Denver has been announced as the exclusive US venue for 'DIVA,' a major fashion and iconography exhibition organized by the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. The show will run from October 4, 2026, to January 31, 2027, at the Denver Art Museum’s Hamilton Building, featuring over 200 objects and more than 50 costumes worn by legendary performers including Maria Callas, Cher, Lady Gaga, Rihanna, RuPaul, Prince, Tina Turner, and Marilyn Monroe.
Staff at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Lacma) announced their intent to unionize as part of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). The new union, Lacma United, will represent over 300 museum employees across curatorial, visitor services, education, and publications departments. Workers cite fairer compensation, expanded benefits, and increased transparency as key motivations, and have requested voluntary recognition by November 5. The effort joins AFSCME Cultural Workers United District Council 36, which has supported union campaigns at other Los Angeles institutions including the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.
The Denver Art Museum hosted "Untitled: Artist Takeover Oct 2025," a Halloween-themed evening event featuring performances, art installations, and interactive activities across its Hamilton Building, Martin Building, and Sturm Grand Pavilion. Highlights included a memorial installation series "Death of Baddy" by artist Moe Gram, classic horror film screenings, tarot readings, shadow puppet theater, mask-making, and a dance party with DJ 2AND2. Participating artists and performers included Justy Robinson, Miguel Garcia, Kendall Bennett, Patty McCrystal, Zora Beglarian, Lisa Frank 666, Karma Leigh, Joe Oliver, Medicine Mama Kia, Shaunie Berry, Elle Hong, and Rafael & Kristina Maldonado Bad Hand.
A major new exhibition, “Contemporary Anishinaabe Art: A Continuation,” has opened at the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), marking the museum’s first major Native American exhibition in over three decades. The show features 90 works by more than 60 artists from the Great Lakes region of the U.S. and Canada, including a strong contingent of Minnesota-based painters, sculptors, designers, and filmmakers. Curated in collaboration with a panel of Anishinaabe artists—including Duluth-based painter and filmmaker Jonathan Thunder, Kelly Church, Jason Quigno, Monica Rickert-Bolter, and Jodi Webster—the exhibition spans painting, beadwork, fashion, film, and sculpture. Signage is translated into Anishinaabemowin, and QR codes offer language learning. The curators deliberately chose not to begin with historical works, asserting that Native American artists should not be required to provide a historical preamble.
The Denver Art Museum will present "Andrea Carlson: A Constant Sky," the first museum survey of mixed-media visual artist Andrea Carlson, from October 5, 2025, to February 16, 2026. The exhibition features over 30 works on paper, three large-scale paintings shown together for the first time, and a monumental sculptural work titled "Columns for a Horizon." Carlson, who descends from Grand Portage Ojibwe and European settlers, creates intricate, colorful works that challenge colonial narratives in American landscape painting and museum collections.
Diné (Navajo) artist Eric-Paul Riege has opened a new exhibition, “ojo|-|ólǫ́,” at Brown University’s David Winton Bell Gallery, on view through December 7. The show features large soft sculptures and weavings that engage with Diné mythology, Euro-American trading posts, and the concept of authenticity in Indigenous art. Riege also selected five objects from Brown’s Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology, including a loom with an unfinished textile, which he recontextualized by separating the loom from the textile and adding handwritten notes. The exhibition is co-curated by Thea Quiray Tagle and Nina Bozicnik, and will travel to the Henry Art Gallery in 2026.
The Denver Art Museum (DAM) has announced "A Constant Sky," the first museum survey of artist Andrea Carlson. The exhibition, which marks the museum's centennial of collecting Indigenous arts, features Carlson's bold paintings that challenge colonial narratives and cultural consumption. The show is curated with input from Dakota Hoska, former Associate Curator of Native Arts at DAM, now at the National Gallery of Art, and John Lukavic, Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Native Arts at DAM.
The Resnick Center for Herbert Bayer Studies in Aspen has opened a new exhibition titled "Sculpting the Environment," the first-ever show dedicated to the site-specific outdoor sculptures and land art of Bauhaus artist Herbert Bayer. Bayer, who moved to Aspen in 1945 at the invitation of industrialist Walter Paepcke, lived there for nearly 30 years and created Denver's iconic "Articulated Wall" sculpture in 1985, the year of his death. The exhibition, co-curated by Koko Bayer (his step-granddaughter) and Adam Thomas, highlights his three-dimensional process and his role in shaping Colorado's cultural landscape.
