The Smithsonian Institution has altered or removed interpretive wall text that accompanies artworks on display, according to a New York Times report. Critics argue these changes amount to self-censorship, suggesting the institution is bowing to political pressure by softening or eliminating contextual language that could be seen as controversial.
The article highlights standout booths at Frieze New York, held at the Shed, featuring 65 galleries. It notes a dominant presence of paintings alongside a surprising array of small sculptures, offering a curated look at the fair's most compelling presentations.
The article highlights eight standout national pavilions at the Venice Biennale, the world's premier contemporary art event. These include a doll-focused exhibition, a contemplative garden, and a sizzling hothouse, each generating significant buzz among attendees and critics.
Filipa Ramos has been appointed curator of the 19th edition of the Lofoten International Art Festival, set to take place across the Norwegian arctic archipelago in June 2027. Ramos, a curator and writer who teaches at the Institute Art Gender Nature of the Academy of Art and Design FHNW in Basel, is known for ecologically-focused research that reimagines human-animal-environment relationships. She authored *The Artist as Ecologist* (2025) and is currently organizing the LOOP Festival in Barcelona and the symposia series *The Shape of a Circle in the Mind of a Fish*, created with Lucia Pietroiusti.
Iran’s participation in the 61st Venice Biennale remains uncertain after a public contradiction emerged between the Biennale Foundation and Iran’s Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance (MCIG). The Biennale Foundation had announced that Iran would not participate in the 2026 edition, curated by Koyo Kouoh, but Aydin Mahdizadeh Tehrani, director general of visual arts at the MCIG and commissioner of the Iranian Pavilion, stated in an interview with the Iranian Students’ News Agency (ISNA) that Iran never submitted a withdrawal letter. Instead, Iran requested more time and sent a letter on May 10 asking for the pavilion to open even if ineligible for prizes. Mahdizadeh Tehrani cited the US-Israel war with Iran as causing currency fluctuations that nearly tripled projected costs, complicating prior agreements, and noted that Iran had proposed a shorter exhibition period, which the Biennale rejected.
Construction workers building the Trump administration's border wall between the US and Mexico accidentally damaged a two-hundred-foot-long Indigenous land art figure known as the Las Playas Intaglio, a colossal fish etched into the earth near Ajo, Arizona, that is thought to be over a thousand years old. Satellite imagery showed bulldozer tracks cutting a sixty-to-seventy-foot-wide path across the intaglio, and a Customs and Border Protection spokesperson confirmed the disturbance, stating the remaining portion had been secured and would be protected in place.
The Venice Biennale has announced it will eliminate the Golden and Silver Lions for the 2026 edition, replacing them with Visitor Lions chosen by popular vote. The prizes, traditionally awarded on opening day (May 9), will now be presented at the closing ceremony (November 22). Russia and Israel, previously barred from consideration by the prize jury due to ICC charges against their leaders, will be eligible for the new Visitor Lions. The decision follows the mass resignation of the original prize jury after they excluded those nations and faced pressure to also ban the US.
Martha Ortiz has stepped down as director of Bogotá’s Museo de Arte Moderno (MAMBO) amid allegations of harassing staff and fostering a toxic work environment. The museum announced her retirement and will begin a search for a successor, with board president Ángela Royo and financial manager Francy Hernández assuming interim leadership. Ortiz, who had no prior museum management experience, took the role in March 2024. Her departure follows the ousting of artistic director Eugenio Viola less than three months earlier, after he raised concerns about deteriorating working conditions.
Mexican artist Demián Flores presents "America. New Visions from the Old World," a graphic arts exhibition at the Instituto Cultural de México in Madrid. The show features forty works that reinterpret 16th-century engravings by Theodor de Bry, whose images of Indigenous peoples—ranging from idealized noble savages to violent cannibals—shaped European perceptions of the Americas. Flores draws on his earlier series "Collateral Disasters" (2012), inspired by Goya's "The Disasters of War," to critique how colonial visual narratives constructed otherness and justified violence.
