The New Crystal Bridges Tells a More Honest Story About American Art

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, is opening a 114,000-square-foot expansion designed by Moshe Safdie on June 6, increasing exhibition space by 50%. The addition features a new David Booth Gallery dedicated to contemporary American art, a creative learning center called the Hub, and a prominent installation of Jeffrey Gibson's beaded sculpture "The Enforcer" (2025), originally shown at the 2024 Venice Biennale. The museum's predominantly female curatorial team, including Indigenous art curator Jordan Poorman Cocker, has intentionally centered diverse voices—showcasing works by Native American, Black, Latinx, and Asian American artists alongside canonical figures like Donald Judd and Yayoi Kusama.

A Guide to the Best and Worst of Marilyn Monroe in the Culture

Marilyn Monroe would have turned 100 on June 1, and institutions worldwide are marking her centennial with exhibitions. The National Portrait Gallery in London opens “Marilyn Monroe: A Portrait” on June 4, featuring works by Andy Warhol, Cecil Beaton, and Richard Avedon alongside her personal effects. The Academy Museum in Los Angeles presents hundreds of posters, photographs, letters, and costumes, while the Cinémathèque Française in Paris runs a film retrospective through June 12. The article also surveys the best and worst cultural works Monroe inspired, including Joyce Carol Oates’s novel *Blonde*, Gloria Steinem’s *Marilyn Monroe*, and Warhol’s iconic “Marilyn” series.

Renoir, Matisse, and the Temptation of Spectacle

Renoir, Matisse, et la tentation du spectacle

The article criticizes two major Parisian exhibitions scheduled for 2026: "Renoir et l'amour. La modernité heureuse (1865-1885)" and "Renoir dessinateur" at the Musée d'Orsay, and "Matisse 1941-1954" at the Galeries nationales du Grand Palais. The author argues that these shows prioritize spectacle and audience appeal over scholarly rigor, using flashy titles and famous names to attract crowds like movie releases.

The Burlington Magazine - n°1478 vol CLXVIII - May 2026

The May 2026 issue of The Burlington Magazine (n°1478, vol. CLXVIII) presents a rich array of scholarly articles, exhibition reviews, and book reviews covering European art from the medieval period to the 20th century. Highlights include Laure Boyer's study of two photographs of Victorine Meurent linked to Manet's 'Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe' and 'Olympia', Axel Moulinier's analysis of Watteau's copies after old masters, and Richard Thomson's essay on a century of Monet in print. Exhibition reviews cover shows on Monet's Étretat coast, Orazio Gentileschi, Cornelius Jonson van Ceulen, Gainsborough, Seurat, Italian Symbolism, and Iliazd. Book reviews range from medieval art and Pietro Bellotti to Helene Schjerfbeck, Roberto Matta, and contemporary jewelry at the Dallas Museum of Art.

A Culture Lover’s Guide to Northwest Arkansas, a Land of Contradictions

This travel guide explores the cultural landscape of Northwest Arkansas, focusing on the upcoming 114,000-square-foot expansion of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, set to open June 6, 2026. The author recounts a road trip from Little Rock to the Ozarks, visiting the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts (with its new Studio Gang-designed building), dining at Coursey's Smoked Meats, and encountering a white supremacist billboard in Harrison, while also highlighting Thorncrown Chapel by E. Fay Jones as a transcendent architectural stop.

How Does an Art Fair Stand Apart? TEFAF NY Has an Answer.

TEFAF New York returns to the Park Avenue Armory from May 15-19, featuring 88 dealers and galleries from 14 countries across four continents. The fair distinguishes itself from competitors like Frieze, NADA, and Independent by offering an unusually broad range of works—from Modernist paintings and contemporary sculpture to ancient artifacts, fine jewelry, and design. Notable exhibitors include Gagosian showing Kathleen Ryan’s bejeweled fruit sculptures, Thaddaeus Ropac presenting newcomer Eva Helene Pade, and Belgian dealer David Lévy pairing Keith Haring with Willem de Kooning. Design is a particular highlight this year, with galleries such as Sarah Myerscough, Gomide&Co, and Modernity Stockholm showcasing everything from Shaker-inspired chairs to Brazilian modernist furniture and Scandinavian classics.

