The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London has acquired and reconstructed the first video ever uploaded to YouTube, titled 'Me at the zoo,' along with an early version of the platform's watch page. The 19-second clip from 2005, featuring YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim at the San Diego Zoo, is now part of the museum's collection and is on display.
Toi Tauranga Art Gallery in Tauranga, New Zealand, will reopen to the public on November 15, 2025, after a three-year closure (2022–2025) for seismic upgrades and refurbishment. The gallery, originally opened in 2007, has been renovated to connect with the new council-led cultural precinct Te Manawataki o Te Papa, which includes a library, museum, performing arts centre, and council chambers. The reopening programme, titled "Rawe," features local and international artists including Kereama Taepa, Pusi Urale, and esteemed senior Māori painter Darcy Nicholas, who is exhibiting in Tauranga for the first time.
A roundup of art exhibitions opening in May and June 2026 across Dayton and Cincinnati, Ohio, highlights solo shows by Teresa Olavarria, Tony Foster, Nathan Foley, Mina Kim, and Eunshin Khang, along with group exhibitions including SOS ART 2026, 'Voices of Kenya: Social and Cultural Reflections,' and 'Elizabeth Hawes: Radical American Fashion.' Venues include The Contemporary Dayton, The Dayton Art Institute, Rosewood Arts Center, the Art Academy of Cincinnati, and Kennedy Heights Arts Center.
Gallery A3 in Amherst, Massachusetts, has announced an open call for its 11th Annual Juried Show, scheduled for August 6–29, 2026. Submissions will be accepted online from May 10 to June 7, 2026, with an entry fee of $38 for three entries. The theme for this year's show is 'Everyday Sublime,' inviting artists to explore how awe and wonder manifest in daily life. The juror is Andrew S. Yang, a professor at the School of the Art Institute Chicago whose work has been exhibited internationally, including at the 14th Istanbul Biennial and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago.
Lawsuit Alleges DOGE Cancelled $349,000 HVAC Grant to Museum after ChatGPT Flagged It As DEI
The High Point Museum in North Carolina had a $349,000 federal grant to replace its HVAC system canceled after staff at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) used ChatGPT to evaluate the proposal. According to a federal lawsuit, the AI chatbot flagged the climate-control project as related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, leading to its termination, despite the grant's stated purpose of preserving the museum's collection.
London's Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) has acquired a reconstructed version of YouTube's 2006 interface, including its first-ever uploaded video, 'Me at the zoo.' The interactive display, built using archived code and Adobe Flash, is now on view in the museum's 'Design 1900-Now' gallery, representing a significant effort to preserve the look and feel of early internet culture.
The Bowers Museum in California is set to open "World of the Terracotta Warriors" on May 24, bringing together 110 newly discovered archaeological treasures from Shaanxi, China, including Terracotta Warriors, bronze vessels, chariot regalia, and jade and gold artifacts. The exhibition, curated by Tianlong Jiao, expands beyond the famed terracotta army to showcase decades of archaeological research across Shaanxi, highlighting social and cultural changes from about 2300 B.C.E. to 206 B.C.E., with finds from sites like Shimao and Zhaigou.
London's Design Museum is opening "NIGO: From Japan with Love," the first UK retrospective dedicated to Japanese designer Nigo, founder of streetwear brand A Bathing Ape (BAPE) and current artistic director of Kenzo. The exhibition, featuring over 700 objects including rare archival garments, a recreation of Nigo's teenage bedroom, and ceramics inside a life-size glass tea house, traces his career from 1980s Tokyo street culture to global fashion influence.
The Weston Loan Programme with Art Fund has announced its tenth round of support, facilitating 15 exhibitions at regional museums across England, Scotland, and Wales through 2027. This initiative funds the logistical costs—including transport, insurance, and security—required to move masterpieces from major national institutions like the Tate, the National Gallery, and the V&A to smaller local galleries. Notable upcoming highlights include the return of Joseph Wright’s 'An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump' to Derby for the first time in eight decades and a landmark Leonard McComb exhibition in Birkenhead.
