Natasha Tontey to Unveil Major New Immersive Installation Exploring Indigenous Resistance During Venice Biennale

Artist Natasha Tontey will unveil a major immersive installation titled "The Phantom Combatants and the Metabolism of Disobedient Organs" during the Venice Biennale at the Ateneo Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti. Jointly commissioned by Berlin’s LAS Art Foundation and Helsinki’s Amos Rex, the work combines video, sound, light, and sculpture to reimagine the story of Len Karamoy, a combatant in the CIA-supported Permesta movement that fought the Indonesian government from 1957 to 1961 in North Sulawesi. Tontey, a Minahasan Indigenous artist, uses LiDAR, quantum ghost imaging, and other technologies to explore Indigenous identity, ecology, and the blurring of history and myth.

Sue Webster: Fandoms and Icons

Sue Webster's solo exhibition 'Birth of an Icon' at Firstsite in Colchester traces her lifelong obsession with pop culture, from teenage fandom of Siouxsie Sioux to her evolution as an artist. The show features a sprawling installation 'The Crime Scene' (2017–) that maps her personal history through albums, newspaper clippings, and objects, alongside painted jackets and self-portraits. It marks a departure from her earlier work as half of the duo Tim Noble and Sue Webster, embracing a more personal, amateurish style that reflects her journey through adolescence, marriage dissolution, and motherhood.

Local Collections Shine at Sarasota Art Museum's Latest Exhibition

Sarasota Art Museum (SAM) has opened a new exhibition titled "Something Borrowed, Something New," featuring works from private collectors across Southwest Florida. The show includes pieces by renowned artists such as Chuck Close, KAWS, Richard Serra, Yoko Ono, Ai Weiwei, and Louise Bourgeois, spanning paintings, prints, sculptures, and mixed media from the 20th and 21st centuries. The exhibition was inspired by a museum trip program, during which executive director Virginia Shearer noticed that local collectors owned significant works by artists featured in major institutions like the Renwick Gallery and Glenstone.

‘Tracey Emin said they’re all about death’: Johnnie Shand Kydd on his dog-walk photographs – and capturing the hard-partying YBAs

Johnnie Shand Kydd, a former art dealer turned photographer, reflects on his intimate black-and-white photographs of the Young British Artists (YBAs) in the 1990s, capturing figures like Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst, and Sarah Lucas in candid, hedonistic moments rather than traditional studio portraits. Now 66, Shand Kydd has a new exhibition titled 'Ramsholt' at Emin's gallery in Margate, featuring photographs from his dog-walking route, which will also be published as a photobook.

Artist Valie Export, Who Saw Right Through the Male Gaze, Dies at 85

Austrian artist Valie Export, a pioneering feminist performance and media artist, died on May 14, three days before her 86th birthday. Her death was confirmed by Thaddaeus Ropac Gallery. Export, born Waltraud Lehner in 1940, rejected traditional domestic roles and adopted her iconic all-uppercase name from a cigarette brand. She created guerrilla-style performances and films that directly confronted the male gaze and patriarchal society, often using her own body as a medium. Key works include “Genital Panic” (1968), in which she walked through a Munich cinema in crotchless pants, and “Tapp und Tastkino (Tap and Touch Cinema)” (1968), where she invited strangers to touch her bare breasts through a stage strapped to her chest.

SFMOMA reimagines our connection to 250 works of art across four floors.

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) has unveiled "Reimagined: The Fisher Collection at 10," a major reinstallation of approximately 250 works from 35 artists across four floors. The project was led by project assistant curator Ted Mann and chief education and public engagement officer Gamynne Guillotte, who collaborated to transform how the collection is presented. Changes include rotating galleries, such as the Agnes Martin room, to improve sightlines, and incorporating artists' voices, archival video, and interpretive tools to make abstract works more accessible. The reinstallation marks the tenth anniversary of the Fisher Collection's long-term loan to SFMOMA, originally arranged in 2009 and later extended to 100 years.

Across Venice, Artists Defy Censorship to Mourn and Memorialize Gaza

The 2026 Venice Biennale, titled “In Minor Keys,” features numerous artworks that mourn and memorialize the destruction of Gaza, despite censorship pressures. The main exhibition opens with a poem by slain Palestinian poet Refaat Alareer, and includes works by artists such as Theo Eshetu, Mohammed Joha, Manuel Mathieu, and Avi Mograbi that directly or indirectly address the conflict. Outside the official Biennale, South African artist Gabrielle Goliath’s performance series “Elegy” was censored by her country’s culture minister after she proposed a version honoring murdered Palestinian poet Hiba Abu Nada, leading her to present the work independently at a church in Venice.

