The Complex, a major multi-artform venue in Dublin, was evicted from its warehouse building in January 2026 after its lease expired. A public campaign to save it, supported by politicians and cultural officials, failed due to a lack of legal mechanisms to protect grassroots cultural organizations. This closure follows a pattern of similar artist-led spaces folding in Ireland, most recently Ormond Studios.
The Ventura County arts community is launching a series of local exhibitions and theater productions for the week of April 9, 2026. Highlights include the opening of the political comedy "The Outsider" at the Santa Paula Theater Center and the "Rediscovering" exhibition at Fox Fine Jewelry featuring Lisa Sachs and Thomas Hoerber. Additionally, the Camarillo Art Center is hosting a themed exhibition titled "I dream my paintings, then I paint my dream," alongside various technical workshops in watercolor and gourd art.
Fondazione Bvlgari scommette sulla Biennale di Venezia: oltre al padiglione ai Giardini, una mostra alla Biblioteca Marciana
Fondazione Bvlgari is making its debut at the Venice Biennale with a collateral exhibition at the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, featuring site-specific works by Monia Ben Hamouda and Lara Favaretto. The show runs from May 9 to November 22, 2025, alongside the 61st International Art Exhibition. Ben Hamouda presents 'Fragments of Fire Worship,' neon sculptures in the Vestibule that explore language and cultural heritage, while Favaretto installs the final edition of 'Momentary Monument – The Library' in the Salone Sansovino, inviting public consultation of donated books. Additionally, Bvlgari has a pavilion in the Giardini featuring Canadian artist Lotus L. Kang, as part of a three-edition partnership with the Biennale through 2030.
L’artista Pietro Roccasalva senza tregua: genealogia di un motivo resiliente nella mostra a Milano
Italian artist Pietro Roccasalva presents a new body of work at MASSIMODECARLO’s Casa Corbellini-Wassermann in Milan, titled "Io ti saluto luce, ma con nervi offesi." The exhibition features a series of paintings characterized by dense stratification, featuring recurring motifs like a disheveled child, a bride with a tennis racket, and metamorphic animals. These works function as visual deposits where cultural references and personal iconography overlap, creating a theatrical dialogue with the gallery’s historic architecture.
Moraine Valley Community College in Palos Hills, Illinois, is inviting artists aged 18 and older living within 50 miles to submit up to two pieces for its 23rd annual community art show. Submissions are accepted May 19-21, with notifications on May 26. The exhibition runs May 29 to July 30, opening with a reception and awards ceremony on May 30. This year’s juror is Lisa DeLuca, a photographer and teaching artist with experience as a recruiter for art schools and a docent at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. She has previously juried the college’s high school exhibition and other regional shows.
Chris Kraus's latest novel, *The Four Spent the Day Together*, reimagines the true crime genre by shifting focus from individual villains to systemic forces like addiction, poverty, and broken treatment systems. Set in Minnesota's Iron Range, the story follows autofictional avatar Catt Greene and her husband as they confront a lost day, a potentially violated girl, methamphetamine, and a gun, with confessions coming easily but answers remaining elusive. Kraus draws on her own childhood and a marriage unraveling amid alcoholism and cancel culture, using wordplay and chance to restore nuanced meaning to stories often reduced to predestined narratives.
The Saatchi Gallery in London is hosting "Textile Art Redefined," a group exhibition featuring 15 artists from the UK and around the world, including Ian Berry, Kaffe Fassett, Magda Sayeg, and Jakkai Siributr. Curated by Helen Adams based on her book "Textile Fine Art," the show presents a wide range of techniques such as embroidery, quilting, weaving, knitting, and crochet, with works like Fassett's "Geometric Sampler" and Berry's "Secret Garden" made from recycled denim. The exhibition runs from April 10 to May 10, 2026.
