After a failed export block by the UK, Nicolas Poussin masterpiece goes on show at Louvre Abu Dhabi

Abu Dhabi’s Department of Culture and Tourism (DCT) will make its vast, previously inaccessible art and artifact holdings public over the coming year, including publishing an online catalogue and offering research opportunities. To mark this shift, DCT is presenting Nicolas Poussin’s *Confirmation* at Louvre Abu Dhabi—a masterpiece that had been held in Britain for 240 years and was blocked from export by the UK government in 2022 when it failed to raise £19m to match the buyer’s offer, now presumed to be DCT. The painting goes on show alongside Poussin’s *Self-portrait* from the Musée du Louvre.

María Jesús Valenzuela: Winter Flowers

MARÍA JESÚS VALENZUELA: FLORES DE INVIERNO

María Jesús Valenzuela presents her solo exhibition "Flores de Invierno" (Winter Flowers) at Galería NAC in Santiago, Chile. The exhibition showcases a multidisciplinary approach to the natural world, featuring hand-embroidered cotton paper, color pencil drawings, and fine art photography. Valenzuela’s work acts as a contemporary field notebook, documenting landscapes ranging from the mangroves of Caddo Lake to the forests of Curaumilla, utilizing both ancient techniques like embroidery and modern digital printing.

art june leaf grey art museum

The Grey Art Museum at New York University is hosting "Shooting from the Heart," the most comprehensive retrospective to date of the late artist June Leaf, who died last summer at 94. The exhibition, on view through December 13, features her drawings, paintings, and sculptures spanning 75 years, including her theatrical puppet show "Street Dreams" (1968). Originated by the Addison Gallery of American Art, the show will travel to the Allen Memorial Art Museum in Ohio in January 2026. A catalogue co-published by Rizzoli Electa includes contributions from artists Kara Walker and Joan Jonas, and film screenings at Anthology Film Archives explore her New York studio and her life with photographer Robert Frank in Nova Scotia.

Georg Baselitz, German Neo-Expressionist Painter, Dies at 88

Georg Baselitz, the German Neo-Expressionist painter known for his provocative, upside-down figurative works, has died at age 88. Along with contemporaries like Anselm Kiefer, Baselitz led a frontal assault on the dominant Minimalist and Conceptualist art movements of the 1970s, reviving expressive, gestural painting in postwar Germany.

Jitish Kallat appointed Kochi-Muziris Biennale president

The Kochi Biennale Foundation has appointed contemporary artist and curator Jitish Kallat as the new president of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale. He will chair the selection committee for the next edition's curator, succeeding co-founder Bose Krishnamachari, who resigned earlier this year.

Le Louvre choisit son entrée côté colonnade

Le Louvre has selected a joint proposal by Studios Architecture Paris and Selldorf Architects for its new entrance via the Perrault colonnade, part of the 'Louvre Nouvelle Renaissance' plan. The project, announced by Emmanuel Macron on January 28, 2025, aims to create a new eastern access to relieve overcrowding at the Pyramid, with two underground entrances, vegetated moats, new services, and a dedicated space for the Mona Lisa. The selection was announced by Culture Minister Catherine Pégard on May 18, despite controversies over funding, heritage constraints, a theft in the Galerie d'Apollon on October 19, 2025, and the departure of museum president Laurence des Cars.

New Chilean president reverses predecessor’s policies, cutting culture budget

Chile's new president, José Antonio Kast, has implemented a 3% budget cut across all government ministries, including the Ministry of Cultures, Arts and Heritage. This reverses the trend of his predecessor, Gabriel Boric, who significantly increased cultural funding. The new Minister of Cultures, Francisco Undurraga, has stated there is "excessive spending on culture," and the government is seeking an additional $1bn in cuts, requiring ministries to identify alleged abuses in public fund usage.

