The Museum of Modern Art in New York is presenting the exhibition "Wifredo Lam: When I Don't Sleep, I Dream," featuring the iconic Cuban Surrealist painter. The show includes his seminal work *The Jungle*, acquired by MoMA in 1946, and explores his complex artistic identity.
Artist Trevor Paglen has publicly noted a striking visual and conceptual overlap between his recent gallery exhibitions titled "Cardinals"—which explore UFO photography and lore—and the imagery in the trailer for Steven Spielberg's upcoming film *Disclosure Day*. Paglen suggests the film's use of cardinals as harbingers of alien life likely originated from his work, specifically a 2023 video installation profiling a former Air Force officer who claimed "Cardinals" was an internal code name for UFOs.
The Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas is opening two major exhibitions on February 19: 'Street Nihonga: The Art of Jimmy Tsutomu Mirikitani' and 'Brush, Block, and Blood: Three Generations of Yoshida Women Printmakers.' The Mirikitani exhibition is the largest assembly of the Japanese American artist's work, featuring 145 pieces that document his life of displacement, incarceration, and homelessness, created using traditional Japanese techniques with found materials. The Yoshida exhibition presents prints by three generations of women from a renowned Japanese artistic family, marking the first U.S. display of their work together.
The Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas is opening two major exhibitions on February 19: 'Street Nihonga: The Art of Jimmy Tsutomu Mirikitani' and 'Brush, Block, and Blood: Three Generations of Yoshida Women Printmakers.' The first is the largest assembly of works by Japanese American artist Jimmy Tsutomu Mirikitani, whose life was marked by incarceration during WWII and homelessness, and who adapted traditional Nihonga techniques with found materials. The second exhibition presents, for the first time in the U.S., the work of three generations of women printmakers from the renowned Yoshida family. These shows are complemented by a new video commission from Ayomi Yoshida and other smaller exhibitions focusing on Japanese and Asian American contemporary art.
Chinese authorities have concluded a major investigation into the Nanjing Museum, revealing decades of alleged mismanagement and corruption that led to nationally significant artworks being funneled into the private market.
Artist Henrike Naumann, who was selected alongside Sung Tieu to represent Germany at the 2024 Venice Biennale, has died at age 39. She passed away on February 14 in Berlin after a short, serious illness, which her website specified was a late cancer diagnosis. The Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen (Ifa), which oversees the German Pavilion, confirmed her death and stated that her planned work for the Biennale will be realized posthumously according to her completed vision.
The exhibition 'Soft Reins: From Degas to Fordjour' opened at Acquavella Galleries in Palm Beach's Royal Poinciana Plaza. Curated by artist Tomokazu Matsuyama, it presents works by a range of artists, from historical figures like Edgar Degas and Pablo Picasso to contemporary names like Derek Fordjour and Sarah Miska, all exploring equestrian themes.
The exhibition 'Soft Reins: From Degas to Fordjour' opened at Acquavella Galleries in Palm Beach's Royal Poinciana Plaza. Curated by artist Tomokazu Matsuyama, it presents works by a range of artists, from historical figures like Edgar Degas and Pablo Picasso to contemporary names like Derek Fordjour and Sarah Miska, all exploring equestrian themes.
Shrewsbury-based artist Lee Lewis has opened a solo exhibition titled 'Story' at Swan Hill Studio, featuring a collection of paintings and personal objects that explore themes of memory and personal narrative. The exhibition, which has been extended until February 28, 2026, focuses on her recent concentration on painting and draws heavily on her Welsh roots and observations of everyday life.
Josiane M.H. Pozi's exhibition "PORTRAIT O.A.Y.G." at Carlos/Ishikawa in London is reviewed through an unconventional, fragmented narrative that blends a play script with critical observation. The review describes Pozi's video works, including "Rhythmic Stimming" (2025) and "Restaurants" (2023), which capture mundane domestic scenes and personal artifacts. The text shifts between a first-person account of meeting the artist and a scripted dialogue between characters J and E, reflecting the exhibition's themes of identity, selfhood, and the poetic potential of everyday objects.
Shrewsbury-based artist Lee Lewis has opened a solo exhibition titled 'Story' at Swan Hill Studio, featuring a collection of paintings and personal objects that explore themes of memory and personal narrative. The exhibition, which has been extended until February 28, 2026, focuses on Lewis's paintings inspired by childhood memories, observed scenes, and her Welsh heritage, and includes items like her late brother's telephone and her grandfather's handmade cricket bat.
The Wichita Art Museum (WAM) has opened a major exhibition titled 'Alex Katz: Theater and Dance,' focusing on the celebrated American artist's decades-long engagement with performing arts subjects. The show features over 50 works, including paintings, collages, and prints that capture the energy and aesthetics of theater and dance, highlighting a significant but less-explored facet of Katz's prolific career.
The article explores how Emily Brontë's novel *Wuthering Heights* has inspired visual artists across different eras. It details specific works by English artist Edna Clarke Hall, who created hundreds of sketches and watercolors reflecting her personal connection to the story's themes of isolation and turmoil, and by Polish-French modernist Balthus, who produced a series of ink illustrations focusing on the childhood trauma of the protagonists.
Austrian-born, Netherlands-based performance artist Florentina Holzinger has joined the roster of blue-chip gallery Thaddaeus Ropac. This move comes just months before she is set to unveil her project "Seaworld Venice" for the Austrian Pavilion at the 2024 Venice Biennale, marking a significant shift of her boundary-pushing, interdisciplinary practice from the theater and dance worlds into the commercial art gallery system.
