Vietnamese sculptor and visual artist Tuan Andrew Nguyen has unveiled a 27-foot-tall sandstone Buddha sculpture titled *The Light That Shines Through the Universe* (2026) on New York's High Line Plinth, at the intersection of 10th Avenue and 30th Street. The monumental work is the newest commission for the elevated park's public art program and will remain on view for the next 18 months.
Two letters to the editor respond to Charlotte Higgins's article on Francisco de Zurbarán. Paul McGilchrist critiques the physical inaccuracy of crucifixion depictions, including Zurbarán's *The Crucified Christ*, noting that most paintings fail to convey the true weight and distortion of a body suspended by nails. Jean Wilson highlights Zurbarán's series *Jacob and his 12 Sons* at Auckland Palace in Bishop Auckland, describing its history since 1756 and its connection to Bishop Trevor's support for Jewish rights.
A small London gallery, Malarkey, is exhibiting eight paintings by Welsh-born artist Sylvia Sleigh (1916–2010), including her monumental 1963 work *The Bridge*, which is now for sale. The show, curated by Daniel Malarkey, features Sleigh's earliest-known self-portrait and her first commission, alongside other nudes that challenge traditional objectification by portraying both sexes with dignity. Sleigh, who studied at Brighton School of Art and moved to New York with her second husband, critic Lawrence Alloway, reimagined classical poses like Giorgione's *Sleeping Venus* in modern settings, notably including a daring flash of pubic hair in *The Bridge*.
On the second day of the Venice Biennale preview, the activist group Pussy Riot staged a chaotic protest at the Russian pavilion, forcing it to temporarily close. Wearing pink balaclavas and carrying flares, about 40 activists—including members of Femen—gathered outside the pavilion, shouting slogans like "Blood is Russia's Art" and attempting to enter before being pushed back by police. Founding member Nadya Tolokonnikova led the protest, condemning Europe for allowing Russian participation despite the war in Ukraine. Separately, the Art Not Genocide Alliance (Anga) demonstrated outside the Israeli pavilion, which was locked from inside, over Israel's war in Gaza.
The 61st Venice Biennale opened under grey skies and rain, with political tensions overshadowing the art world's premier event. The Russian pavilion, absent for two editions due to the Ukraine war, reappeared with a party atmosphere, though the Italian ministry of culture confirmed it would not be open to the public. The Ukrainian culture minister called Russia's symbolic presence powerful. The Iranian pavilion withdrew without explanation, and a protest by 60 artists from the In Minor Keys show marched through the Giardini humming in solidarity against Israel's participation. Over 200 artists, including Lubaina Himid and Alfredo Jaar, signed an open letter demanding the Israeli pavilion's cancellation. The event also proceeded without its curator, Koyo Kouoh, who died in May 2025; her curatorial team delivered the exhibition following her plans.
Lubaina Himid's installation at the British pavilion of the Venice Biennale presents monumental paintings and a wall of painted oars depicting tailors, cooks, architects, gardeners, and sailors—figures who shape Britain. The work is accompanied by an audio piece of bucolic country sounds, but the black figures in the paintings exchange sideways glances of discomfort, questioning whether they truly belong. The exhibition is anchored by 26 philosophical questions on the wall, such as "Can flies settle here?" and "Can poison taste delicious?"
Fotografia Europea, the international photography festival in Reggio Emilia, Italy, has opened with 20 exhibitions and related events under the theme 'ghosts of the moment'. The festival features works by artists including Tania Franco Klein, Giulia Vanelli, Felipe Romero Beltrán, and Salvatore Vitale, exploring themes of memory, migration, identity, and the unseen forces shaping contemporary life. The festival runs until 14 June 2026.
Iranian-Canadian visual journalist and artist Parisa Azadi describes her process of creating protest photographs during the 2022 Iranian revolution from exile in Dubai. Unable to return to Iran, she used open-source protest footage from social media, isolating frames and printing them with a Fujifilm instax camera to transform ephemeral digital images into physical objects. In January 2026, after state massacres and executions, she began burning these prints as an act of mourning, scarring their surfaces to echo the violence they depict.
Anish Kapoor has called for the United States to be excluded from the Venice Biennale, citing the country's "abhorrent politics of hate" and "incessant warmongering." His comments follow the resignation of the five-member international jury, who stepped down in protest over the inclusion of Israel and Russia. Kapoor praised the jury's decision as "courageous" but argued they should have also targeted the US. The US pavilion, featuring artist Alma Allen and his exhibition "Call Me the Breeze," has faced scrutiny over perceived Trump administration interference and a delayed selection process. Meanwhile, the Israeli and Russian pavilions remain flashpoints, with over 200 participants signing a letter demanding the cancellation of the Israeli pavilion, and the Russian pavilion closed to the public but viewable through windows.