The Denver Art Museum has published a feature titled "What We’ve Been Up To: Landscape," showcasing a selection of recent photographic acquisitions focused on the American landscape. The featured works span from the late 19th century to the present, including images by Steve Fitch, Henry Wessel, Jr., Yamamoto Masao, Marion Post Wolcott, William Henry Jackson, John Ganis, Terri Weifenbach, Christina Fernandez, Linda Connor, and Patrick Nagatani. The photographs document diverse terrains—from New Mexico and Colorado to New Jersey and Hawai'i—and employ a range of processes, from albumen and gelatin silver prints to inkjet and pigment prints.
The Denver Art Museum has announced the upcoming exhibition "Southwest Impressions: Prints from the Barbara J. Thompson Collection," opening June 29, 2025, and running through June 14, 2026. The show features works on paper by artists who lived or traveled in the American Southwest between the late 1800s and mid-1900s, drawn from a collection of over 100 prints gifted to the museum's Petrie Institute of Western American Art in 2024 by Barbara J. Thompson in honor of her grandfather, printmaker C. A. Seward. The exhibition will be presented in two rotations of about fifty prints each, covering intaglio, block printing, lithography, and serigraphy, with interpretive videos and a digital publication.
The Fundação Bienal de São Paulo has appointed Amanda Carneiro and Raphael Fonseca as chief curators for the 37th Bienal de São Paulo, scheduled for 2027 at the Pavilhão Ciccillo Matarazzo in Ibirapuera Park. Carneiro, a curator at MASP since 2018 and an artistic organizer for the 2024 Venice Biennale, and Fonseca, a visual arts curator at Culturgest and curator-at-large at the Denver Art Museum, will lead the largest visual arts event in Latin America.
The Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art (BMoCA) has announced the official date for its 2026 ARTMIX event. This signature annual fundraiser typically features a curated auction, live performances, and community engagement initiatives designed to support the museum's exhibition and education programs.
The Denver Art Museum is hosting a public insight session focused on the specialized work of its conservation department. Conservators will present behind-the-scenes details regarding the treatment of artworks and objects prepared for several major exhibitions, including the mid-century modern showcase "Space Is the Place" at The Kirkland and the textile-focused "Conversation Pieces."
The Denver Art Museum has announced a major touring exhibition of Australian Indigenous Art, set to open in April 2026. The show is a collaborative effort organized by the National Gallery of Victoria and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and will also travel to the Portland Art Museum and the Peabody Essex Museum.
Buena Vista area artists Bob Gray and his daughter Jamie Gray have been selected for the upcoming exhibition "Family Ties: Continuing the Creative Legacy" at the Arvada Center Galleries in metro Denver, running from January 15 to March 26, 2026. They are one of two local families featured, alongside the Strawn family (Ben, Daniel, and their late parents Bernice and Mel). The show includes twenty creative families, highlighting how artistic identity is shaped within family contexts. Both Grays work with wood: Bob creates turned-aspen vessels inspired by local landscapes, while Jamie produces abstract wall sculptures using beeswax, pigment, and hand-carved lines.
Sasha Fishman '24, an alum and adjunct assistant professor at Columbia, presents her solo exhibition 'Shad Mode' at ILY2 Gallery in Portland, Oregon. The show, which culminates her summer residency at ILY2, features sculptures made from materials like egg yolk-tanned sturgeon skin, ceramics, and lamprey teeth, exploring the relationships between fish, their ecosystems, and human intervention. Works such as 'Immortal by Wifi' and 'Each Time You Bathe Me' blend natural and synthetic elements, while a fish cannon encircles the gallery to highlight modern technologies used to transport fish over dams.
Renowned artists have opened a new gallery in Enderby, British Columbia, as reported in a segment titled 'This is BC' by Global News. The video feature, published on June 10, 2025, highlights the establishment of this gallery by well-known visual artists in the small community of Enderby, located in the North Okanagan region. The artists are bringing their expertise and creative works to a local venue, aiming to enrich the area's cultural landscape.
Oracle, a new experiential art exhibit curated by Esther Hernandez, opened on May 9 at Union Hall Art Space in Denver. The 1,700-square-foot gallery invites visitors to wear blindfolds and be guided by volunteers to 16 works by six local female artists—Yazz Atmore, Faatma Be Oné, Linda Bishara, Rebecca Peebles, Sarah Tenney, and Harriet Woodman—before removing the blindfold to reflect on pieces that resonate with their personal questions. The exhibit includes interactive works, such as a ceremonial weighted blanket and a mixed-media altar, and runs through August 23.
An immersive Van Gogh experience has opened in Denver, allowing visitors to step inside the mind of the famed artist through displays of his art, letters, and a projection room where his paintings come to life. The exhibit, organized by Exhibition Hub, combines art, technology, and history to celebrate the 2,100 works Van Gogh created in his short 37 years.
