The US pavilion's curator on the controversial choice of Alma Allen for the Venice Biennale

The US pavilion at the Venice Biennale has selected Alma Allen, a Utah-born, Mexico-based sculptor, as its representative artist—a controversial and surprising choice given his relative obscurity compared to past pavilion artists. The selection process was unusually fraught: the first artist chosen was dropped before official announcement, and the announcement was delayed by the US government shutdown. The pavilion's curator, Jeffrey Uslip, discusses the exhibition titled "Call Me the Breeze," which will feature Allen's sculptures in stone, bronze, and wood that appear to defy their own weight, emphasizing artistic autonomy despite the State Department's framing of the choice as showcasing "American excellence."

In Minor Keys: how Venice's international exhibition was brought to life after the death of artistic director Koyo Kouoh

The 61st Venice Biennale's international exhibition, titled "In Minor Keys," was realized after the sudden death of its artistic director, Koyo Kouoh, in May 2025. A team of five of Kouoh's collaborators, known as "la squadra di Koyo Kouoh," worked with her before her death and finalized the exhibition's themes, artist list, and scenography. The exhibition features 111 invited artists, duos, collectives, and artist-led organizations, with the team emphasizing that this remains Kouoh's vision rather than a replacement.

Artist Mel Kendrick Is Mining New Possibilities From Wood and Color

American artist Mel Kendrick, who began his career in the early 1970s integrating Minimalism and architecture, presents his ninth solo exhibition at David Nolan Gallery in New York. Titled “Mel Kendrick: Tilt,” the show runs through June 6, 2026, and features new and recent wood sculptures alongside older works, including pieces like *Walnut Shelf* (2026), *Gemstone* (2026), and *Yellow Drum* (2025). Kendrick works without pre-planning, allowing the material to guide his process, and treats color as a material with its own weight, inspired by Gothic and medieval architecture.

José Dávila Makes Space the Subject in His New York Show

José Dávila's solo exhibition "The Simple Act of Positioning" opens at Sean Kelly gallery in New York, featuring sculptures that explore the relational placement of objects in space. The show includes totemic pillars of steel, concrete, volcanic rock, and automotive paint, framed by large black structures, inviting viewers to move through the gallery to fully experience the visual conversations between works. Dávila, originally from Guadalajara and trained in architecture, draws on Modernist precedents from artists like Marcel Duchamp and architects like Luis Barragán.

Fraenkel Gallery Partners with New York’s Metrograph for Artist-Curated Series

Fraenkel Gallery has partnered with New York's Metrograph theater to present a film series curated by six of its represented artists. The series, titled "Fraenkel Gallery Presents," runs from May 8–17, with each artist selecting a film and several introducing their screenings. The collaboration includes an opening event featuring artist Carrie Mae Weems and director Joel Coen.

Art Dealers Try Their Hand as Artists in This Unusual Exhibition

White Columns, New York’s oldest alternative nonprofit art space, has launched a unique fundraising exhibition titled “Art (by) Dealers.” The show features works created by over 90 art dealers and gallery professionals rather than the artists they represent. Organized by Kathy Huang and Will Leung, the exhibition presents uniform 12-by-9-inch works priced at $500 each, sold anonymously to benefit the nonprofit's programming.

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Alserkal Avenue in Dubai is expanding its traditional Art Week into a five-week "Art Month" running from April 18 to May 18. This strategic extension includes 16 gallery exhibitions, over 100 public events, and a new commercially focused group show featuring 12 UAE-based galleries. The initiative aims to provide a more sustainable platform for the local art ecosystem, especially as the Art Dubai fair has been rescheduled to mid-May and adapted in response to regional instability.

Independent 2026 Exhibitor List Announced

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Independent has unveiled the exhibitor list for its 17th edition, scheduled for May 14–17, 2026. The fair is relocating to a new venue at Pier 36 in New York’s Lower East Side and will feature 76 exhibitors showcasing over 100 artists. Notably, more than 70 percent of the booths will be dedicated to solo presentations, including a special solo project by Rei Kawakubo for Comme des Garçons and sculptural installations by Gretchen Bender and Francis Upritchard.