The Smithsonian American Art Museum has unveiled "Nick Cave: Mammoth," a major new commission by artist Nick Cave. The exhibition, which opened on February 13, 2026, is the museum's largest-ever commission by a single artist and marks Cave's first solo show in Washington, D.C. It transforms a suite of galleries into immersive environments featuring a massive hand-beaded tapestry, towering sculptures incorporating mammoth skulls, and a large light table displaying thousands of found objects.
Arts Mid North Coast is organizing an exhibition titled 'Balance the Scales' to coincide with International Women's Day. The show will run from February 22 to March 8 at the MAKE/SPACE gallery in Coffs Central Shopping Centre, featuring works by local artists from the Mid North Coast region that explore themes of gender balance, power, and social change.
Galleries and museums worldwide are presenting a series of exhibitions to mark Black History Month, highlighting the contributions of Black and African diasporic artists. These shows explore themes of identity, history, and liberation, ranging from the vibrant works of AFRICOBRA co-founder Wadsworth Jarrell to Ifeyinwa Joy Chiamonwu's intimate portraits of her Igbo community, and a major photography exhibition at MoMA.
Iraqi-American artist Michael Rakowitz has opened his first major survey exhibition in Norway, titled "Proxies for Poets and Palaces," at the Stavanger Art Museum. The show features eight new reliefs from his long-running series *The Invisible Enemy Should Not Exist*, which recreates artifacts looted from Baghdad's Iraq Museum using cardboard, Arabic newspapers, and food packaging, alongside older works like the 2017 film *The Ballad of Special Ops Cody*.
Brooklyn-based artist Duke Riley has launched a public search for the remains of a goat named Skellig Mór, a former mascot of the USS Vermont battleship in the early 1900s. His campaign involves missing posters, a newspaper ad in the Boston Globe, and a dedicated hotline, forming the centerpiece of his new solo exhibition, "The Repatriation of King Skellig Mór," at Praise Shadows Art Gallery in Brookline, Massachusetts.
The Denver Art Museum will open an exhibition titled 'Knife Fork Spoon: Everyday Tools, Extraordinary Design' in May 2026. The show explores the history, artistry, and innovation of flatware, featuring over 200 objects from the 19th century to the present, including newly commissioned works by contemporary designers and architects.
British artist Lincoln Townley has launched a new series titled "Success," which explores the psychology of ambition and achievement through gestural, abstract portraits. The collection, available through his partnership with the Prague-based Eclipse Art Group, expands his market into Eastern Europe, following successful sell-out exhibitions at the London Art Fair 2025 and a planned presentation at the Palazzo Bembo during the 2026 Venice Biennale.
The Africa Museum in Tervuren, Belgium, a museum dedicated to the country's colonial history in Africa, is at the center of a dispute over access to its historical geological records from the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Congolese government and KoBold Metals, a mining company backed by billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates, are seeking access to these documents, which detail rich mineral deposits, as part of a deal to digitize them and explore for critical minerals like lithium and cobalt.
A new solo exhibition by artist Aileen Rodriguez Imperatrice, titled "Indigenous," is currently on view at the Ewert Art Gallery within Fresno Pacific University's Warkentine Culture and Arts Center. The collection explores themes of ethnic identity.
The Citadelle Art Museum in Canadian, Texas, will open a contemporary figurative portrait exhibition titled 'Human Resonance: Portraits with Presence' on February 14, 2026. The show, running through June 13, features internationally known painter David Kassan's portraits of Holocaust survivors, alongside works by artists Chelsie Murfee, Annie Murphy-Robinson, Shana Levenson, Barbara Hack, Karen Offutt, and Tanja Gant.
Major museums across the United States are launching significant exhibitions in 2026, including retrospectives of Frida Kahlo in Houston and Nick Cave in Washington, D.C., and a landmark show on sculptor Edmonia Lewis in Salem. These shows are part of a broader cultural moment, with many institutions mounting exhibitions to coincide with the nation's 250th anniversary, aiming to reframe art historical narratives and highlight previously overlooked artists.
Choreographer Florentina Holzinger, known for her extreme and provocative performances, has joined the roster of the Thaddaeus Ropac gallery. This move coincides with her preparation to represent Austria at the 61st Venice Biennale in 2026 with a site-specific performance project titled SEAWORLD VENICE.
Two new student-curated exhibitions have opened at the Utah State University Museum of Anthropology. "Japanese Fine Arts and Fashion," curated by Morgan Meyers, explores the connection between artistic expression and clothing traditions, particularly during Japan's Edo period. "Global Games: The Cross-Cultural Creation of Competition," curated by Benji Fowler-Merrell, examines the universal human desire for play and competition through interactive displays of historical games.
Filmmaker and multimedia artist Harmony Korine, in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, declared his full commitment to creating with artificial intelligence. He described moving beyond traditional narrative forms to explore "post-narrative, sensory, experimental" entertainment through his Miami-based studio EDGLRD, viewing AI as a new creative tool akin to a paintbrush.
The Blaffer Art Museum at the University of Houston has launched two new exhibitions, 'The Uncanny In-Between' and 'Mud + Corn + Stone + Blue,' both running through March 14. The first features ceramic works by five Korean artists exploring bicultural identity, while the second presents works by artists from the U.S. Corn Belt and Central America, weaving together themes of agriculture, history, and political intervention.
A series of gallery openings are taking place across London this week, featuring solo exhibitions by a diverse group of artists. Cristine Brache's "Centerfolds" at Bernheim explores persona and omission through the lens of Dorothy Stratten's poetry. Ella Wright presents new paintings at Cedric Bardawil, Dylan Doe's "Muscle Memory" opens at Mandy Zhang Art, Isaac Julien's film installation premieres at Victoria Miro, and Paul Winstanley's "Bringing It All Back Home" debuts at Anthony Wilkinson.