Liang Yuanwei's latest painting cycle, "Pluviophile," culminated in the work "im Kugelhagel Wh·YeGrUm·Br-" (2025), exhibited at Beijing Commune in 2026. The large oil-on-linen piece, tucked at the far end of the gallery, features a burnt reddish-brown field scarred with gouged arcs and scraped-away paint that reveals a gold underlayer, creating an effect of violent impact and luminous aftermath.
The entire jury of the 61st Venice Biennale, presided by Brazilian curator Solange Farkas and comprising four other curators, resigned just nine days before the exhibition's scheduled opening on 9 May 2026. The jury had announced it would not award prizes to countries whose leaders are charged with crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court, a move widely understood to target Israel and Russia. In response, the Biennale's organisers cancelled the prize-giving ceremony and will instead award Golden Lions via a popular vote among ticketholders. The row escalated further when the Israeli representative, sculptor Belu-Simion Fainaru, accused the jury of discrimination and threatened legal action, prompting intervention from Italy's culture ministry.
The article reviews Tracey Emin's exhibition "A Second Life" at Tate Modern, describing the author's initial lack of aesthetic connection to the artworks—finding the paintings derivative and neon signs tacky—but ultimately being moved by the exhibition's emotional force and the artist's refusal to disguise pain, humiliation, and grief. The author notes the crowded galleries, the predominantly female audience responding with visceral emotion, and highlights the film "How It Feels" as the most impactful piece, in which Emin discusses her traumatic abortion and its effect on her self-perception.
The Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, in cooperation with the Centre Pompidou in Paris, has opened the first major exhibition of sculptor Constantin Brancusi in Germany in over 50 years. Featuring more than 150 works—including sculptures, photographs, drawings, films, and archival materials—the show presents key pieces such as "The Kiss," "Bird in Space," "Sleeping Muse," and "Endless Column," alongside a partial reconstruction of Brancusi's legendary studio, shown outside Paris for the first time since its bequest to the French state in 1957.
An exhibition titled 'Homage to the Virtuosos: From Leonardo da Vinci to Caravaggio - Masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance' has opened at the National Art Museum of China in Beijing, featuring 36 Renaissance masterpieces from Italy's Uffizi Galleries. The show includes works by Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Caravaggio, with many pieces traveling to China for the first time. The exhibition is jointly curated by the National Art Museum of China and the Uffizi Galleries, and is divided into three thematic sections tracing the evolution of Renaissance painting, from early Florentine masters through Mannerism to Venetian and Caravaggio's revolutionary works.
The Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice offers a free weekly workshop series called "Kids Day" for children aged 4 to 10, held on Sundays at 3 pm. The upcoming session, "When Nature Becomes Art," introduces young participants to collage techniques inspired by Surrealist artists such as Eileen Agar and André Masson, who used natural materials like shells, sand, feathers, and plants. The program includes a brief guided tour of the museum followed by a hands-on art workshop, conducted in Italian with interpretation available upon request.
Italian photographer Armando Perna (born 1981 in Reggio Calabria) has documented Dahiye, a southern suburb of Beirut known as Hezbollah's stronghold, using a digital camera hidden inside a car and controlled remotely via Bluetooth. His project, initiated in 2013 and exhibited in 2017 at the Fondazione Pino Pascali in Polignano a Mare (Bari), creates a street-view-style mapping of a neighborhood that has been heavily bombed by Israeli forces, most recently in the past weeks. The work was promoted by Planar gallery, founded by Antonio Ottomanelli, with Perna and Anna Vasta as part of the #showcase project.
Palazzo Attems-Petzenstein in Gorizia hosts the exhibition "Back to Peace? La guerra vista dai grandi fotografi Magnum," which presents the Second World War and its aftermath through two hundred photographs, video installations, and soundscapes by legendary Magnum photographers. The show features iconic works by Robert Capa, Eve Arnold, Henri Cartier-Bresson, David Seymour, Eric Hartmann, René Burri, Thomas Hoepker, George Rodger, Wayne Miller, and Werner Bischof, covering the Normandy landings, the liberation of Bergen-Belsen, the atomic devastation of Hiroshima, and the return of French prisoners. Curated by Andrea Holzherr and Marco Minuz, the exhibition is divided into two sections: one focusing on wartime imagery and the other on the immediate consequences of the conflict, including the suffering of civilians and the fragile hope of reconstruction.
