Die Biennale der leisen Töne
The 61st Venice Biennale's main exhibition, titled "Gardens, Processions, Art as Expression of Lived Realities," places humanity at its center. Curators revealed minimal biographical details for the 111 participating artists, only noting the oldest (Marcel Duchamp, born 1887) and youngest (Mohammed Z Rahman, born 1997), signaling a deliberate shift away from individual fame toward collective experience.
Möglicherweise neuer Banksy in London aufgetaucht
A life-sized statue has suddenly appeared on Waterloo Place in central London, depicting a figure stepping off a pedestal into the void with a flag blowing in its face. The base bears the signature "Banksy," leading to speculation that the anonymous street artist is behind the work. However, as of the morning, Banksy had not posted the piece on Instagram as he typically does, leaving its authenticity unconfirmed.
Die Minimalistin, die keine sein wollte
The Kunstsammlung NRW in Düsseldorf is hosting a major retrospective of American artist Anne Truitt, marking the first comprehensive survey of her work in Europe. The exhibition at K20 features approximately 120 works, including her signature hand-painted wooden columns, drawings, and the late "Pith" series, tracing her unique trajectory from the early 1960s until her death in 2004.
Kunsthalle Mainz vor dem Aus?
The Kunsthalle Mainz is facing potential closure by the end of the year following the withdrawal of funding by the Mainzer Stadtwerke. The crisis is compounded by the departure of director Stefanie Böttcher, who is moving to the Kunsthalle Kiel, and the fact that her position has not been advertised for replacement. Despite its international reputation and successful recent exhibitions, such as the current Britta Marakatt-Labba retrospective, the institution lacks a secured financial future and a leadership succession plan.
99 Variationen eines Vulkans
Julian Charrière has released a new artist's book titled "After the Smoke Cradle," documenting a series of 99 lithographs originally exhibited at the Verein für Originalgraphik in Zurich. The project features 33 variations of three different volcanoes, created using a unique process where the artist transformed collected lava, ash, obsidian, and sulfur into printing pigments. This material-focused approach ensures that the physical essence of the volcanic sites is literally embedded into the photographic imagery.
Monet, grand voyageur
The publishing house Cinabre has launched a new book series called 'Partance' that explores the influence of travel on artists' work. The inaugural volume, 'Partance. Claude Monet,' published in 2026, marks the centenary of Claude Monet's death by comprehensively tracing all of his foreign travels for the first time and analyzing their impact on his art.
Guillaume Cerutti has stepped down from his position as President of the Pinault Collection in Paris after only thirteen months. The institution, founded by billionaire François Pinault, has stated it has no plans to replace him or appoint an interim president, signaling a potential restructuring of its leadership.
The Musée de l'Image d'Épinal is presenting a comprehensive exhibition on Belgian artist Frans Masereel (1889–1972), widely credited as the inventor of the graphic novel in 1918 with his wordless narratives composed of black-and-white woodcuts. The show, curated by Samuel Dégardin, brings together loans from major institutions and a private collection to reveal the full breadth of Masereel's practice, which spanned drawing, animation, painting, theater, ceramics, tapestry, and satirical press illustration. It highlights his pacifist activism during World War I, his collaborations with writers such as Stefan Zweig and Romain Rolland, and his humanist vision of a unified Europe.
On April 29, a large statue attributed to Banksy appeared on a plinth at Waterloo Place in London's St James's district. The work depicts a man in a suit stepping forward with a flag covering his face, bearing the artist's signature. Banksy later claimed the piece on Instagram, sparking crowds and speculation.
The article announces the exhibition of photographer Guido Guidi's work at Le BAL in Paris, curated by Simona Antonacci, Pippo Ciorra, and Antonello Frongia, with scenography by Cyril Delhomme. The show, titled "Col tempo, 1956-2024," runs from February 20 to May 24, 2026, and was previously presented in a larger version at the MAXXI museum in Rome. Guidi, now 85, is described as the last of a generation of Italian photographers—alongside Luigi Ghirri and Ugo Mulas—who radically redefined photographic language through patient, obstinate reflection on the act of seeing.
Le dialogue fécond entre IA, savoir et création dans un festival gratuit à la BnF
The Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) is hosting the inaugural edition of "Noûs," a free festival exploring the intersection of artificial intelligence, archival knowledge, and artistic creation. Located in the hall of the François-Mitterrand site, the event features eight artistic projects that utilize the library's vast catalog to reveal hidden histories rather than generate falsehoods. Highlights include Audrey Large’s 3D-printed sculptures exploring suppressed female knowledge, Justine Emard’s immersive digital cave of AI-generated sirens, and the collective Obvious’s speculative botanical frescoes based on historical scientific plates.
