Meet the artists representing Hong Kong and Macao at the Venice Biennale

Hong Kong artists Angel Hui and Kingsley Ng, along with Macao artists Eric Fok Hoi Seng, Veronica Lei Fong Ieng, and O Chi Wai, will represent the Greater Bay Area at the 61st Venice Biennale, running from 9 May to 22 November 2026. Hong Kong's exhibition, titled 'Fermata: Hong Kong in Venice,' marks a shift from a solo to a duo format for the first time, co-organized and curated by the Hong Kong Museum of Art (HKMoA). Hui presents installations featuring embroidered plastic bags and aluminum window grilles inspired by local Hong Kong motifs, while Ng creates site-specific works referencing hanging laundry. Macao's showcase, 'Jacone's Polyphony,' features the three Macao artists. The biennale, curated by the late Koyo Kouoh, is themed 'In Minor Keys' and includes 110 artists, 100 national participations, and 31 collateral events.

The Met’s blockbuster Raphael exhibition looks beyond the artist’s idealised Madonnas

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is preparing a major retrospective of the High Renaissance master Raphael, aiming to present a more complex portrait of the artist than his reputation for serene Madonnas suggests. The exhibition will showcase his technical versatility and intellectual depth through a vast array of paintings, drawings, and tapestries, highlighting his role as a polymath who reshaped the visual language of Western art.

Press Release: Pace University Art Gallery Presents Siobhan McBride’s Summer Remembers Winter

Pace University Art Gallery presents *Summer Remembers Winter*, a solo exhibition by painter Siobhan McBride, opening February 14, 2026. The show features new works exploring disjointed spaces, memory, and identity shaped by dislocation, reflecting McBride's experience as a Korean-born, U.S.-raised adoptee. The exhibition includes a free public reception on February 19 and an artist talk on March 5, running through March 21, 2026.

Tony Fitzpatrick, indefatigable artistic polymath from Chicago, has died, aged 66

Tony Fitzpatrick, a prolific Chicago artist known for his collages, etchings, and works on paper, died of a heart attack on 11 October at age 66. He was also a poet, author, actor, and raconteur, with his work held in major museum collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago. Fitzpatrick ran the influential gallery World Tattoo and was a vocal defender of labor unions and underdogs. He had been awaiting a double lung transplant after being diagnosed with interstitial lung disease, but continued creating until his death, including a new book and a live show at Steppenwolf Theater.

Rooted in Place: Humboldt Alumni and Staff Shine at de Young’s New Indigenous Art Exhibition

Cal Poly Humboldt alumni and staff are prominently featured in "Rooted in Place: California Native Art," a new exhibition at the de Young Museum in San Francisco that highlights Northern California’s Indigenous artists. The show includes works by the late Karuk painter Brian D. Tripp, Hupa artist and gallery director Brittany Britton, and other contributors such as Robert Benson, George Blake, Lena R. Bommelyn, and Shoshoni Gensaw-Hostler. Britton's beaded chair and Gensaw-Hostler's dentalium-shell cape are among the pieces displayed in the newly reinstalled Arts of Indigenous America galleries, which focus on the Hupa, Karuk, Tolowa, Wiyot, and Yurok peoples.

Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth highlights Oak Cliff artist with ‘David-Jeremiah: The Fire This Time'

The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth is presenting 'David-Jeremiah: The Fire This Time,' a solo exhibition featuring the Oak Cliff-based multidisciplinary conceptual artist David-Jeremiah. The show, on view from August 16 to November 2, includes new polychromatic paintings from his EE (Emma Esse) series and works from his I Drive Thee tondo series, which explore themes of transcendence, ritual, and the dichotomy of beauty and violence through the motif of fire and the Lamborghini automobile. The exhibition is guest-curated by Christopher Blay, a Liberian-born American artist and curator who serves as Director of Public Programs at the National Juneteenth Museum in Fort Worth.

The Met opens reimagined Arts of Oceania galleries showcasing works from the Pacific

New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art is reopening its Galleries of the Arts of Oceania to the public for the first time since 2021, following a major renovation that allowed curators to reimagine the presentation of art from the vast Pacific region. The galleries feature more than 600 artworks from Melanesia, Polynesia, Micronesia, Australia, and New Zealand, including the iconic Kwoma ceiling installation from Papua New Guinea, which has been reconfigured with input from the artists' descendants to accurately reflect clan groupings. The renovation is part of a broader $70 million overhaul of the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, which also houses collections from the ancient Americas and Africa.

Troy, ancient site in western Turkey, hosts expansive contemporary art exhibition

The Troy Museum in western Turkey has opened a contemporary art exhibition titled "Emanet" (meaning "trust," "legacy," or "safekeeping") by Turkish artist Vuslat. The show, running from May 25 to July 25, features sculptures, drawings, installations, and sound works placed alongside ancient artifacts in the museum's main halls and gardens, marking the first time contemporary art has been integrated into the museum's primary exhibition spaces near the legendary site of Troy.