This week's openings in Parisian galleries

Les vernissages cette semaine dans les galeries parisiennes

This week's openings in Parisian galleries feature a wide range of exhibitions across the Marais, Saint-Germain-des-Prés, and other districts. Highlights include Galerie Alain Margaron's group show "Du modèle à l'autoportrait" exploring the body in works by André Derain, Jean Hélion, Fred Deux, and Zoran Mušič; Kim Myoung Nam's first solo show at Galerie UNIVER / Colette Colla, presenting perforated paper pieces; and Galerie Wagner's collective exhibition dedicated to Latin American artists Milton Becerra, Olga Luna, and Claudia Lavegas. Other notable shows include Louis Pion's ink-on-envelope series at Galerie Incognito Artclub, Léonore Chastagner's raw ceramics at Galerie Anne-Sarah Bénichou, and solo presentations by Quentin Gouevic and Jérôme Zonder at Galerie Nathalie Obadia.

Hong Kong’s M+ And Centre Pompidou Announce Strategic Partnership

M+, Hong Kong's museum of modern and contemporary art, has announced a multi-year strategic partnership with the Centre Pompidou in Paris. The collaboration includes co-organized exhibitions at M+ starting in 2027, a joint exhibition at the renovated Pompidou around 2030, and a four-year postdoctoral fellowship funded by the Huo Family Foundation, established by philanthropist Yan Huo in 2009. The Huo Research Fellow will focus on twentieth- and twenty-first-century Western and Asian art.

Steve Martin and Ann Philbin Team Up to Present Unsung Artist’s Oeuvre

Comedian and art collector Steve Martin is collaborating with Ann Philbin, the recently retired director of the Hammer Museum, to organize a museum exhibition dedicated to the late actor and musician Martin Mull's painting practice. Titled "Martin Mull: The Joys of Indoor/Outdoor Living," the show will open at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art in June 2026 and run through October, featuring over 50 drawings and paintings—many on loan from Mull's estate and collectors including Jennifer Tilly and the Greenspuns. This marks Mull's first museum survey since 2006, highlighting his lifelong but often overlooked career as a visual artist, which began with a BFA and MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design.

Art Students League Seeks the Next Generation of Public Artists

The Art Students League of New York is accepting applications through July 12, 2026, for its Works in Public fellowship, a fully funded two-year program that trains artists to create large-scale public sculptures. Formerly known as Model to Monument and launched in 2010 with the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation, the fellowship selects four artists per cohort, providing tuition, a stipend, and production costs. Participants develop proposals in the first year and fabricate approved works in the second, with sculptures displayed for a year in Manhattan’s Riverside Park and eligible for permanent installation on the Florida Keys Sculpture Trail.

Art News, Indeed: NBA Star Victor Wembanyama Prepped For Finals Game By Sketching in Gramercy

NBA star Victor Wembanyama was spotted sketching a statue of Edwin Booth in Gramercy Park, a private park in New York City, hours before a crucial Game 3 of the 2026 NBA Finals. The San Antonio Spurs player, who is also a visual artist, shared a video of his drawing session on Instagram, and later led his team to a 115-111 victory over the New York Knicks with a standout performance.

When I claim my black Britishness in this age of intolerance, here is the music that goes with it | Hugh Muir

Hugh Muir describes his experience at "The Music is Black" exhibition at the V&A East in London, where visitors wear headphones and move through galleries listening to different clips of Black British music, creating a shared, immersive encounter. The exhibition highlights the centrality of Black music to British culture, featuring reggae, lovers rock, and other genres, and coincides with the death of Kanya King, founder of the MOBO Awards.

The Guardian view on the UK’s first centre for illustration: visual literacy, and the sheer joy of images, matter | Editorial

The Guardian editorial announces the opening of the UK's first permanent centre for illustration, the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration, housed in a repurposed 17th-century waterworks in London's Clerkenwell. The centre is the largest of its kind in the world and is the brainchild of 93-year-old Sir Quentin Blake, who is donating his archive of 40,000 drawings. Inaugural exhibitions include "Queer as Comics," tracing the mainstreaming of once-marginalised voices in illustration, from Tove Jansson's Moomin to Alice Oseman's Heartstopper.

MC Escher review – hallucinatory insights from the master of the mind-bending staircase

The Guardian reviews a major MC Escher exhibition at Somerset House in London, part of a world tour. The show presents over 100 works, including the iconic 1958 lithograph *Belvedere*, early nature studies, and cultural artifacts like Pink Floyd's *Ummagumma* album sleeve, revealing Escher's precise geometric vision and his journey from a patient observer of nature to a pop-culture phenomenon. The exhibition features videos, installations, and immersive environments to deepen the viewer's experience of his paradoxical spaces.

Newly Unearthed John Lennon Drawings Make Their Public Debut

Some 240 rediscovered drawings by John Lennon, created in the 1960s for an animated Beatles music video, are being publicly displayed for the first time at the Liverpool Beatles Museum. The drawings were made in collaboration with artist Stephen Verona and feature lyrics from the Beatles' 1964 hit "I Feel Fine." They were used to produce a short lyric video called "She Said So," described as the first music video. The trove recently surfaced at auction in London, where it was acquired by pop culture memorabilia expert Joseph Robert O'Donnell, who recognized its significance.

