The Fairbanks Arts Association has issued a call for entries for its upcoming juried exhibition, "Interdependence," scheduled to run from May 1 to May 30 at the Bear Gallery in Pioneer Park. Open to artists aged 18 and older living in Interior Alaska, the show will kick off with a First Friday opening reception and an awards ceremony on May 1.
Iran will not participate in the 61st Venice Biennale, which opens for previews this week, the Biennale Foundation announced on May 4. The decision comes two months after the United States and Israel launched strikes across Iran, and amid renewed tensions along the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranian pavilion was to be commissioned by Aydin Mehdizadeh Tehrani, director general of the visual arts office in the Iranian Ministry of Culture. Iran has had inconsistent attendance at the Biennale since 1958, with a long absence between the 1960s and 2003, but has participated semi-consistently over the last two decades, most recently in 2024.
The entire jury of the Venice Biennale resigned just days before the 61st international art exhibition's opening on May 9, following a dispute over the decision to allow Russia to participate. The five-member panel, led by Solange Farkas and including Zoe Butt, Elvira Dyangani Ose, Marta Kuzma, and Giovanna Zapperi, had previously stated it would not award prizes to artists from countries whose leaders face charges of crimes against humanity, a move seen as targeting Russia and Israel. The Biennale responded by postponing the award ceremony to November 22 and announcing it would give two awards, including one that could go to any national participation, citing its founding principles of openness and rejection of censorship.
The Kelterborn Collection, a German private collection focused on video art and experimental installations, will be exhibited in Italy for the first time at Venice's Contemporary Forces platform from May 7 to September 27, 2026. The exhibition, titled "Who’s a good boy??," is curated by Anastasia Stravinsky and Mario von Kelterborn in collaboration with IKT – International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art, and features works by twelve artists including Joseph Beuys, Gary Hill, Laure Prouvost, and Ulay. The show aligns with the theme of the 61st Venice Biennale, exploring power "in minor keys."
Chiara Camoni presents the Italian Pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale with her exhibition "Con Te Con Tutto" in the Arsenale. The show is divided into two sections: the first features monumental yet intimate sculptures, including her signature "sister" figures made from necklaces and terracotta fragments, while the second section continues the installation with a focus on circular production and zero waste. Camoni emphasizes a return to front-facing statuary, avoiding the gigantism of past editions, and works with sustainable, handmade processes.
Com’è la mostra internazionale della Biennale di Venezia? Recensione di “In minor keys” di Koyo Kouoh
The 2026 Venice Biennale, titled "In minor keys" and curated by the late Koyo Kouoh, opens to the public on May 9 amid controversies including the absence of the president's name in the colophon at the Arsenale entrance. The exhibition, organized by Kouoh's team (Rory Tsapayi, Siddharta Mitter, Marie Helene Pereira, Gabe Beckhurst Feijoo, and Rasha Salty), unfolds across the Giardini and the Arsenale's Corderie, featuring works that balance strength and beauty with a harmonious mix of voices and themes. The Giardini section is particularly compelling, with a non-linear, polycentric layout that feels like a living organism, while the Arsenale offers further depth.
A family of entrepreneurs acquired an ancient bar in Rome's Pigneto neighborhood in 2020, inheriting a Roman-era hypogeum dating back to the 1st century BC. Originally a pozzolana quarry, later a wine cellar and WWII air-raid shelter, the space beneath the historic bar Necci dal 1924 reopened to the public on March 12 as an exhibition venue. It now hosts "Sottoforma," a cycle of three exhibitions curated by Donatella Giordano and Agatha Jaubourg that explore the theme of the invisible through contemporary art. The first exhibition features works by Eva Marisaldi, Enrico Serotti, and Luca Vitone, running until March 31, followed by shows with Iginio De Luca and Liliana Moro in April, and José Angelino and Elena Bellantoni in May 2026.
Storia della Torre Branca di Milano che torna protagonista grazie alla trasmissione tv di Fabio Volo
The Torre Branca in Milan, originally designed by architect Gio Ponti in 1932 for the V Triennale di Milano, is experiencing renewed cultural relevance. After years of abandonment and restoration by Fratelli Branca Distillerie (which gave it its current name), the tower reopened to the public in 2002. In April 2026, it became the set of "Kong – Con la testa tra le nuvole," a new television program hosted by Fabio Volo on Rai 3, featuring celebrities and cultural figures discussing existential themes. Additionally, the tower was recently reinterpreted through contemporary photography in an exhibition by Francesco Jodice at Galleria Frittelli Rizzo in Milan.