Lo street artist Ozmo assolto in tribunale: “La sua opera non è imbrattamento e ha valore culturale” (ma nel frattempo è stata cancellata)
In summer 2022, street artist Ozmo (Gionata Gesi) created an unauthorized site-specific work on the Fonte di San Cerbone in Baratti, Italy, depicting two Etruscan coins with Medusa's face. The work sparked debate: the Piombino municipality and museum director Carolina Megale welcomed it, but the Soprintendenza (cultural heritage authority) reported it to prosecutors as illegal defacement. The artwork was vandalized and later removed in April 2023. On April 29, the Livorno court acquitted Ozmo, ruling that his intervention was not a crime but an artwork with cultural value, setting a legal precedent.
Rome is celebrating the work of Rimini-born photographer Marco Pesaresi (1964–2001), 25 years after his death, through two events organized by the photography training center Daylight School, led by Marco Sconocchia. A documentary film titled "Il granchio nudo – La storia di Marco Pesaresi," produced by Riccardo Caccia and Michela Fragomeni and directed by Marta E. Antonioli and Elena Padovan, will be screened on May 21 at Nuovo Cinema Aquila. The film features unpublished materials, including Pesaresi's diaries and poems, and includes interviews with those who knew him. A group exhibition, "UNDERGROUND. Il mondo sotto. Omaggio a Marco Pesaresi," opens May 29 at Daylight School, reinterpreting the themes of his photobook "Underground" through the eyes of 15 photographers.
Alla Biennale di Venezia c’è un padiglione di merda! Il Lussemburgo partecipa con un progetto che fa parlare la cacca
The Luxembourg Pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale features an installation titled "La Merde" by artist Aline Bouvy, centered on a cinematic manifesto that uses excrement as a metaphor to explore shame, social classification, and bodily discipline. The immersive environment includes a film, spatialized sound composition, and a steel-and-mirror architecture, with an anthropomorphic talking, walking, and farting excrement puppet interacting with visitors. The work also includes a sculptural alter ego titled "E.T. The Excremential," blending Bouvy's body with Spielberg's extraterrestrial figure.
Gli ispettori del Ministero della Cultura in Biennale presentano relazione: il padiglione Russia resterà chiuso
Italian Ministry of Culture inspectors have submitted a report to the Prime Minister's office regarding Russia's participation in the 2026 Venice Art Biennale. The report concludes that Russia did not receive a formal invitation from the Biennale Foundation to participate, nor did it sign the participation agreement—a situation shared by other countries with permanent pavilions. While Russia submitted a project and appointed a commissioner, its pavilion will remain closed to the public due to EU sanctions, though a private vernissage may proceed. The report finds no serious violations that would cancel Russia's participation, but notes critical issues that warranted more caution. The international jury resigned en masse after announcing it would not consider countries whose leaders are accused of crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court, including Russia and Israel, and after an Israeli artist threatened a discrimination lawsuit.
Fare varietà nella Roma contemporanea: la storia della Conventicola degli Ultramoderni su Sky Arte
On Sunday, May 3, Sky Arte will premiere the documentary "Ultramoderni," which chronicles the rise of the Conventicola degli Ultramoderni, a unique artistic collective in Rome. Founded by Sior Mirkaccio and Madame de Freitas, who met in 2011, the group operates from a small hidden venue in the San Lorenzo district, blending music, cabaret, burlesque, and contemporary variety shows with a retro-futuristic aesthetic. The documentary, filmed in their Roman space, features interviews with the duo and excerpts from their performances, tracing how they built a diverse community of enthusiasts around their reinvention of past traditions.
In Romagna da oltre un secolo c’è un Carnevale “serio” di primavera. La storia dei carri di gesso e di pensiero
A small town in Romagna, Casola Valsenio, has been hosting a unique spring festival for 125 years, featuring massive allegorical floats made of plaster and wood. Unlike traditional carnivals, this event—called the "serious carnival"—takes place in late April/early May and focuses on social and political themes. The floats, up to seven meters long and nine meters high, are built by local youth and paraded twice (day and night) with performers frozen in tableau vivant poses. A jury, this year chaired by Roberto Cantagalli, director of the MAR museum in Ravenna, awards a winner.