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Van Doren Waxter in New York is hosting "Portraits," a solo exhibition dedicated to the late American abstract painter Jackie Saccoccio. The show features five paintings and seven works on paper that showcase Saccoccio’s mature style, characterized by a physically demanding process of dragging, pressing, and dripping paint. These works bridge the gap between gestural abstraction and the psychological depth of traditional portraiture, drawing inspiration from both Abstract Expressionism and Roman Baroque aesthetics.

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A painting by David Salle titled "Hatchet" (2025) was removed from his solo exhibition at Sprüth Magers in Los Angeles following allegations of plagiarism. Critics and social media users pointed out that the work's central figure—a woman in a black-and-white dress holding a sledgehammer—bore a striking resemblance to the 2021 painting "Impact" by artist Kelly Reemtsen. While Salle is a pioneer of the Pictures Generation known for appropriation, the gallery stated the work was withdrawn out of respect for both artists and to acknowledge the ongoing dialogue regarding authorship.

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Warren Isensee's new paintings at Miles McEnery Gallery in Chelsea, New York, explore optical structure with loosened rules, where warm and cool tones trade dominance across repeating frameworks. On view through February 14, 2026, the exhibition is the artist's third solo outing with the gallery and includes a fully illustrated publication with an essay by Stephen Westfall. The works interrupt their own logic, introducing irregular breaks that reroute the eye, creating a test of looking rather than a display of visual effects.

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Lucia Di Luciano, an Italian painter associated with the 1960s Arte Programmata movement, has died at age 93. Her death was announced by her Milan gallery, 10 A.M. Art, without specifying a cause. Di Luciano was known for her hand-painted, gridded black-and-white abstractions that mimicked computer-generated patterns, made with house paint and acrylic. Despite painting for nearly eight decades, she only gained wider international recognition in 2022 when her work was included in the main exhibition of the Venice Biennale, curated by Cecilia Alemani. Her career saw a late surge, with appearances at Tate Modern's "Electric Dreams" exhibition, art fairs like Frieze Masters and Independent 20th Century, and a solo show at Herald St. in London. The Maxxi museum in Rome is organizing a retrospective set to open in 2027.

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The article reflects on the closure of several notable contemporary art galleries in 2025, including Clearing, Blum, High Art, Venus Over Manhattan, Sperone Westwater, Galerie Francesca Pia, Tilton Gallery, Altman Siegel, Kasmin, Rena Bransten Gallery, L.A. Louver, and Canal Projects. It opens with a eulogy for Florine Stettheimer by Georgia O'Keeffe, drawing a parallel between the artist's unique way of life and the distinctive, charismatic spirit of galleries that have shuttered. The author recounts personal experiences at now-closed spaces like Metro Pictures, JTT, and Clearing, and quotes dealer Olivier Babin and the legendary Leo Castelli on the fleeting importance of galleries.

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The Smithsonian American Art Museum's Renwick Gallery has opened "State Fairs: Growing American Craft," the first exhibition since the Trump administration's August 2025 audit of all Smithsonian exhibitions, didactics, and collections. The audit, based on an executive order to "restore truth and sanity to American history," condemned discussions of racism, sexism, and oppression as revisionist history. The exhibition features over 250 works from across the United States, spanning the 19th century to the present, arguing that regional state and tribal fairs are essential sites for the development of American craft. It includes spectacular pieces like a 12-foot pair of Lucchese boots, a life-size butter sculpture, and works by artists such as Morgan Hill, Kelly Bohnenkamp, Betty Spindler, Linda Nez, Kaye D. Miller, and Peggie Hartwell.

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Japanese artist Mariko Mori presents "Radiance," a new body of work at Sean Kelly Gallery in New York, exploring ancient Japanese cosmologies and spiritual traditions through ultra-contemporary materials. The exhibition features a shrine-like installation with hanging white silk, faceted dichroic sculptures such as *Oshito Stone III* and *Kamitate Stone I* (both 2025), and a series of "Unity" photo paintings that blend art, science, and spirituality. The show runs through December 20, 2025.

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British artist David Shrigley has opened a solo exhibition at Stephen Friedman Gallery in London titled “David Shrigley: Exhibition of Old Rope,” featuring a 1.3-meter-high pile of ten tons of discarded rope as a conceptual installation. The work, priced at £1 million ($1.3 million), was assembled from rope salvaged from maritime, climbing, and industrial sources that would otherwise have gone to landfill. Shrigley describes the piece as a literal exploration of the idiom “money for old rope,” questioning the value people place on art.