Call my agent: why artist management companies are making a comeback

Artist management companies are making a comeback as the traditional gallery model faces upheaval. Recent launches include Cristopher Canizares's Artist Legacy Bureau (after leaving Hauser & Wirth), Dina Mostovaya's Sensity Studio in London, Julia Bassiri's Art+Mgmt in Miami, Anne Verhallen's KUNST Agency, Spencer Young in New York, and Jon Horrocks's agency focused on museum partnerships. These agents operate without physical spaces, keeping overheads low, and offer sliding-scale fees for services like career development, estate planning, and museum acquisitions.

How Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn—a Painter, Collector, and Collaborator of Carl Jung—Mined the Archive and Her Subconscious

Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn, a painter, collector, and close collaborator of Carl Jung, is the subject of a new article exploring her life and work. Born in London in 1881 to Dutch parents, she studied art history at the University of Zurich and later married musician Iwan Hermann Fröbe. After his death in a plane crash and the disappearance of her disabled daughter under the Nazi regime, she channeled her trauma into art, creating screenprints she called 'meditation drawings' and sketches described as 'visions.' She founded the Eranos Foundation in 1933 and amassed a vast collection of archetypal images sourced from libraries and archives across Europe and North America, driven by a desire to connect human experience with universal truths.

June Book Bag: from the street art of JR to a behind-the-scenes look at the Venice Biennale

The article reviews four new art books published in June. It covers a Taschen monograph on French street artist JR, featuring his large-scale refugee portraits and his upcoming wrapping of the Pont Neuf in Paris; an oral history of the Venice Biennale edited by Massimiliano Gioni with interviews with 16 curators spanning 1993 to 2026; an investigative book by Matthew Campbell about antiquities smuggler Douglas Latchford and the illicit Southeast Asian artefact trade; and a volume of conversations with Turkish curator Vasif Kortun about his career and the Istanbul art scene.

The 2026 Whitney Biennial in five key themes

The 2026 Whitney Biennial, the 82nd edition, opened at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York during a politically volatile period, just a week after the US and Israel began a coordinated attack on Iran. Curated by Marcela Guerrero and Drew Sawyer, the exhibition features 56 artists, duos, and collectives, with works that explore themes of American identity, US imperialism, and the lasting effects of American power abroad. Artists from Afghanistan, Chile, Iraq, Okinawa, Palestine, the Philippines, and Vietnam are included alongside American peers, often addressing politics subtly through abstract, poetic, or ambivalent approaches.

Elizabeth Blackadder exhibition reveals wintry Tuscan landscapes and minimalist still lifes

A new exhibition at the Jenna Burlingham Gallery in Kingsclere, Hampshire, showcases early works by Scottish painter Elizabeth Blackadder (1921-2021), focusing on wintry Tuscan landscapes and minimalist still lifes from the 1950s through the 1970s. Most pieces are exhibited for the first time, revealing a less familiar side of the artist known for her accessible paintings of flowers and cats. The show includes gouache and watercolour landscapes Blackadder painted after winning a travelling scholarship, as well as pared-back oil still lifes from the 1960s and 1970s.

Ken Griffin’s Other Copy of the U.S. Constitution Makes Its Museum Debut

Billionaire financier and art collector Ken Griffin has lent his second privately held first printing of the U.S. Constitution to the South Street Seaport Museum in New York for the exhibition "The Promise of Liberty: Words That Shaped a Nation," marking the country's 250th anniversary. The document, known as the Adrian Van Sinderen copy, was pulled from a Sotheby's auction in 2022 after institutional interest emerged; Griffin acquired it for an undisclosed sum. The exhibition also includes a local copy of the Declaration of Independence, an early printing of the Bill of Rights, and other historic documents tracing America's pursuit of liberty.

French Filmmaker Romain Gavras Is Turning the $102 M. Louvre Heist Into a Movie

French filmmaker Romain Gavras is set to direct a film adaptation of the Louvre heist, in which thieves stole $102 million in jewels from the museum in broad daylight. The film will be based on the book "Main Basse sur le Louvre" (A Grab at the Louvre), released Wednesday in France by publisher Flammarion, written by journalists from Le Parisien, Le Monde, and Paris Match. Film rights were sold to Iconoclast, the production company behind Harmony Korine films and Gavras's previous works like "Athena" (2022). A separate documentary series about the heist is also in development with a British producer.