The eighth edition of the Singapore Biennale, titled "Pure Intention," opens across five neighborhoods in Singapore, embedding over 100 artworks in sites ranging from shopping malls and housing estates to colonial-era buildings and parks. Curated by Selene Yap, Hsu Fang-Tze, Ong Puay Khim, and Duncan Bass, the biennale features works like field-0's "Drifting Bodies" (2025), which critiques Singapore's hydropower imports and their impact on Thailand's indigenous Karen hill tribe, and Allora & Calzadilla's "Under Discussion" (2004), exploring sovereignty and displacement. Organized by the Singapore Art Museum and commissioned by the National Arts Council, the event is part of SG60, Singapore's 60th anniversary celebrations.
Two museum exhibitions, one at Americas Society in New York and another at the Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac in Paris, are reframing perceptions of Amazon civilizations by centering the artistic and cultural traditions of the region's Indigenous peoples. The New York show, "Amazonia Açu" (on view through April 18, 2026), features works by artists including Sara Flores, Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe, PV Dias, and the film collective Colectivo Tawna, blending mediums and challenging Western distinctions between art and craft. The Paris exhibition, "Amazônia – Indigenous Creations and Futures" (through January 18), presents the Amazon as a culturally rich, inhabited ecosystem rather than a pristine wilderness.
Tate Modern opens its first major exhibition of Indigenous Australian artist Emily Kam Kngwarray (c. 1914–96), featuring over 70 works including early batiks and vast late-career paintings. The show, adapted from a presentation at the National Gallery of Australia, is co-curated by Hetti Perkins and Kelli Cole, who emphasize presenting Kngwarray's work within its Anmatyerr cultural context rather than through a Western abstraction lens. Concurrently, London's Camden Art Centre hosts an exhibition of Duane Linklater and his family, and a Manchester show features Santiago Yahuarcani, signaling a broader UK focus on contemporary Indigenous artists.
The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore has appointed Kate Burgin as its new director, succeeding Dr. Julia Alexander, who left the museum after 11 years to run a foundation in New York and passed away suddenly at age 57 earlier this month. Burgin, previously the museum's deputy director, now leads the institution while the community mourns Alexander's loss. Meanwhile, the museum has opened its first permanent exhibition of Latin American art, featuring works from over 40 cultures across North, Central, and South America and the Caribbean.
This episode of WYSO's Studio Visit series takes listeners to the Cincinnati Art Museum to meet Cynthia Amnéus, the museum's Chief Curator and Curator of Fashion and Textile Arts. Amnéus discusses her focus on women fashion designers, highlighting iconic figures such as Rei Kawakubo (Comme des Garçons), Bonnie Cashin (Coach), Ann Lowe (who designed Jackie Kennedy's wedding dress), and the lesser-known 1930s designer Elizabeth Hawes, whose progressive views on comfort and gender-neutral clothing were ahead of her time. Amnéus also reflects on past exhibitions, including a 2017 show on Iris Van Herpen's 3D-printed sculptural fashion, and her current interest in sustainable designers like Collina Strada and Chopova Lowena.
Nella sua mostra a Venezia, Hanna Rochereau vuole archiviare l’archivio
Hanna Rochereau (Paris, 1995) presents her first solo exhibition in Italy, titled "Data Divas," at Mare Karina gallery in Venice. The show explores archival systems through a dialogue between painting and sculpture: canvases depict orderly shelves and filing cabinets filled with impenetrable boxes, while sculptural elements—tailor's mannequins, scattered papers, open drawers—introduce disorder. Rochereau uses a restrained palette of white and wood tones, referencing early 20th-century cubist and metaphysical art, particularly Morandi. The exhibition runs until July 18, 2026.
