The Grinnell College Museum of Art has opened two new exhibitions. 'Unruly Lines: The Art of Sonia Sekula,' curated by professor Jenny Anger and museum curator Dan Strong, occupies the east gallery, while 'Rhizomatic Intimacies: Photography from the Collection of Keith Jantzen and Scott Beth,' curated by students from Michael Mackenzie's Exhibition Seminar, is on view in the west gallery.
The 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair is holding its 11th New York edition at the Halo in the Financial District through May 11. Founder Touria El Glaoui notes a market shift toward more accessible pieces and prices amid the turbulent US economy. Of 30 participating dealers, ten are US-based, including first-time participant Gallery Article 15 from Washington, DC, which specializes in Congolese contemporary art. Other US galleries like Yossi Milo from Chelsea and Knowhere Art Gallery from Martha’s Vineyard are showing works by artists such as Samuel Fosso, Ibrahim Said, Sanlé Sory, Adana Tillman, and Maria-Lana Queen, with prices ranging from $500 to $36,000.
Sotheby's London held a contemporary evening sale on Thursday, totaling £47.6 million ($63.3 million), a significant increase from the £37.6 million ($49.2 million) achieved in the same Frieze-timed sale last year. The auction featured 27 lots, with a sell-through rate of 89%, and was led by Francis Bacon's *Portrait of a Dwarf* (1975), which sold for £13 million ($17.5 million), well above its high estimate. Tom Eddison, Sotheby's co-head of contemporary art, took the rostrum for his first marquee evening auction, guiding measured bidding that saw confident competition, including a cross-Channel contest for the top lot, ultimately won by Johan Nauckhoff for a client.
Legendary Kenyan painter Patrick Mukabi, known as Panye, has died at age 56 after an illness. Born in Nairobi in 1969, he studied graphic design at the Technical University of Kenya before dedicating himself to fine art. His bold, colorful works were displayed at venues like Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, Java House outlets, and in over 20 countries. He developed the Cover Girls series celebrating curvy women and worked at major art spaces including the Nairobi National Museum, Kuona Artists Collective, GoDown Arts Centre, and the Railway Museum. At Dust Depo Studio, he mentored many young artists, teaching them both technique and the business of art. His protégé Jimmy Kitheka recalls Mukabi's warmth and discipline, and how the studio became a creative hub. Even during his illness, the art community rallied to support him through benefit exhibitions like the Patrick Mukabi Medical Fund Benefit Art Exhibition in April 2026 and a solo show at Banana Hill Art Gallery.
The Art Gallery of Peterborough is set to host "Elizabeth Thompson Advises," a multimedia exhibition by Cavan-based artist JoEllen Brydon running from April to June 2026. The show centers on the work of Brydon’s late mother, Jean Armstrong Brydon, who wrote a progressive advice column for The Globe and Mail under the pseudonym Elizabeth Thompson between 1966 and 1978. The exhibition integrates original letters and columns with JoEllen’s bold paintings, audio recordings, and short films to bring these mid-century narratives to life.
Ten miniature paintings by young artists aged 14 to 19 from Kent Talents Art Studio in Broadstairs have been accepted into the Royal Society of Miniature Painters, Sculptors & Gravers Annual Exhibition. Additionally, eight miniature artworks and two large paintings by the studio's tutor, award-winning artist Lana Arkhi, were also selected. The 100% acceptance rate for the students' entries, alongside the tutor's multiple successes, marks a historic achievement for the studio.
The Chico Art Center is presenting a dual exhibition featuring landscape paintings by Dayton Claudio and ceramic sculptures by the late Nora Pineda. Claudio, known for his public murals including a 3D mural on a parking garage in downtown Chico, draws inspiration from nature and urban landscapes. Pineda, who passed away in April, created clay works influenced by her Mexican heritage and studied art at Chico State. The exhibition runs until July 18, with an opening reception on June 21.
Una delle fiere in corso a Milano durante questa Art Week sarà visitabile fino a mezzanotte (e ci puoi anche cenare)
MEGA Art Fair has announced an unconventional schedule for its third edition during Milan Art Week 2026, extending its opening hours until midnight. Located in the former Esperis perfume factory known as PROFUMO, the fair will occupy over 3,000 square meters of industrial space. The event features a multidisciplinary public program and a unique "sensory dinner" titled The Perfume Table, which translates the olfactory structure of perfumes into a gastronomic experience set among artworks.