Sixteen artists have been commissioned to create original works for "Forged," a group exhibition at Drummond Studio Gallery honoring the legacy of Philip Simmons. Simmons was a master ironworker and blacksmith whose ornamental gates and balconies are definitive features of Charleston’s architectural landscape. The exhibition, which opens March 6, features local artists including Demetrius Bing, Riivo Kruuk, and Jonathan Green, and aims to highlight the cultural significance of the Simmons home and workshop.
A Nazi-looted painting, *Portrait of a Young Girl* by Dutch artist Toon Kelder, has been discovered in the home of descendants of Hendrik Seyffardt, a Dutch SS collaborator who aided the Nazis during World War II. The work, stolen from the renowned Goudstikker collection, was allegedly displayed for decades by Seyffardt's family. An anonymous descendant contacted art detective Arthur Brand after learning of his family's past and seeing the painting in the hallway of Seyffardt's granddaughter. The family member told Dutch newspaper *De Telegraaf* that he feels "deep shame" and insists the painting must be returned to the Jewish rightful heirs.
An exhibition by Israeli artist Amir Fattal at König gallery in Mexico City was forced to close a week early after a campaign of antisemitic harassment escalated from online abuse to physical protests and vandalism. Vandals spray-painted swastikas, Stars of David, and the phrase "here there are terrorists" on the gallery's facade, and protesters gathered outside calling the artist a murderer and Mossad agent.
The Winter Show returns to New York's Park Avenue Armory for its 72nd edition, running from January 23 to February 1, 2026. The fair brings together over 70 international dealers offering a wide range of collecting categories including jewels, antiques, design, and fine art. Highlights include returning exhibitors such as A La Vieille Russie, Ralph M. Chait Galleries, and Joan B Mirviss, alongside newcomers like Galerie Cahn, Greg Pepin Silver, and Rose Uniacke. The fair also features a Design Council co-chaired by Noz Nozawa, Ben Pentreath, Jane Keltner de Valle, and Giancarlo Valle, and includes benefit events like Opening Night Preview and Young Collectors Night.
Paul Chan, the artist known for his early digital video works, is preparing for a new exhibition at Greene Naftali titled "Automa Mon Amour," opening March 12, featuring his latest "breathers"—kinetic windsock-like sculptures powered by fans. Chan, who quit making art in 2009 to found the indie publishing house Badlands Unlimited, has since returned to art-making with analog-focused works, yet simultaneously developed Paul’ (Paul Prime), a sophisticated AI project that creates a digital version of himself using his personal data, writings, and interviews. The article explores the contradiction between Chan's rejection of screens and his engagement with highly technical, code-intensive digital art.
Over 250 supporters gathered at downtown creative hub WSA on Sunday for the first annual gala of the nonprofit Artists & Mothers, a sold-out fundraiser for the organization’s hallmark $25,000 childcare grants supporting artists with children under three. The event featured interactive installations by Ei Arakawa-Nash, Lisa Alvarado, and Maia Ruth Lee, performances by DJ Cardamami, Sophie Becker, Zeena Parkins, and others, and was attended by co-founders Julia Trotta and Maria De Victoria, incoming First Lady of New York Rama Duwaji, numerous artists, curators, patrons, and gallerists.
Artist Mary Sims is the subject of a new exhibition at the Dixon Gallery & Gardens in Memphis, featuring her eclectic and imaginative works. The article highlights a signature piece titled "Merlin," inspired by a 1978 photograph of interior designer Rodgers Menzies dressed in a yellow caftan, purple cloak, and newspaper cone hat, posing by a stone lion outside a now-demolished Union Avenue mansion. The exhibition showcases Sims' kooky, crazy, and imaginative style.
A 125-year-old dairy barn converted into a contemporary art museum will open May 1 in Indianapolis's Garfield Park neighborhood. The Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis (CAMi), founded by Big Car Collaborative co-founders Jim Walker and Shauta Marsh, spans 40,000 square feet and includes six exhibition spaces, 18 artist studios, five storefronts for creative businesses, a performance space, a cafe, and a culinary arts area. The museum will be free to the public, with its inaugural exhibition featuring Puerto Rican painter Ivelisse Jiménez in the Jeremy Efroymson Gallery. CAMi aims to offer a welcoming, barrier-free environment—no security guards, no stern signage—and will focus on paying artists to create work rather than acquiring a permanent collection.
