Room 412 in Birmingham, Alabama

Chandler Jones founded Room 412, a small, appointment-only gallery in a Birmingham, Alabama loft, in March 2022. The space functions as an intimate, immersive exhibition environment, described as a cross between a gallery and a mystical hotel room, designed to showcase Alabama artists and foster community connection. Jones, a musician, was motivated by a desire to create a visually and energetically compelling gathering place after being inspired by the historic Chelsea Hotel in New York.

Gallery: New Tallinn art show explores illusions of safety and control

A new international group exhibition titled "Safe Traps" opened at Tütar Gallery in Tallinn, exploring the dual nature of control as both a source of safety and a restrictive cage. Curated by Maria Helen Känd, the show features works by French artist Anaïs Goupy, Latvian artist Līga Spunde, and Estonian artists Ruudu Ulas and Madlen Hirtentreu, examining how contemporary Western society's pursuit of control can become a trap that confines rather than liberates.

Frustrated by Chicago's Jewish institutions, anti-Zionist artists are forming their own Jewish cultural center

Anti-Zionist Jewish artists in Chicago, led by Gabriel Chalfin-Piney-González, founded the Jewish Museum of Chicago in 2023 as a decentralized cultural center without a permanent physical space. The initiative emerged from frustration with the lack of a Jewish museum in the city and a desire to create a welcoming community for anti-Zionist Jews, especially galvanized by the war in Gaza. The museum has since hosted over a dozen exhibitions and events, including a Liberation Seder and an artists collective, and is planning a brick-and-mortar space.

Janet Werner Is Distorting Fashion’s Beauty Ideals Through Painting

Janet Werner, an artist with a nearly four-decade career, has created a new body of work titled "Landscape with Legs" that distorts fashion imagery from Vogue archives and vintage campaigns by Marc Jacobs. Her paintings transform archetypal fashion models—thin, blonde, and emblematic of privilege—into unsettling, complex figures that expose a tension between glamor and the grotesque. The exhibition runs from May 1 to June 12, 2026, at Anat Ebgi Gallery in New York, marking her second solo show there. In an interview, Werner discusses her background as a dancer, her creative process of collaging photographic images with art historical references like Watteau and Caspar David Friedrich, and the political moment that makes the show feel urgent.

Nelson Félix’s Desire for Ascent

Nelson Félix's exhibition "Pedra de Rumo" is on view at Galeria Almeida & Dale, featuring new sculptures in Carrara marble, bronze, and living plants. The show explores themes of orientation and boundary-breaking, drawing on the artist's long-standing practice of mapping extreme geographical points. The title references Portuguese sailors' navigation stones, and the exhibition extends beyond the gallery to include a metal tip and seedling planted at a point determined by lines drawn between the gallery and the Museum of Contemporary Art of USP, where Félix will have another solo show in May 2025.

A new sensual exhibit from Mexico City is now on display at the Museum of Sex

The Museum of Sex in New York is hosting "The Life Force: Portraits from the Amparo & Manuel Foundation," a new exhibition opening April 23 that brings 45 works from a Mexico City-based collection to the U.S. for the first time. Featuring artists such as Amoako Boafo, Tracey Emin, and Bert Stern, the show explores themes of vulnerability, desire, and the tension between Eros and Thanatos—the life instinct and death drive—through painting, sculpture, drawing, and photography.

April 2026 Art And Culture Guide: Exhibitions, Museums & Cultural Events You Can’t Miss

A guide highlights key art and cultural events in India for April 2026. It features several exhibitions, including Nayanaa Kanodia's 'Staged Realities' at Bikaner House, Neha Sahai's introspective solo show at LATITUDE 28, and Mari Ito's first Indian solo exhibition at Bikaner House. Other notable events are the performance 'Sair-e-Motorcar' blending Kathak with vintage cars, the group show 'Houses I Almost Lived In' at LATITUDE 28, and the two-day World Dance Day festival curated by Geeta Chandran at the India International Centre.