Un nuovissimo romanzo è ambientato nella Venezia rinascimentale e nel suo potente Arsenale (quello dove si tiene la Biennale)
Allegra Scattaglia and Luca Josi have co-authored a new novel titled "Venetians – Il segreto dell’Arsenale," published by Sonzogno. Set in Renaissance Venice, the story follows young patrician Marcantonio Bragadin as he becomes entangled in a plot driven by the city's sophisticated and ruthless political system. The narrative highlights the Arsenal, one of the world's first proto-industrial shipbuilding complexes, which also hosts the Venice Biennale. The book weaves together art, technology, diplomacy, and intrigue, featuring historical figures such as Titian, Tintoretto, Albrecht Dürer, Leonardo da Vinci, and Aldus Manutius.
A new Palazzo delle Arti e delle Culture – Collecto is opening in Venice at Palazzo Erizzo Ligabue, a 15th-century palace on the Grand Canal. The initiative, spearheaded by Inti Ligabue (45), son of the late paleontologist and entrepreneur Giancarlo Ligabue, will open to the public from May 7 to May 24, 2026, offering guided tours of a collection of over 400 pieces spanning from 4.5-billion-year-old fossils to contemporary works by artists such as Arcangelo Sassolino, Nico Vascellari, and Giorgio Andreotta Calò. The project builds on the Fondazione Giancarlo Ligabue, established in 2016 from the original Centro Studi founded in 1973, and will feature a residency by artist Marta Spagnoli.
Le figlie del suono. Ildegarda di Bingen e Patti Smith sono al Padiglione Vaticano alla Biennale
The article profiles a meeting between the author and Patti Smith, exploring her new memoir "Bread of Angels" and her connection to the 12th-century Benedictine abbess and mystic Hildegard of Bingen. Both women are presented as figures who see music as a living resonance that can awaken a primordial, sacred vibration within humanity. The piece also notes that Smith wrote the preface to the author's book "A passo d'uomo" and that both she and Hildegard are featured at the Vatican Pavilion at the Venice Biennale.
In Piemonte le Langhe, il Roero e il Monferrato puntano sempre di più sull’arte contemporanea e il turismo culturale
The Langhe, Roero, and Monferrato regions of Piedmont, Italy, have consolidated their cultural alliance under the name Orma, a unified system launched in 2025 that brings together four existing festivals—Creativamente Roero, Resté, Germinale Monferrato Art Fest, and La collina sale sempre—to offer a widespread contemporary art program across the UNESCO World Heritage territory. In 2026, Orma expands its activities from May to November, involving over 60 municipalities, with new entries like Canelli hosting a site-specific work by Brazilian artist Maria Theresa Alves in partnership with Castello di Rivoli, and projects such as Prospettive / Perspectives with Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo and Villa Arson. The program includes artist residencies, permanent interventions, and exhibitions, with Resté already underway in the Langhe towns of Diano d'Alba, Montelupo Albese, Rodello, and Cerretto Langhe.
Il Padiglione del Qatar alla Biennale di Venezia ancora non c’è. Ma prende forma sotto una tenda ai Giardini con un ricco programma culturale
Qatar's national pavilion at the Venice Biennale, designed by architect Lina Ghotmeh, is still under construction in the Giardini. For the 2026 Venice Art Biennale, Qatar Museums and Rubaiya Qatar have commissioned artist Rirkrit Tiravanija to present "Untitled 2026 (a gathering of remarkable people)" under a tent structure on the site. The project, curated by Tom Eccles and Ruba Katrib, will feature a film by Sophia Al-Maria, live performances by Tarek Atoui, a culinary program by chef Fadi Kattan, and a large-scale sculpture by Alia Farid, bringing together artists, musicians, and chefs from the Arab world.
Lamberto Pignotti, the 100-year-old Florentine artist and poet and a leading figure in visual poetry, is celebrated with two concurrent exhibitions: "Pignotti 100. Pop-esie visive" at the Mart in Rovereto (in collaboration with the Collegio Cairoli of Pavia) and the dual solo show "Identikit di Pignotti e Hogre" curated by Marco Giovenale at Galleria Bianco Contemporaneo in Rome. The latter exhibition, born from a dialogue between Pignotti and the anonymous artist Hogre, centers on a collection of envelopes Pignotti has saved for over fifty years—each addressed to him with varying titles (architect, artist, poet, professor) or altered names (Alberto, Lorenzo, Mario, Giuseppe)—revealing his fragmented identity. Pignotti co-founded the Gruppo '70 in Florence in 1963 with Eugenio Miccini, a movement that brought together multidisciplinary artists including Lucia Marcucci, Ketty La Rocca, and musicians Giuseppe Chiari and Sylvano Bussotti.