Alexandria Contemporary Art Days launches from October 9th to 16th, 2025, transforming the Egyptian city into an open-air gallery. The festival features site-specific works by local and international artists across venues including the French Institute, Behna Warehouse, El Garage Cultural Space, and the Bibliotheca Alexandrina. Highlights include a performance connecting breath and sound by dancer Salma Salem and trombonist Simon Petermann, a drawing-based installation by Mohamed Adel Dessouki, and Tiana Kader's evolving participatory installation 'The House of the Fat Lady'. The programme also includes exhibitions, live performances, workshops, talks, and guided walks such as 'Art on Foot'.
Romania is set to hold a re-run presidential election on May 4, 2025, after the original election was annulled due to allegations of Russian interference favoring far-right candidate Călin Georgescu. With Georgescu barred, another far-right candidate, George Simion, leads polls, sparking protests and online debates over nationalism, LGBTQ rights, and foreign relations. The political turmoil has affected the art scene, with gallery founder Suzana Vasilescu reporting a standstill in art sales and tension among collectors, though the scene remains resilient. Upcoming events like the RAD art fair and Art Encounters Biennale are proceeding, but art professionals express vigilance against potential nationalist pressures.
Larry Gagosian, the mega-dealer, has candidly discussed the failure of his San Francisco gallery, which operated from 2016 to 2021. He stated the gallery simply failed because "nobody showed up" to openings, describing the experience as depressing. The closure was part of a broader reflection on his career, prompted by the opening of a new Gagosian gallery on New York's Upper East Side.
The German government has established a new council, the Coordination Council for Returns of Cultural Property and Human Remains from Colonial Contexts, to oversee the restitution of artifacts acquired during the colonial era. The council will include representatives from federal, state, and municipal authorities and is intended to provide a structured, national approach to handling these complex returns.
The New Museum in New York has opened a major new extension designed by architects Shohei Shigematsu and Rem Koolhaas of OMA. The expansion is inaugurated with a new exhibition titled "New Humans: Memories of the Future," curated by the museum's artistic director Massimiliano Gioni.
MASSIMODECARLO Pièce Unique in Paris presents 'Pareidolia,' an exhibition of new paintings by London-based artist Daniel Crews-Chubb. The show explores the psychological phenomenon of pareidolia—the brain's tendency to see faces in random patterns—through heavily layered works created with hands, ink, oil, sand, and collage. Three paintings are featured: 'Immortal XXXVIII' and 'Immortal XXXIX' (2026), large-scale works drawing on cultural memory of ancient sculpture, and 'Mask XXIV' (2026), which tests the minimal cues needed for facial recognition. Crews-Chubb's process involves building up and tearing back surfaces over weeks, with charcoal lines added last to define emergent figures.
The PinchukArtCentre has opened a new exhibition titled "Still Joy — From Ukraine Into the World" as part of the official parallel program of the 61st Venice Biennale. The show, which opened on May 7 at Palazzo Contarini Polignac and runs through August 1, features works by over 20 international and Ukrainian artists exploring joy as an act of resilience and humanity. Central to the exhibition are testimonies from Hlib Stryzhko, a marine veteran who returned from Russian captivity, which are transformed into sculptural elements. Notable works include a protest performance by Yurii Hruzinov at the Russian pavilion, a video installation of Kyiv rave parties by Malashchuk and Khimei, and installations by Future Generation Art Prize laureates Ashfika Rahman and Zhanna Kadyrova.