Ana Viladomiu, a 70-year-old writer, is the last remaining tenant of Antoni Gaudí’s Casa Milà (La Pedrera) in Barcelona, a UNESCO World Heritage site that receives about a million visitors annually. She has lived in the luminous apartment since 1988, originally moving in with her then-husband Fernando Amat, owner of the iconic design store Vinçon. Viladomiu holds a rare renta antigua (fixed-rent contract) that allows her to stay until she or Amat dies, after which the not-for-profit foundation managing the building will take ownership. The rest of the building now houses offices and cultural event spaces.
Ukrainian artist Zhanna Kadyrova's concrete origami deer sculpture, originally installed in Pokrovsk in 2018, has been evacuated from the war-torn Donetsk region and transported across Europe to become the centerpiece of Ukraine's national pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale. The sculpture, which replaced a Soviet fighter-bomber monument in a local park, was rescued in August 2024 by co-curator Leonid Marushchak amid intensifying Russian attacks, with the help of city authorities and museum staff.
Georg Baselitz, the German painter and sculptor known for his provocative confrontations with Nazi history, has died. Born in 1938, he was one of the last living artists with direct childhood memories of the Third Reich. His early works, such as *Die große Nacht im Eimer* (1961) and his upside-down German eagles, deliberately shocked postwar West Germany by depicting obscene, shameful images of a society trying to forget the Holocaust. He famously exhibited a zombie Hitler woodcarving at the 1980 Venice Biennale alongside Anselm Kiefer, insisting on confronting rather than ignoring the Nazi heritage of the German Pavilion.
Sotheby's will auction a major collection of masterpieces by artists including Gustav Klimt, Henri Matisse, Lucian Freud, and Francis Bacon, consigned by Joe Lewis and his daughter Vivienne, whose family owns Tottenham Hotspur. The collection, expected to fetch over £150 million, is projected to become the most valuable ever offered in London, with highlights such as Klimt's 'Bildnis Gertrud Loew' (estimated £20-30m) and Egon Schiele's 'Danaë' (estimated £12-18m, potentially setting a new artist record). The works will be exhibited in New York and London before the June sales.
A new statue bearing Banksy's signature has appeared in Waterloo Place, central London, depicting a man marching forward with a large flag obscuring his face. The elusive artist has not yet confirmed the work, though he typically posts confirmation on his website after public discovery. The statue stands near monuments to Edward VII and Florence Nightingale, and follows Banksy's previous sculptural works like *The Drinker* (2004) and recent murals addressing homelessness and protest.
The Guardian reviews a major UK exhibition of land artist Nancy Holt (1938-2014) at Goodwood in West Sussex, the largest show of her work to date. The exhibition features two large outdoor installations—Ventilation System, a metallic tubular structure resembling building lungs, and Hydra’s Head, six concrete pools arranged like the Hydra constellation in a chalk quarry—alongside indoor photographs, diagrams, and light works. The review praises the cosmic scale and bodily connection of the outdoor pieces but finds the indoor works less effective at conveying Holt’s themes of universal vastness and interconnectedness.
Photographer Will Vogt's second monograph, *Behind the Hedges*, offers an intimate glimpse into the lives of America's gilded elite, featuring images of his own social circle at hunting estates, weddings, exclusive club lunches, and golf weekends. The book, published by Schilt Publishing, includes quotes by Vogt and text by editor Jennifer Garza-Cuen from her essay 'Posture of Privilege,' capturing a world of inherited wealth and tradition.
A new exhibition titled 'Making Her Mark' opens at Penlee House in Penzance, Cornwall, featuring works by prominent British female artists such as Tracey Emin, Barbara Hepworth, Laura Knight, Elizabeth Forbes, and Gillian Ayres. The show is a collaboration between Penlee House, Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum, and Kirkcaldy Galleries in Fife, Scotland, with each contributing more than 20 works. It is the first exhibition launched under Art Fund's £5 million 'Going Places' programme, which unites 20 museums across the UK over five years to share and celebrate their collections.
Belarus Free Theatre (BFT), an exiled troupe based in London, is presenting its first major visual art project, titled 'Official. Unofficial. Belarus.', at the Venice Biennale. The installation, masterminded by the founders' daughter Daniella Kaliada, features contributions from former political prisoners, painters, sculptors, composers, and world-renowned chef Rasmus Munk, who created a dish evoking detention under an authoritarian regime. The work includes a giant ball of banned books, surveillance cameras attached to an iron crucifix, and a custom scent of a freshly dug grave, all reflecting the terror of life under Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko.