A large statue mysteriously appeared in central London earlier this week and has been confirmed as the work of the street artist Banksy. The piece, bearing the artist's signature, depicts a suited man carrying a flag that obscures his face as he walks off a plinth. It was installed in Banksy's signature guerrilla style at Waterloo Place in St. James's, near statues of Edward VII and Florence Nightingale.
Art Basel has announced that Nairy Baghramian and Ibrahim Mahama will create major new site-specific sculptures for the 2026 edition of its flagship fair in Switzerland. Baghramian will present "Modèle vivant (S’empilant)" (2026), an elaborate installation designed for the Messeplatz fountain, while Mahama's commission details are yet to be fully disclosed. Both artists are part of Art Basel's inaugural class of Gold Awardees, with the commissions first revealed in February 2026.
Artist Mungo Thomson presented a solo exhibition titled "Fireplace" at the gallery Further Down the Line in Liverpool. The show ran from March 4 to April 4, 2026, and was documented with a series of images.
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) has opened its new David Geffen Galleries, a major building designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Peter Zumthor. The structure, which replaces four older buildings on the museum's campus, is a single-story, concrete-and-glass pavilion spanning Wilshire Boulevard, designed to create a more unified and accessible visitor experience.
Art Basel has unveiled the 33 medalists for its 2026 global honors program, recognizing a diverse group of artists, curators, and institutions. The selection highlights a strong Southeast Asian presence, including architect Kulapat Yantrasast and filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul, alongside international figures like Laurie Anderson and Julie Mehretu. These awards celebrate practitioners across categories such as Emerging Artist, Established Artist, and Cross-Disciplinary Creator, with winners to be celebrated at the upcoming Basel fair in June.
In 2026, a rare alignment of major biennial exhibitions will take place globally, including the Venice Biennale (opening May 9, curated by Koyo Kouoh), MoMA PS1's Greater New York, the Whitney Biennial, and the Bronx Museum's AIM Biennial, alongside events in Toronto, Pittsburgh, Gwangju, Sydney, Diriyah, and Busan. CULTURED interviewed curators from four of these shows—such as Marcela Guerrero and Drew Sawyer of the Whitney Biennial—to explore how these sprawling group exhibitions come together, revealing a trend toward smaller, internally organized shows with less declarative themes.
Crews have begun filling in the excavation work at the future home of the Vancouver Art Gallery at West Georgia and Cambie, turning the site into a parking lot operated by Easy Park. The project, originally set to open in 2028, has been scaled back after costs rose from $400 million to $600 million, and $60 million had already been spent on planning and pre-construction. The gallery has appointed new architects—Chipewyan architect Alfred Waugh of Formline Architecture and Bruce Kuwabara of Toronto-based KPMB—to lead a redesigned, smaller-scale project, effectively starting from scratch.
A fire broke out at San Francisco's Vaillancourt Fountain on May 4, 2025, as construction crews used torches to dismantle the 1971 Brutalist structure, igniting debris inside its steel tubes. The San Francisco Arts Commission confirmed the fire was quickly extinguished with no major damage, but the incident has raised concerns about safety protocols, as workers were reportedly not wearing protective gear against potential lead or asbestos exposure, and no public warnings were posted. The dismantling proceeded after a California appeals court denied a request from the local coalition Friends of the Plaza to halt the removal, which the city justified citing asbestos and structural risks.
Dana Awartani, a Jeddah- and New York-based artist of mixed Palestinian, Saudi, Jordanian, and Syrian descent, has created the Saudi Arabia Pavilion at the Venice Biennale using nearly 30,000 clay earth bricks. The installation, titled "May your tears never dry, you who weep over stones," replicates traditional mosaic motifs sourced from over 20 cultural heritage sites across the Arab world that have been destroyed by human conflict. Awartani emphasizes collaboration, crediting numerous skilled craftsmen—economic migrants to Saudi Arabia—who worked alongside her, and her practice blends formal training at Central St. Martins with Islamic geometry and illumination studies in Turkey.
Converge 45, a citywide triennial in Portland, Oregon, has announced the theme and 28 participating artists for its upcoming edition, launching August 27. Curated by New York–based Lumi Tan, the exhibition is titled “Here, To you, Now,” borrowing a phrase from Ursula K. Le Guin’s 1985 novel *Always Coming Home*. More than half of the artists are based in Portland, including Srijon Chowdhury, Aaron Cunningham, and keyon gaskin, while out-of-state participants include Trisha Baga, Rose Salane, and Jacqueline Kiyomi Gork. The triennial will take place across 16 venues, including the Portland Institute of Contemporary Art and Oregon Contemporary.
