A wave of major solo exhibitions by prominent women artists is taking place across the UK in 2025 and 2026, featuring Emma Talbot, Joy Gregory, Tracey Emin, and Caroline Walker. All four artists share a formative educational background, having studied at the Royal College of Art (RCA).
The National Gallery is launching 'Art On Your Doorstep,' a three-year national initiative that will bring free, outdoor exhibitions of famous artworks to communities across the UK. The first phase, running from June 2025 to March 2026, will visit four locations, including Croydon, where a trail of 30 life-sized printed reproductions from the gallery's collection will be displayed from February 3 to July 5.
Sally Tallant, currently director of the Queens Museum in New York, has been appointed director of the Hayward Gallery and visual arts at the Southbank Centre in London. She will succeed Ralph Rugoff, who steps down in spring after 20 years. Tallant previously worked as an assistant curator at the Hayward in 2001 and later led the Liverpool Biennial from 2011 to 2019. She will begin her new role in July, while Rugoff will oversee a major Anish Kapoor retrospective opening in June.
Works by Edgar Degas and Ben Nicholson are among the artworks donated to UK public collections through the government's Acceptance in Lieu (AIL) and Cultural Gifts Schemes (CGS) between April 2024 and March 2025. The total value of objects gifted reached £59.7 million, settling £39.3 million in tax. Degas's pastel *Ballet Dancers* (1888) was allocated to the National Gallery in London, settling £7.9 million in tax, while three paintings by Ben Nicholson went to Kettle's Yard in Cambridge and a fourth to Pallant House Gallery. Other donations include 73 photographs by Bill Brandt to Tate, a Vanessa Bell still life to the Charleston Trust, and works from the Radev Collection.
The Dib Bangkok museum, housing a 1,000-piece contemporary art collection amassed by the late Thai businessman and musician Petch Osathanugrah, opened this month in a converted 1980s warehouse in Bangkok. The project was completed by his son Purat 'Chang' Osathanugrah, president of Bangkok University and CEO of Zipcode, with inaugural director Miwako Tezuka (formerly of Asia Society Museum) leading the institution. The 7,000 sq. m space, designed by architect Kulapat Yantrasast of WHY Architecture, features 11 galleries, a courtyard, sculpture garden, and a satellite project space called Dib26.
Curators and museum directors from leading institutions worldwide selected their favorite exhibitions of 2025, highlighting a diverse range of shows. Standouts include Wolfgang Tillmans at Centre Pompidou, Paris, praised for its generous scope and integration of the library space; 'Encounters: Giacometti x Mona Hatoum' at Barbican Art Gallery, London, noted for its dialogue across time; and Ithell Colquhoun's retrospective at Tate St Ives, which repositions the artist from a Surrealist footnote to a major figure. Other acclaimed exhibitions include Noah Davis at Barbican Art Gallery, Linder at Hayward Gallery, Hamad Butt at Whitechapel Gallery, and Caroline Walker at Hepworth Wakefield.
The Vancouver Art Gallery (VAG) has received a landmark donation of 131 works by 78 artists from an anonymous Hong Kong-based collector, named the Art Continuum Hong Kong (ACHK) collection. The gift, the largest contribution of Hong Kong art in the gallery's history, spans painting, sculpture, printmaking, film, installation, and lens-based media from the 1950s to the present, chronicling social, political, and cultural change in Hong Kong. It includes works by internationally recognized artists such as Luis Chan, Irene Chou, Tsang Kin Wah, Wesley Tongson, Sin Wai Kin, and Wucius Wong, as well as Hong Kong-born, Vancouver-based artists like Howie Tsui and Lam Tung Pang. The VAG will present an exhibition of the donation alongside its permanent collection in 2027, coinciding with the 30th anniversary of Hong Kong's handover from the UK to China.