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Artist Fulton Leroy Washington, known as Mr. Wash, is establishing the Art By Wash Studio & Community Center, a 13,000-square-foot campus in Compton, California, to serve recently incarcerated individuals and local youth. Released in 2016 after President Barack Obama commuted his life sentence for nonviolent drug offenses, Mr. Wash taught art in prison for 18 years and later gained recognition in the art world, including a breakout appearance at the 2020 Made in L.A. biennial. The center, designed pro bono by Morphosis Architects and The NOW Institute, will offer art-making instruction, studio space, materials, and exhibition opportunities, with the goal of connecting emerging artists to curators and galleries. The project is currently fundraising $100,000 for its first phase, with completion targeted for 2028.

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Paul Pfeiffer's studio visit reveals his ongoing exploration of media spectacles, particularly through his "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" series (2001–), which digitally isolates NBA basketball players by erasing teammates, opponents, and jersey details from archival images. The artist discusses his counterintuitive relationship to sports, his intense Christian upbringing in Hawaii and the Philippines, and the influence of horror films like "The Exorcist" on his work, which examines the religious undertones of secular activities and the mechanics of voyeurism.

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English artist Rachel Whiteread, the first woman to win the Turner Prize in 1993, has collaborated with French silversmith company Puiforcat on a new seven-piece silverware collection. Inspired by corrugated cardboard, the collection includes serving trays, a pitcher, tumblers, and napkin rings, with surfaces that mimic the grooves and overlapping corners of cardboard, as well as watermark-like concentric circles. The trays echo Whiteread's recent artworks, such as *Untitled (Silver Pallet)* (2023), a flattened cardboard cast in lacquered silver.

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Untitled Art, Miami Beach has announced the 157 exhibitors for its 2025 edition, running December 3–7 on Miami Beach. The fair introduces a new “Artist Spotlight” section organized by artist Petra Cortright, alongside its main Galleries section and the reimagined Nest section curated by Jonny Tanna. Notable first-time exhibitors include Meliksetian | Briggs, PALMA, and Soho Revue in the main section, while several galleries have switched from NADA and Art Basel Miami Beach, including Kavi Gupta returning after a lawsuit hiatus. The fair also features Allison Glenn as curator of site-specific Special Projects.

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The Chelsea townhouse of the late gallerist Barbara Gladstone sold for $13.1 million, over $1 million above its $11.99 million asking price, in an all-cash deal that closed on August 27. The 19th-century Greek Revival row house at 344 W. 22nd St was purchased by an unnamed buyer, with brokers Scott Hustis and Mark Jovanovic of Compass reporting the sale set a record per square foot for a Chelsea townhouse. Gladstone, who founded the Gladstone Gallery in 1980 and became one of New York's most prominent dealers, died in June 2024 at age 89. She had bought the property in 2011 for $6.3 million. Architect Annabell Selldorf designed the current iteration of the 4,395-square-foot home, and Piet Oudolf designed its garden. The home featured gallery-like Venetian plaster walls and white oak floors that showcased works from Gladstone's private collection.

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Walter Swennen, a Belgian artist who began his career as a poet before turning to painting, has died at age 79. His death was announced by his gallery, Xavier Hufkens, without specifying a cause. Swennen was known for his playful, language-infused paintings that combined cryptic phrases, comic-book-like figures, and unconventional materials such as found wood and metal. He rose to prominence in Belgium alongside other painters interested in materiality, but his work stood out for its freewheeling humor and destabilization of meaning. A major retrospective at WIELS Contemporary Art Centre in Brussels in 2013 helped revive his career, leading to later shows at Gladstone Gallery in New York and a growing international following.

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Dublin-born Egyptian artist Rafik Greiss discusses his practice and recent work in an interview conducted at a Paris café. Greiss, who recently presented a solo show titled “The Longest Sleep” at Galerie Balice Hertling in Paris, creates photographs and films that explore themes of loneliness, urban space, and religious experience. His 12-minute film *The Longest Sleep* (2024), shot in Cairo, depicts Sufi rituals and deserted fairgrounds, informed by neurotheology. Greiss prints his black-and-white photographs on thick Japanese paper, emphasizing the tactile signature of his lens-based work. He is currently considering exhibition invitations from institutions around the Mediterranean and plans to travel to Egypt to make new work.