South Africa’s official pavilion at the Venice Biennale will remain empty this year following the government's abrupt cancellation of artist Gabrielle Goliath’s planned exhibition. The controversy erupted when Culture Minister Gayton McKenzie pulled the project just days before the deadline, labeling Goliath’s work "highly divisive" due to its inclusion of a tribute to Palestinian poet Hiba Abu Nada. Despite the official ban and a failed court challenge by the artist and curator, the work, titled *Elegy*, will now be staged independently at the Chiesa di Sant’Antonin nearby.
The Munich gallery Filser and Gräf is presenting a two-person exhibition titled "Medèn ágan – Nothing in Excess," featuring artists Paris Giachoustidis and Toshihiko Mitsuya. The show uses the ancient Greek maxim as a curatorial framework, with Mitsuya's delicate, reflective aluminum sculptures and Giachoustidis's paintings of futuristic, cosmic landscapes exploring themes of balance, scale, and humanity's place in the universe.
A mysterious art installation featuring an outdoor living room has been discovered on the shores of North Brother Island, an abandoned site in New York City’s East River. The arrangement, which includes a vintage wood-paneled television and a leather armchair perched on a concrete block, was spotted by a local kayaker. The island, once home to a quarantine hospital and the site of the General Slocum maritime disaster, has been closed to the public since 1963.
The Ukrainian Pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale will present a project titled "Security Guarantees," focusing on the failure of international promises to protect Ukraine, specifically referencing the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. Artist Zhanna Kadyrova will exhibit her concrete sculpture, Origami Deer, which was evacuated from eastern Ukraine as the Russian frontline advanced. The work will be suspended from a crane on a truck along the lagoon, and the pavilion will include archival material and a video installation tracing the sculpture's journey.
Italian video art pioneer Fabrizio Plessi has opened a new exhibition, "Fabrizio Plessi: Drowning in a Glass of Water," at the recently rebranded Galleria Barovier and Toso in Venice. The show features a monumental installation of rings placed in dialogue with the gallery's historic chandeliers, alongside a series of glass sculptures that mimic traditional water vessels but are largely solid, creating a trompe l'oeil effect. The works incorporate moving images and sounds of water.
A Bob Ross painting titled *Authentic Mountain Retreat* is among $1 million in prizes being given away during a live game show hosted by YouTube star MrBeast on the live shopping marketplace Whatnot, airing ahead of the Super Bowl on February 8. The giveaway also includes a Lamborghini Spyder, a Hermès Birkin bag, and a sealed Pokémon Booster Box. The painting, sourced from Minneapolis gallery Modern Artifact, comes as Ross's auction record has surged to $787,900 at Bonhams, driven by renewed market interest.
Artist Ektor Rivera has created a painting titled "The Discovery of Americans" (2025) that reimagines Emanuel Leutze's "Washington Crossing the Delaware" to celebrate Puerto Rican cultural figures, with Bad Bunny at the center. The work was commissioned by Miami art collector Seth Goldberg as a response to conservative criticism over Bad Bunny being selected to perform at the Super Bowl halftime show. The five-by-eight-foot painting places George Washington in the background while Puerto Rican icons including Jennifer Lopez, Ricky Martin, and Roberto Clemente take center stage, with Bad Bunny draped in the Puerto Rican flag. The artwork has garnered over 2.3 million views on Instagram and Facebook.
Nifty Gateway, an early NFT marketplace founded in 2018 and acquired by Gemini, will shut down on February 23 after entering withdrawal-only mode. The platform, which once reported $300 million in gross merchandise value in 2021 and partnered with Sotheby's for a $17 million NFT drop, is closing amid a sharp decline in NFT trading activity. Users must withdraw their assets by the deadline, after which they can no longer list, buy, or sell NFTs on the site.
South Africa's culture minister Gayton McKenzie canceled artist Gabrielle Goliath's selected presentation for the country's national pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale, prompting Goliath and curator Ingrid Masondo to file a constitutional court challenge on January 22. The artist's work, *Elegy*, commemorates victims of injustice including women, queer people, and victims of the Herero and Nama genocide, and was to address deaths of Gazan women and children since October 2023. McKenzie described the work as "highly divisive" and canceled the exhibition on January 2, despite an independent committee's binding selection. The minister now plans to replace it with a project by the collective Beyond the Frames titled "Shameless Rebellions: a South African Chorus."