ICOM UK hosted its 2026 annual conference in Oxford, bringing together delegates from over 20 countries to explore the theme of 'Museum Diplomacy.' Keynote speaker Dr. Sascha Priewe of the Aga Khan Museum and ICOM Canada framed the current geopolitical moment as a 'GZERO World,' where no country is willing or able to lead globally, and discussed how sanctions, export controls, and shifting alliances are straining international museum collaborations. Sessions featured case studies from the Science Museum Group and International Arts & Artists, emphasizing that trust and networks, not grand gestures, are essential for enduring partnerships.
The German Pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale will present the work of two women artists, Henrike Naumann and Sung Tieu, following the death of Naumann at age 41 in February 2026. Curated by Kathleen Reinhardt, director of the Georg Kolbe Museum in Berlin, the pavilion's project, titled "Ruin," explores the dual meanings of the word in English and German—architectural decay versus economic, social, or moral collapse. The exhibition draws on research into East Germany (DDR) and the post-reunification period, using the pavilion's fascist architecture as a lens to examine historical ruptures and their impact on the present. For the first time in its history, the German Pavilion is represented solely by women, mirroring the Italian Pavilion.
A Venezia un nuovo progetto punta a trasformare i musei in spazi vivi e partecipati
The Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia (MUVE) has launched "Performing MUVE," a new program set to begin in spring 2026 that reimagines museums as dynamic, participatory spaces. The initiative, developed by MUVE Academy and MUVE Education, will unfold across three venues: Museo Fortuny, Casa di Carlo Goldoni, and the new MUVEC – Casa delle Contemporaneità in Mestre. The program includes four distinct projects—led by Mattia Berto, choreographer Elena Ajani, actress Sara Urban, and dancer Giulia Gemma Manfrotto—that use dance, theater, and embodied practices to transform visitors from passive observers into active participants.
Pussy Riot founder Nadya Tolokonnikova co-curated "Resistance Imprisoned," a protest exhibition at Ritsch-Fisch Galerie in Strasbourg, France, featuring artwork created by people currently or formerly imprisoned in Russia, including Ukrainian civilians. The show opened April 19 and runs through May 31, timed to coincide with the first month of the Venice Biennale, which opens May 9. Works include a pen sketch by Lyudmila Razumova, a photojournalist arrested for anti-war graffiti in 2022 and serving a seven-year sentence, alongside pieces by other political prisoners and Ukrainian POWs. The exhibition aims to highlight the human cost of Russia's war and its participation in international cultural events.
Daniel Crews-Chubb presents 'The Belt of Venus,' an exhibition of six new monumental paintings at Patricia Low Contemporary in Venice. The works draw inspiration from the atmospheric phenomenon of the same name, using its ethereal pinkish glow as a color palette. Crews-Chubb explores pareidolia—the brain's tendency to see faces in abstract forms—pushing his long-standing interrogation of the human figure into increasingly abstract territory. The paintings reference classical mythology, including the Roman goddess Venus, and incorporate fragmented forms reminiscent of ancient statuary, serving as memento mori.
Janet Werner, an artist with a nearly four-decade career, has created a new body of work titled "Landscape with Legs" that distorts fashion imagery from Vogue archives and vintage campaigns by Marc Jacobs. Her paintings transform archetypal fashion models—thin, blonde, and emblematic of privilege—into unsettling, complex figures that expose a tension between glamor and the grotesque. The exhibition runs from May 1 to June 12, 2026, at Anat Ebgi Gallery in New York, marking her second solo show there. In an interview, Werner discusses her background as a dancer, her creative process of collaging photographic images with art historical references like Watteau and Caspar David Friedrich, and the political moment that makes the show feel urgent.
Shota Nakamura's exhibition 'Apple' at Karma in Los Angeles presents a series of new paintings that explore familiar subjects—fruit, shells, sailboats, landscapes—through a dreamlike, tonally nuanced lens. The Berlin-based Japanese artist focuses on the tonality of light, using closely-valued hues to investigate relationships between color, luminosity, and illusion. Works such as 'Landscape with Apples' (2026), 'A Black Dog', and 'Violin Player' demonstrate his method of combining personal photographs, memory, and art historical references into compositions that balance representation with formal abstraction, often referencing modern Japanese painters like Zenzaburo Kojima and Morikazu Kumagai as well as Mark Rothko.