Elie Nadelman, Peter Fischli & David Weiss at Galerie Buchholz

Galerie Buchholz in Cologne is presenting a group exhibition featuring works by Elie Nadelman, Peter Fischli, and David Weiss, running from April 10 to May 23, 2026. The show brings together the early 20th-century modernist sculpture of Nadelman with the conceptual, often humorous installations of the Swiss duo Fischli/Weiss, creating a dialogue across generations and artistic movements.

Tony Cokes “SM BNGR2” at FELIX GAUDLITZ, Vienna

Tony Cokes' solo exhibition "SM BNGR2" at FELIX GAUDLITZ in Vienna centers on club culture as a space for celebrating life through love, desire, queerness, music, art, aesthetics, and moving bodies. The show de-marginalizes club culture by examining its significance for subcultures, activist movements, and political resistance through the lens of writers and academics.

L.A. vs. N.Y. vs. UK punks and so much more at a sprawling new Skirball exhibit

The Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles opens a new exhibition titled "Outsiders, Outcasts, Rebels + Weirdos: Punk Culture 1976-86," tracing the evolution of punk music and culture over a decade. Featuring nearly 400 original fliers, posters, photographs, clothing, and pins, the show highlights punk's spread from New York to the UK and then to the West Coast, with a special focus on Los Angeles' contributions and the often-overlooked role of Jewish musicians and icons. The exhibition opens as punk celebrates its 50th anniversary, with events like the Sex Pistols' upcoming tour.

Alfonso Gonzalez Jr. Gives New Context to Street Art and Commercial Signage in New LACMA Show

Alfonso Gonzalez Jr., a second-generation Los Angeles artist with roots in graffiti, sign painting, and muralism, has opened his first museum exhibition at LACMA. Titled “In Between Stops,” the show features 12 benches installed along the museum’s Kendall Concourse, each serving as a functional sculpture that honors the street art and vernacular signage of LA. Gonzalez Jr., who learned the sign-painting trade at Los Angeles Trade Tech College and worked for outdoor advertisement companies like Wall Dogs and Colossal Media, draws on his background to create fictitious ads that critique advertising tactics while preserving rapidly disappearing elements of LA culture, such as mom-and-pop shops and barber shops.

“Drifting Until Caught” at Brooklyn Navy Yard: Three Artists and the Objectivity of Method

Three artists—Veronika Georgieva, Stephen j Shanabrook, and Shura Skaya—have transformed an industrial venue at the Brooklyn Navy Yard into a pop-up exhibition titled “Drifting Until Caught.” The show, accessible only by appointment, features works that range from pressed plastic sculptures and chocolate casts to wax crayon drawings and acrylic paintings, all exploring the boundary between figuration and abstraction. Each artist employs mechanical or chance-based methods, such as Shanabrook’s hydraulic press or Georgieva’s video projections, to create images that embrace distortion and materiality.

Robot dogs with Elon Musk's head 'poo' AI art in bizarre exhibition

Artist Beeple (Mike Winkelmann) has installed "Regular Animals" at Berlin's Neue Nationalgalerie, featuring robot dogs with hyper-realistic silicone heads of Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Andy Warhol, Pablo Picasso, and Beeple himself. The dogs roam the gallery and periodically "poo" printed images of their surroundings that have been transformed by artificial intelligence, with each dog's output reflecting the style of its figurehead—for example, the Picasso dog produces Cubist-style images. The work premiered at Art Basel Miami Beach 2025, where Beeple distributed the prints with certificates reading "100% organic GMO-free dog s**t" and QR codes for free NFTs.

Georg Baselitz, German Neo-Expressionist Painter, Dies at 88

Georg Baselitz, the German Neo-Expressionist painter known for his provocative, upside-down figurative works, has died at age 88. Along with contemporaries like Anselm Kiefer, Baselitz led a frontal assault on the dominant Minimalist and Conceptualist art movements of the 1970s, reviving expressive, gestural painting in postwar Germany.

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Appoints Essence Harden as Senior Curator

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) in San Francisco has appointed Essence Harden as senior curator, effective May 18. Harden currently serves as curator of Expo Chicago and has organized the Focus section of Frieze Los Angeles since 2024, roles they will continue with YBCA's support. An independent curator, Harden recently co-curated the 2025 Made in L.A. biennial at the Hammer Museum and previously held positions at the California African American Museum, Orange County Museum of Art, Art + Practice, Museum of the African Diaspora, and Oakland Museum of California. A Bay Area native, Harden's hiring marks a homecoming.