Pictorial Foundation Opens New Gallery in Newburgh with “Foundations of Practice”

Pictorial Foundation, an organization born from the international photography magazine The Pictorial List, has opened a new gallery space at 105 Ann Street in Newburgh, New York. The 1,500-square-foot gallery, located within the ADS Warehouse complex, debuts on February 7 with the group exhibition “Foundations of Practice,” featuring 19 artists whose work emphasizes process over finished results. Founder Karen Ghostlaw Pomarico, a Pratt Institute-trained artist, collaborated with her husband, architect Michael Pomarico of Pomarico Design Studio, to create a flexible system of suspended partitions that can be reconfigured for each show. The gallery grows out of a desire to move beyond the limitations of online art visibility and create a physical space for slow, thoughtful engagement with art.

Shrewsbury Arts Trail: Open Exhibition Wows at SM&AG

The Shrewsbury Arts Trail Open Exhibition has opened at Shrewsbury Museum & Art Gallery, showcasing 144 works selected from 347 submissions by 148 local and regional artists. Organizers Phil Langstaff, Jessica Richards, and Pat Wilcox curated the show without a specific theme to encourage creative freedom. The exhibition also includes works by internationally recognized artists such as Halima Cassell MBE, Ian Rayer-Smith, Laura Ford, James Tapscott, Jacob Chandler, Picasso, and Andy Warhol in a separate 'Inspirational Exhibition.' The Open Exhibition continues at The Parade Shops with an additional 48 works on display.

In pictures: highlights from Art Basel's city-wide exhibition, Parcours

New York-based curator Stefanie Hessler has organized the second edition of Art Basel's Parcours exhibition, featuring 21 works installed across Basel in unconventional spaces such as hotels, shops, and private apartments. Highlights include Agnieszka Kurant's chemical gardens made from computer-manufacturing metals, Finnegan Shannon's accessible benches with rest-oriented texts, and Hylozoic/Desires' 80-meter fabric installation referencing a colonial-era customs line. The exhibition clusters along Clarastrasse and extends to the Münsterplatz in the Old Town.

Augmented reality enjoys growing appeal as a tool for the art trade

Augmented reality (AR) headsets like the Apple Vision Pro and Meta Quest II are gaining traction as tools for the art trade, according to experts interviewed in this article. Gallerists Will Shott and Hal Bromm see potential for virtual tours, studio visits, and previewing artworks in situ, while adviser India Price notes that seeing works at scale in one's own space could boost buyer confidence. However, Martin Murphy of Ringling College of Art and Design argues that practical barriers—such as device personalization and generational divides—may limit adoption among traditional collectors.

A JOURNEY THROUGH LATIN AMERICAN PHOTOGRAPHY AND A REFLECTION ON THE ROLE OF COLLECTING

The Miraflores Palace of Arts (PLAM) in Lima is hosting "A Collection Is a Desire," a major exhibition featuring over 100 works from the Jan Mulder Collection. This presentation is an expanded version of a landmark 2012 showcase at the Rencontres d'Arles, which was the first time a private Latin American photography collection was featured at the prestigious French festival. The exhibition includes works by iconic figures such as Martín Chambi, Graciela Iturbide, and Vik Muñiz, spanning various periods and geographical contexts.

New exhibits start at Public Works Art Center

The Public Works Art Center in Summerville, South Carolina, opens five new exhibitions on May 21 with a reception from 5:30-8:30 p.m. The shows include "GODBODY: THE FEMME," a group exhibition celebrating Black women artists; Amy Stewart's "Intersections" exploring interconnectedness; Nick Cerrato's "Our Society Needs To…" featuring abstract works created with his feet; Sarah Mitchell's "Wildlife in Wool" with needle-felted animals; and the Summerville Artist Guild's annual "All Members Show." During the reception, guild members will create collaborative paintings for sale to benefit the Summerville Rocks Scholarship Fund.

Saad Khan Archives the Detritus of Censored Culture

Saad Khan, a New York-based archivist, has developed Khajistan, an expansive digital and physical archive dedicated to preserving censored and overlooked mass media from South Asia to the Maghreb. The collection features a diverse array of ephemera, including homoerotic imagery, working-class street posters, and banned magazines that are often erased from official cultural records. By documenting everything from WhatsApp forwards to vintage film posters, Khan creates a space where the lived experiences of queer, trans, and working-class individuals in these regions are validated and archived.

