Notable 9 in art + design in 2025: Compelling exhibitions, curatorial feats and public art highlights

ArtsATL editors selected nine standout stories from Atlanta's 2025 visual arts scene, highlighting the Beltline's transformation into one of America's largest outdoor art projects, Kim Chong Hak's exuberant American debut at the High Museum, and exhibitions such as 'Innervisions' at Clark Atlanta University Art Museum and Jessica Blinkhorn's 'Two Decades of Atrophy' at End Project Space. The roundup also covers Sergio Suárez's solo show at MOCA GA, reflecting the city's diverse and innovative artistic output.

It Requires Getting Lost: Castlefield Gallery hosts opening night

Castlefield Gallery in Manchester hosted the opening night of "It Requires Getting Lost" on October 30, 2025, an exhibition running from November 1, 2025 to February 22, 2026. The show features projections, sound-works, and sculptural installations by three northern UK-based artists—Gregory Herbert, Malik Jama, and Jocelyn McGregor—alongside major works from the Roberts Institute of Art (RIA)/Indrė Roberts Collection, including pieces by Magdalena Abakanowicz, Noemie Goudal, Pierre Huyghe, Leon Kossoff, and Wolfgang Tillmans. The opening included a live activation in McGregor's sculptural installation, where performers used foot-pumps to push water through transparent tubes, while Jama's projections transformed the gallery's corridors into immersive zones.

Taichung’s new ‘Museumbrary’ expands Taiwan’s culture credentials

A new cultural complex called the Taichung Green Museumbrary, designed by Japanese architecture firm SANAA, opens tomorrow in Taichung, Taiwan. The 58,000-square-meter project combines the Taichung Art Museum and Taichung Public Library across eight interconnected white-box structures in Central Park. The opening includes site-specific commissions by artists Michael Lin and Haegue Yang, and an inaugural exhibition titled 'A Call of All Beings: See You Tomorrow, Same Time, Same Place' featuring international artists such as Joseph Beuys, Joan Jonas, and Myrlande Constant alongside Taiwanese artists.

The Honest Eye: Camille Pissarro’s Impressionism

This article presents a visual survey of works by Camille Pissarro, a key figure in Impressionism, featuring paintings such as "The Garden of Les Mathurins, property of the Deraismes Sisters, Pontoise" (1876), "The Pont-Neuf, Afternoon, Sunlight" (1901), and "Self-Portrait" (1873). The images are drawn from major museum collections including the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Musée d'Orsay, and the National Gallery of Art, among others. The article also promotes a members-only experience of a Pissarro exhibition.

Review: “50th Anniversary Exhibition Part I” at Moody Gallery, Houston

Moody Gallery in Houston opened “50th Anniversary Exhibition Part I” on September 13, showcasing 38 artworks by gallery-affiliated artists. The show is deliberately non-chronological and non-comprehensive, featuring works ranging from 2006 to 2025, including pieces by Melissa Miller, William “Bill” Steffy, Michael Kennaugh, Dan Sutherland, Pat Colville, Tracye Wear, Al Souza, and the collaborative MANUAL (Ed Hill & Suzanne Bloom). The exhibition spans three spaces and highlights the gallery’s eclectic, open-minded approach and its commitment to promoting Texas-based artists.

Where to see art in Houston now: 9 fun new exhibits opening in July

Nine new art exhibitions are opening in Houston in July, spanning traditional paintings, sculptures, high-tech immersive shows, and textile works. Highlights include Nick Vaughan and Jake Margolin's "Town Meeting 1978-2028" at Art League Houston, which uses wind-drawing techniques to explore pre-Stonewall queer histories; Jeffly Gabriela Molina's "Fragmentos de un sueño que yo también soñé," focusing on immigrant experiences of home and memory; and Lin Qiqing's "Every Fiber of Their Bodies," weaving narratives of gender, immigration, and human relationships. The Menil Collection also re-installs René Magritte paintings after their return from a major retrospective in Sydney.