Pappi Corsicato's film on photographer Claudio Abate, which recounts the artistic ferment of Rome between the 1960s and 1990s, is now on RaiPlay

È su RaiPlay il film di Pappi Corsicato sul fotografo Claudio Abate che racconta il fermento artistico di Roma tra gli Anni ’60 e ‘90

RaiPlay has released a new documentary film by Pappi Corsicato titled "Claudio Abate. L’obiettivo nell’arte" (2026), which pays tribute to the late photographer Claudio Abate (1943–2017). The film weaves together interviews, archival materials, and footage from Istituto Luce to chronicle Abate's life and work, focusing on his role documenting the vibrant Roman art scene from the 1960s through the 1990s. It highlights his collaborations with key figures such as Jannis Kounellis, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Fabio Sargentini, and the artists of the Pastificio Cerere school, capturing seminal performances, happenings, and installations that defined Arte Povera and other avant-garde movements.

A Milano una grande mostra a Palazzo Reale racconta i Macchiaioli (e l’Italia del loro tempo)

A major exhibition at Palazzo Reale in Milan explores the Macchiaioli, the 19th-century Italian painting movement often seen as a precursor to Impressionism. The show brings together works by key figures such as Giovanni Fattori, Silvestro Lega, Telemaco Signorini, Giuseppe Abbati, and Odoardo Borrani, alongside tangential artists like Giovanni Boldini, Federico Faruffini, and Gerolamo Induno. It traces the movement's origins at Florence's Caffè Michelangiolo, its epicenter at Castiglioncello under patron Diego Martelli, and its evolution from the 1850s through the 1870s, when the group's democratic ideals and en plein air techniques challenged academic conventions.

The Black American Artists Who Dazzled Post-War Paris

An exhibition titled "Paris in Black: Internationalism and the Black Renaissance" at the DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center in Chicago celebrates the Black American artists, writers, and performers who moved to Paris after World War II to escape American racism. Curated by Danny Dunson, the show features over 100 artworks from the museum's permanent collection, including paintings by Archibald J. Motley Jr., sculptures by Richmond Barthé, Augusta Savage, and William Artis, and ephemera related to Josephine Baker. It traces the global influence of the Harlem Renaissance and the cross-pollination between Paris and U.S. cities like Chicago.

In Genoa, an exhibition dedicated to Giovanni Korompay, the Futurist who loved Pink Floyd

A Genova una mostra dedicata a Giovanni Korompay, il futurista che amava i Pink Floyd

A major retrospective exhibition dedicated to Giovanni Korompay, a Venetian painter, sculptor, and illustrator associated with the second wave of Futurism, has opened at the Wolfsoniana in Genoa Nervi. Titled "Korompay, un’antologica," the show runs until November 1st and features around sixty works, including paintings, sculptures, graphic works, photographs, and documents. It explores Korompay's evolution from traditional training under Ettore Tito to his embrace of Futurist aeropainting, exemplified by works such as "Alta velocità" (High Speed), which celebrates a 1934 world speed record set by a Macchi-Castoldi MC 72 seaplane. The exhibition is curated by Alex Casagrande, Matteo Fochessati, Franco Tagliapietra, and Anna Vyazemtseva, with loans from public museums (Mart, Mambo), private collections, and the Fondazione Korompay.

Roma accoglie all’Ara Pacis 52 importanti opere dell’Impressionismo provenienti da Detroit

The Museo dell'Ara Pacis in Rome is hosting an exhibition titled 'Impressionismo e oltre' (Impressionism and Beyond), featuring 52 masterpieces on loan from the Detroit Institute of Arts. Curated by Ilaria Miarelli Mariani and Claudio Zambianchi, the show spans from the 1840s to the early 20th century, tracing the evolution of European painting through Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, and the avant-garde. Works by Degas, Renoir, Cézanne, Van Gogh, Picasso, Matisse, Modigliani, and others are displayed across thematic sections that explore the shift from academic tradition to modern visual language.

In Spain, art becomes popular thanks to this expert influencer. We interviewed him

In Spagna l’arte diventa popolare grazie a questo esperto influencer. Lo abbiamo intervistato

Miguel Ángel Cajigal, known as 'El Barroquista,' is a Spanish art historian and popularizer who has brought art history to prime-time television, radio, and social media. In an interview with Artribune, he discusses his books, including 'Otra historia del arte' (2021), his approach to making art accessible without dumbing it down, and his critique of the cult of the individual genius in art historiography. He emphasizes the collective nature of art production and reception, challenging the traditional focus on masterpieces and authorship.

Picture gallery in transformation: recent gifts

MASP — Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand will present the exhibition "Picture gallery in transformation: recent gifts" starting May 15, as part of its Latin American histories series. The show features two sets of silkscreen prints recently added to the museum’s collection: 51 prints (2002–2007) by the Argentine collective Taller Popular de Serigrafía, which combined art and activism during the 2001 economic crisis, and the series "Ink and blood: 1968–2009" by Mexican artist Abraham Cruzvillegas, comprising 41 facsimiles of protest ephemera from Latin American social movements. The exhibition is curated by MASP artistic director Adriano Pedrosa, curator Regina Teixeira de Barros, and curatorial assistant Matheus de Andrade.

