This article provides a guide to notable museums and art galleries in Tokyo, including the Mori Art Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, The National Art Center Tokyo, Yayoi Kusama Museum, teamLab Planets Tokyo, Creative Museum Tokyo, and Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum. Each entry includes details on opening hours, addresses, and highlights such as immersive installations, contemporary art collections, and unique architectural settings.
Basel, Switzerland, is spotlighting two major art exhibitions in spring 2026. The Fondation Beyeler presents a solo show of French painter Paul Cézanne, featuring around 80 works including his celebrated "Bathers" series, running until May 25. On May 1, the museum will host a "Day of the Bathers" where visitors in swimwear receive free admission, inspired by Cézanne and provocateur Maurizio Cattelan. Meanwhile, the Kunstmuseum Basel is showing "The First Homosexuals," an exhibition examining the birth of the word "homosexual" in 1868–69 and its impact on identity and visual representation through over 80 works from the 19th century.
Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park will host a major exhibition of Dale Chihuly's work from May 2 to November 1. The expansive show, titled 'CHIHULY at Meijer Gardens,' will feature large-scale installations across 12 outdoor locations on the 158-acre campus, complemented by indoor gallery displays, making it the largest Chihuly exhibition in the institution's history.
A listicle from Time Out Los Angeles presents the 21 best museums to visit in Los Angeles, highlighting essential institutions like LACMA, The Broad, and the Getty Center. The article provides practical details such as addresses, hours, pricing, and notes on free admission days, while also mentioning specific current attractions like the newly opened David Geffen Galleries at LACMA and Yayoi Kusama's Infinity Mirrored Room at The Broad.
Dib Bangkok, a new contemporary art museum housed in a former steel warehouse, opened in December with its inaugural exhibition, (In)visible Presence. The show features 80 works by 40 artists from the collection of late founder Petch Osathanugrah, including pieces by James Turrell, Alicja Kwade, and Pinaree Santipak. Curated by director Miwako Tezuka, the exhibition emphasizes immersive, sensory experiences over passive observation, with works like Marco Fusinato's sound installation and Hugh Hayden's threshold piece. However, the museum's pan-global focus and sleek, tranquil setting initially distance visitors from the local Thai art scene.
Dustin Yellin, known for his glass sculptures and as founder of Pioneer Works, has made his first film, *Goodnight Lamby*, produced by Darren Aronofsky's A.I.-focused studio Primordial Soup. The short film, a hero's journey to rescue his daughter Zia's favorite stuffed animal, premiered at Cannes. Yellin discusses the project with his friend actor Paul Rudd, who voices the character "Papa," exploring how fatherhood and his existing artistic practice of "frozen cinema" inspired the animation.
CULTURED magazine hosted its second annual CULT100 party at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, in exclusive partnership with Valentino and Valentino Beauty. The event celebrated the magazine's spring issue, a 400-page edition honoring 100 luminaries and rising talents across food, film, art, fashion, and more. Guests including Keke Palmer, Lena Dunham, Naomi Watts, Adam Scott, and Anne Imhof gathered in the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed rotunda for cocktails, a Valentino Beauty lounge, and a program that coincided with artist Carol Bove's ongoing museum survey exhibition at the Guggenheim.
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) in San Francisco has appointed Essence Harden as senior curator, effective May 18. Harden currently serves as curator of Expo Chicago and has organized the Focus section of Frieze Los Angeles since 2024, roles they will continue with YBCA's support. An independent curator, Harden recently co-curated the 2025 Made in L.A. biennial at the Hammer Museum and previously held positions at the California African American Museum, Orange County Museum of Art, Art + Practice, Museum of the African Diaspora, and Oakland Museum of California. A Bay Area native, Harden's hiring marks a homecoming.
Janne Sirén, director of the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, will step down in October after 13 years leading the institution. The museum announced his departure on April 29, noting that the board will begin a search for a new director this summer. Sirén oversaw a transformative period including a $230 million campus expansion completed in 2023, designed by OMA and Shohei Shigematsu, which added a new building and reconnected the grounds. During his tenure, the museum's collection grew, staff expanded from 62 to nearly 200, the endowment rose from $31.3 million to $79.3 million, and annual visitors reached 340,000. He also launched a public art department, the Innovation Lab, and the AKG Nordic Art and Culture Initiative.
This week's Required Reading from Hyperallergic features a photo by Saber Nuraldin, a finalist for the World Press Photo of the Year, depicting Palestinians climbing an aid truck in Gaza during famine caused by Israel's blockade. The article also includes Elena Megalos's essay on the American Museum of Natural History as a site of motherhood, and reports on Meenu Batra, a legal interpreter arrested by ICE, and the New York Times blocking the Internet Archive from crawling its site.