What is the international exhibition of the Venice Biennale like? Review of "In minor keys" by Koyo Kouoh

Com’è la mostra internazionale della Biennale di Venezia? Recensione di “In minor keys” di Koyo Kouoh

The 2026 Venice Biennale, titled "In minor keys" and curated by the late Koyo Kouoh, opens to the public on May 9 amid controversies including the absence of the president's name in the colophon at the Arsenale entrance. The exhibition, organized by Kouoh's team (Rory Tsapayi, Siddharta Mitter, Marie Helene Pereira, Gabe Beckhurst Feijoo, and Rasha Salty), unfolds across the Giardini and the Arsenale's Corderie, featuring works that balance strength and beauty with a harmonious mix of voices and themes. The Giardini section is particularly compelling, with a non-linear, polycentric layout that feels like a living organism, while the Arsenale offers further depth.

Kellogg Gallery spotlights unconventional, colorful artists

Cal Poly Pomona's W. Keith and Janet Kellogg University Art Gallery is presenting "Color & Quirk," an exhibition running from August 25 to November 18, 2025, curated by Michele Cairella Fillmore. The show features unconventional, colorful artists who avoid white, black, and gray, including Megan Geckler, known for immersive flagging tape installations like "You can never quarantine the past," Colin Roberts, who creates plexiglass sculptures inspired by glass architecture, and Seda Saar, whose work explores perception, light, and color through interior architecture and themed entertainment design.

Deux sculptures de la Roldana préemptées par l'Espagne

Spain has preempted two polychrome terracotta sculptures by Luisa Roldán, known as La Roldana, at an Abalarte auction on December 5, 2025. The works, *La Fuite en Égypte* and *L’Éducation de la Vierge*, each sold for €335,500 including fees. *La Fuite en Égypte* has been acquired by the Museo del Prado in Madrid, while *L’Éducation de la Vierge* has gone to the Museo Nacional de Escultura in Valladolid.

Are All Crises Equal? A Conversation with MOS’s Michael Meredith and Hilary Sample by ANY

Architects Michael Meredith and Hilary Sample of the firm MOS discuss the concept of "polycrisis"—the intersection of economic, political, and ecological failures—and its impact on architectural form. The conversation highlights a growing void between the formal aesthetic project of architecture and the urgent political realities of the modern world. Sample specifically addresses how the dominance of political and regulatory restrictions in collective housing has stifled formal innovation, often reducing architecture to a mere byproduct of governance rather than a tool for social or cultural expression.

Artist Tammy Nguyen’s New Show Finds Heaven on Earth

Artist Tammy Nguyen presents her new exhibition "A Comedy for Mortals: Paradiso" at Lehmann Maupin New York, running from June 5 to August 15. The show is the final installment of a three-part series inspired by Dante's Divine Comedy, following earlier presentations in Seoul (Inferno) and London (Purgatory). Nguyen, a 40-year-old painter, professor at Wesleyan, and founder of Passenger Pigeon Press, creates dense, polymathic canvases that weave together imagery from Dante's celestial journey with contemporary references, including Frankenstein, President Eisenhower's military-industrial complex warning, and drones. The exhibition explores paradise as a journey of endless knowledge, while also delving into darker historical events like the 1815 Mount Tambora eruption.

biennale of sydney jewish group pro palestine artists 1234777201

The Biennale of Sydney has officially denied allegations of discrimination and bias following claims from Australia’s Jewish community that the exhibition's selection process favored anti-Zionist artists. The controversy intensified when the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies declined a preview invitation, citing "objectionable social media activity" by participating artists rather than the artworks themselves. In response, the Biennale maintained that its selection process is based strictly on artistic merit and that the organization maintains a zero-tolerance policy toward all forms of racism, including antisemitism and Islamophobia.

christies jonathan burden decorative arts auction results 1234756132

Christie's online sale of decorative arts from the collection of Jonathan Burden, titled 'Crafted and Collected: The Jonathan Burden Sale,' achieved over $1.07 million with fees, more than doubling the low estimate of $487,500. The sale featured 151 lots, with only five unsold, a 97% sell-through rate. The top lot was a 10-foot-long French Incarnat Turquin marble dining table that sold for $101,600, far exceeding its $30,000 high estimate. The auction employed an innovative 'in-situ' viewing at Burden's studio in Long Island City, where potential bidders could meet the dealer, hear stories, and see pieces demonstrated. Many items sold for multiples of their estimates, including a Victorian metamorphic chair that brought $27,940 against a $3,000 high estimate.