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art positions galleries art basel miami beach

CULTURED magazine profiles emerging galleries participating in the Positions sector of Art Basel Miami Beach 2025, highlighting their experiences and aspirations. The article features interviews with Allann Seabra and Ian Duarte of Verve gallery in São Paulo, who discuss their gallery's growth, representation of Afro-Brazilian artists at the 36th Bienal de São Paulo, and their mission to broaden global understanding of Brazilian contemporary art. Also featured is Mauricio Aguirre of N.A.S.A.L., a gallery based in Mexico City and Guayaquil, Ecuador, who describes his year as challenging, hectic, and promising.

Sharjah Biennial announces theme and artists

The Politics of Russia’s Return to the Venice Biennale

Russia has announced its intention to return to the Venice Biennale in 2026, marking its first participation since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The proposed pavilion, titled "The Tree is Rooted in the Sky," plans to feature 38 participants from Russia and several Global South nations. The announcement has sparked intense backlash from the European Commission and culture ministers across 22 countries, who argue that Russia’s presence undermines democratic values and serves as a tool for "dark cultural diplomacy."

Conspiracies: Who Can You Trust?

A new exhibition titled 'Conspiracies' has opened at the Warburg Institute in London, featuring works by contemporary artists Hannah Black, Caspar Heinemann, Sam Keogh, and Shenece Oretha, alongside an installation by ceramicist Edmund de Waal and panels from Aby Warburg's Bilderatlas Mnemosyne. The show explores the concept of conspiracy, tracing its history as both a response to power and a contaminating force in contemporary society, through multimedia installations, drawings, and speculative biographies.

Sharjah Art Foundation Announces 2027 Biennial Programming

Arthur Jafa and Julie Mehretu Among Art Basel Awards 2026 Medalists

Art Basel has announced the thirty-three winners of its 2026 Art Basel Awards, recognizing individuals and institutions across nine categories. The winners include prominent artists like Arthur Jafa, Julie Mehretu, and Barbara Kruger, as well as institutions such as The Brick in Los Angeles and the Diriyah Biennale Foundation. A new jury member, Prof. Dr. Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, was also added for this edition.

Theme and Artists Revealed for Ekow Eshun–Curated British Art Show 10

Organizers of the British Art Show have unveiled the theme and artist list for its tenth edition, titled "A Chorus of Strangers." Curated by Ekow Eshun, the quinquennial exhibition will launch in Coventry on October 2, 2025, before touring to Swansea, Bristol, Sheffield, and Newcastle Gateshead through 2028. The show features a diverse roster of contemporary artists including Turner Prize winner Jasleen Kaur, Alvaro Barrington, and Precious Okoyomon, organized around three conceptual pillars: psychological, sociological, and ecological.

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater Has a New, Waterproof Roof

The Western Pennsylvania Conservancy has completed a comprehensive three-year, $7 million restoration of Frank Lloyd Wright’s architectural masterpiece, Fallingwater. The project focused on critical structural vulnerabilities, including moisture degradation of interior finishes, leaking windows and doors, and the installation of a new waterproof roof. Experts addressed specific design flaws inherent to Wright’s original 1935 construction, such as the lack of through-wall flashing and the use of river pebbles in concrete aggregate, which had exacerbated the building's battle against the elements.

Telfair Museums presents Impressionism and Modernity: French and American Painting opening May 15

Telfair Museums will present "Impressionism and Modernity: French and American Painting" at the Jepson Center for the Arts from May 15 through August 16, 2026. Organized for the museum's 140th anniversary, the exhibition brings together Telfair's collection of American Impressionist works with key French Impressionist paintings from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., featuring artists such as Edgar Degas, Alfred Sisley, and Vincent van Gogh. The show explores Impressionism's origins in France, its transatlantic influence, and its impact on American art and identity, with works addressing themes of modern life, leisure, the city, and nostalgia for nature.

New York's Art Week 2026 is underway. A guide to all the fairs to see in the city: Frieze and the others

È in corso l’Art Week di New York del 2026. La guida di tutte le fiere da vedere in città: Frieze e le altre

New York's spring Art Week is underway in mid-May 2026, anchored by two major fairs: Frieze New York (May 13–17) at The Shed, featuring about 70 galleries from over 25 countries, and TEFAF New York (May 15–19) at the Park Avenue Armory, celebrating its tenth edition with 88 galleries. Additional fairs include Independent Art Fair at Pier 36 (May 14–17) with 76 galleries and site-specific installations, and NADA New York at the Starrett-Lehigh Building (May 13–17), promoting emerging artists. The week also involves museums, cultural institutions, and galleries citywide.