Embattled Louvre Director Laurence des Cars Resigns

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Laurence des Cars has resigned as director of the Louvre Museum following months of intense scrutiny and institutional turmoil. Her departure, accepted by French President Emmanuel Macron, comes in the wake of a massive $102 million jewelry heist in October 2025 that exposed severe security lapses, outdated infrastructure, and systemic management failures. Despite proposing a major security overhaul and a massive modernization project, Des Cars faced mounting pressure from government audits, staff walkouts, and investigations into ticket fraud.

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A leaked French government audit reveals that the Louvre Museum's security system is "outdated and inadequate," with significant gaps in CCTV coverage. The report, conducted by France's Court of Auditors and set for public release next month, found that modernization of security systems had been repeatedly postponed, and cameras were mostly installed only when rooms were refurbished. In the Denon Wing, home to the Mona Lisa, one-third of rooms lack cameras; in the Richelieu Wing, 75 percent of rooms are without them. Only 138 additional cameras have been installed since 2019. The audit was initiated by Louvre president and director Laurence des Cars after she assumed the role in 2021. The findings follow a robbery of French crown jewels from the museum and come amid staff strikes over understaffing and overcrowding.

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The Bayeux Tapestry, a 230-foot-long medieval textile depicting the Norman Conquest of 1066, will be loaned to the British Museum in London for the first time in 950 years. The historic deal between Britain and France is set to be finalized on July 9, with the tapestry expected to appear in a blockbuster exhibition about the Norman Conquest opening in September 2026. In exchange, treasures from across the U.K.—including artifacts from Sutton Hoo and the Lewis chessmen—will travel to France. The agreement will be announced by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron, and signed by British Museum director Nicholas Cullinan.

Billionaire Collector Fred Eychaner Sued Over Chicago Museum Expansion

Billionaire philanthropist Fred Eychaner, founder of the private exhibition space Wrightwood 659 in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood, is being sued by Lisa Berron, a condo owner who claims the museum's planned expansion will block natural light and skyline views from her top-floor home. Berron filed suit in Cook County Circuit Court in March, alleging that the expansion would rise above her roofline and sit just feet from her windows. Eychaner's team has already purchased two of the three units in her building and argues the project complies with existing zoning laws, while Berron reportedly rejected settlement offers and demanded nearly $4 million for her condo, which was appraised at around $1.2 million.

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Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has charged veteran New York antiquities dealer Michael Ward with criminal facilitation following an investigation into the illicit trade of cultural property. Ward, who operated his Upper East Side gallery for nearly forty years, was convicted in September for his role in facilitating the sale of stolen artifacts, including a 1st-century gilded bronze plaque. Court documents reveal a broader pattern of misconduct involving 40 objects stolen from Italy, Greece, and Turkey, with a total value reaching into the millions.

‘A daring flash of pubic hair’: the extraordinary, monumental nudes of Sylvia Sleigh

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*.

Sylvie Retailleau : « Pendant cinq ans, tout a été remis en jeu »

Sylvie Retailleau, former French Minister of Higher Education and current president of Universcience since January 2026, details the tense negotiations between the Grand Palais and the Palais de la découverte. She reveals that the Palais de la découverte nearly disappeared during the Grand Palais renovation, but will reopen in March 2027. Universcience ceded a 1,200 m² gallery to the Grand Palais as a financial contribution (worth about €30 million over ten years) and is lending another 350 m² gallery until June 2030 for Centre Pompidou exhibitions during its renovation. In exchange, Universcience gains full control over the programming of the Palais des enfants.

art criticism lynne tillman paying attention book

Lynne Tillman celebrated the publication of her new collection, *Paying Attention: Essays on Art and Culture*, from David Zwirner Books, at an event hosted by Coco’s at Colette. The article features a conversation between Tillman and the author, in which she discusses her origin story as a critic, her background in fiction writing, and her unconventional entry into art criticism through an invitation from Craig Owens at *Art in America*. She recounts writing a Madame Realism story about a Renoir exhibition after eavesdropping on museum tours, a piece that angered some art historians.