The Photo London x Nikon Emerging Photographer Award 2026 has announced its shortlist, showcasing works from seven emerging photographic artists. The exhibition is on display at Photo London, featuring pieces such as Sal Taylor Kydd's "Passing" (2026), Devin Oktar Yalkin's portraits including "Anne Hathaway" and "Swallows Pride" (2020), Ci Demi's "Il-Giorniale" (2021), Steffi Reimers' "Gunshot punctures" (2023) from her series "Guilty Grounds," Sebastian Gonzalez's "Escalas Temporales" (2025), and Edward Rollitt's "Alfred Smee Pruned His Roses" (2024). The award, launched in 2015 in partnership with Nikon, aims to nurture and enable the career development of emerging photographic artists.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute will launch a new fashion exhibition titled "Costume Art" at the 2026 Met Gala, curated by Andrew Bolton. The show features 400 items across sections exploring body types historically marginalized in art, including the corpulent, disabled, pregnant, and aging body. It debuts in the newly renovated Conde M. Nast galleries on the museum's main floor, with custom mannequins modeled on real individuals such as Sinéad Burke, Aariana Rose Philip, and Goddess Bunny. The exhibition pairs fashion garments with art objects to argue that fashion is art, and will be open to the public from May 10 for eight months.
Billionaire philanthropist Fred Eychaner, founder of the private exhibition space Wrightwood 659 in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood, is being sued by Lisa Berron, a condo owner who claims the museum's planned expansion will block natural light and skyline views from her top-floor home. Berron filed suit in Cook County Circuit Court in March, alleging that the expansion would rise above her roofline and sit just feet from her windows. Eychaner's team has already purchased two of the three units in her building and argues the project complies with existing zoning laws, while Berron reportedly rejected settlement offers and demanded nearly $4 million for her condo, which was appraised at around $1.2 million.
Artist and dissident Ai Weiwei will reenact his 81-day detention by China's Ministry of Public Security in a 24-hour performance titled "Sewing a Button" at Factory International's Aviva Studios in Manchester, England. The performance, part of his exhibition "Button Up!" running from July 2, 2025, will take place in a re-creation of his cell and involve Ai sleeping, eating, exercising, writing, washing, and being interrogated, with visitors able to book two-hour slots or a full 24-hour ticket. The work follows his earlier piece "S.A.C.R.E.D." (2013) and is joined by other commissioned works including "Eight-Nation Alliance Flags" and a new version of "History of Bombs."
A small London gallery, Malarkey, is exhibiting eight paintings by Welsh-born artist Sylvia Sleigh (1916–2010), including her monumental 1963 work *The Bridge*, which is now for sale. The show, curated by Daniel Malarkey, features Sleigh's earliest-known self-portrait and her first commission, alongside other nudes that challenge traditional objectification by portraying both sexes with dignity. Sleigh, who studied at Brighton School of Art and moved to New York with her second husband, critic Lawrence Alloway, reimagined classical poses like Giorgione's *Sleeping Venus* in modern settings, notably including a daring flash of pubic hair in *The Bridge*.
An exhibition titled "Paris in Black: Internationalism and the Black Renaissance" at the DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center in Chicago celebrates the Black American artists, writers, and performers who moved to Paris after World War II to escape American racism. Curated by Danny Dunson, the show features over 100 artworks from the museum's permanent collection, including paintings by Archibald J. Motley Jr., sculptures by Richmond Barthé, Augusta Savage, and William Artis, and ephemera related to Josephine Baker. It traces the global influence of the Harlem Renaissance and the cross-pollination between Paris and U.S. cities like Chicago.
“L’arte russa oggi è il sangue”. Una dura intervista alle Pussy Riot
During the preview of the 2026 Venice Biennale, the Russian Pavilion became the site of a protest by Pussy Riot and FEMEN, who staged an action called "STORM OF VENICE." Wearing pink balaclavas and carrying radical slogans, they denounced Russia's presence at the Biennale, accusing the Kremlin and the European cultural system of complicity. The protest centered on the phrase "Blood is Russia's art." In an interview, Pussy Riot member Nadya Tolokonnikova argues that artists who represent the official Russian Pavilion become instruments of the aggressive imperial state, and that the Biennale confuses cultural dialogue with political normalization.