Ilham Gallery in Kuala Lumpur, which opened in August 2015 with the exhibition 'Picturing The Nation,' has marked its tenth anniversary by reflecting on a decade of growth. Over 38 exhibitions across two gallery spaces, the institution has seen its audience expand dramatically—from 4,600 visitors for its first show to over 41,000 for the recent 'The Plantation Plot' (April–September 2025). Director Rahel Joseph notes that the largest demographic is now visitors aged 25 and below, driven by education programs, social media, and a shift toward regional and international collaborations with institutions like the National Gallery Singapore and MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum. Upcoming projects include a video installation by South Korean artist Eunhee Lee, supported by the Han Nefkens Foundation.
Miami Art Week has concluded, but several exhibitions remain on view for locals to enjoy. The article highlights shows at venues including Collective 62, El Espacio 23, Fifth & Biscayne Micro Gallery, KDR Gallery, Spinello Projects, and Locust Project, featuring artists such as Tara Long, Susan Kim Alvarez, and Jennifer Basile. These exhibitions range from text-based art and photography to large-scale installations, with closing dates extending through early 2026.
Serpentine Galleries in London and the FLAG Art Foundation in New York have announced a new biennial artist prize that will award £200,000 ($264,700) to five artists, one selected every two years, making it the largest single-artist prize in the United Kingdom. The total payout over the next decade is £1 million ($1.32 million). Each winner will receive a solo exhibition at Serpentine, which will then travel to the FLAG Art Foundation in New York. The prize launches in 2026, with the first exhibition scheduled for fall 2027 in London and spring 2028 in New York. Eligible artists must be actively working, have a strong exhibition record, and no more than 10 years of professional show history. A jury of art historians, curators, and artists will select winners from nominations.
The US has finally appointed artist Alma Allen to represent the country at next year's Venice Biennale, following a delayed application process and an aborted initial commission. The Art Newspaper's Ben Sutton discusses the saga with Ben Luke. Additionally, the National Museum of Norway in Oslo opens 'Deviant Ornaments,' an exhibition exploring queerness in Islamic art over a millennium, curated by Noor Bhangu. The podcast also features Duane Linklater's work 'wintercount_215_kisepîsim' (2022), part of 'Winter Count: Embracing the Cold' at the National Gallery of Canada, which addresses the deaths of First Nations children in the Residential School system.
The 11th edition of Artes Mundi, the UK's largest contemporary art prize, has opened across multiple venues in Wales, featuring six international shortlisted artists. The multi-venue format includes a group show at the National Museum Cardiff and solo presentations at Mostyn in Llandudno, Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Glynn Vivian Art Gallery in Swansea, and Chapter Art Centre in Cardiff. Artists such as Jumana Emil Abboud, Antonio Paucar, Anawana Haloba, Sawangwongse Yawnghwe, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, and Sancintya Mohini Simpson explore themes of home, belonging, displacement, and community through diverse media including sculpture, performance, painting, and text-based installation. The winner of the £40,000 prize will be announced on 15 January 2026.
Frieze London 2025 is underway with a series of off-site events and colorful encounters. Highlights include a Prada Mode installation by Elmgreen & Dragset at Camden Town Hall, where the duo transforms a former council chamber into an auditorium filled with mannequins and a looping abstract film. At Nahmad Projects, artist Michelangelo Pistoletto met Mick Jagger at an exhibition pairing his new Mirror Paintings with Cubist works by Picasso. Belgian collector Alain Servais turned heads in a blazer emblazoned with British rock band names and the slogan "Anarchy in the UK." Russian performance artist Petr Davydtchenko displayed his Pfizer-forehead tattoo as part of his archive piece "Skin in the Game" (2025), acquired by the A/POLITICAL collection. Meanwhile, Victoria and Albert Museum director Tristram Hunt published a Financial Times op-ed defending London and the UK as a cultural destination.
The Hayward Gallery in London, in partnership with the RC Foundation, Taiwan, has opened Val Lee: The Presence of Solitude, the first solo exhibition in the UK by Taiwanese artist Val Lee. Held in the HENI Project Space at the Southbank Centre, the show runs from 7 October 2025 to 11 January 2026 and features film, photography, and costume works including Valley in the Minibus (2024) and The Sorrowful Football Team (2025). The exhibition explores themes of isolation, solitude, and political repression, using disjointed narratives and unidentifiable figures to examine how personal and collective memories are shaped by state systems.