The Denver Botanic Gardens has launched "A New Humanism," the first U.S. retrospective of internationally acclaimed Spanish artist Jaume Plensa. Commemorating the institution's 75th anniversary, the exhibition features approximately 30 works, including Plensa’s signature large-scale public sculptures, indoor resin figures, and mixed-media works on paper. The show spans three indoor galleries and the garden's outdoor landscapes, highlighting the artist's career-long exploration of the human form, language, and the concept of "invisibility" in art.
The 34th Coors Western Art Exhibit & Sale held its Red Carpet Reception on Thursday night, drawing over 1,000 guests to its new venue on the second floor of The Legacy, the recently completed $100 million headquarters of the National Western Stock Show. The 2026 show features 93 participating artists and 354 works, including wildlife, landscape, sculpture, and plastics, with a sales goal exceeding $1 million to benefit the National Western Scholarship Trust. Featured artist Logan Maxwell Hagege of Ojai, California, presents works such as "Springtime in the Rockies" ($85,000) and "Indigo Stripes" ($18,500), while his piece "Hopeless Dreamer" was purchased for the Stock Show's Permanent Collection.
The Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis has won the 2024 best monograph award from the Midwest Art History Society (MAHS) for its exhibition catalog "Adam Pendleton: To Divide By." The catalog, published by the museum and distributed by the University of Chicago Press, was honored during the society's Outstanding Catalog Awards ceremony in Denver on April 4. Edited by Kemper curator Meredith Malone, the volume features essays by Malone, Joshua Chambers-Letson, Hal Foster, and a conversation between Pendleton and critic Isabelle Graw, along with transcripts of two film portraits by the artist.
The Argentine artistic duo Roberto Behar and Rosario Marquardt have received the $75,000 Lifetime Achievement Award at The Ellies Oolite Arts Awards. The pair, founders of R&R STUDIOS, are recognized for their decades-long collaborative practice that merges art, architecture, and public space to create social sculptures.
The Emmanuel Art Gallery hosted the opening of its annual student exhibition, titled “Guilty,” on the evening of April 2. The showcase features a diverse range of artistic media, including digital renderings and traditional oil paintings, created by the university's student body.
An abandoned office floor in Manila's RCBC Plaza has been transformed into a raw exhibition space for a group show titled "Audacity," curated by Chloe Magpayo. Featuring over 20 artists, the show includes works by Isabel and Alfredo Aquilizan's Fruitjuice Factory Studio, Matt Trinidad, Kristoffer Ardeña, Christina Lopez, Marty Carsi Cruz, Hideki Ito, Bienvenido Tamayo, Mano Gonzales, Marionne Contreras, Luis Antonio Santos, James Clar, Doktor Karayom, Denver Garza, and Maricar Tolentino. The exhibition runs through October in the same space that previously hosted "Here & Now & Now & Then" curated by Nilo Ilarde.
Spokane artist Michael Dinning and his wife Stephanie opened D2 Gallery and Studio on May 2 in downtown Spokane, located at the corner of West First Avenue and South Bernard Street. The gallery focuses on showcasing local artists, with Jim Dhillon featured as the star for two consecutive months. Dinning, who has a background in museum curation and art management, returned to art after a decade-long hiatus and now creates mixed-media sculptures that combine painting with found objects like stone arrows and violin bows.
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 Birger Sandzén Memorial Gallery in Lindsborg, Kansas, has rescheduled the reception for its 128th annual Midwest Art Exhibition to Saturday, February 7, 2026, from 2 to 4 p.m., with exhibition talks at 2:30 p.m. The show features works by Tim Stone and Marco Hernandez of Wichita, woodcarvings by Glenn Knak of Salina, mixed media pieces by Genevieve Waller of Denver, and selections by Gretchen Elliott’s art students at Smoky Valley High School.
Indiana University Bloomington has appointed Mindy N. Besaw as the next Wilma E. Kelley Director of the Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art, effective August 15. Besaw, who brings over two decades of curatorial and museum leadership experience, currently serves as director of fellowships, research and university partnerships and curator of American art at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. She succeeds interim director Mariah Keller and will oversee all facets of the museum's strategy, operations, and engagement, including exhibitions, collections, teaching partnerships, and public programming.
The Denver Art Museum (DAM) and the Chicano Humanities and Arts Council (CHAC Gallery & Cultural Center) are hosting an opening reception on May 13, 2025, for the Community Spotlight exhibition titled "Chicano Humanities and Arts Council: The Legacy and Power of Chicano/a/x Artists in Denver." The presentation features artwork by CHAC Gallery member artists, exploring themes of self-identity, family, cultural heritage, and spirituality, and will be on view in the Creative Hub of the Martin Building.