WALTER OTERO A TROPICAL GALLERIST IN AMERICA S ECOSYSTEM

A new book titled "Walter Otero: un galerista tropical" is being published this March. It features an interview by curator Omar-Pascual Castillo with Puerto Rican gallerist Walter Otero, chronicling his journey from personal assistant to painter Arnaldo Roche Rabell to founding his influential San Juan gallery, Walter Otero Contemporary Art (WOCA). The book details the gallery's history, its roster of artists, and Otero's adaptation to the digital age and crises like Hurricane Maria.

The documentary dedicated to Sicilian patron Antonio Presti airs on Rai Tre. Here is the video preview.

Va in onda su Rai Tre il documentario dedicato al mecenate siciliano Antonio Presti. Qui la video anteprima

On Tuesday, May 19, 2026, at 3:30 PM, RAI 3 will broadcast the documentary "Asteroide 20049 Antonio Presti," produced by Rai Documentari and dedicated to Sicilian patron Antonio Presti (born 1957). Written by Fedora Sasso and Francesco Castellani, curated by Giulietta Venneri, and directed by Fedora Sasso, the film explores Presti's four-decade career using art to intervene in marginalized areas of Sicily. The documentary's title references an asteroid named after Presti, symbolizing his vision linking cosmic and urban space. It opens at the Astrophysical Observatory of Isnello and focuses on the Catania neighborhood of Librino, where Presti created MAGMA, an open-air museum developed through collaboration with students, artists, and residents.

A New York il Metropolitan museum ingloba la Neue Galerie: ovvero la più importante collezione d’arte austriaca e tedesca fuori dall’Europa

The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Neue Galerie in New York have announced a merger set for 2028. The Neue Galerie, founded by collector Ronald S. Lauder, will become The Met Ronald S. Lauder Neue Galerie, absorbing the most significant collection of early 20th-century Austrian and German art outside Europe, including Gustav Klimt's "Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I." Lauder and his daughter Aerin Lauder Zinterhofer will donate thirteen major works from their private collection, and a fundraising campaign has been launched to support the integration.

In Toscana il borgo di Monte San Savino si apre all’arte contemporanea con una mostra itinerante e di genere

The Tuscan hill town of Monte San Savino launched a contemporary art exhibition titled "Art Gender Gap" on International Women's Day, featuring 40 female artists and 53 works across multiple historic venues including the GAS, Chiesa di Santa Chiara, Palazzo Ciocchi di Monte, and the Renaissance Cisternone. Curated by Giuseppe Simone Modeo, Nicoletta Castellaneta, and Domenico de Chirico, the show includes loans from the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington (via its Italian committee president Claudia Pensotti Mosca), the Christian Levett collection, and the FAMM Museum in Mougin, France—a museum dedicated exclusively to women artists. Participating artists range from historical figures like Louise Bourgeois, Carol Rama, and Sonia Delaunay to contemporary names such as Kiki Smith, Pipilotti Rist, Marlene Dumas, Tracey Emin, and Mona Hatoum.

A Roma è tutto pronto per il weekend delle gallerie d’arte: mostre, progetti speciali, inaugurazioni. Il programma

The fourth edition of Roma Gallery Weekend will take place from May 15 to 17, 2026, featuring 31 galleries across Rome. The event kicks off with a new Gallery Night on May 14, where simultaneous openings and special projects serve as a concentrated prologue. Participating galleries include established names like Gagosian, Galleria Continua, and Lorcan O'Neill, as well as emerging spaces such as Amanita and Cantadora. Highlights include exhibitions of Francesca Woodman, Tracey Emin, Friedrich Kunath, and Carlos Garaicoa, alongside site-specific interventions and group shows.

The End-of-Term Grand Interview with Stefano Boeri After 8 Years as President of Triennale di Milano

La grande intervista di fine mandato a Stefano Boeri dopo 8 anni da presidente della Triennale di Milano

Stefano Boeri reflects on his eight-year tenure as president of Triennale Milano in a wide-ranging exit interview. He discusses the institution's transformation into a more international and accessible cultural hub, highlighting key achievements such as the three major International Exhibitions—"Broken Nature" (2019), "Unknown Unknowns" (2022), and "Inequalities" (2025)—and the physical reclamation of spaces like the "Cuore" hall and the garden-level floor, which were opened free to the public. Boeri also touches on financial management, governance challenges, and his hopes for the future leadership.