Va in onda su Rai Tre il documentario dedicato al mecenate siciliano Antonio Presti. Qui la video anteprima
On Tuesday, May 19, 2026, at 3:30 PM, RAI 3 will broadcast the documentary "Asteroide 20049 Antonio Presti," produced by Rai Documentari and dedicated to Sicilian patron Antonio Presti (born 1957). Written by Fedora Sasso and Francesco Castellani, curated by Giulietta Venneri, and directed by Fedora Sasso, the film explores Presti's four-decade career using art to intervene in marginalized areas of Sicily. The documentary's title references an asteroid named after Presti, symbolizing his vision linking cosmic and urban space. It opens at the Astrophysical Observatory of Isnello and focuses on the Catania neighborhood of Librino, where Presti created MAGMA, an open-air museum developed through collaboration with students, artists, and residents.
Ca' Rezzonico, the Museum of 18th-Century Venice, has opened its exhibition season with a selection of ten paintings by Francesco Guardi (1712–1793) on loan from the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon. The works, dated between 1770 and 1790, include iconic Venetian views such as the Festa della Sensa in Piazza San Marco and the Regata sul Canal Grande, showcasing Guardi's distinctive loose brushwork and atmospheric perspective. The exhibition also features drawings from civic collections, including Il Gran Teatro La Fenice and two watercolored sheets depicting Le nozze del duca di Polignac.
Un’antologia politica degli Stati Uniti. La grande mostra di Arthur Jafa e Richard Prince a Venezia
Fondazione Prada presents "Helter Skelter: Arthur Jafa and Richard Prince" at Cà Corner della Regina in Venice, the 15th exhibition produced by the foundation in the city. Curated by Nancy Spector of the Brooklyn Museum, the two-person show brings together over fifty works—photographs, videos, installations, sculptures, and paintings—that explore the fractured identity of the United States through the lens of race, masculinity, popular culture, and appropriation. Both artists, though separated by more than a decade in age, share a practice of scavenging and recontextualizing images from film, comics, advertising, and social media to critique American society.
Una nuova ala per risolvere i problemi della Galleria Borghese a Roma. Bella sfida, stucchevoli polemiche
The Galleria Borghese in Rome, one of Italy's most extraordinary museums, faces significant accessibility and capacity issues due to its historic 17th-century structure. The museum is difficult for visitors with disabilities, overcrowded, and forces visitors to book far in advance—often waiting over a month for a time slot—while many masterpieces remain in storage. In 2025, the engineering firm Proger offered to sponsor a feasibility study for a new wing, contributing nearly 900,000 euros to fund an international architecture competition and a technical-economic feasibility plan. The study, currently underway, aims to explore whether a new annex can be built within the protected Villa Borghese park to create new entrances, exhibition spaces, and services.
È morta VALIE EXPORT, icona dell’arte femminista che ha messo il corpo al centro della sua ricerca
VALIE EXPORT, the Austrian artist and feminist icon known for using her body as a political and artistic tool, has died in Vienna at age 85. Born in Linz in 1940, she changed her name in 1967 and became a pioneer of performance, film, and media art, creating provocative works such as "Tapp-und Tastkino" (1968), where she turned her body into a touchable cinema screen, and "Aktionshose: Genitalpanik" (1969). Her career spanned over six decades, and she taught at institutions including the University of Wisconsin and the Berlin University of the Arts. In 2023, the Albertina Museum in Vienna held a major retrospective of her work.
I Musei di Verona hanno un nuovo direttore. “Questa città può diventare un laboratorio culturale”, dice Lorenzo Balbi
Lorenzo Balbi, currently director of MAMbo in Bologna, has been appointed as the new director of the Musei di Verona, a civic museum network that includes the Arena di Verona, Casa di Giulietta, Museo Archeologico al Teatro Romano, Museo Civico di Storia naturale, Museo degli Affreschi di G. B. Cavalcaselle, Museo di Castelvecchio, Museo Lapidario Maffeiano, and Galleria d’Arte Moderna Achille Forti. He will take office in September 2026, selected for his strategic vision to revitalize the system as a hub for cultural production, civic participation, and international dialogue.
The Tuscan hill town of Monte San Savino launched a contemporary art exhibition titled "Art Gender Gap" on International Women's Day, featuring 40 female artists and 53 works across multiple historic venues including the GAS, Chiesa di Santa Chiara, Palazzo Ciocchi di Monte, and the Renaissance Cisternone. Curated by Giuseppe Simone Modeo, Nicoletta Castellaneta, and Domenico de Chirico, the show includes loans from the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington (via its Italian committee president Claudia Pensotti Mosca), the Christian Levett collection, and the FAMM Museum in Mougin, France—a museum dedicated exclusively to women artists. Participating artists range from historical figures like Louise Bourgeois, Carol Rama, and Sonia Delaunay to contemporary names such as Kiki Smith, Pipilotti Rist, Marlene Dumas, Tracey Emin, and Mona Hatoum.
