wall shape cultural discourse.
Nick Cave's immersive solo exhibition "Mammoth" is on view at the Smithsonian American Art Museum through January 3, 2027. The show features a vast, illuminated table covered with hundreds of everyday objects—faux fruits, bejeweled vegetables, wooden canes, glass fish, toy trucks, and leather slippers—arranged with deliberate purpose. Alongside these collected items, Cave has constructed mammoth hides and bones, and a video projection brings the ancient creatures to life. The exhibition draws deeply on Cave's personal history growing up in Missouri, with memories of his grandparents' farm and his family's traditions of making, quilting, and craftsmanship informing the assemblage.
The article previews nine major art and fashion exhibitions scheduled for 2026 across Europe and the United States. Highlights include the V&A's first UK survey of Elsa Schiaparelli, tracing her radical approach to couture; ICA Miami's immersive Dolce&Gabbana showcase celebrating Italian craftsmanship; the Met's comprehensive Raphael exhibition featuring over 170 works; the Musée d'Orsay's exploration of Renoir's joyful modernity; and Palais Galliera's look at 18th-century fashion's lasting influence.
A new exhibition titled 'Art & Fashion' has opened at Lisbon's Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, curated by Eloy Martínez de la Pera Celada. It juxtaposes masterpieces from the museum's permanent collection—spanning ancient Egyptian artifacts to Rembrandt and Impressionist works—with historic and contemporary fashion pieces, including garments from Charles Frederick Worth, Yohji Yamamoto, Dries Van Noten, Alexander McQueen, and Sarah Burton's debut at Givenchy. The show is organized by regional provenance and temporarily replaces the museum's usual display while its Brutalist building undergoes renovation.
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Dataland, billed as the world's first museum dedicated to A.I.-generated art, will open on June 20 in downtown Los Angeles. Founded by digital artists Refik Anadol and Efsun Erkiliç, the 35,000-square-foot museum is located in the Grand LA complex designed by Frank Gehry. Its inaugural exhibition, "Machine Dreams: Rainforest," features immersive, multisensory installations powered by an open-access A.I. model called the Large Nature Model, trained on millions of nature images. The exhibition includes soundscapes incorporating oral histories of the Yawanawá people and the last recorded call of the extinct Kaua‘i ‘ō‘ō bird.
Dataland, the world's first museum dedicated to AI arts, will open on June 20 in downtown Los Angeles. Co-founded by new media artists Refik Anadol and Efsun Erkılıç, the 35,000-square-foot museum anchors the $1-billion Frank Gehry-designed Grand LA complex. Its inaugural exhibition, "Machine Dreams: Rainforest," created by Refik Anadol Studio, uses vast data sets from partners including the Smithsonian and London's Natural History Museum to immerse visitors in a machine-generated sensory experience of the Amazon rainforest. The museum features five immersive galleries, a 30-foot ceiling, and is powered by an open-access AI model called the Large Nature Model, which runs on Google Cloud servers using 87% carbon-free energy.
RM, the leader of K-pop group BTS, will present his personal art collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) in an exhibition titled "RM x SFMOMA," running from October 3 to February 7. The show features around 200 works from RM’s collection and SFMOMA’s holdings, many never before shown in the US, and is co-curated by RM, SFMOMA curatorial project manager America Castillo, and assistant curator Kim Hyo-eun. Key Korean artists in RM’s collection include Yun Hyong-keun, Park Rehyun, Kwon Ok-yon, Kim Yun-shin, To Sang-bong, and Chang Ucchin, while SFMOMA contributes works by Kim Whan-ki, Mark Rothko, Agnes Martin, Henri Matisse, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Paul Klee.
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) has opened its new David Geffen Galleries, a long, elevated concrete structure designed by Pritzker Prize-winning Swiss architect Peter Zumthor. The building, more than 20 years in the making, replaces much of LACMA's mid-century campus with a single winding gallery that hovers above Wilshire Boulevard. A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held on Sunday, followed by a two-week member preview, with the public opening scheduled for May 4. The project is the vision of longtime director Michael Govan, who sought to create a museum without hierarchy, placing objects from different geographies and time periods in dialogue. Artist Mariana Castillo Deball was commissioned to create a plaza installation that incorporates native animal tracks, Mesoamerican imagery, and the labor of migrant workers, reflecting themes of migration and cultural exchange.
Italy's contemporary art market is experiencing a surge in activity, marked by the arrival of international galleries like Thaddaeus Ropac in Milan and Hauser & Wirth's planned opening in Sicily. This coincides with major art events such as Paris Internationale launching in Milan alongside the local Miart fair.
The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD) has launched "Giants: Art from the Dean Collection of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys," a major traveling exhibition showcasing the couple's extensive collection of Black diasporic art. The show features monumental works from 37 artists, including a 164-foot painting by Meleko Mokgosi and an 8,000-pound sculpture by Arthur Jafa that required structural reinforcement of the museum floor. To create a more inclusive atmosphere, the exhibition replaces traditional white gallery walls with bold colors and includes a curated musical playlist by Swizz Beatz.
The Lucien Arkas Art Center has officially opened in Izmir, Turkey, marking the seventh venue in the Arkas Sanat network. Launched by collector Lucien Arkas in collaboration with the Centre Pompidou, the multidisciplinary space debuted with a preview exhibition titled "Sonia & Robert Delaunay: The Invention of Modern Color." The center is designed to host a diverse range of programming, including exhibitions, educational initiatives, and various forms of artistic production.
White Cube Paris is hosting a major retrospective of Park Seo-Bo’s 'Ecriture' paintings, covering five decades of the artist’s career. The exhibition notably features the debut of his 'Newspaper Ecritures' in Paris—a series he originally conceived in the city during the late 1970s—presented alongside the final works completed before his death in 2023.
Art Basel has announced the 33 medalists for its 2026 Awards, a global initiative recognizing excellence across the contemporary art ecosystem. The awards span nine categories, including Emerging, Established, and Icon artists, as well as curators, patrons, and institutions. Notable honorees include Barbara Kruger, Howardena Pindell, and Jenny Holzer in the Icon category, alongside established figures like Arthur Jafa and Julie Mehretu. The selection process, led by a jury of nine international experts, emphasizes a cross-disciplinary and geographically diverse group with a strong representation from the Global South.
Melissa Chiu has been appointed as the new director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, departing her long-standing role at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. This major leadership transition comes alongside several other significant museum developments, including the Getty Center's planned $600m–$800m renovation closure and the National Gallery's staff reduction scheme to address a multi-million pound deficit.
Theaster Gates has transformed the Smart Museum of Art into a personal sanctuary for his first major solo institutional exhibition in Chicago, titled "Unto Thee." The immersive installation features vast archives from Gates's personal collections, including African artifacts, funerary objects, and a significant vinyl record collection that provides a continuous sonic backdrop to the space. Key works on display include the monumental "Black Still Life #3" and the ongoing series "Walking Prayer," which consists of black books embossed with golden phrases that explore the complexities of Black identity and collective memory.