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Egyptian doctor Ashraf Omar Eldarir has been sentenced to six months in prison by U.S. District Judge Rachel P. Kovner for smuggling hundreds of ancient Egyptian artifacts into the United States. Eldarir was arrested in 2019 after importing over 600 artifacts without declaring them on customs forms, including a polychrome relief, Roman limestone pieces, gold amulets, and wooden tomb model figures dating to 1900 BCE. The largest seizure of smuggled antiquities at JFK Airport occurred in January 2020, when customs officers found 590 artifacts wrapped in bubble wrap and foam, with loose sand and dirt indicating recent excavation. Eldarir pleaded guilty to four counts of smuggling and used fake provenances—including forged documents and photoshopped photographs—to sell artifacts at U.S. auction houses.

Rare Atlas Owned by Queen Mary I Heads to Market—With $1.6 Million Price Tag

A rare 16th-century atlas, once owned by Queen Mary I of England, is being offered for $1.6 million at the New York Antiquarian Book Fair. The volume, which contains unique early maps of Britain, was acquired by dealer Barry Lawrence Ruderman Antique Maps Inc. for $227,000 just two years ago and is now presented as a major artifact of Tudor history.

Alain Passard’s Art Recipe: An Island of Tastes Wrapped in the Style of Christo and Jeanne-Claude

La recette d’art d’Alain Passard : un îlot de goûts emballé façon Christo et Jeanne-Claude

Michelin-starred chef Alain Passard pays tribute to the monumental environmental installations of Christo and Jeanne-Claude through a culinary creation. The article highlights the duo's 1983 project 'Surrounded Islands,' where they encircled eleven islands in Miami's Biscayne Bay with 600,000 square meters of floating pink polypropylene fabric, a work that exemplified their commitment to self-funded, accessible, and ephemeral public art.

fashion hermes boutique artist lisha bai

Korean-American painter and sculptor Lisha Bai unveiled a new window installation at Hermès Maison Madison in New York, created to coincide with New York Fashion Week. The installation features polychrome fabrics molded into geometric forms, drawing inspiration from the Korean patchwork tradition of bojagi and the quilts of Gee’s Bend, reflecting Bai’s experience growing up as a Korean-American in Alabama. A conversation between Bai and Cooper Hewitt curator Alexandra Cunningham Cameron explored how Bai translates textile techniques and light into immersive art. The event was attended by Hermès Americas President and CEO Diane Mahady and VP Diane Kruger, among other guests.

art rob teeters art advisor sagaponack home collecting

Art advisor Rob Teeters opens his 1950s Sagaponack home to CULTURED magazine, revealing how he curates his personal collection alongside his husband, ceramicist Bruce M. Sherman. The home features a mix of ancient artifacts, such as a third-century Roman marble head, and contemporary works by Wade Guyton, Sherrie Levine, and Matias Faldbakken, alongside Sherman's own polychrome ceramics. Teeters, who founded Front Desk Apparatus in 2006 and leads the Dallas nonprofit art space the Power Station, discusses the nuanced process of living with art and how arrangement, lighting, and even the texture of a room affect the experience.

design literature best books of 2025

Cultured magazine has published its annual list of the best design and architecture books of 2025, featuring ten titles that span cookbooks, travelogues, political design history, photography, and architectural theory. Highlights include "Campania: Recipes & Wandering Across Italy’s Polychromatic Coast" edited by Apartamento, "Furnishing Fascism" by Ignacio G. Galán, "Synthesis" by Mari Katayama, and "Monumental" by Cat Dawson, which examines how contemporary artists are reshaping memorial landscapes.

Tania Willard “Photolithics” at The Polygon Gallery, North Vancouver

The Polygon Gallery in North Vancouver is presenting a major solo exhibition titled "Photolithics" by artist, curator, and scholar Tania Willard. The show, on view from March 7 to May 24, 2026, is a decade-long survey featuring new and existing works that demonstrate Willard's innovative use of photographic printing and presentation techniques.

Poly Auction Hong Kong Spring Auctions 2026 concluded on a high note

Poly Auction Hong Kong's Spring 2026 season concluded with a total of HKD 255 million in sales, representing a 23% increase over the previous autumn cycle. The auction was headlined by Liu Wei’s 1995 painting "You Like Pork?", which fetched HKD 27.6 million, followed by a Ming Dynasty 'Grapes' foliate-rim dish that sold for HKD 24.6 million. The event saw participation from collectors across 17 countries, with significant growth in the Modern and Contemporary Art and Jewels and Watches sectors.