Nasce a Venezia la Kunsthaus Paradiso: l’arte italiana ha una casa, malgrado la Biennale
A new project called Kunsthaus Paradiso has opened in Palazzo Molin Querini in Venice, running from May 4 to May 31 in conjunction with the Venice Biennale. Founded by curator Caroline Corbetta, the initiative evolved from her earlier Crepaccio project (2012–2016) in Milan and the Padiglione Crepaccio, which debuted at the 2013 Biennale Arte curated by Massimiliano Gioni. Kunsthaus Paradiso focuses on Italian and Venice-based artists—including Thomas Braida, Fabio De Meo, Caterina Rossato, Ornella Cardillo, Alessandro Miotti, Melania Fusco, Mauro Campagnaro, Marta Spagnoli, Barbara De Vivi, Spazio Punch, Giorgio Andreotta Calò, Mattia Sinigaglia, and the collective Scafandra—offering a platform for emerging and local talent during the Biennale.
La Francia riapre il suo storico padiglione alla Biennale Arte 2026 dopo i restauri con l’artista Yto Barrada
France will reopen its historic pavilion at the 61st Venice Biennale (May 9–November 22, 2026) after restoration, with Franco-Moroccan artist Yto Barrada (b. 1971) presenting the immersive textile-based project "Comme Saturne," curated by Myriam Ben Salah. The exhibition uses the "dévoré" technique—acid selectively corrodes fabric—as a metaphor for destruction and creation, featuring a goat-skin kite, a Room of Folds with wool drapery that fades in natural light, a Laboratory inspired by Saturnalia, and a Study Room linked to Barrada's garden of dye plants in Tangier, culminating in the Room of the Devoured where chemically attacked material fragments into an aesthetic of wear and formlessness.
The British Council has selected artist Lubaina Himid to represent Great Britain at the 2026 Venice Biennale. Her exhibition, titled "Predicting History: Testing Translation," will transform the British Pavilion into a large-scale installation exploring belonging, displacement, and the recreation of home in new contexts. Created in collaboration with artist Magda Stawarska, the show features multi-panel paintings and a surreal soundscape that engages with the neoclassical architecture of the pavilion. Himid, a Turner Prize winner and pioneer of the Black British Art Movement, focuses on cultural memory and identity, challenging Eurocentric narratives and highlighting overlooked Black figures in Western history.
Alla Biennale di Venezia il Padiglione dell’Armenia si trasforma in bottega d’artista: le opere nascono di fronte al pubblico
The Armenian Pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale will transform into a functioning artist's studio, where sculptor Zadik Zadikian will create works in real time before the public. Titled "The Studio," the project is curated by gallerist Tony Shafrazi and curator Tina Chakarian, and will operate daily from May 6 to November 22 at the Tesa 41 of the Arsenale. Zadikian, born in Yerevan in 1948 and now based in the US, will work with traditional Armenian plaster techniques alongside his son Aram and studio assistants, emphasizing the process of making over the finished object.
Il mitico film “Novecento” di Bertolucci nella sua Parma diventa una grande mostra
A major exhibition titled "Bernardo Bertolucci. Il Novecento" has opened at the Palazzo del Governatore in Parma, Italy, marking the 50th anniversary of Bertolucci's epic film "Novecento" (1976). The show is structured as a visual experience across 25 rooms and four sections, exploring the film's dialectic between collective history and intimate gaze. It features video, drawings, photographs, production materials, and artworks by artists such as Franco Angeli, Renato Guttuso, Taner Ceylan, and Mario Schifano, all drawn from private collections. The exhibition's first room sets the tone with a video juxtaposing the film's opening credits over Pellizza da Volpedo's painting "Il Quarto Stato" and a close-up of the young Olmo holding a frog, encapsulating the tension between political epic and sensory detail.
L’artista del Kenya rivelazione all’ultima Biennale è in mostra alla casa di Masaccio in Toscana
Kenyan artist Agnes Waruguru, a breakout star of the most recent Venice Biennale, is presenting her first solo museum exhibition in Italy. Titled 'From What We Are,' the show is curated by Alessandro Romanini and is on view at the Centro per le arti contemporanee Casa Masaccio in San Giovanni Valdarno, Tuscany.
La casa d’aste Phillips presenta a Milano gli highlights della prossima asta tra arte e design
Phillips auction house is presenting a selection of highlights from upcoming auctions and private sales in Milan during the city's Art Week and Salone del Mobile. The exhibition, staged in a space with architecture and furnishings by Dimoregallery and Dimoremilano, features significant Italian post-war art and design pieces, including a notable 1983 'Mappa' by Alighiero Boetti made in Kabul, works by Carla Accardi and Piero Dorazio, and a Carmen Herrera painting slated for auction in New York.