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London Gallery Weekend (LGW) returned for its fifth edition from June 6 to 8, 2025, drawing art enthusiasts across 126 participating spaces despite dark clouds and drizzle. The event showcased cutting-edge performances, digital experiments, and bold textile art, but faced challenges as several trendy younger galleries—including Union Pacific, Guts Gallery, The Sunday Painter, and Xxijra Hii—chose not to participate this year. The weekend also overlapped with the debut London edition of South by Southwest (SXSW), a tech and arts conference that brought 20,505 pass-holders from 77 countries, including King Charles III, and featured visual art offerings such as LDN LAB curated by Alex Poots. While SXSW included works by Andy Warhol and Beeple, coordination between the two events was minimal, though a hastily planned SXSW VIP gallery tour occurred before LGW officially began.

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The Chelsea townhouse of legendary art dealer Barbara Gladstone has been listed for sale at just under $12 million. The Greek Revival row house on West 22nd Street, which Gladstone purchased for $6.3 million in 2011, was extensively renovated by architect Annabelle Selldorf, who also designed Gladstone's two Chelsea galleries. The five-bedroom, five-bathroom property features a curving skylit staircase and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking a garden. The listing is held by Compass agent Scott Hustis.

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Artist Hito Steyerl has published a new book, *Medium Hot: Images in the Age of Heat*, through Verso, continuing her long-running exploration of how images, technology, and politics intersect. The article traces her intellectual evolution from earlier works like *The Wretched of the Screen* (2013) and *Duty Free Art* (2017), highlighting key essays and video works such as *How Not to Be Seen: A Fucking Didactic Educational .MOV File* (2013), which satirizes surveillance culture. It notes that Steyerl topped ArtReview’s 2017 Power List as the most influential person in the art world, and that her latest book addresses war and violent conflict in the context of Web3, with a more decisive tone.

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Swiss-born textile artist Silvia Heyden (1927–2015) devoted over half a century to weaving nearly 800 innovative tapestries, despite early discouragement from pursuing violin-making due to her gender. A new exhibition, “Improvisational Nature: The Weavings and Drawings of Silvia Heyden,” at Charles Moffett gallery in New York (through June 7) marks her first solo show in the city and her first U.S. exhibition of tapestries and drawings since 1972. The show, organized with her family, highlights her improvisational, music-inspired approach to the loom, which she likened to playing a violin.

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Sotheby's held a three-part marathon of contemporary art auctions in New York on Thursday evening, totaling $186.1 million with fees across 68 lots. The evening included white-glove sales for the collections of legendary dealer Barbara Gladstone and veteran dealer Daniella Luxembourg, with the Gladstone offering exceeding its presale estimate. Top lots included Richard Prince's "Man Crazy Nurse" (2002–03), which sold for $3.96 million, and Lucio Fontana's "Concetto spaziale, La fine di Dio" (1963), which achieved $14.5 million. The main contemporary evening sale took in $127 million, while the overall result fell short of last May's equivalent sale of $234.6 million.

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Kiang Malingue, a prominent Hong Kong gallery, is opening a new commercial space in New York's Chinatown this week. The inaugural exhibition features Japanese artist Hiroka Yamashita, marking her New York solo debut. Founders Edouard Malingue and Lorraine Kiang cite a strategy to tap into a growing community of young Asian American collectors and rising market interest in Asian and Asian diaspora artists.

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TEFAF New York returns to the Park Avenue Armory from May 9–13, 2025, featuring 91 exhibitors from around the world. The fair presents a broad range of modern and contemporary art, jewelry, antiquities, and design, with highlights including an untitled canvas by Shirley Jaffe at Galerie Nathalie Obadia, a ceramic bird sculpture by Guidette Carbonell at Lebreton Gallery, a Roman marble head of a bearded god at Charles Ede, and design pieces such as Zaha Hadid's Liquid Glacial coffee table at David Gill Gallery and Josef Frank's 'Flora' chest of drawers at Modernity Stockholm. The event also includes curated displays in the venue's historic period rooms, a feature unique to this fair.