Art Basel Paris Releases 2026 Exhibitor List: Who’s In? Who’s Out?

Art Basel Paris has released its 2026 exhibitor list, revealing over 200 galleries from 41 countries will participate in the fair at the Grand Palais from October 23 to 25, with preview days starting October 21. This edition marks the first led by Karim Crippa, the fair's former head of communications. Notable newcomers include Luxembourg + Co, Sikkema Malloy Jenkins, Pace Di Donna Schrader Galleries, and Tina Kim Gallery, while several galleries from last year are absent, including Andrew Edlin Gallery, Lia Rumma, and Balice Hertling, which recently admitted to payment delays. A record 12 galleries are forming joint booths, a trend Crippa says creates "a genuine curatorial dialogue."

Christie’s Names Billionaire François-Henri Pinault Chairman, Signaling End of Tenure for Guillaume Cerutti

Christie’s has appointed François-Henri Pinault, son of billionaire François Pinault and president of Groupe Artémis, as board chairman and non-executive director. The move signals the end of Guillaume Cerutti’s tenure as chairman, a role he held since 2023 after serving as CEO from 2017 to 2025. Cerutti also recently left his position as president of the Pinault Collection, which is now led by François Pinault. The announcement came without mention of Cerutti’s departure, and his LinkedIn profile indicates his chairmanship ended last month.

Ren Light Pan Dramatizes the Dilemma of the Trans Artist.

Ren Light Pan, a transgender artist working in a tiny New York studio, creates striking duotone images using a self-invented process involving ink, water, heat lamps, and transparent film. Her recent works center on the classical figure of Sleeping Hermaphroditus, a marble Roman copy of an ancient Greek bronze, which she reproduces from a photograph that includes spectators' legs. Pan's method, which she developed to circumvent perfectionist tendencies, involves suspending a primed canvas over a mixture of ink and water, then applying heat to transfer the image over one to two hours. She has also made works based on her own body, though she has abandoned the durational performance aspect since transitioning.

‘Writing is exactly like love – you need to do it in the dark’: novelist Leila Slimani on why literature is erotic

French-Moroccan novelist Leïla Slimani discusses her residency at Madrid's Museo del Prado, where she draws inspiration from Francisco Goya's Black Paintings for her writing. She reflects on her career, including winning the Prix Goncourt for her novel *Lullaby*, her appointment by French President Emmanuel Macron as a representative for Francophone culture, and the personal trauma of her father's imprisonment that fueled her early writing. The article explores her views on literature, painting, and the erotic nature of writing.

U.K. Museum Races to Acquire 18th-Century Portrait of Black Gardener

The Garden Museum in London has launched a campaign to raise £420,000 ($560,000) to acquire the earliest known portrait of a Black British gardener, John Ystumllyn. Painted by an unknown artist in 1754, the work depicts Ystumllyn as a young man in a blue suit and waistcoat. He was abducted from West Africa as a child, trained as a gardener on the Ystumllyn estate in Wales, and later became a renowned horticulturist. The painting has been on loan to the museum since 2023, and the institution aims to permanently display it alongside another portrait of a Black gardener from 1905.

Hole in one: artist-designed mini golf course heads to London

A playable exhibition titled 'The Art of Mini Golf' will open at Battersea Arts Centre in London from 17 June to 26 July, featuring nine interactive golf hole artworks. The show includes contributions from Turner Prize nominee Delaine Le Bas, US filmmaker Miranda July, Japanese artist Saeborg, and Berlin-based artist Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, who created the ninth hole artwork 'Enough is Enough'. The UK iteration of the touring show, originally organized by the Rising festival in Melbourne, offers playful twists such as a square ball in Le Bas' hole and a strap-on latex animal tail in Saeborg's 'Animal Golf'.

A brush with... Elyse Gonzales, director of San Antonio's Ruby City art centre

Elyse Gonzales, director of San Antonio's Ruby City art centre, is featured in The Art Newspaper's 'A brush with...' interview series. She discusses her formative experience working at Devin Borden Hiram Butler Gallery in Houston as a high school senior, which led to an internship at the Menil Collection and a master's degree at Williams College. Gonzales also shares her curatorial interests, including a forthcoming show of Tracey Rose's drawing and video works, and reveals that Ruby City was born from founder Linda Pace's dream of the building, which she sketched and commissioned David Adjaye to realize in 2007.

What New York’s $2.1B Auction Week Means for the Market

New York’s spring auction week generated $2.1 billion in sales, with major auction houses posting dramatic gains over the previous spring. The results were driven by trophy artworks, high-profile collections, and a renewed willingness among top collectors to spend at the highest level, signaling a robust rebound in the art market.