This article is a local arts listings roundup for the week of May 7, 2026, in Ventura County, California. It includes opening theater productions such as "¡Ay Chihuahua! A Mariachi Musical" at California State University, Channel Islands, "Eleanor" at Rubicon Theatre Company, and "It's a Trip, Man: An Evening with a Hollywood Has-Been" at Ojai Art Center Theatre. Art openings feature the Camarillo Art Center's gourd class and exhibition "May I Have Your Attention!," Canvas and Paper's show of work by L.S. Lowry, and the Carolyn Glasoe Bailey Foundation's "r/evolve: celebrating the circular" by Christopher Noxon. The piece also lists auditions for "The Importance of Being Earnest" at Moorpark College and a call for submissions to the Ojai Art Center Theater's 2027 season.
Francis Dosoo, a self-taught Scottish artist now based in Vienna, is mounting his first solo show at Dundee Contemporary Arts (DCA) titled "Portrait Of Dorothy Gale." Dosoo began his career in nightlife, running club nights and DJ sets that blended into performance and installation art. His practice spans sound, film, and visual art, with past collaborations including Joanne Dawson, Aniela Piasecka, and Alberta Whittle, and commissions from the Glasgow Film Festival and Edinburgh Art Festival. The DCA exhibition draws on the 1978 film *The Wiz*, reimagining *The Wizard of Oz* with an African-American cast, focusing on star Diana Ross's career and personal life at the time.
Two simultaneous exhibitions at Almeida & Dale in São Paulo present contrasting visions: American artist Peter Halley's "The American Connection," curated by Antonio Gonçalves Filho, features his signature geometric abstractions using Roll-A-Tex and Day-Glo colors to critique digital confinement and post-industrial surfaces. Brazilian artist Maxwell Alexandre shows works from his "Clube" series, depicting Black bodies navigating exclusionary leisure spaces. The pairing is deliberate, not for aesthetic dialogue but to juxtapose an established international artist with a rising Brazilian talent, timed to coincide with SP-ARTE.
The article highlights the best galleries and cultural spaces in Colombo, Sri Lanka, which is emerging as a vibrant cultural hub in Asia. It features established venues like the Sapumal Foundation, founded by painter Harry Pieris, the Barefoot Gallery, and the Colombo National Museum, alongside newer spots such as the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Sri Lanka and Millennium Art Contemporary. Notable artists mentioned include Tilak Samarawickrema, Chamila Gamage, and the historic '43 Group, which includes George Keyt and Lionel Wendt. The article also spotlights Radicle, Colombo's newest gallery, which recently hosted Priyantha Udagedara's solo exhibition "Terra Nullius."
Artist Karl Ullger is participating in a group exhibition titled 'Running with Scissors' at Anders Galerie in Berlin. The show features over 40 artists from the global online collective Cane-Yo, including six of Ullger's figurative oil paintings, three of which are new works created specifically for the event.
French artist Bertrand Lavier is presenting a solo exhibition titled 'Brushstroke n.7' at MASSIMODECARLO Pièce Unique in Paris. The exhibition centers on a single, sinuous steel sculpture that translates the traditionally flat, expressive painterly gesture into a three-dimensional physical entity. This presentation marks Lavier's sixth solo show with the gallery and continues his decades-long exploration of the boundaries between painting, sculpture, and the readymade.
Simchowitz Gallery is presenting "Two of Us," a dual exhibition featuring Ukrainian artists Andrey Samarin and Lera Derkach at Hill House in Pasadena. The show explores the creative dialogue between the two artists, who have lived and worked together in France for the past three years while maintaining distinct individual practices. Samarin’s work focuses on the physical gesture of painting, blending abstraction and figuration influenced by German Expressionism and medieval art, while Derkach’s canvases lean into dreamlike narratives, metamorphosis, and psychological tension.
The St. Louis-based triennial Counterpublic has announced its artist lineup and thematic framework for its 2026 edition, set to open on September 12. Featuring more than 50 artists across five primary locations, the free public art festival will showcase newly commissioned works by major figures such as Glenn Ligon, Rebecca Belmore, and Rirkrit Tiravanija. The exhibition, titled "Coyote Time," explores themes of rapid societal change, community resilience, and the "near future," with specific installations addressing the aftermath of a 2025 tornado and the history of local landmarks like Sumner High School.