Working in the Arts: Opportunities from Cascina Lagoscuro, Ministry of Tourism, PhEST, Fundació Joan Miró, C2C Festival

Lavorare nell’arte: opportunità da Cascina Lagoscuro, Ministero del Turismo, PhEST, Fundació Joan Miró, C2C Festival

This article from Artribune compiles five current job and opportunity listings in Italy and Europe for creative professionals. The openings include a creative residency at Cascina Lagoscuro (a regenerative farm in northern Italy) for dancers, artists, writers, chefs, designers, educators, artisans, and activists; a national exam for tourist guide certification by Italy's Ministry of Tourism; a pop-up open call for artists and photographers from the PhEST international photography and art festival; a director search at the Fundació Joan Miró in Barcelona; and a curator training program for music curators by C2C Festival.

The best and worst we saw at the Venice Art Biennale 2026. Artribune's hits and flops

Il meglio e il peggio che abbiamo visto alla Biennale d’Arte di Venezia 2026. Top e flop di Artribune

The 61st Venice Biennale, titled "In Minor Keys" and directed by Koyo Kouoh, opened amid significant turmoil: the death of a newly appointed curator, diplomatic tensions over the presence of Russia and Israel, political protests, and the unprecedented collective resignation of the jury, which led to the Golden Lions being awarded by public vote for the first time. Despite this chaotic backdrop, the exhibition—featuring a record 100 national pavilions—has been widely praised for avoiding moralistic pedagogy and instead embracing visual seduction, formal quality, and sensory joy while addressing themes of identity, memory, colonialism, ecological crisis, and violence. The article highlights top and flop moments from the opening week, including strong showings by Biennale president Pietrangelo Buttafuoco and a standout exhibition at Fondazione Prada.

Interview with the artist of the enchanting New Zealand Pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale

Intervista all’artista dell’ammaliante Padiglione Nuova Zelanda alla Biennale Arte 2026

Fiona Pardington, a Māori artist from Devonport (1961), will represent New Zealand at the 2026 Venice Biennale with a deeply spiritual and ecologically conscious installation in the national pavilion. Her project centers on the takahe, a bird long thought extinct, using photography, sound, and immersive space to evoke loss, memory, and transformation. Pardington’s work draws on Ngāi Tahu culture, colonial history, and natural history, featuring a taxidermied takahe specimen from the British Museum that she re-photographed and chromatically restored.

È morto Paolo Masi. La lunga ricerca dell’artista fiorentino sulla trasformazione dei materiali poveri

Paolo Masi, the Florentine artist known for his lifelong exploration of poor materials and their transformation, died in Florence on Wednesday, May 6, just days before his 93rd birthday. His career spanned from informal experiments in the 1950s through a rigorous investigation of materials in the 1960s, including his first solo show at the Strozzina in 1960. He joined the aesthetic research group Centro F/Uno alongside Baldi, Lecci, and Nannucci, and later co-founded the collective spaces Zona (1974) and Base (1998) with Mario Mariotti and Maurizio Nannucci. Masi participated in the Venice Biennale (1978) and the Rome Quadriennale (1986), and his works are held by major museums and foundations internationally. His later years saw significant retrospectives at the Museo MAGA in Gallarate (2018) and at Le Murate in Florence (2018), as well as a 2023 solo show at Florence's Galleria Frittelli, which remembered him as an extraordinary artist and dear friend.