The 11th Sogal art auction, themed “Yemoja,” will take place in Lagos, Nigeria, with a preview from October 29–31, 2025, at Signature Beyond Gallery, followed by an online auction on November 2, 2025. The auction features a diverse lineup of modern and contemporary African artists, including a standout painting by the late modernist Abayomi Barber titled *Yemoja* (1990), which inspired the theme, and Ogbemi Heyman’s *Single Room — A Story of Resilience and Togetherness* (Lot 83). Other notable lots include works by Ben Osawe, Uche Okeke, Soly Cissé, and Clary Nelson Cole, spanning generations and geographies.
A collection of Chinese antiques, including an Imperial robe from the 19th century, was discovered in a chest in London after being kept as family mementos for decades. The items were acquired by Nan Brake, a British translator living in Beijing during the 1950s, who purchased them on excursions around the city. The collection, which features Ming dynasty paintings, Qing dynasty embroidered robes, and jade ornaments, will be auctioned by Roseberys on May 12 with an estimated total value of £40,000 ($54,100). The standout piece is a turquoise silk Imperial robe embroidered with nine five-clawed dragons, likely made for a male member of the emperor's family.
A painting long attributed to Polish Realist painter Józef Pankiewicz and held by the National Museum in Poznań has been revealed as a forgery. The work, titled 'Vegetable Market at Żelaznej Bramy Square in Warsaw' and dated 1888, was awarded a silver medal at the 1889 Universal Exposition in Paris and acquired by the museum in 1948. In 2017, scholar Michał Haake noticed discrepancies between the museum's version and historical reproductions, prompting an investigation. Conservators removed overpainting and found that the canvas, pigments, and composition differed from the original, with Pankiewicz's signature added after completion. The forgery, now attributed to an unidentified early 20th-century artist, is back on display alongside a photo of the original in the exhibition 'Succumb to Illusion.' The original painting has been missing since 1890.
Archaeologist Juan de Lara of Oxford University has published a paper challenging the long-held belief that the Parthenon in Athens was a brightly lit, open space. Using a 3D model that simulates natural and artificial light, Lara argues the temple was actually dark and dim, with sunlight barely reaching the statue of Athena's waist and a wooden ceiling blocking any translucency from marble roof tiles. He also suggests that hand-held torches, rather than numerous lamps, were used for artificial light, and that the reflective pool in front of Athena's statue did little to illuminate the space.
The Venice Biennale and Eurovision Song Contest are being overshadowed by political controversies rather than artistic merit. At the Venice Biennale, the Russian pavilion opened for press previews for the first time since the Ukraine invasion, a decision that may cost the festival €2m in EU funds. The Israeli pavilion will open despite protests from 200 artists and curators, while the South African pavilion will remain empty after its government blocked an artist's tribute to a Palestinian poet. The Iranian pavilion is also shut, and the awarding jury has resigned en masse, meaning no Golden or Silver Lion awards will be given for the first time in 40 years. Similarly, Eurovision's 70th anniversary is dominated by five countries boycotting over Israel's participation, with little focus on the music.
The exhibition "Wayamou: Lenguas de lo común" at the Museo Tamayo in Mexico City presents the collaborative work of artists Laura Anderson Barbata and Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe, whose artistic and political relationship spans over three decades. The show traces their shared history, beginning in the early 1990s when Barbata traveled to the Venezuelan Amazon and taught handmade papermaking using local plant fibers, introducing Hakihiiwe to a sustained visual exploration of Yanomami cosmology, oral tradition, and legacy. In 1992, they co-founded Yanomami Owë Mamotima ("Yanomami art of papermaking"), a project enabling the community to tell its own stories through its own visual and linguistic codes, exemplified by the handmade book "Shapono (Casa)" (1996).
Paul Nicklen, a renowned wildlife photographer and co-founder of the conservation organization SeaLegacy, is releasing a comprehensive book titled *Reverence* through publisher Hemeria. The volume collects 160 photographs spanning his three-decade career, including iconic images and previously unpublished works that capture the beauty and fragility of ecosystems from the Colorado River delta to the Arctic Bay.