In Naples, an International Exhibition to Map Instability and Deactivate Borders

A Napoli una mostra internazionale per mappare l’instabilità e disattivare i confini

The exhibition "Atlante" at Thomas Dane Gallery in Naples, curated by James Lingwood, brings together works by eight international artists—Igshaan Adams, Teju Cole, Luigi Ghirri, Emma McNally, Claudio Parmiggiani, Anri Sala, Tatiana Trouvé, and Akram Zaatari—to challenge traditional cartographic representations. Through maps, drawings, textiles, and photographs, the show interrogates the ideological and political assumptions embedded in mapping, reframing the Mediterranean not as a border but as a connective space, and exposing the instability and power asymmetries underlying historical worldviews.

Jean-Michel Basquiat | FAE Musée d'Art Contemporain (Sans titre) (Untitled) (1993) | For Sale

An extremely rare original 1993 exhibition poster for a posthumous Jean-Michel Basquiat solo show at FAE Musée d'Art Contemporain in Pully-Lausanne, Switzerland is being offered for sale by Graves International Art. The offset-lithograph poster, featuring Basquiat's untitled 1982 painting, was designed by Pierre Neumann and comes from a private collection in Hamburg, Germany. The listing notes that no other example of this poster has appeared on the secondary market or at auction before, and it is issued unsigned and posthumous.

Maine: A Force Within American Art (1890-2026) At Farnsworth Art Museum

The Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine, has opened a year-long exhibition titled "Maine: A Force Within American Art (1890-2026)" in honor of America's 250th anniversary. The show presents 150 works across media, highlighting the state's artistic legacy from the late 19th century to the present. It features leading modernists such as Marsden Hartley, John Marin, Charles Demuth, and Georgia O'Keeffe, who found inspiration in Maine's landscapes, as well as contemporary artists like Theresa Secord. The exhibition is curated by Jaime DeSimone and Francesca Soriano, in collaboration with multiple institutions including the Ellis-Beauregard Foundation and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture.

Wifredo Lam: When I Don’t Sleep, I Dream

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York is hosting "Wifredo Lam: When I Don’t Sleep, I Dream," the first comprehensive U.S. retrospective of the Cuban modernist's career. Running from November 2025 to April 2026, the exhibition traces Lam’s artistic evolution from his formative years in Europe to his return to the Caribbean, where he integrated Afro-Caribbean histories and spirituality into the language of modern painting. The show features major loans, a documentary film, and a scholarly catalogue exploring his unique synthesis of Surrealism and decolonial thought.

A Cartier Exhibitions Lands at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne

The National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne is hosting a major exhibition of Cartier’s historic jewelry and objects, organized in partnership with the Victoria and Albert Museum. The showcase features over 300 items, ranging from the iconic 1917 Tank watch and the surrealist 1967 Cartier Crash to opulent commissions for figures like the Maharaja of Patiala, the Duchess of Windsor, and Grace Kelly.

Repeat art fraudster arrested for stealing Courbet painting

London gallery owner Patrick Matthiesen consigned a Gustave Courbet painting, *Mother and Child on a Hammock* (1844), to the Nicholas Hall Gallery in New York for Tefaf Maastricht 2023, listed at $650,000. After it failed to sell, Matthiesen was contacted by a man calling himself Thomas Doyle (also A.J. Doyle), who claimed to be a former US Air Force pilot, government contractor, and art dealer with family ties to Doyle Auctions. Despite Doyle having 11 prior fraud convictions—including stealing a bronze Degas statue in 2007—Matthiesen was convinced by artworks Doyle sent for inspection, including works attributed to El Greco, Rubens, and a Michelangelo drawing. In 2024, Doyle borrowed the Courbet to show a potential buyer and never returned it. Doyle has now been arrested for the theft.