A reader named Elke Bachler writes a letter to The Guardian challenging a sentence in a review of Thomas Laqueur's book *The Dog's Gaze*. The review described a prehistoric scene as showing "a boy and a dog" standing together in wonder before cave art. Bachler argues there is no evidence the child was a boy, noting that archaeology has historically been dominated by men who interpreted evidence through contemporary gender roles.
The 2026 Turner Prize nominees have been announced, featuring artists Marguerite Humeau, Tanoa Sasraku, Kira Freije, and Simeon Barclay. The shortlist is notably lacking in painting, video art, and overtly political work, instead offering sci-fi utopianism, jazz performance poetry, ephemeral sculpture, and anti-corporate satire. Critics describe the selection as timid and safe compared to previous years, missing the anger, radicalism, and transformative joy of past editions.
Anozero, a biennial art festival held in Coimbra's Monastery of Santa Clara-a-Nova, has opened a ghostly edition that uses installations—including Taryn Simon's sound piece of laments in multiple languages—to protest plans by the Portuguese government to redevelop the 17th-century convent into a hotel under its Revive programme. Festival co-founder Carlos Antunes threatens to cancel the biennial if the development proceeds, framing the event as a warning to the developer about the spirits that haunt the building.
Art Fund director Jenny Waldman responds to a philosophical article about art's intrinsic value, arguing that while art should be enjoyed for its own sake, promoting its measurable health benefits can serve as a crucial entry point for new audiences. She cites the organization's National Art Pass adverts and recent research with King's College London, which demonstrated immediate physiological responses to viewing original art, as tools to invite people who might otherwise feel excluded from cultural institutions.
Andrew Durbin's new book, 'The Wonderful World that Almost Was,' is a double biography of painter and sculptor Paul Thek and photographer Peter Hujar. It chronicles their artistic maturation, their open and unapologetic gay relationship, and their central role in defining the 'cool' of the New York creative scene from the 1950s to the mid-1970s, before their deaths from AIDS.
Chris Mullen, a distinguished educator and historian of art and design, has died at the age of 81. Throughout a career spanning over three decades at the Norwich School of Art and the University of Brighton, Mullen became a pivotal figure in integrating contextual studies with studio practice. He was renowned for his vast personal archive of printed ephemera and his digital project, "The Visual Telling of Stories," which served as a vital resource for generations of students and researchers.
Photographer Albert Scopin has released a new book through Kerber Verlag documenting his residency at New York’s iconic Chelsea Hotel between 1969 and 1971. The collection features rare, intimate portraits of the hotel's legendary inhabitants, including a young Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe before their rise to global fame, alongside long-time manager Stanley Bard and avant-garde figures like Vali Myers and Holly Woodlawn. Scopin’s lens captures the 'creative chaos' of the era, from the art-filled lobby to the eccentric private quarters of residents like composer George Kleinsinger.
Director Cédric Klapisch’s new film, *Colours of Time* (originally *La Venue de L’Avenir*), is a sentimental French comedy that weaves a fictional romantic history around Impressionist master Claude Monet and pioneering photographer Félix Nadar. The plot follows a group of modern-day descendants who discover a trove of historical secrets in a derelict cottage, leading to a whimsical, time-bending exploration of their ancestors' lives in Belle Époque Paris.
A bronze statue of the iconic literary and film character Bridget Jones has been granted permanent residency in London’s Leicester Square. Originally intended for a three-year temporary stay, the sculpture was unveiled in November as part of Westminster Council’s 'Scenes in the Square' trail, joining other cinematic figures like Harry Potter and Mary Poppins. The decision to make the installation permanent coincides with the 25th anniversary of the first film's release.
Photographer Marina Sersale has released a new monograph titled 'Liminal Space,' published by Gost, which compiles over a decade of monochrome photography. The collection features dramatic black-and-white images captured between 2013 and 2021 across diverse locations including Italy, Japan, Iran, and the United States. Sersale, a former documentary filmmaker, focuses on the interplay of light and shadow to document fleeting, everyday moments—from sunbathers in Positano to commuters in Naples.
The British textile artist Elizabeth Allen, who lived in a dilapidated hut and gained brief international fame in the 1960s after being discovered by artist Patrick Heron, is the subject of a major rediscovery. A new exhibition at Compton Verney in Warwickshire features works that have been hidden in storage or private collections for nearly fifty years, including the first public display of 'Autobiraggraphy,' a textile work documenting her wrongful eviction in 1934.
David Zwirner in Los Angeles is presenting an exhibition of works by Magdalena Suarez Frimkess, organized by artist Shio Kusaka, running from April 11 to May 22, 2026. The show includes a press release, checklist, and venue details, with images courtesy of the artist and the gallery, photographed by Elon Schoenholz and Marten Elder.