Yang Fudong has opened his largest solo exhibition to date, 'Fragrant River,' at the UCCA Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing. The show features over 30 works and eight hours of video, including major new installations like the five-channel 'Young Man, Young Man' and the furniture-and-video piece 'Breastfeeding,' which immerse viewers in scenes from the artist's hometown of Xianghe.
The Vancouver Biennale has appointed Brazilian artist and documentary filmmaker Marcello Dantas as senior curator for its 2027–29 edition. Dantas, currently art director at the immersive museum Ster Ik in Tulum, Mexico, recently cocurated the 2024 iteration of Saudi Arabia's Desert X AlUla with Maya El Khalil. He has previously organized exhibitions for artists including Ai Weiwei, Anish Kapoor, Shirin Neshat, and Bill Viola, and curated a project by Vik Muniz for the 2013–15 Vancouver Biennale. Dantas plans to shape the event by addressing the city's corporate real estate development alongside its First Nations and colonial history, exploring themes of displacement and belonging.
Tony Albert, a Girramay/Yidinji/Kuku-Yalanji artist, has spent his life collecting Aboriginalia—kitsch household items from the mid-20th century that feature naive or racist depictions of Indigenous culture. These objects, including ashtrays, velvet paintings, and figurines, form the basis of his upcoming exhibition *Tony Albert: Not A Souvenir* at the Museum of Contemporary Art, curated by Bruce Johnson McClean. Albert's practice transforms these mass-produced artifacts into a powerful critique of colonization, displacement, and erasure.
The Henry Street Settlement, a nonprofit social-service organization on New York's Lower East Side, lost its primary annual fundraiser when the Art Dealers Association of America canceled The Art Show in July 2025. After months of uncertainty, Henry Street has partnered with Independent, the art fair that recently relocated to Pier 36, to host its 37th gala preview on May 14, 2026. The collaboration was brokered by art dealer James Fuentes, a Henry Street board member and longtime Lower East Side gallerist. The gala had raised over $38 million since 1989, and the cancellation left a budget gap that forced the organization to launch a virtual campaign raising only $600,000—half the usual amount—while federal cuts compounded the financial strain.
Gabrielle Bejani, a Lebanese Palestinian artist based in South London, created a new series of works in response to the November 2024 ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon that was quickly broken. The series, exhibited as "Deliberate Dreams" at Beirut's Saleh Barakat Gallery in July 2025, uses painting, drawing, and collage to process grief, anger, and guilt over the violence. Bejani incorporates everyday cultural items like bougainvillea and 20th-century Lebanese postage stamps to explore themes of land, identity, and resistance, reclaiming darkness as a source of empowerment rather than a metaphor for evil.
Artist Zoya Cherkassky, born in Kyiv and a longtime resident of Israel, has relocated to Shelter Island after fleeing to Berlin following the October 7, 2023 attacks. She discovered the island during a stay with her gallerists from Fort Gansevoort and now has a permanent studio there. Cherkassky, known for politically charged works, recently created a series of colored pencil drawings responding to the Hamas attacks, which were exhibited at the Jewish Museum in New York as "October 7th, 2023." Her latest Shelter Island paintings mark a dramatic shift toward tranquil landscapes and sunsets.
Acclaimed Norwegian artist and writer Lars Elling is set to debut his first South African exhibition, "Dreams of Reason," at the Everard Read Gallery in Franschhoek on April 11, 2026. The collection features works created during his annual five-month residencies at the De Rust farm in Elgin, home of Paul Clüver Family Wines. The exhibition marks a significant shift in Elling’s palette, moving from the muted greys of Norway to the vibrant ochres and blues of the Western Cape, while exploring the liminal psychological space between sleep and wakefulness.
Alexandra Noel has opened a solo exhibition titled "999" at Derosia gallery in New York. The show features new work created during a period of personal and conceptual transition, as suggested by the artist's reflections on ownership, space, and displacement.
On April 8, 2025, a wave of Israeli airstrikes across Lebanon killed 357 people and injured over 1,200, a day now known as 'Black Wednesday.' Amid the violence, Lebanese artist Abed Al Kadiri, who grew up during Lebanon's civil war and Israeli occupation, has been working with displaced children in shelters, using art to help them process trauma. He collects their drawings and plans to combine them with sketches by other artists reflecting their own war experiences, creating concertina-style books to be exhibited and sold to raise funds for over 1.1 million displaced people.
The Banco de la República has opened a new exhibition at the Museo de Arte Miguel Urrutia (MAMU) in Bogotá titled "Francis Alÿs, juegxs de niñxs 1999–2025." Featuring 27 video works from the Belgian-born, Mexico-based artist's long-running series documenting children's games worldwide, the show opened on April 23 at El Parqueadero and the second floor of MAMU. Curated by Cuauhtémoc Medina and Virginia Roy, the exhibition includes footage from Afghanistan, India, Mexico, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Colombia, where a new work filmed in the Amazon with the Arara community is featured.