The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs (DCLA) has inducted five new members into its Cultural Institutions Group (CIG), an exclusive program that provides long-term operational subsidies to private arts organizations operating on public land. The new members—Bric (Brooklyn), Pregones/Puerto Rican Traveling Theater (Manhattan), the Bronx Children’s Museum, the Noble Maritime Collection (Staten Island), and the Louis Armstrong House Museum (Queens)—represent each of the city’s five boroughs. This is the largest expansion of the program, now totaling 39 members, since the 1970s. A celebratory event was held at Bric on September 30, featuring remarks from DCLA Commissioner Laurie Cumbo and Deputy Mayor Adolfo Carrión Jr., along with musical performances by each institution.
Hauser & Wirth will open a new gallery in Palo Alto, California, in spring 2026, marking its first location in Northern California and its third in the state. The gallery will occupy a historic post office building at 201-205 Hamilton Avenue, near Stanford University, offering 2,600 square feet of exhibition space, a bookshop, and a design overseen by architect Luis Laplace. The expansion follows the gallery's existing venues in Los Angeles and comes nearly a decade after its major downtown L.A. complex opened in 2016.
Masure Gallery of Photography has opened in Fort Worth, Texas, as the city's only gallery dedicated exclusively to fine art photography. Founded through a partnership between gallery manager Simone Fischer and the co-owners of Fort Worth Camera, Jeff and CJ Masure, the space transforms a former event room into a white-walled exhibition venue with gallery-quality lighting. The gallery launched with "RED – A Bold Photography Exhibition," selected from nearly 200 open-call submissions requiring the color red, and now represents six local photographers: Walt Burns, Brooks Burris, Caroline Hanson, Chris Ireland, Felix Schilling, and K.P. Wilska. The first solo show, "Modern Exposure" by Walt Burns, opens June 4.
The Preservation Society of Newport County is hosting "Full Circle" at the Rosecliff mansion, an exhibition that revisits the landmark 1974 outdoor sculpture show "Monumenta." The current display features scale models, preparatory drawings, and archival photographs of works by modern masters such as Claes Oldenburg, Alexander Calder, and Willem de Kooning. A significant portion of the show is dedicated to Richard Fleischner, whose site-specific earthwork "Sod Maze" remains the only original piece from the 1974 project still standing in its original Newport location.
Tiffany & Co. has released a new iteration of its Bird on the Rock collection, drawing inspiration from the Virginia estate of the late Rachel Lambert “Bunny” Mellon, a horticulturalist, art collector, and devoted patron of Tiffany designer Jean Schlumberger. Mellon, who died at age 103, owned nearly 150 pieces by Schlumberger, including one of the first Bird on the Rock brooches from 1965. The new collection, designed under Chief Artistic Officer Nathalie Verdeille, features fine and high jewelry pieces that echo Schlumberger's original motifs, with gemstones like tanzanite and turquoise chosen to honor his preferences.
Quel avenir pour les centres d’art ?
The article examines the uncertain future of contemporary art centers in France, a category that encompasses vastly different institutions from major venues like the Palais de Tokyo to smaller regional spaces. These non-collecting institutions, dedicated to exhibiting emerging artists and experimentation, face fragility due to heavy reliance on local government funding and difficulty proving their utility to elected officials. Their core mission is further challenged by more robust regional contemporary art funds (Fracs), which have greater resources for similar goals of exhibiting ultra-contemporary art and cultural democratization.
Author Bruce Pascoe and a new generation of Australian chefs are leading a movement to rediscover and commercialize native Indigenous ingredients like kangaroo grass, Kakadu plums, and wattleseeds. By revisiting historical archives and journals from 19th-century explorers, Pascoe’s research in his book *Dark Emu* challenges the colonial narrative that Indigenous Australians were solely nomadic hunter-gatherers, revealing instead a sophisticated history of permanent settlements, irrigation, and organized agriculture.
Lorena Bradford, the first head of Accessible Programs at the National Gallery of Art, has left the institution after pioneering numerous initiatives to make museums more inclusive. Her work included launching American Sign Language tours, creating programs for individuals with memory loss, and spearheading the Short Description Project to provide detailed online artwork descriptions.
Two Hyderabad galleries are hosting long-duration summer exhibitions this year, breaking from the city's traditional lean season. Kalakriti Art Gallery in Banjara Hills opened "Prakriti: A Quiet Continuum," a group show of contemporary artists including Lal Bahadur Singh and Sumanto Chowdhury, alongside "Living Lineages," featuring folk and indigenous artists such as Bhuri Bai and Venkat Raman Shyam. Meanwhile, Srishti Art Gallery in Jubilee Hills is presenting the fifth edition of its annual exhibition "Triloka," with works by Moumita Basak, Nayanjyoti Barman, and Nirmal Mondal that explore everyday materials and social change.
The Chattanooga Public Library and the Hart Gallery are opening a new art exhibit titled "Art From The Hart" at the Downtown Library on May 9, with a reception from 2-4 p.m. Curated by Hart Gallery artists and Library Services Specialist Ali Banks, the show features mixed-media illustrations, pencil drawings, paintings, sculptures, and digital art from local artists, including returning participants Alex Scoggins and Angel Pellegrino.