The Porn Effect

Der Porno-Effekt

Maja Malou Lyse received a bizarre phone call nearly three years ago from the CEO of the world's largest sperm bank, who offered her 20 liters of discarded sperm for artistic purposes. She accepted and created an installation for the Danish Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, working with porn stars to explore how images shape bodies and desire.

literature wayne koestenbaum books my lover the rabbi

Wayne Koestenbaum, a leading figure in New York's queer and literary scenes since the 1980s, is releasing his first novel in nearly two decades, *My Lover, the Rabbi*, in March. The 464-page book centers on an unnamed narrator's psychosexual affair with an aging rabbi, exploring themes of desire, repulsion, internalized homophobia, and the lingering aftermath of the Holocaust. Koestenbaum, known for his confessional prose and genre-straddling criticism—including his 1993 book *The Queen's Throat*—discusses the novel's intellectual filth, the conflation of desire and disgust, and his literary role models such as Samuel Delany and Jean Genet.

art brian oakes young artist

Cultured magazine profiles Brian Oakes, a 30-year-old New York-based artist featured in their 2025 Young Artists list. Oakes creates intricate works that resemble a mad scientist's lab, including a miniature sorting machine exhibited at Blade Study in 2024 that rhythmically sorts diorama-like tableaux. Their practice also involves circuit boards, synthetic gemstones (opals, rubies, emeralds, and now sapphires), and magnetic core memory modules, exploring themes of value, automation, desire, and divination as a systematized asset.

art yasmin anlan huang young artist

Cultured magazine profiles 29-year-old artist Yasmine Anlan Huang, who is featured in the 2024 Whitney Biennial with her video poem "Her Love is a Bleeding Tank." The Guangzhou-born, New York- and London-based artist explores themes of girlhood, melodrama, fetish, and techno-capitalism through cross-media work. Her second book, "Becoming Everyone, Everywhere," is set for publication in early 2026. In the profile, Huang discusses her desire to create a medium-length film about a rosette cataract, a project requiring CGI and significant funding.

Southampton City Art Gallery is getting ready to reopen in March 2026

Southampton City Art Gallery will reopen on Saturday, March 7, 2026, following a successful refurbishment program. The reopening exhibition, 'Levitate Me: Desire, Ecstasy and The Sublime,' is a major solo show by acclaimed British artist Emma Richardson, featuring new oil paintings that explore desire, euphoria, and the natural world through a female lens. Richardson, who was born in Southampton and lived there for much of her life, has also selected works from the city's collection to display alongside her own. Other reopening displays include highlights from the internationally renowned collection (with public input on artwork selection), recently acquired works shown for the first time, rarely seen works on paper digitized during the closure, and photographs of the refurbishment by architectural photographer Joe Low. The project was supported by a £2.23 million grant from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport's Museum Estate and Development Fund (MEND), administered by Arts Council England.

Artistree Gallery hosts Unbound Vol. XIV exhibition

Artistree Gallery in South Pomfret, Vermont, is hosting "Unbound Vol. XIV," an annual exhibition of book art coinciding with the Bookstock literary festival. The show features works by artists including Andre Lee Bassuet, Carole McNamee, Larry Clifford, and Dorsey Hogg, who transform discarded books into sculptures, quilts, and wearable pieces. Notable works include Bassuet's "A Thin Veil," a shawl made from pages of Soviet writer Ilia Ehrenburg's collected works, and "Women in the Field," a cyanotype cloak honoring pioneering women naturalists.

Japanese artist Mari Ito debuts in India with bold, thought-provoking exhibition

Japanese contemporary artist Mari Ito has opened her first solo exhibition in India, titled 'Origin of Desire,' at Bikaner House in New Delhi. The show features recent paintings and a large-scale installation created between 2024 and the present, exploring themes of identity, resistance, and the human body. Ito's practice is rooted in Nihonga, a classical Japanese painting technique using mineral pigments and sumi ink on washi paper or silk, which she blends with contemporary subject matter. A highlight is the installation 'Flowers Blooming in Defiance of the Bombs,' previously shown in Spain and reimagined for the Indian context. The exhibition is supported by Galerie Geek Art, which aims to connect Asian contemporary artists with Indian audiences.

Bikaner House to host Japanese artist Mari Ito’s first solo exhibition in India, Origin of Desire

Japanese artist Mari Ito will hold her first solo exhibition in India, titled 'Origin of Desire,' at Bikaner House in New Delhi. The week-long show, presented by the gallery GEEK/ART, opens on April 25 and features new paintings and a special installation, introducing Ito's botanical, surreal, and Nihonga-influenced work to a new audience.

w david marx blanks space 2734880

W. David Marx joins Artnet News senior editor Kate Brown on the podcast 'The Art Angle' to discuss his new book, *Blank Space: A Cultural History of the Twenty-First Century*. The book argues that creativity across art, media, and popular culture has stagnated over the past 25 years, driven by commercialization, rapid technology shifts, and a preference for profit-driven formulas over experimentation. Marx identifies a 'conspicuous blank space where art and creativity used to be' and proposes five strategies to revive cultural inventiveness.