Ralph Rugoff, director of London's Hayward Gallery for nearly 20 years, will step down in spring 2026. The gallery declined to provide a reason for his departure, but Rugoff, 68, plans to continue working as an independent curator and writer. During his tenure, he curated 23 major exhibitions, commissioned public works by artists including Tracey Emin, Yinka Shonibare, and Phyllida Barlow, and oversaw the Hayward Gallery Touring program, which produced exhibitions like the British Art Show across the UK. He also served as artistic director of the 58th Venice Biennale in 2019 and received an OBE for services to the arts.
The Getty has hired Justine Ludwig, currently the executive director of Creative Time in New York, as the creative director of PST Art, a newly created position. Ludwig will relocate to California and start on October 27, leading a team that includes Zachary Kaplan and Tina Lee, with plans to expand the department. The Getty has spent around $50 million on PST Art over two decades but previously lacked a dedicated team for the event. Ludwig's appointment comes as the Getty prepares for the 2030 edition and aims to refine the program, including working closely with smaller partner museums and non-profits.
Tai Shani, a London-based artist born in 1976, is the subject of a podcast episode in the "A brush with…" series. She discusses her multidisciplinary practice, which draws on cultural forms, historical events, and theoretical ideas to create fantastical, utopian worlds infused with contemporary political and social themes. Shani reflects on the gendered nature of her mediums, the influence of works like John Everett Millais's *Ophelia* and Valie Export's exhibition at Camden Art Centre, and the revolutionary potential of art in an era of right-wing politics. The episode also covers her upcoming exhibitions: *The Spell or The Dream* at Somerset House (August–September 2025), *Gathering* in London (September–November 2025), a sculpture at Dulwich Picture Gallery's new sculpture park, and her High Line commission in New York, on view through March 2026.
MK Gallery in Milton Keynes is presenting the first major UK retrospective of Chilean photographer Paz Errázuriz, titled *Dare to Look*, featuring 171 photographs from five decades of her career. Now 81, Errázuriz is known for documenting marginalized communities in Chile, often working under the dictatorship that followed the 1973 military coup. Despite international acclaim—including exhibitions at the Venice Biennale and acquisitions by Tate, MoMA, and the Reina Sofía—this is her first solo show at a British institution.
The Frick Collection in New York has appointed Julia Day as its new chief conservator, a role she assumed upon the retirement of Joseph Godla, who had held the position since 2005. Day, a Frick veteran who left in 2022 to become a senior conservator at the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, returned this spring to lead the museum's expanded conservation efforts. Her appointment coincides with the reopening of the Frick's renovated 1914 mansion, which now features a new 1,200-square-foot conservation studio—the Sherman Fairchild Center for Art Conservation—designed by Samuel Anderson Architects, along with a radiography room and exhibition preparation spaces.
A new feature-length documentary titled "Maintenance Artist" will premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on June 8, chronicling the decades-long career of 86-year-old New York artist Mierle Laderman Ukeles. The film, directed by Toby Perl Freilich, traces Ukeles's pioneering concept of 'maintenance art'—reclaiming everyday tasks like diaper-changing, floor-washing, and garbage-collecting as artistic acts. It covers her unpaid role as artist in residence of the New York City Department of Sanitation, her 1970s performance shaking hands with 8,500 sanitation workers, and her first major retrospective at the Queens Museum in 2016-17.
This article guides readers on a global tour to see every surviving painting by Leonardo da Vinci, numbering around 16 works predominantly by the master himself, plus a few with his intervention. It traces his career through Florence, Milan, Rome, and France, highlighting key locations such as the Louvre, the National Gallery in London, the Alte Pinakothek in Munich, the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh, and museums in Washington, D.C., and Krakow. The piece also notes the disputed attribution and unknown whereabouts of the $450m Salvator Mundi.