Uno dei musei più unici e particolari di Milano è pieno di opere che non sono belle
The Casa Museo Boschi Di Stefano in Milan, housed in a building designed by Piero Portaluppi, showcases a massive collection of 20th-century Italian art donated by Antonio Boschi and Marieda Di Stefano. The apartment displays approximately 300 works by masters such as Lucio Fontana, Giorgio de Chirico, and Mario Sironi, arranged in the intimate domestic setting where the collectors once lived.
A Pistoia c’è una mostra dedicata al grande architetto e designer Ettore Sottsass
The Fondazione Pistoia Musei has inaugurated a major retrospective titled "Io sono un architetto. Ettore Sottsass" at Palazzo Buontalenti in Pistoia. Curated by Enrico Morteo, the exhibition focuses on a specific thirty-year period from 1945 to 1975, exploring the visionary designer's prolific output before the formation of the Memphis Group. The show features an extensive collection of drawings, paintings, textiles, and iconic design objects, many of which are previously unseen works sourced from the CSAC at the University of Parma.
Il colto simposio su moda&design di Prada quest’anno si svolgerà nella chiesa di Santa Maria delle Grazie a Milano
The fifth edition of Prada Frames, an annual multidisciplinary symposium curated by the design studio Formafantasma, is set to take place from April 19 to 21, 2026, at the historic Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. Hosted within the Renaissance sacristy attributed to Donato Bramante, the event coincides with the Salone del Mobile and features a series of lectures and discussions. This year's theme, "In Sight," explores the evolving power of images, the blurring lines between human and machine-generated content, and the material environmental impact of digital image production.
In questa mostra a Milano lo spettatore può modificare gli spazi. Il grande artista-architetto Gianni Pettena ci spiega perché
Gianni Pettena, a pioneer of the Italian Radical Architecture movement, has unveiled his immersive installation "Paper/Northern Lights" at the BiM urban regeneration project in Milan's Bicocca district. Originally conceived in 1971 as a pedagogical exercise at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, the work consists of 49 kilometers of white paper strips hanging from the ceiling. Visitors are invited to physically interact with the installation by cutting through the paper, effectively reshaping the architectural environment and challenging traditional notions of fixed space and authorship.
Milano ha un museo d’arte contemporanea a cielo aperto. Il progetto ArtLine a CityLife è finalmente completo: per l’Art Week 2026 inaugurata l’ultima opera
The City of Milan has officially completed ArtLine, a major public art project that has transformed the CityLife park into a permanent open-air contemporary art museum. Spanning 173,000 square meters, the park now hosts nineteen site-specific installations by internationally renowned artists and emerging talents. The project's conclusion was marked during Milan Art Week 2026 with the inauguration of 'Octospider', a large-scale interactive sculpture by British artist Jeremy Deller designed for children.
Produrre cinema dentro e con i videogiochi. A Milano ci fanno un festival (da 30 anni)
The Milan Machinima Festival recently celebrated the 30th anniversary of machinima, the practice of creating audiovisual works and films within video game environments. The event, curated by scholar Matteo Bittanti at IULM University, explored the medium's dual origins in 1996: the community-driven "vernacular" style seen in the Quake-based 'Diary of a Camper' and the artistic approach pioneered by Miltos Manetas in his work 'Miracle'.
A Milano la fiera che dedica un’intera giornata per riflettere sullo stato dell’arte italiana: 8 ore filate di conversazioni
The debut edition of Paris Internationale in Milan, scheduled for April 2026 at Palazzo Galbani, will feature a marathon eight-hour symposium titled "Aperto Italia." Organized in collaboration with the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi and curated by Massimiliano Gioni, the event brings together 35 international galleries and a significant roster of Italian artists. The program is designed as a continuous cycle of conversations to address the current state of contemporary art in Italy, paying tribute to the late Flash Art publisher Giancarlo Politi.
La Fondazione Fiera Milano apre al pubblico la sua collezione d’arte contemporanea in questi giorni della Art Week
Fondazione Fiera Milano has announced it will open its private contemporary art collection to the public at the Palazzina degli Orafi during the 2026 edition of the miart fair. The initiative features free guided tours of a selection of the foundation's 140 works, including pieces by Nicolas Party, Marisa Merz, and Monica Bonvicini. This rare opening coincides with Milan's Art Week, providing public access to a corporate collection usually held in private offices.
“Lo stato del mondo? Un atto di follia”. Intervista con Ai Weiwei che arriva a Milano con un’installazione a sorpresa
Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei has unveiled a surprise site-specific installation in Milan, created in collaboration with the historic Venetian textile house Rubelli. Located in the Rubelli showroom for Fuorisalone 2026, the immersive work features a large-scale lampas fabric woven with silk and gold threads, depicting symbols of surveillance, censorship, and political struggle such as handcuffs, the Twitter bird, and alpacas.