The State Library of NSW is celebrating its 200th anniversary with a new exhibition featuring 200 objects from its collection of 6 million items. Lead curator Elise Edmonds and her team selected highlights including a lock of Mary Shelley's hair, the smallest book in the library's collection (measuring 6mm by 6mm), bread wrappers from the 1960s, a colonial sketchbook from 1817, a Dharawal Indigenous language wordlist, Australia's oldest surviving political cartoon from 1808, and a contemporary artwork by Wiradjuri artist Karla Dickens. The objects span literature, colonial history, Indigenous culture, sport, and everyday life.
DE SÃO PAULO A NUEVA YORK: EL MUSEO DE LA ERRANCIA DE ÉDOUARD GLISSANT
The exhibition "La tierra, el fuego, el agua y los vientos: Por un Museo de la Errancia con Édouard Glissant" has traveled from the Instituto Tomie Ohtake in São Paulo to the Center for Art, Research and Alliances (CARA) in New York, marking its first U.S. presentation. Curated by Manuela Moscoso with Marian Chudnovsky, and building on prior work by Ana Roman and Paulo Miyada, the show engages with the philosophy of Martinican poet and philosopher Édouard Glissant, particularly his concepts of errantry, Relation, opacity, and the Tout-Monde. It centers on Glissant's unrealized idea of a museum as a fluid, porous space that resists colonial frameworks and fixed origins, featuring works by artists such as Melvin Edwards, Gerardo Chávez, and Eduardo Zamora.
The United States officially returned 337 looted antiquities to Italy at a ceremony held at La Marmora barracks in Rome. Of these, 221 objects were repatriated through the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, while the remaining 116 were recovered on April 10, 2026, via joint efforts by the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations, the District Attorney’s Office, and Christie’s New York auction house. The objects span from the Villanovan era (900–700 BCE) to the Hellenistic period (323–31 BCE) and include a 1st-century CE marble head of Alexander the Great, a bronze sculpture from Herculaneum, and two Egyptian basalt sculptures.
Meloni reprend en main les musées italiens
Italy’s culture ministry under Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has appointed 14 new directors for so-called “second-tier” museums, reinforcing a shift away from the international “super-director” model introduced by the 2014 Franceschini reform. All appointees are Italian except for French director Axel Hémery, who was reappointed at the Pinacoteca di Siena due to his strong performance. The move follows the earlier ousting of foreign directors at top-tier museums, with only two foreign-born directors—Eike Schmidt and Gabriel Zuchtriegel—remaining, both of whom hold Italian citizenship.
Comment l’État soutient la recherche de provenance
The French Ministry of Culture has created two specialized missions to assist museums in researching the provenance of their collections, addressing looted artworks, human remains, colonial acquisitions, and illicit trafficking. The Mission for Research and Restitution of Looted Cultural Property (M2RS), established in 2019, focuses on Nazi-era spoliations (1933-1945) with a budget of €220,000 annually, while the newer Mission "Provenance," launched in 2024 under curator Catherine Chevillot, covers human remains, colonial-era objects, and illicit goods with a €450,000 budget. These missions provide expertise, funding, and coordination with institutions like the Commission for the Restitution of Property and Compensation of Victims of Anti-Semitic Spoliation (CIVS), though most museums still only initiate provenance checks during acquisitions or donations.
Au-delà de la Sagrada Família, ces 6 lieux étonnants à Barcelone qui révèlent un Gaudí méconnu
Beaux Arts Magazine highlights six lesser-known architectural works by Antoni Gaudí in Barcelona, beyond his famous Sagrada Família. The article features Casa Vicens (1883–1885), his first private commission; Torre Bellesguard (1900–1909), a medieval-inspired tower with panoramic views; Casa Calvet (1897), a residential building with textile-themed details; and the Finca Güell and Palau Güell, experimental projects for his patron Eusebi Güell. These sites showcase Gaudí's organic style, fusion of nature and architecture, and influences from Japanese, Arabic, and Catalan Gothic traditions, with several recently opened to the public.
Herald St in London is presenting "Daisy Chain," an exhibition of new work by Argentine-born, London-based artist Amalia Pica, running from March 19 to May 16, 2026. The show includes a press release, checklist, and 14 exhibition images documented by photographer Jack Elliot Edwards.