The fourth edition of Roma Gallery Weekend will take place from May 15 to 17, 2026, featuring 31 galleries across Rome. The event kicks off with a new Gallery Night on May 14, where simultaneous openings and special projects serve as a concentrated prologue. Participating galleries include established names like Gagosian, Galleria Continua, and Lorcan O'Neill, as well as emerging spaces such as Amanita and Cantadora. Highlights include exhibitions of Francesca Woodman, Tracey Emin, Friedrich Kunath, and Carlos Garaicoa, alongside site-specific interventions and group shows.
Antonio Colombo, the Italian entrepreneur behind Columbus and Cinelli, has published a memoir titled "A.C. Confidential. La mia vita tra arte, bicicletta e design" (Ediciclo Editore, 2026, co-written with Giacomo Pellizzari). The book traces his family's engineering legacy—his father Angelo Luigi Colombo supplied steel tubes to Bauhaus designer Marcel Breuer in 1933—and Colombo's own career fusing technical precision with artistic vision. He acquired Cinelli in 1978, collaborated with artists like Keith Haring, Alessandro Mendini, and Barry McGee, and introduced groundbreaking bicycle models including the Rampichino mountain bike (1985) and the Laser, which won the Compasso d'Oro design award in 1991. The narrative also covers his friendships with artists Mario Schifano (who designed Tour de France jerseys) and his role in the Red Hook Criterium fixed-gear race.
Tutta la complessità di Cézanne in mostra alla mitica Fondation Beyeler di Basilea
The Fondation Beyeler in Basel has opened a major exhibition dedicated to Paul Cézanne, marking the 120th anniversary of his death. Curated by senior curator Ulf Küster, the show features 80 works—58 paintings and 21 watercolors—drawn from public and private collections across Switzerland, Germany, France, the UK, the Netherlands, Spain, Denmark, and the United States. Highlights include nine versions of Mont Sainte-Victoire, rare comparisons of two watercolor versions of "Boy in a Red Waistcoat," and two versions of "The Card Players" from the Courtauld Gallery and the Musée d'Orsay. The exhibition runs until May 25, 2026, and is accompanied by a catalog published by Hatje Cantz Verlag.
La grande intervista di fine mandato a Stefano Boeri dopo 8 anni da presidente della Triennale di Milano
Stefano Boeri reflects on his eight-year tenure as president of Triennale Milano in a wide-ranging exit interview. He discusses the institution's transformation into a more international and accessible cultural hub, highlighting key achievements such as the three major International Exhibitions—"Broken Nature" (2019), "Unknown Unknowns" (2022), and "Inequalities" (2025)—and the physical reclamation of spaces like the "Cuore" hall and the garden-level floor, which were opened free to the public. Boeri also touches on financial management, governance challenges, and his hopes for the future leadership.
Il Castello di Boutemont: un gioiello architettonico da scoprire in Normandia
The Château de Boutemont in Ouilly-le-Vicomte, Normandy, has reopened for its new season running through November. Now in its sixth year under owners Johanna Wistrøm-Monnier and Bruno Monnier, the property has seen steady growth in visitors thanks to investments in its gardens and the opening of three castle rooms. Bruno Monnier founded Culturespace in the 1990s, a private company that manages museums such as the Palais des Papes in Avignon and the Ateliers des Lumières immersive art centers. Johanna Wistrøm-Monnier, formerly director of the Dan Graham Foundation, now dedicates herself full-time to the estate, which features gardens designed by famed landscape architect Achille Duchêne.
A Genova una mostra dedicata a Giovanni Korompay, il futurista che amava i Pink Floyd
A major retrospective exhibition dedicated to Giovanni Korompay, a Venetian painter, sculptor, and illustrator associated with the second wave of Futurism, has opened at the Wolfsoniana in Genoa Nervi. Titled "Korompay, un’antologica," the show runs until November 1st and features around sixty works, including paintings, sculptures, graphic works, photographs, and documents. It explores Korompay's evolution from traditional training under Ettore Tito to his embrace of Futurist aeropainting, exemplified by works such as "Alta velocità" (High Speed), which celebrates a 1934 world speed record set by a Macchi-Castoldi MC 72 seaplane. The exhibition is curated by Alex Casagrande, Matteo Fochessati, Franco Tagliapietra, and Anna Vyazemtseva, with loans from public museums (Mart, Mambo), private collections, and the Fondazione Korompay.