After a turbulent period of reorganisation, the 18th Istanbul Biennial favours futurity over futility

The 18th Istanbul Biennial, titled "The Three-Legged Cat," has opened after a turbulent period of reorganization. Curated by Christine Tohmé, the biennial unfolds over three years instead of the usual two, featuring 47 artists—only six from Turkey, with many from the Middle East. The exhibition spans eight venues, including a former cone factory and a French orphanage, and includes works such as Naomi Rincón-Gallardo's video installation on opossum resilience and Khalil Rabah's site-specific intervention with oil barrels and saplings. The biennial's budget was raised from €2m to €6.5m, mostly funded by Koç Holdings, following controversy over the initial appointment of curator Defne Ayas, which was rejected by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (IKSV), leading to Tohmé's eventual selection.

Comment | Monet might have seen Venice, but his paintings suggest he didn’t feel it

The article compares J.M.W. Turner's and Claude Monet's depictions of Venice, arguing that Turner's watercolors capture the city's innate melancholy and atmosphere, while Monet's paintings feel unfulfilling and lack emotional depth. The author reflects on Turner's sublime Venice watercolours, particularly 'San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice, at Sunset' (1840), and contrasts them with Monet's works, which are the subject of a major upcoming show at the Brooklyn Museum. The piece also touches on Francesco Guardi's visceral views versus Canaletto's more pleasing but superficial ones, and Howard Hodgkin's later, elegiac response to the city.

Emma Talbot – interview: ‘I imagine the experience of life as an epic story – the one we all have’

Emma Talbot presents her largest UK exhibition to date, *How We Learn to Love*, at Compton Verney, featuring over 20 new and recent works including silk paintings, fabric sculptures, animations, and drawings. The exhibition explores the human experience from birth to death, with recurring motifs such as a faceless female protagonist, references to Greek tragedy, and themes of grief and love. Talbot, who splits her time between London and Italy, also has concurrent solo shows at Copenhagen Contemporary and Centraal Museum Utrecht.

Baltimore-based artist Linling Lu on weaving color, culture, and music into her work

Baltimore-based artist Linling Lu, who trained as a classical pianist in southern China, discusses her work *Circle Dance* on view at the Frary Gallery in the Hopkins Bloomberg Center. The metal print features ten concentric orbs inspired by circle dances, geometry, and Renaissance tondos. Lu explains how her background in music informs her visual art, comparing color to a musical element and citing influences from Henri Matisse, Stravinsky, and tribal Miao circle dances. She also previews her upcoming solo exhibition *Fugue in 3 Voices* at Artis—Naples, The Baker Museum, which will respond to compositions by Dvořák, Stravinsky, and Beethoven.

‘It’s a dream vessel for me’: Defne Ayas appointed new director of the Van Abbemuseum

Defne Ayas has been appointed director of the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, Netherlands, replacing Charles Esche, who held the post for two decades. Ayas, previously director of Kunstinstituut Melly in Rotterdam and co-curator of major biennials including the 13th Gwangju Biennale, will take over ahead of the museum's 90th anniversary in 2026. She describes the role as a "dream vessel" and emphasizes the museum's commitment to decolonization, social engagement, and accessibility.

Romanesco in a Max Mara Coat

Romanesco im Max-Mara-Mantel

Evelyn Taocheng Wang's first institutional solo exhibition in Italy, "Sweet Landscape," opens at the Museion in Bolzano. The Chinese-born, Rotterdam-based artist presents silk paintings, pastel canvases, and painted garments that probe the region's complex history beneath its idyllic Alpine scenery. Works such as "Frog Princess Checks Her Smartphone in front of Window of August Macke’s Hat Shop" (2026) and "Ancient Roman bust for Sale" (2026) blend local food motifs, cultural translation, and hybrid identity, questioning who gets to write history and how landscapes are perceived through secondhand experiences.

‘The Queen of the Ghetto’ Gave New York’s Immigrant Community a Voice. A Century Later, It’s Re-emerging

Anzia Yezierska, a Polish-Jewish immigrant who arrived in New York in 1890, defied traditional gender expectations to become a leading literary voice of the 1920s. Dubbed the 'Queen of the Ghetto,' she documented the raw struggles of immigrant women on the Lower East Side using a unique 'immigrant English' style that captured Yiddish idioms. After escaping a restrictive marriage and pursuing an education at Columbia University, she channeled her personal frustrations into stories of poverty, ambition, and the psychological toll of assimilation.