Joe Macken, a Queens resident, spent 21 years hand-assembling a vast 50-by-27-foot scale model of New York City, completing it in 2025. The model, built from cardboard, glue, and balsa wood, comprises 340 individual sections and is now on long-term display at the Museum of the City of New York in an exhibition titled "He Built This City: Joe Macken’s Model." Visitors can walk around the model and use binoculars to spot familiar buildings and neighborhoods.
Khaled Sabsabi, a Lebanese Australian artist, explores the intersection of spirituality and perception through video and mixed-media installations rooted in Sufism. His work, such as the 18-minute video *Lefke Morning* (2012–18), captures the Naqshbandi-Haqqani Sufi Order's dawn meditations, using blurred imagery and soundscapes to challenge Islamophobic media tropes and evoke a sense of unity. Sabsabi's practice also draws on hip-hop, which he performed as "Peacefender" in the 1980s, using music to address social issues and support marginalized communities in Western Sydney.
Berlin's cultural senator Sarah Wedl-Wilson resigned on Friday after the Berlin Court of Auditors ruled that millions in funding for antisemitism prevention projects were illegal. The resignation has sparked a political debate, with CDU general secretary Ottilie Klein defending governing mayor Kai Wegner against opposition criticism, while Franziska Stoff of the Berlin Culture Conference demands stability and a reversal of budget cuts. Thomas Fehrle, director of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, expressed personal regret over Wedl-Wilson's departure, praising her competence and engagement.
The exhibition "Gladys Hynes: Radical Lives" opens this month at Charleston in Lewes, aiming to resurrect the career of Gladys Hynes (1888-1958), a forgotten artist who once represented Britain at the 1924 Venice Biennale. The show brings together 120 paintings, drawings, graphic designs, and sculptural pieces, including works by Hynes and her contemporaries, curated by Sacha Llewellyn. Hynes trained with Stanhope Forbes, Frank Brangwyn, and William Nicholson, worked with Roger Fry's Omega Workshops, associated with Wyndham Lewis and the Vorticists, and was commissioned by Ezra Pound to illustrate his Cantos. Despite her achievements, only one of her paintings is in a British public collection.
Missoula artist Julia LaTray presents a solo exhibition titled "Animal Pleasures" at Bob's Your Uncle gallery in May, featuring paintings of animals on glitchy, digitized backgrounds alongside lighting and other works. The gallery is only open to the public on dedicated nights, so the exhibition is paired with performances, comedy, and readings on May 1, 8, 15, and 29. Separately, Hanis Coos artist Sara Siestreem brings her major exhibition "Acts of Love, Refusal and Resistance" to the Missoula Art Museum, filling the museum's main galleries with large-scale mixed-media paintings and sculpture, including handmade baskets and ceramic molded versions with gilded flourishes. The museum hosts a First Friday reception on May 1 and a "Coffee and Conversation" with the artist on May 2.
TOTAH gallery in New York presents 'The Time That’s Left', a solo exhibition of works by Italian artist Tommaso Spazzini Villa, opening May 14, 2026. The show expands on his recent large-scale mural on West 45th Street in Hell’s Kitchen, moving from public space to an intimate gallery setting. It features graphite drawings traced across antique book pages—sacred texts, epic poetry, theatre scores—depicting root-like forms that challenge linear language, alongside metal box sculptures with wire, light, and dried leaves that create fleeting shadow dioramas.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art's 2026 Met Gala will take place on May 4, themed "Costume Art" to highlight fashion as a central artistic discipline. Co-chairs include Beyoncé, Nicole Kidman, Venus Williams, and Anna Wintour, with a host committee featuring Anthony Vaccarello, Zoë Kravitz, and other celebrities. The event coincides with the opening of the new Condé M. Nast Galleries and the spring exhibition "Costume Art," which pairs historic garments with artworks spanning 5,000 years. The dress code is "fashion is art," and the red carpet will be livestreamed by Vogue.
The remains of Charlottesville's melted Confederate statue of General Robert E. Lee are now on display at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles as part of the 'Monuments' exhibition. The statue, originally standing in Market Street Park, was acquired by the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center (JSAAHC) in 2021, melted down at a secret location, and shipped to Los Angeles. The exhibition, presented in partnership with The Brick, also features artist Kara Walker's reconstruction of the Thomas Jackson statue. The bronze ingots and slag from the melting process are displayed alongside other works that reimagine Confederate monuments.