Continental, the premium tire manufacturer, has commissioned WOA Studio, a creative studio founded by Davide Carioni and Giuliana Pajola, to create an immersive sound installation titled "The Sound of Premium" for the Fuorisalone design festival in Milan. Presented at BASE Milano, the installation transforms urban noise pollution into a three-part sonic journey—chaos, harmony, and quiet—using seventeen audio-luminous elements that abstract the city soundscape. The experience is designed to show how noise can be mitigated rather than eliminated, with sound data derived from real urban recordings, particularly tire rolling noise.
Gli animali che siamo. La nuova metamorfosi dell’appartamento-showroom Casaornella a Milano
Interior designer Maria Vittoria Paggini has unveiled the 2026 edition of Casaornella, her apartment-showroom in Milan's Via Conca del Naviglio 10, during Design Week. Titled "L'animale sociale" (The Social Animal) with the subtitle "Nessuno mi può giudicare" (Nobody Can Judge Me), the space is completely restructured each year. For this edition, Paggini removed all doors to create a fluid, open-plan layout, using curtains for privacy. The project explores themes of authenticity and human relationships in the digital age, inspired by Italian pop songs from Mina to Luigi Tenco, which form the exhibition's soundtrack.
Storia del designer che ha trasformato la MotoGP disegnando moto e tute di Valentino Rossi
Aldo Drudi, the influential designer who transformed the visual aesthetics of MotoGP, created a special site-specific livery for the Pertamina Enduro VR46 Racing Team's presentation at The Edge in Hudson Yards, New York. The livery, unveiled on March 24, 2026 for the United States Grand Prix, is a complex graphic composition that references team history, Valentino Rossi, and American culture, elevating motorcycle design to a form of moving art.
La letteratura oggi: la crisi del romanzo come sintomo di un cambiamento sociale
The article examines the perceived crisis of the novel as a literary form, tracing its historical rise alongside the bourgeoisie in the 17th and 18th centuries. It argues the novel functioned as a mirror for a coherent social class with shared values, serving as a device for collective representation. The form's foundational premise of a recognizable community began to fracture in the 20th century, particularly after World War II, as societies atomized and grand ideological narratives collapsed.
Jaya Ganguly, one of India's most prominent contemporary feminist artists, is the subject of a video feature exploring her exhibition at CIMA in Kolkata. Curated by Rakhi Sarkar, the show presents Ganguly's deeply emotional and thought-provoking artworks that address themes of feminism, pain, and resistance. The exhibition runs until June 13.
EuGene V Byrd III has curated the 'Politically inCorrect' group fine art exhibition, now open at Railroad ATL inside the Future Gallery in Atlanta. Featuring over 50 artists and 110 to 120 works across painting, photography, sculpture, and collage, the show addresses what Byrd calls an overdue conversation about art and social responsibility. Inspired by W.E.B. Du Bois, the open-call exhibition asks artists to speak their truth on political and social issues, with pieces like Faif Quin's photograph referencing the killing of Charlie Kirk and Naylon D. Mitchell's portrait 'Mama Rosa' among the highlights. The exhibition runs through May 30.
The Plas Art Show, a Seoul-based art fair specializing in sculpture and three-dimensional works, returns for its 11th edition from June 4 at Coex in Gangnam District. Featuring 102 galleries (91 domestic and 11 from Taiwan, Germany, Japan, and Georgia), the fair presents roughly 750 artists and 3,500 works under the theme “New Chance.” Fair president Shin Jun-won acknowledged criticism that the event had drifted from its sculptural focus and announced stricter curation, including on-site inspections and penalties for galleries that fail to include at least one three-dimensional artist and one stereoscopic work. Standard booth prices range from 5.7 to 6.7 million won, which Shin says attracts Gangnam-area galleries priced out of larger venues.
Father-and-son artists William and Hugh Jennings have closed the Hitching Post Gallery in Buffalo, Wyoming, after 30 years of operation. The gallery, which opened in November 1993 on Main Street, was a longstanding fixture in the community, showcasing works from many area artists alongside gifts, books, and tobacco products. William stepped away about seven years ago, and Hugh recently decided to retire, locking the doors for the last time at the beginning of May. Hugh expressed no regrets, saying he wanted to focus more on his own art.