The 90 Years of Legendary Italian Artist Giorgio Griffa. All the Exhibitions Celebrating the Master's Birthday

I 90 anni del mitico artista italiano Giorgio Griffa. Tutte le mostre per celebrare il compleanno del maestro

Giorgio Griffa, the Italian painter known for his radical and minimalist approach, turned 90 on March 29, 2026. A comprehensive program of celebrations includes the exhibition "Summer 69" at the Fondazione Giorgio Griffa in Turin (through July 2, 2026), which revisits his breakthrough summer of 1969 with photographs by Paolo Mussat Sartor alongside his early and recent works. The Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea has opened a monographic room with works from its permanent collection, and the Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Torino will dedicate a similar space in May. The MAXXI – Museo Nazionale delle Arti del XXI secolo has acquired six monumental works spanning over thirty years of Griffa's career, from the 1970s to the early 2000s.

In Piedmont, Langhe, Roero and Monferrato increasingly focus on contemporary art and cultural tourism

In Piemonte le Langhe, il Roero e il Monferrato puntano sempre di più sull’arte contemporanea e il turismo culturale

The Langhe, Roero, and Monferrato regions of Piedmont, Italy, have consolidated their cultural alliance under the name Orma, a unified system launched in 2025 that brings together four existing festivals—Creativamente Roero, Resté, Germinale Monferrato Art Fest, and La collina sale sempre—to offer a widespread contemporary art program across the UNESCO World Heritage territory. In 2026, Orma expands its activities from May to November, involving over 60 municipalities, with new entries like Canelli hosting a site-specific work by Brazilian artist Maria Theresa Alves in partnership with Castello di Rivoli, and projects such as Prospettive / Perspectives with Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo and Villa Arson. The program includes artist residencies, permanent interventions, and exhibitions, with Resté already underway in the Langhe towns of Diano d'Alba, Montelupo Albese, Rodello, and Cerretto Langhe.

The Last Interview with the Great Artist Georg Baselitz on the Occasion of His Exhibition in Florence

L’ultima intervista al grande artista Georg Baselitz in occasione della sua mostra a Firenze

Georg Baselitz, the German artist born in 1938, is the subject of a major retrospective titled "Avanti!" at the Museo Novecento in Florence, featuring 170 works including paintings, works on paper, and sculptures, with a strong focus on his graphic output. The exhibition, curated by Sergio Risaliti and Daniel Blau (Baselitz's son and an artist himself), spans three floors and traces the evolution of Baselitz's practice, culminating in a dialogue with the work of Italian artist Ottone Rosai. The show is accompanied by a prequel exhibition honoring the 120th anniversary of Villa Romana, where Baselitz once held a fellowship, and will be followed by another exhibition at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini in Venice in May, which together with the Florence show form the artist's testament. Artribune published Baselitz's last interview in its new bimonthly issue.

Pussy Riot Shows Art by Russia’s Prisoners in New Protest Exhibition

Pussy Riot founder Nadya Tolokonnikova co-curated "Resistance Imprisoned," a protest exhibition at Ritsch-Fisch Galerie in Strasbourg, France, featuring artwork created by people currently or formerly imprisoned in Russia, including Ukrainian civilians. The show opened April 19 and runs through May 31, timed to coincide with the first month of the Venice Biennale, which opens May 9. Works include a pen sketch by Lyudmila Razumova, a photojournalist arrested for anti-war graffiti in 2022 and serving a seven-year sentence, alongside pieces by other political prisoners and Ukrainian POWs. The exhibition aims to highlight the human cost of Russia's war and its participation in international cultural events.

"There are no minor or feminine arts." Domitilla Dardi explains this in her new book

“Non esistono arti minori o femminili”. Ce lo spiega Domitilla Dardi nel suo nuovo libro

Domitilla Dardi's new book "Cucire Universi" (published by Einaudi) presents a counter-history of design, focusing on techniques traditionally dismissed as "feminine" and "minor"—such as sewing, ceramics, cooking, and knitting. The book argues that these practices have been systematically undervalued by official art histories, yet have contributed significantly to technologically advanced research fields. Dardi uses real historical figures like Emily Dickinson to illustrate how women's creative and scientific talents were channeled into these marginalized domains, and she calls for overcoming the dualistic view that separates art from craft.