Simon Burstall, at age 17, began photographing Sydney's underground rave scene in the 1990s, using borrowed school cameras and sneaking out in the family car to capture the burgeoning subculture. His images from that era were later compiled into the photobook '93: Punching the Light, published by Damiani in 2019.
The Legion of Honor in San Francisco will present "The Etruscans: From the Heart of Ancient Italy" from 2 May to 20 September, featuring nearly 200 objects including jewellery, sculptures, and vessels from the ancient Etruscan civilisation. The exhibition highlights recent archaeological discoveries, such as the Liber Linteus Zagrabiensis—the longest surviving Etruscan text—and grave objects from the Regolini-Galassi Tomb, many making their US debut. Curator Renée Dreyfus aims to correct negative portrayals of the Etruscans by Greeks and Romans and showcase their cultural achievements.
Simon White, now 68, returned three fragments of medieval clay tiles he took as a nine-year-old from Wenlock Priory in Shropshire during a family outing in the late 1960s. The tiles, dating from the late 13th to early 14th century, were discovered in an old toffee tin during a house move. White contacted English Heritage, which confirmed the provenance using family diaries and historical analysis. One fragment features a previously unknown dragon motif, exciting medievalists.
Three Macau artists—Fok Hoi Seng, O Chi Wai, and Lei Fung Ieng—are presenting works in the exhibition “Jacone’s Polyphony” at the 61st Venice Biennale. The show, curated by Feng Yan and Ng Sio Ieng, draws inspiration from the 17th-century Jesuit painter Wu Li (known in Portuguese as Jacone), whose unfulfilled journey to Rome mirrors Macau’s complex cultural identity. Fok contributes a large-scale screen tracing Wu Li’s intended route; O offers a multimedia installation linking past and present spiritual seeking; and Lei creates a sculpture exploring migration and emotional texture.
The Royal Scottish Academy (RSA) is celebrating its bicentenary with the RSA 200 Annual Exhibition, featuring 560 works by members and emerging artists. The exhibition, led by convenors Annie Cattrell and Fergus Purdie, runs from 9 May to 14 June 2026 in Edinburgh. Cattrell's theme "In Time" links to the tercentenary of geologist James Hutton, exploring geology and the passage of time, while Purdie's themes "Beginning(s)" and "Unbuilt" invite Academicians to design an imagined alternative Academy building. The show includes works by artists such as Julie Brook and Samantha Clark, with installation views photographed by Julie Howden.
Danish recycling artist Thomas Dambo, known for creating nearly 200 wooden troll sculptures hidden in natural settings across 19 countries, is opening his first museum exhibition. Titled “The Garbage Man,” the show at the Arken Museum of Contemporary Art near Copenhagen features a new collection of fairy tale-inspired trolls that take over the museum and build a giant human figure out of trash. The exhibition opens Sunday and runs until November 29, marking a shift from Dambo's usual outdoor treasure-hunt installations to an indoor, narrative-driven experience.
The Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester is presenting a series of summer exhibitions running from late May through July 2026. Featured shows include "Photosynthesis XXI," a collaboration between Burlington and Winchester high schools; "Atelier 40," showcasing emerging and advanced photographers from a year-long portfolio course; "Caleb Cain Marcus: A Thousand Rectangles: On Design and the Expression of Art"; "Cassidy Thurber: I Want the Sun to Shine Down on You," the winner of the 2025 Carolyn Harder Scholarship; the 16th Annual Photobook Exhibition; a Handmade Photobook show; and "Visionary." A satellite location at Griffin Museum @WinCam will host Ellen Feldman's "WE PROTEST" from June 16 to September 1.
The Union of Maine Visual Artists (UMVA) is hosting an ekphrastic poetry performance on Saturday, May 23 at 4:00 pm at the Oak Street Lofts Gallery, as part of its "Celebrating Hope" exhibition. Poets Annaliese Jakimides, Gregg Harper, Lily Brown, and Maureen Thorson will respond to artworks inspired by Emily Dickinson's poem "Hope is a strange invention." The exhibition features 20 artists and runs on weekends through May 29.
Serpentine has launched "I DIDNT REALISE YOU THOUGHT LIKE THAT," a new online game and critical thinking tool by artist and game designer Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley. Available from May 21, 2026, on web and mobile platforms, the project extends the world of Brathwaite-Shirley's acclaimed "THE DELUSION" and explores polarization, identity, and social connection beyond the gallery. Developed with nonprofit Beyond Code Collective and supported by Glass Castle Foundation, the game places players in a post-apocalyptic universe where they encounter fictional characters and make decisions that shape narratives and determine multiple endings, drawing on real-world materials from news cycles, social media, and community testimonies.
Greg Bell, an art adviser, artist, and curator who has worked on the Paul Allen art collection and with the Tacoma Art Museum, will give a free public talk at 3 p.m. on Saturday in Port Townsend. He will lead a walk-and-talk through the "Florabundance" exhibit at Northwind Art's Jeanette Best Gallery, which pairs ceramist Ariana Heinzman of Vashon Island and Sarah Helen More of Wenatchee. The exhibit features 10 of Heinzman's colorful flower sculptures and More's personal sketchbooks filled with flowers, collages, and birds. The show will be celebrated during the First Saturday Art Walk on June 6 and remains on display through June 22.