Medium Art Center in Ukiah, California, celebrates its five-year anniversary. Founded during the pandemic by a small team of local artists and community members including Chris Pugh and Lillian Rubie, the center began as an online exhibition series called "Dear America" before securing a vacant storefront at the Pear Tree Center in 2021. Run entirely by volunteers for its first three years, the center has hosted in-person exhibits, traditional Chinese brush painting workshops with artist William Shi, and outreach programs to support local artists. Recently, it received a grant from the RISE program administered through Redwood Coast Regional Center to support people with disabilities or neurodivergence.
Artist Avi Amesbury has opened her new exhibition, 'Shifting Perspectives: The Self Reconciliation Project', at Bundaberg Regional Art Gallery in Australia. The show combines ceramics, mixed media, and sound to explore her personal family history as a descendant of white settler colonists in Western Australia. Over three years, Amesbury traveled across the country for residencies at Fremantle Arts Centre and Central Craft in Alice Springs, collecting wild clays and collaborating with composer MJ from Those Who Ride With Giants to incorporate poems, writings, and landscape sounds into the installation.
Arario Gallery Shanghai presents Huang Hankang's solo exhibition 'The Sky Remains as the Bird Departs,' running from May 15 to July 4. The show uses Shanghai as a dynamic 'processing system' where images, histories, and cultures are constantly received, translated, and reorganized. Through installations and paintings, the exhibition compresses multiple visual and historical threads, featuring works such as 'Gate of Flesh and Soul,' which juxtaposes Giuseppe Castiglione's hybrid visual language with the Cathay Theatre and fragments of George Washington's dentures, and 'Overlaid Life,' which contrasts a Song Dynasty crystal rabbit with cultivated orchids. Other pieces like 'Void Resonance' and 'Nameless Mark' explore perception, the body, and cultural mediation.
Thousands of artists, cultural workers, and protesters marched through Venice on May 8, 2026, one day before the opening of the 61st Venice Biennale, to protest the Israeli genocide in Gaza and Lebanon. The strike, organized by the Art Not Genocide Alliance (ANGA), led to the closure of approximately 27 of the Biennale's 100 national pavilions, with signs reading "We Stand with Palestine." The Israeli pavilion remained closed and guarded by armed police, who clashed with protesters. Meanwhile, the European Commission threatened to suspend €2 million in EU grants to the Biennale Foundation over its decision to allow Russia to participate, citing incompatibility with EU sanctions and the invasion of Ukraine.
Elysian Gallery in Alton, Illinois, is closing its original location at Mineral Springs Mall on May 10, 2026, to relocate and expand into a new concept called Elysian Gallery and Cafe at 419 E. Broadway. Owner Jeff Bohnert, a photographer, is transforming the 500-square-foot gallery into a larger, pet-friendly cultural hub featuring a cafe serving Goshen Coffee, a book nook, workspaces, and art exhibitions. The new space will open with a soft launch on May 30 during Alton Main Street's Pup Crawl, followed by a grand reopening on June 6. Bohnert and his girlfriend Janel Freeman originally opened the gallery in August 2025.
An exhibition of young Estonian artists has opened at the Art & Tonic gallery in Tallinn, showcasing 92 works selected from 269 submissions for the "Osta noort kunsti" ("Buy Young Art") spring auction. The auction, organized by gallery owner Reigo Kuivjõgi, features starting prices set by the artists themselves, ranging from €1 to €2,000, with past final prices reaching over €20,000. The exhibition runs free of charge from May 1 to May 14, with the live auction on May 15.
Lidija Khachatourian, founder of AKKA Project, discusses her gallery's evolution from Dubai to Venice, where it remains the only gallery dedicated to African and diasporic artists. In an interview with ART AFRICA, she explains her shift from a market-driven model toward a research-led, custodial approach that prioritizes long-term relationships and slowness over high-volume programming. The gallery, established in Venice in 2019, operates with a deliberate resistance to market pressures, focusing on care, continuity, and direct material support for its artists.