Gulistan at GNAMC of Rome

Chinese artist Gulistan, based in Beijing, presents her solo exhibition "Time Garden" at the National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art (GNAMC) in Rome. Curated by Gabriele Simongini and supported by the Foundation for Chinese Art in Italy and the International Federation of Women Artists 923 Art Space, the show explores a fusion of Eastern and Western aesthetics through painting, drawing on the legacy of the Silk Road. The exhibition features series such as "Fragments of Time," "The Nature of Memory," and "Memory of the Portraits," blending Chinese ink traditions with classical Western portraiture and archaeological motifs.

Mechanical engineer develops AI-generated digital masks to restore damaged paintings

Alex Kachkine, a mechanical engineer and PhD student at MIT, has developed AI-generated digital masks to restore damaged paintings. The system uses a removable, precision-printed polymer film with clear and painted areas, applied over the artwork like a custom graphic wrap. Kachkine tested the technique on a late-15th-century oil-on-panel painting attributed to the Master of the Prado Adoration of the Magi, using generative AI to reconstruct 5,612 areas of loss, including an obliterated infant Jesus. The masks are produced in hours and are physically separated from the paint surface by a conservation-grade varnish.

The Vatican brings Hildegard of Bingen to the Biennale. "The ear is the eye of the soul", by Brian Eno and Patti Smith

The Holy See Pavilion at the 61st Venice Biennale, titled "The Ear is the Eye of the Soul," centers on the 12th-century Benedictine abbess and visionary Hildegard of Bingen. Curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Ben Vickers in collaboration with Soundwalk Collective, the pavilion spans two Venetian venues—the Mystical Garden of the Discalced Carmelites and the Complesso di Santa Maria Ausiliatrice—and features new sound works by 24 artists, musicians, and poets including Brian Eno, Patti Smith, FKA Twigs, Meredith Monk, and Jim Jarmusch. The title is borrowed from the final work of German director Alexander Kluge, who died in March 2026, and his monumental film installation forms a core part of the exhibition.

Poly Auction Hong Kong concludes spring sales - Vietnam Investment Review

Poly Auction Hong Kong concluded its Spring 2026 auction series with total sales exceeding HKD 255 million, representing a 23% increase over the previous autumn season. The sales were led by Liu Wei’s 1995 masterpiece "You Like Pork?", which fetched HKD 27.6 million, and a Ming Dynasty Blue and White 'Grapes' Dish that realized HKD 24.6 million. The auction saw participation from collectors across 17 countries, with significant growth in the Modern and Contemporary Art segment, which rose over 63% compared to the prior season.

MAD's lucas museum of narrative art in los angeles prepares for september 2026 opening

The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles's Exposition Park has announced its public opening for September 22, 2026. Designed by MAD (Ma Yansong), the futuristic building features a sculptural canopy with over 1,500 fiberglass-reinforced polymer panels, a 56-meter central archway, and a four-story elliptical oculus. Co-founded by filmmaker George Lucas and Mellody Hobson, the museum will house 9,290 square meters of galleries drawing from a collection of more than 40,000 works spanning classic illustration, muralism, comic art, science fiction imagery, and cinematic artifacts. Landscape architect Mia Lehrer is transforming surrounding parking lots into a shaded public oasis with over 200 trees. Sandra Jackson-Dumont, the former CEO, left her post in April 2025 as the museum restructured, splitting the roles of director and CEO, with Lucas steering artistic content.

Art exhibits open in Earlville

The Earlville Opera House Art Galleries in Earlville, New York, will open the second round of 2026 visual artist exhibitions on Saturday, May 9, from 1 to 3 p.m. The series features three artists: Bruce E. Webster with his retrospective "A Legacy in Wood" showcasing over 40 years of fine wood furniture; Linda Kays-Biviano with "From Clay to Character: Featuring Woodland Spirits," hand-sculpted fantasy figures in polymer clay and resin; and Lawrence Kinney. The exhibits run through July 2, with free admission and an Artist Talk at 1:45 p.m. on opening day.

The Works of Alfredo Pirri for the Very First Exhibition of the Polytropon Arts Center in Tuscany

Le opere di Alfredo Pirri per la primissima mostra del Polytropon Arts Center in Toscana

The Polytropon Arts Center, founded by Greek-born architect Maria Papadaki Badanjak, opens its inaugural exhibition "Quello che avanza" featuring works by Italian artist Alfredo Pirri. The venue, a converted former spinning mill located between Pelago and Pontassieve near Florence, hosts the show through June 21, 2025. The exhibition includes 144 cyanotypes created between 2014 and 2017, along with Pirri's "Arie" series in plexiglass, crystal, feathers, and colors. The show is accompanied by a musical program curated by artistic director Andrea Cavallari, with concerts scheduled for May 17 and June 21. Pirri and Cavallari previously collaborated in 2019 at the Museo Novecento in Florence as part of the "Firenze Suona Contemporanea" festival.