The Cleveland Museum of Art has unveiled "Epic of the Northwest Himalayas: Pahari Paintings from the ‘Shangri’ Ramayana," an exhibition reuniting a widely dispersed 18th-century pictorial series. The show features 40 physical paintings alongside digital animations that reconstruct the original episodic sequences of the Hindu epic. This presentation is part of a larger collaborative initiative involving the Cincinnati Art Museum and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art to study and display works from the Catherine Glynn Benkaim and Ralph Benkaim Collection.
The Cleveland Museum of Art has opened "Epic of the Northwest Himalayas: Pahari Paintings from the ‘Shangri’ Ramayana," an exhibition featuring 40 rare paintings from a 1700s royal commission. These works, which depict the life of the Hindu deity Rama, have been reunited from 12 different lenders after being dispersed globally for centuries. The display is augmented by digital stations that animate over 100 additional paintings to illustrate the narrative's themes of virtue and heroism.
Stella’s Art Gallery in Willoughby, Ohio, is currently hosting two distinct exhibitions: "The Four Seasons," a juried show featuring local award winners like Anna Hsu and Tatiana Strelnikova, and "Unreal: 2 Visions," an abstract showcase in the Annex Gallery featuring artists Josh Chefitz and Gregory Johnson. Additionally, the gallery is preparing for its upcoming "Size Matters" small works exhibition in May, while the Willoughby Arts Collaborative has launched a call for artists to design local utility boxes.
The inaugural Neighbors Art Fair has launched in Chicago, situated within a historic residence in the city's Gold Coast neighborhood. Founded by Mirka Serrato and curated by Jonny Tanna, the fair rejects the traditional high-spectacle trade show model in favor of a "micro-fair" format. By utilizing a domestic setting and an invitation-based entry system, the event prioritizes architectural intimacy, timed entry, and deliberate engagement between galleries and visitors.
The Memorial Art Gallery has officially opened a major exhibition dedicated to the work of the late American sculptor John Rhoden. The opening reception, held on March 28, 2026, welcomed patrons and community members to explore a collection that highlights Rhoden’s unique ability to blend modernist sculpture with rhythmic, global influences.
The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD) in La Jolla is preparing to host a major celebratory event for the opening of "Giants: Art from the Dean Collection of Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz." The exhibition showcases a significant selection of works from the world-class private collection of the musical power couple, featuring monumental pieces by influential Black artists.
Western Exhibitions in Chicago presents “Spaces for People, Systems for Spaces,” a group exhibition featuring fifteen artists who explore the intersection of architecture, urban infrastructure, and the human body. The show includes diverse approaches to mapping and structural representation, ranging from Kim Beck’s hand-woven asphalt photographs and Courttney Cooper’s massive ink-on-receipt Cincinnati maps to Brian Petrone’s basswood and limestone tectonic sculptures.
The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD) in La Jolla is set to host "Giants: Art from the Dean Collection of Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz." This major exhibition features a selection of world-class works from the private holdings of the musical power couple, highlighting their significant contributions as patrons of contemporary art.
Mangkuluhur ARTOTEL Suites in Jakarta has opened a solo exhibition titled "Weaving The Unseen" by local artist Ratih Alsaira. The show, featuring ten primary works, explores the resilient strength and multifaceted nature of women, using tailoring and domestic crafts as central metaphors. It runs from February 13 to May 30, 2026, at the hotel's ARTSPACE gallery.
A group exhibition titled “One Rose, A Thousand Worlds” opens at A2Z Art Gallery in Paris from February 12 to March 14, 2026, celebrating the 80th anniversary of the first French publication of Antoine de Saint Exupéry’s *The Little Prince*. Conceived with the Antoine de Saint Exupéry Youth Foundation, the show features 17 Asian and French artists—including Alain Delsalle, Shiori Eda, and Jihee Han—who reinterpret the tale through painting, sculpture, ceramics, and mixed media, focusing on themes of love, responsibility, exile, and memory.
The Denver Art Museum is hosting the opening gala for "DIVA," a touring exhibition originally created by the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London. The event is supported by premier sponsors Joy and Chris Dinsdale, with additional funding from several prominent donors and organizations including U.S. Bank and the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District (SCFD).
The 'Korean Treasures: Collected, Cherished, Shared' exhibition at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art in Washington D.C. concluded on February 1st after drawing an estimated 65,000 visitors. The show featured over 200 works from the vast personal art collection of the late Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-hee and was celebrated with a gala event hosted by Samsung Electronics and the museum, attended by the Lee family, U.S. politicians, and business leaders.