Fractured Horizons: Imaging After Images, the second edition of VSDesign's international exhibition series, returned to the NYCxDesign Festival in 2026, running for a week in New York. Organized by VSDesign in partnership with RAC Studio and Asia Design Week, the exhibition featured 60 works by artists and designers from across Asia and North America, spanning architecture, urbanism, product design, visual communication, and interactive media. The show explored how images no longer simply depict space but actively produce, operate, and regulate it, treating the image as a spatial mechanism rather than a neutral surface.
Rosewood Arts Center in Kettering, Ohio, has announced the opening of its 32nd annual The View Juried Landscape Exhibition, running from June 8 through July 18, 2026. The exhibition features 48 works selected by juror Rebecca Foley from 308 submissions by 114 Ohio-based artists, with awards totaling $1,100. A free public reception and awards presentation will take place on July 18.
The Curator’s Choice exhibition at Art on Target in Nelson Mandela Bay showcases 10 selected artists, ranging from emerging talents to established practitioners, including an octogenarian and recent graduates. The show, now in its third year, is an offshoot of the annual Same Size-Same Price-No Signature exhibition and was curated by Art on Target director Bretten-Anne Moolman. Artists were chosen by a diverse panel of over 20 local professionals, educators, and art lovers, and were given eight months to prepare new works for the exhibition, which opened on 13 May.
Bangladeshi visual artist Ashfika Rahman has been recognized by The New York Times as one of the six must-see shows at the Venice Biennale, with her work "Than Para — No Land Without Us" featured in the collateral exhibition "Still Joy — From Ukraine into the World." The installation, presented by the PinchukArtCentre and curated by Björn Geldhof and Oleksandra Pohrebnyak, incorporates thousands of small temple bells gathered from different spiritual traditions and draws on testimonies from Ukraine as well as the struggles of Indigenous communities in Bangladesh's Hill Tracts.
The Fort Worth African American Museum and Cultural Center will officially open on June 12 with its inaugural exhibition, "All ’N All: Artists Embracing Community," in partnership with Kinfolk House and the National Juneteenth Museum. The show features paintings, photographs, and mixed-media works by 11 North Texas artists exploring memory, culture, and the Black experience, and is part of the larger Freedom Vibes festival running June 11-20. The museum, which has been in development since 2020, secured its final funding from the Fort Worth City Council in January and purchased a 5,000-square-foot building on East Rosedale Street last summer.
A major exhibition titled "Artists’ Colony 100" has opened at MűvészetMalom in Szentendre, Hungary, to mark the centenary of the Old Artists’ Colony founded in 1926. The show features hundreds of works by nearly a hundred artists, from founding members such as József Bánáti Sverák, Miklós Bánovszky, and Béla Onódi to contemporary figures including József Baksai and Imre Szakács. It includes iconic pieces, rare works, and recent discoveries, organized thematically with a focus on the garden motif that has long inspired colony artists.
Artist Chandra Bhattacharjee presents a new body of work titled "A Star Amongst Too Many" at the Sarala Birla gallery within the Birla Academy of Art and Culture in Kolkata. Curated by Uma Ray, the exhibition features large-scale charcoal drawings that depict marginalized figures such as ragpickers, trash collectors, beggars, and street vendors. The works use black-and-white charcoal with occasional bursts of yellow and rust—the latter symbolizing neglect—to highlight the overlooked lives of these individuals. The show runs until May 24, 2026.
The Oklahoma Arts Council has received the largest gift in the history of the Oklahoma State Art Collection: ten works by influential Native artists from The Howard L. and Mary Ellen Meredith Collection, donated by America Meredith and Samonia Byford in honor of their parents. The donated works include pieces by Benjamin Harjo Jr., Norma Howard, Vanessa Paukeigope Jennings, Ruthe Blalock Jones, Shan Goshorn, Doc Tate Nevaquaya, Jane Osti, Juanita Pahdopony, Jeri Redcorn, and Dick West. The artworks are now on display in the Betty Price Gallery at the Oklahoma State Capitol, alongside two other recent acquisitions.
Artist Amadour presents his first solo institutional show in Nevada, titled *Nevada Proscenium*, at Truckee Meadows Community College’s Main Gallery from May 18 to June 18. The exhibition reexamines Nevada’s landscape through the lens of mining history, labor, and cultural memory, using layered geometric forms to challenge frontier myths and highlight overlooked Latinx histories. A public reception is scheduled for June 10.
The article reports on 'Still Joy — From Ukraine Into the World,' a collateral exhibition at the 61st Venice Biennale presented by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation and PinchukArtCentre. The show features works by Ukrainian artists including Malashchuk & Khimei, Simone Post, and Zhanna Kadyrova, exploring themes of joy, survival, and resilience amid war. Highlights include a two-channel video juxtaposing a Kyiv rave before and after Russia's full-scale invasion, letters from Ukrainian soldiers printed on foam panels, and installations that transform everyday objects into meditations on sweetness and endurance.