Guest curator Greg de Cuir Jr. interviews five prominent artist duos—including Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, and OJOBOCA—to explore the mechanics of collaborative practice and shared life. The participants discuss the origins of their partnerships, ranging from the necessity of navigating new environments like Berlin’s analog film scene to the shared political and aesthetic urgency following the Lebanese Civil Wars.
May’s art guide highlights several exhibitions across Dayton, Cincinnati, and Columbus, including "The Future of Female" at the Dayton Society of Artists, a juried show exploring women-identifying artists' perspectives; "At This Moment" at the Main Library's 2nd Floor Gallery, reflecting on contemporary life; "Teresa Olavarria: Lichen" at The Contemporary Dayton, featuring works in vitreous enamel and bronze; and a color-themed collaborative exhibition at the Edward A. Dixon Gallery in partnership with Dayton Collaboratory. The guide also features a 35mm film series by photographer Jake Schneider documenting Greenville’s Swinging 8’s Square Dance Club.
Gió Marconi Gallery in Milan will host 'Phantom Banter', the first Italian solo exhibition of American sculptor Ron Nagle, from May 29 to July 24, 2026. The show features eleven ceramic sculptures created between 2024 and 2026, along with a selection of recent drawings, highlighting Nagle's process-oriented practice focused on material, surface, and language. Nagle, born in San Francisco in 1939, is a key figure in the California Clay Movement, having apprenticed with Peter Voulkos in the 1960s and influenced by Ken Price. His small-scale works, rarely exceeding 15 centimeters, explore reduction of scale and surface construction through cast and fired ceramics combined with resins and synthetic materials.
The City of West Hollywood is presenting a free exhibition titled 'FXLK PLAY: Artists-in-Mischief, Devotion, and Mythmaking' at Plummer Park's Long Hall. The show, running from February 19 to March 19, 2026, is a survey of works by over 60 LGBTQ+ artists who have participated in the Tom of Finland Foundation's Artist-in-Residence Program, featuring painting, sculpture, and video.
The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge is opening an exhibition titled "Made in Ancient Egypt" that shifts focus from pharaohs and iconic treasures to the anonymous craftspeople who built and decorated the civilization's artifacts. Featuring loans from the British Museum, Berlin State Museums, and the Musée du Louvre, the show includes jewelry, ceramics, stonework, and personal items like ostraca—pottery shards used as notepads—that reveal the lives, skills, and even the days off of ancient makers. Curator Helen Strudwick highlights recent discoveries, including a handprint on a "soul house" and an unreadable signature on a shrine, emphasizing the human connection these objects provide.
Polish artist Paweł Matyszewski presents a new solo exhibition titled "Momentary Organisms" at Kogo Gallery in Tartu, Estonia, opening on August 15. The show explores the fragility and transformation inherent in all living organisms through exuberant, patchwork-like abstractions that merge plant and human body parts. The exhibition is part of a regional exchange program involving galleries in Turku, Riga, and Warsaw, curated by Šelda Puķīte, and will run until September 27.
Local man Brian Jacobs attends a friend's high-profile surrealist art show in New York but cannot determine whether the works are genuinely surrealist or simply poorly executed. He describes a painting of a five-eyed fisherman holding a melting bowling ball as looking like it was painted by a first grader. The artist, Gavin McCloud, interprets Jacobs's bewildered reactions as impressed awe and plans to gift him the melting bowling ball painting. Gallery owner Christine Morgan admits she sometimes hosts derivative work from donors' children in exchange for large checks, and advises artists to claim ambiguity as the real art if questioned.
The Art Auction Center is hosting a major auction titled "Art Department" at the Central Chidlom department store in Bangkok, featuring over 130 artworks. The event aims to democratize the auction experience by integrating masterpieces and contemporary works into a retail lifestyle setting, moving away from traditional, formal auction environments.