A new, monochromatic perspective on Alexander Calder at SAM

The Seattle Art Museum (SAM) has opened "Monochrome: Calder and Tara Donovan," a new exhibition in its Calder at SAM series that pairs two matte-black Alexander Calder sculptures with works by Brooklyn-based artist Tara Donovan. Curated by Donovan alongside SAM curator Catharina Manchanda, the show uses black as its sole color to highlight materials, texture, and form. Highlights include Calder's 1949 mobile "Jacaranda" and 1976 maquette "Mountains (1:5 intermediate maquette)," juxtaposed with Donovan's sculptures made from industrial materials like plastic stir sticks, slinkys, tar paper, and mylar. The exhibition runs through January 17, 2027.

Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst on AI Optimism and Bringing Two-Headed Worms to Venice

Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst, known for their work in digital art and experimental music, have curated a group exhibition titled "Strange Rules" at Palazzo Diedo in Venice alongside Hans-Ulrich Obrist. Their contribution includes a collaboration with Tufts University biologist Michael Levin, featuring live planarian worms modified to grow two heads through bioelectric manipulation. The interview discusses their concept of "protocol art," which seeks to expose and reclaim the underlying systems—from algorithms to biological protocols—that shape artistic production.

New Exhibition Explores Victor Vasarely’s Influence on Hungarian Neo-Avant-Garde Art

A major exhibition titled "Vasarely Don't Go Home!" opens at NEO Contemporary Art Space in Budapest, marking the 120th anniversary of Victor Vasarely's birth. Curated by Zsolt Petrányi, the show runs until 19 September and examines Vasarely's influence on Hungarian experimental and neo-avant-garde art of the 1960s and 1970s. Featuring over 60 works, the exhibition is organized around three themes—construction, grid structures, and illusion—and connects to parallel Vasarely shows at the Museum of Fine Arts and the Hungarian National Gallery. The title references a 1969 protest where artist János Major carried a sign reading 'Vasarely go home!' during Vasarely's exhibition at Műcsarnok.

Marc Chagall | Île Saint-Louis (1959) (1959) | For Sale

Marc Chagall's lithograph *Île Saint-Louis (1959)*, a limited-edition print in colors on Arches paper signed and numbered by the artist, is being offered for sale through an online auction hosted by LLB Auction on Artsy. The work, estimated at €10,000–€15,000, is part of a Contemporary Art Spring 2026 sale and carries a starting bid of €9,000. The listing includes provenance details, a condition report option, and a buyer's premium.

Summer 2026 Midnight Moment Program

Times Square Arts has announced the Summer 2026 Midnight Moment program, featuring three artists: Sonia Boyce (June), Tromarama (July), and Maia Chao (August). Boyce's 'Transform' presents a kaleidoscopic film of Andean ancestral movements, presented with the Queens Museum. Tromarama's 'Turn On #2' examines technology's impact on reality and the environment, presented with The Kitchen. Maia Chao's 'Studies for American Idle' draws from a 2025 site-specific performance in Times Square. The works will be shown nightly from 11:57 pm to midnight on nearly 100 electronic billboards.

Exhibition | RonNAGLE, 'Phantom Banter' at Gio Marconi, Milan, Italy

Gió Marconi Gallery in Milan, Italy, is presenting 'Ron Nagle. Phantom Banter,' the first solo exhibition in Italy dedicated to West Coast sculptor Ron Nagle. The show features eleven ceramic sculptures produced between 2024 and 2026, along with recent drawings, highlighting Nagle's refined small-scale works and his process of translating drawings into three-dimensional objects. Nagle, born in 1939 in San Francisco, apprenticed with Peter Voulkos in the 1960s and became a key figure in the California Clay Movement, influenced by artists like Ken Price.

미시시피미술관 '사진과 흑인미술운동, 1955-1985'(7/25-11/8) - Lounge

The Mississippi Museum of Art (MMA) presents "Photography and the Black Arts Movement, 1955–1985," a landmark exhibition exploring the role of photography in fostering Black visual culture and identity during the civil rights and Black Arts Movement eras. The show features approximately 150 works by over 100 artists, including Dawoud Bey, Gordon Parks, and Carrie Mae Weems, drawn primarily from the National Gallery of Art's collection, and runs from July 25 to November 8, 2026, as the final stop on a national tour.

'Echoes of Movement' Sets Crain Art Gallery in Motion

Alejandra Phelts presents her new exhibition 'Echoes of Movement' at the Crain Art Gallery in Crowell Public Library, opening with a free public reception on May 9, 2026. The show features paintings that explore the body as a space of transformation, drawing on Phelts' background in music, philosophy, and sewing. Phelts, a Mexican border artist, shifted from studying philosophy in France to fine arts after realizing art was a necessity, and her work has been shown internationally, including at the Venice Biennale and the Louvre.