The Asian Art Museum in San Francisco has opened 'Chiharu Shiota: Two Home Countries,' the first solo exhibition in the Bay Area for the Japanese-born, Berlin-based artist. The show features her signature immersive installations of red thread, weaving together personal objects and exploring themes of memory, displacement, and identity.
Ukrainian visual artist Tetiana Popyk is presenting her first major solo exhibition, titled 'BeComing,' at the Gallery CAW in Walferdange. Running from April 17 to May 3, 2026, the show features a diverse range of photography, mixed media, and conceptual photo collages that explore the intersection of femininity, cultural identity, and belief systems. The exhibition includes works from several of her established series, such as 'Majestic Women of the World' and 'Ukrainian Legends,' alongside a new project focused on androgyny that was originally conceived during the pandemic.
The Museum of Modern Art and the Philadelphia Museum of Art have co-organized a major exhibition and catalogue exploring Marcel Duchamp’s complex relationship with art institutions. Despite his reputation as a skeptical iconoclast who famously claimed to avoid the Louvre, Duchamp spent decades actively reshaping how museums function through his "portable museum" projects, curatorial collaborations, and the strategic placement of his legacy within permanent collections.
Artist Melissa McGill has announced "Marea," a large-scale public art intervention set to debut in Venice's Corte Nova during the 61st Venice Biennale in 2026. The project features approximately 100 paintings created on bedsheets, which will be hung from traditional laundry lines spanning the historic street. Developed in collaboration with local residents and students from Università Iuav di Venezia, the installation uses shades of blue and green to mirror the Venetian Lagoon and celebrate the city's enduring community spirit.
The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco has opened "Chiharu Shiota: Two Home Countries," a major exhibition featuring the Japanese-German artist’s signature large-scale yarn installations. The show centers on immersive works like "Diary," which utilizes 20 miles of red thread to suspend historical documents and personal ephemera, and the title installation which explores the artist's dual identity between Japan and Germany. Through sculptures and performance videos, the exhibition navigates themes of memory, trauma, and the biological realities of the human body, including Shiota’s personal battles with cancer.
On March 17, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt officially dedicated the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. The museum was established through the massive bequest of industrialist Andrew Mellon, who donated his world-class art collection, the funds for the building's construction, and a significant endowment. The opening marked a milestone in American cultural history, providing the public with access to a premier national collection of Old Master paintings.
The Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas is opening two major exhibitions on February 19: 'Street Nihonga: The Art of Jimmy Tsutomu Mirikitani' and 'Brush, Block, and Blood: Three Generations of Yoshida Women Printmakers.' The Mirikitani exhibition is the largest assembly of the Japanese American artist's work, featuring 145 pieces that document his life of displacement, incarceration, and homelessness, created using traditional Japanese techniques with found materials. The Yoshida exhibition presents prints by three generations of women from a renowned Japanese artistic family, marking the first U.S. display of their work together.
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) has announced the opening schedule for its long-awaited David Geffen Galleries, a new single-building replacement for its eastern campus. A ribbon-cutting ceremony on April 19, 2026, will kick off two weeks of previews for members and donors, with general public access beginning on May 4. The building, designed by architect Peter Zumthor, will feature a mix of returning collection highlights, recent acquisitions, and new commissions.
Curator Omar Lopez-Chahoud has launched his first independent project since leaving his role as artistic director of Untitled Art Miami Beach. Titled *Fragments of Displacement*, the group exhibition debuted on December 2 at Miami Produce, an open-air fruit and vegetable market in the Allapattah neighborhood. Co-organized with Eduardo Lopez, founder of Mexico’s FF Projects, the show features works by established artists including Jorge Méndez Blake, Helmut Lang, and Andrea Geyer, alongside emerging talents like Chantal Peñalosa Fong. The exhibition runs until March 1, 2026, and is designed to activate unconventional spaces and engage the local community.
A new exhibition titled 'Resonant Histories' has opened at Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS) museum, running until 16 February 2026. It is the first show to focus on the relationship between Indian and Arab Modernism, featuring over 40 works lent by the Sharjah-based Barjeel Art Foundation alongside pieces from Mumbai's Jehangir Nicholson Art Foundation (JNAF). The exhibition highlights visual and thematic resonances between artists from both regions, such as Syrian painter Marwan Kassab-Bachi and Indian master Francis Newton Souza, and addresses shared post-colonial struggles through works by artists like Chittaprosad Bhattacharya, Krishen Khanna, Abdul Qader Al Rais, and Naim Ismail. It also explores direct cultural exchanges, for example Egyptian artist Nazek Hamdi's adaptation of Bengali folk-art.
The six artists shortlisted for the 2025 Artes Mundi 11 prize present works addressing displacement, colonial trauma, and migration amid divisive global politics. The exhibition, held at the National Museum Cardiff and other Welsh venues, features Sancintya Mohini Simpson’s subversive Indian miniature-style paintings depicting the horrors of indentured labor, alongside works by Jumana Emil Abboud, Anawana Haloba, and Sawangwongse Yawnghwe. The prize, the UK’s largest cash award for an exhibition at £40,000, continues its evolution by offering solo presentations across multiple venues.
Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei has unveiled a major new commission in Kyiv, Ukraine, titled 'Three Perfectly Proportioned Spheres and Camouflage Uniforms Painted White,' on view until November 30. The site-specific installation, commissioned by the non-profit cultural platform Ribbon International, features three spheres wrapped in camouflaged fabric dotted with animal images, responding to escalating global armed conflicts. Ai recently traveled to the front line of the war in eastern Ukraine near Kharkiv, meeting Ukrainian fighters and cultural figures, and also planted sunflower seeds and buttons in a field there as a ceremonial act.
This season's public art in New York City features a diverse array of outdoor exhibitions across parks and streets. Highlights include Thaddeus Mosley's towering bronze sculptures at City Hall Park, Lady Pink's mural "Foundations" at MoMA PS1, Tai Shani's candle-like sculptures on the High Line, Alma Allen's organic forms along Park Avenue, Torkwase Dyson's pavilion at Brooklyn Bridge Park, and the Socrates Annual at Socrates Sculpture Park featuring artists like Natalia Nakazawa and Rowan Renee.
A new exhibition at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, titled "The Magical City: George Morrison’s New York," showcases the largest-ever show of works by Ojibwe abstract painter George Morrison (1919-2000). Running until 31 May 2026, the exhibition features 25 works and archival materials, highlighting Morrison's Abstract Expressionist style and the tension between his life in New York City and his roots on the Grand Portage Chippewa reservation. The show includes pieces like "The Antagonist" (1956) and "Aureate Vertical" (1958), revealing his dual experiences of urban glamour and Native displacement.
Climate activists from Greenpeace installed a new artwork by Anish Kapoor on a Shell gas platform in the North Sea. Titled "BUTCHERED," the 12m by 8m canvas was attached to the platform and drenched with a blood-red liquid made from seawater, beetroot powder, and non-toxic pond dye to symbolize the environmental destruction caused by fossil fuel companies. The protest coincided with record-breaking heatwaves in Europe. Kapoor described the work as a tribute to activists and a "visual scream" against the climate crisis, while Shell condemned the action as dangerous and illegal trespassing.
Wayne McGregor, artistic director of the Biennale Danza in Venice, has created a new immersive dance installation titled 'On the Other Earth' in collaboration with artist Jeffrey Shaw and digital museologist Sarah Kenderdine. The work features a 360-degree 'nVis' environment with a massive 12K LED screen, allowing dancers from McGregor's company and the Hong Kong Ballet to perform in extreme close-up. The installation will travel to the Venice Film Festival, Stone's Nest in London as part of McGregor's exhibition 'Infinite Bodies' at Somerset House, and later to the Tai Kwun Centre for Heritage and Arts in Hong Kong.
The Acropolis Museum in Athens has opened "Allspice: Michael Rakowitz and Ancient Cultures," the first exhibition in a trilogy organized with the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and the nonprofit Neon. It is also the first time the museum has presented work by a living artist. The show pairs ancient objects from the University of Chicago’s Institute for the Study of Ancient Culture and the Thanos N. Zintilis Collection of Cypriot Antiquities with 14 works by Iraqi-American artist Michael Rakowitz, including pieces from his ongoing series "The invisible enemy should not exist," which recreates artifacts looted or destroyed from the National Museum of Iraq. Rakowitz’s lamassu reliefs, reimagined from the Palace of Nimrud, and a new commission featuring his mother’s recipes explore themes of lost heritage, memory, and diaspora.
A new contemporary art museum, the New Museum of Santiago (NuMu), is set to break ground in Chile's capital in August 2025. Led by businessman and philanthropist Claudio Engel and his four children through the Engel Foundation, the museum will be built around the family's collection of over 1,000 works by more than 200 artists, including Alfredo Jaar, Paz Errázuriz, and Pilar Quinteros. Designed by architect Cristián Fernández, the 2,000 sq. m facility will feature exhibition spaces, a sound-art room, an auditorium, a library, a restaurant, and a museum shop. It will be the first large-scale contemporary art museum in Chile housed in a new structure, located in Vitacura's Bicentennial Park.
The Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) is presenting "Reverse Migration, a Poetic Journey," the first solo exhibition in Ireland by Chilean artist Cecilia Vicuña. The show features a diverse range of works including her signature 'precarios' and 'quipus'—ancient Andean-inspired textile structures—alongside early paintings and sound installations. Central to the exhibition is Vicuña’s personal connection to Ireland, explored through a 2006 pilgrimage to archaeological sites and new collaborations with local artisans using Irish wool.
Art Fund, a British charity, launched the Empowering Curators program, a five-year initiative creating twenty multi-year curatorial roles for senior to mid-career professionals from global majority backgrounds. Ten initial fellows have been announced, with placements at major institutions including Tate Liverpool, the Whitworth Art Gallery, and Royal Museums Greenwich, where they will develop exhibitions, installations, and academic programs.