Free-speech groups announced that four photographs by Sally Mann, seized by Fort Worth Police from the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth in January 2025, have been returned. The police removed the images following allegations that they constituted child pornography, but a Tarrant County Grand Jury found no grounds for further action. The photos were part of the exhibition *Diaries of Home*, which featured work by women and nonbinary artists. The seizure drew widespread criticism from organizations including the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and the National Coalition Against Censorship, who called it an abuse of government power and a violation of the First Amendment.
The Tate has announced the shortlist for the 2025 Turner Prize, which will be held in Bradford as part of the UK City of Culture festival from September 27 to February 22, 2026. The four nominees are Iraqi artist Mohammed Sami, known for his solo exhibition 'After the Storm' at Blenheim Palace; British artist Rene Matić, whose work addresses race, gender, and political rhetoric; Scottish-born Nnena Kalu, nominated for her contributions to exhibitions at the Walker Art Gallery and Manifesta 15; and London-based Canadian artist Zadie Xa, recognized for her installation at the Sharjah Biennial 16. The winner will be announced on December 9, receiving £25,000, while the other shortlisted artists will each receive £10,000.
Four artists—Nnena Kalu, Rene Matić, Mohammed Sami, and Zadie Xa—have been shortlisted for the Turner Prize 2025. The winner will be announced on 9 December 2025 at a ceremony in Bradford, with an exhibition of their work running from 27 September 2025 to 22 February 2026 at Cartwright Hall Art Gallery, as part of the Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture celebrations. The prize, now in its 41st year, awards £25,000 to the winner and £10,000 to each of the other nominees.
The article highlights five standout pavilions and installations at the 2026 Venice Biennale. Florentina Holzinger's Austrian pavilion features extreme, nude performances including a woman submerged in a urine-purified tank, drawing police attention. Sanya Kantarovsky presents eerie paintings and a Murano glass sculpture in a historic palazzo. Gabrielle Goliath's 'Elegy'—a hypnotic mourning performance for women killed in violence—was banned by South Africa but staged with London's Ibraaz. Carrie Schneider's 1.5km photographic curl in the Arsenale references Chris Marker's 'La Jetée'. Lydia Ourahmane's delicate sculptural show uses materials sourced from Venice, including a bead curtain made by inmates.
A new statue has appeared on Waterloo Place in central London, bearing the signature of elusive street artist Banksy. The artwork depicts a suited man carrying a large flag that covers his face, stepping off a plinth, and blends with nearby bronze and granite monuments. Sightings were first reported on Wednesday 29 April, but how and when the statue was erected in this busy intersection remains unknown. Banksy has not yet posted the work on his Instagram account, his usual method of authentication, though crowds have already gathered.
At least 34 Members of the European Parliament have signed a letter demanding the suspension of all EU funding to the Venice Biennale Foundation if Russia's participation proceeds. The letter, addressed to top EU officials, argues that allowing a state under extensive sanctions to participate in an EU-funded event contradicts the bloc's values and weakens its credibility.
A Reuters investigation this week identified street artist Banksy as 52-year-old Robin Gunningham, reigniting a long-running public debate about the unmasking of anonymous artists. This follows a recent hoax announcement of novelist Elena Ferrante's death, which similarly targeted her carefully guarded identity.
Luigi Brugnaro, the mayor of Venice, has stated that Russia's pavilion at the upcoming Venice Biennale will be closed if it engages in propaganda. This declaration comes amid controversy over Russia's planned participation, its first since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and internal disputes between Biennale president Pietrangelo Buttafuoco and Italy's culture minister, Alessandro Giuli, who has threatened to withdraw ministry support.
The Montclair Art Museum (MAM) has appointed Kate Kraczon as its new Chief Curator, effective June 15, 2026. Kraczon, a nationally respected curator with over two decades of experience, joins MAM from Brown University, where she served as Director of Exhibitions and Chief Curator of the David Winton Bell Gallery. At Brown, she oversaw a program of more than 7,000 works and developed partnerships with major institutions including the Andy Warhol Foundation and the Terra Foundation for American Art. Her previous roles include Laporte Associate Curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania, where she organized over 30 exhibitions.