Saudi Arabia's national pavilion at the 61st Venice Biennale features a new installation by Saudi-Palestinian artist Dana Awartani titled "May your tears never dry, you who weep over stones." Curated by Art Jameel's director Antonia Carver and assistant curator Hafsa Alkhudairi, the work comprises over 29,000 handmade clay bricks arranged in intricate mosaics referencing 23 threatened cultural heritage sites across the Arab world, including Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine. The installation, which took more than 30,000 labor hours with 32 artisans, has become a crowd favorite since the biennale opened on May 9.
The Minnesota Marine Art Museum in Winona is hosting a "Spring New Look Weekend" from Friday through Sunday to celebrate two new collections. The first, "Myths & Legends of Minnesota: An Exhibition of the Minnesota Plein Air Collective," features 43 paintings by 32 artists created outdoors across the state, focusing on folklore, oral traditions, and waterways. The second, "Gordon Coons: Gidibaajimomin / We Tell Stories," showcases 18 new works by Ojibwa artist Gordon Coons, along with earlier pieces and examples of Woodland Style art from Norval Morrisseau and Sam Ash. The weekend includes plein air painting demonstrations, a printmaking activity with Coons, meet-the-artist tours, and an evening social.
The Muskegon Museum of Art has announced a new exhibition titled 'HerStory of Animation: Mary Blair & Beyond,' premiering June 6 through September 27. The show redefines animation history by highlighting the contributions of women animators and artists, from early pioneers like Helena Smith Dayton and Lotte Reiniger to contemporary figures. Curated by Mindy Johnson, the exhibition features production artwork, studio artifacts, rare imagery, films, and newly uncovered research spanning over a century of innovation.
The Sehwa Museum of Art in Seoul, operated by the Taekwang Group Sehwa Arts and Culture Foundation, has launched a series of artist-led participatory programs tied to its current exhibitions. On May 17, artist Yesol Kim will lead "Perhaps Scribbling on the World Crookedly," where participants draw and view their work through a kaleidoscope. On May 23, artist Jeong Manyoung will host "Sound Exploration: Finding My Own Sound Space," involving outdoor sound recording. Every Tuesday and Sunday at 3 p.m., visitors can enjoy a performance while holding cotton candy, linked to Lee Wonwoo's work "Gentle Prince." Additional ongoing activities include a handmade zine-making station and a social media review giveaway offering an "Artist Puzzle" from the museum shop.
The Norman Firehouse Art Center in Norman, Oklahoma, will present "Sohail & Co.," a summer exhibition focused on figure drawing and sculpture, on view from May 13 to August 7, 2026. The show brings together artists connected to the University of Oklahoma School of Visual Arts, exploring how the human figure evolves from observation to finished form across drawing, ceramics, and sculpture. An opening reception on May 13 will also feature the unveiling of "Rooted," a new public sculpture by undergraduate student Isabella Clark, installed in the Firehouse park as part of the Lions Park Sculpture Garden initiative.
The Navy Museum in Paris is hosting a major exhibition titled "The Navy and the Painters" from May 13 to August 2, 2026, featuring nearly 150 paintings spanning the 17th to 20th centuries. The show traces the evolution of maritime art and the French Navy's history, with works by artists such as Manet, Signac, and Le Lorrain, alongside a special section on the Navy's Official Painters (POM) with 84 contemporary works.
Artist Jessica Smith, originally from Texas, is opening her first solo exhibition in Salt Lake City titled "35 Years of Not Painting" at the Salt Lake City Public Library's Lower Urban Room Gallery from May 11 to June 21. After a high school art teacher censored her work, Smith abandoned painting for decades, turning to theater and later creating personalized picture books for her son with autism. She returned to art during the COVID-19 pandemic, painting portraits of admired figures like Mr. Rogers, Tupac Shakur, and Stevie Nicks. Smith is an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation and has become TERO Certified, allowing her to be listed as a potential artist for tribal commissions. She credits the Urban Indian Center of Salt Lake as a key support system.
An exhibition titled "The Contemporary Lore: Sojourn of Styles and Generations Unfurled" has opened in New Delhi, featuring works by 23 artists across different career stages and artistic styles. Curated by Kiran K. Mohan with a critical essay by art historian Johny ML, the show includes paintings, sculptures, and mixed media by artists such as Anil Gaekwad, Ashok Bhowmick, Harshwardhan Devtale, and others. The display is deliberately non-chronological, aiming to foster dialogue between seasoned practitioners and emerging voices.
The National Geographic Society has announced an extended tour of its exhibition "The Greatest Wildlife Photographs," following its run at The Momentary in Arkansas, USA. The show features a curated selection of iconic wildlife images from National Geographic magazine, chosen by picture editor Kathy Moran, and includes works by renowned photographers such as Michael “Nick” Nichols, Steve Winter, Paul Nicklen, Beverly Joubert, and David Doubilet. The exhibition will be available for booking in the US and globally as a digital delivery, and is currently on view at The Momentary from November 22, 2025, to June 7, 2026.