What Brakes Through: “Teresa Tyszkiewicz. Stories That Tell Themselves” at Profile Foundation.

Teresa Tyszkiewicz's exhibition "Stories That Tell Themselves" at Profile Foundation in Warsaw showcases the Polish artist's process-driven practice spanning video, performance, and relief-like paintings made with pins, nails, metal plates, ropes, and fabrics. Curated by Bożena Czubak, the show highlights Tyszkiewicz's use of the body as a medium—often naked and immersed in organic materials—to explore emotions, intuition, and unconscious desires, as seen in works like the 1980 film "Grain." The artist, who began her career in the late 1970s alongside Polish neo-avantgarde filmmakers but rejected their conceptual tendencies, developed a tactile, laborious approach that invites sensory engagement.

For The First Time In Miami, An Exclusive Group Exhibition That Was A Success In NYC Arrives At The Museum of Sex — Featuring Works By Over 30 Local Artists

The Museum of Sex in Miami is presenting a new group exhibition titled "F*ck Art 2026: Nature & Artifice," opening April 29, 2026. Featuring over 30 local artists including Ana María Caballero, Cheryl Pope, and Justyna Kisielewicz, the show explores themes of bodies, desire, identity, surveillance, censorship, and intimacy through painting, textiles, sculpture, photography, and digital media. Works are displayed in glass vitrines to mimic the experience of browsing a digital feed.

The Cost of Love: Rugby Art Museum and Gallery presents joint exhibition by artists Charlie Kirkham and Robert Walker

Artists Charlie Kirkham and Robert Walker are set to debut a joint exhibition titled "The Cost of Love" at the Rugby Art Gallery and Museum this May. The showcase features contemporary paintings that reimagine classical mythological figures—such as Narcissus, Apollo, and Adonis—to explore psychological themes of desire, transformation, and vulnerability. While both artists maintain a focus on technical rigor and the human figure, the works shift away from traditional storytelling to focus on the emotional tensions of modern life.

Angela de la Cruz Breaks the Frame

The art world is witnessing a significant shift toward the 'one-work exhibition,' a format that rejects the traditional gallery model of high-volume displays in favor of singular, immersive encounters. By isolating a single masterpiece or installation, institutions are encouraging 'slow looking' and recasting the act of viewing as a deliberate spatial experience. This trend serves as a direct response to the digital age's relentless pace and the overwhelming 'glut' of contemporary visual culture.

SMC’s Museum of Art opens new exhibit featuring three Bay Area artists

The Saint Mary’s College Museum of Art has launched a new exhibition season featuring three distinct Bay Area artists: Hilda Robinson, Zach Clark, and Beth Van Hoesen. The showcase includes a retrospective of Robinson’s vibrant oil pastels documenting Black communal joy, a collaborative landscape project by Clark involving student research, and a survey of Van Hoesen’s minimalist line work and intaglio prints.

The unfinished gaze

Artist Lawrence Buttigieg's exhibition 'Desire & its Excess' is on view at Spazju Kreattiv in Valletta until March 1, curated by Gloria Lauri-Lucente. The show brings together painting, box-assemblage, and film to explore desire as an embodied, relational force that resists closure, focusing on the reciprocal exchange between artist and female subject within the studio space.

Lansing’s gallery and museum scene lively, despite losing a big one

The Lansing area lost the Lansing Art Gallery this year, but the local arts scene remains vibrant with several other venues. The Michigan History Museum offers immersive exhibits on state history, including the special exhibition “Black Bottom Street View” about Detroit’s historic neighborhood. The MSU Museum is undergoing an 18-month renovation but hosts a pop-up exhibition “Physical Spells [The Wor(l)d in the Atom]” featuring artist Violeta López López. The Nelson Gallery in downtown Lansing continues to showcase local contemporary art and plans holiday events, while Struk Studio, founded in 2023 by David Such, offers a contemporary mixed bag of works.