The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum has unveiled a new exhibition that juxtaposes iconic Pop Art works from the 1960s with contemporary pieces recently added to the museum's permanent collection. By placing historical landmarks of the movement alongside modern practice, the show traces the enduring influence of mass media, consumerism, and vernacular imagery on artists across different generations.
I Leoni dei Visitatori alla Biennale di Venezia sono un’opportunità per la critica d’arte. Cerchiamo di coglierla?
The article discusses the newly instituted "Leoni dei Visitatori" (Visitors' Lions) at the Venice Biennale, established after the resignation of the International Jury. The author, Alberto Villa, argues that this change shifts significant influence to art media and critics, as visitors will rely on reviews and recommendations from specialized magazines, websites, and social media to decide which pavilions to prioritize. Villa calls on critics to embrace this responsibility with heightened critical rigor, seeing it as an opportunity to revive the mediating role of art criticism.
Uno dei musei più unici e particolari di Milano è pieno di opere che non sono belle
The Casa Museo Boschi Di Stefano in Milan, housed in a building designed by Piero Portaluppi, showcases a massive collection of 20th-century Italian art donated by Antonio Boschi and Marieda Di Stefano. The apartment displays approximately 300 works by masters such as Lucio Fontana, Giorgio de Chirico, and Mario Sironi, arranged in the intimate domestic setting where the collectors once lived.
Pure i cataloghi delle mostre possono diventare manga. Il caso Yuko Mohri
The Pirelli HangarBicocca has released a unique exhibition catalogue for Japanese artist Yuko Mohri following her solo show, 'Entanglements,' in Milan. The publication distinguishes itself by including a 24-page manga titled 'Yuko and the Unnamed' by artist Ran Kurumi, tucked into the book's jacket. This graphic insert serves as a biographical narrative, tracing Mohri’s journey from her formative years in Tokyo’s Akihabara electronics district to her recent representation of Japan at the 2024 Venice Biennale.
Alison Nguyen, a Vietnamese American artist based in New York’s Chinatown, discusses her multidisciplinary practice spanning video, installation, performance, and sculpture. Her works explore American mythologies, visual culture, and digital labor, drawing from low and high culture. Notable pieces include *History as Hypnosis* (2023), which follows three Vietnamese women through a desert and downtown Los Angeles, and *My Favorite Software Is Being Here* (2021), featuring an AI assistant named Andra8. Nguyen’s upcoming works *Change Order* (2024) and *Aisle 9* are inspired by her family’s Taiwanese hosiery business archives. She is featured in ARTnews’ 2025 “New Talent” issue.
Teravarna Art Gallery has launched a digital group exhibition titled "Kaleidoscope," featuring works by seven artists: Caitlin Accurso, Stephanie Bing, Diane Burchette-Gomez, Carina Imbrogno, Daniel Juric, Valeri Larko, and Debra Shapiro. The show, on view through May 16, 2025, spans figurative and abstract painting, collage, and mixed media, with highlights including Valeri Larko's photorealist "Secor Avenue Train Bridge" (2022) and Debra Shapiro's mixed-media piece "Las Tres Gracias" (2024). The exhibition is hosted entirely online, allowing global access.
The 2026 Venice Biennale, the world’s oldest art exhibition, has opened with a theme centered on vitality and the celebration of life. The edition is described as both a passionate embrace of energy and a reminder of art’s lingering ghosts, offering a mixed but compelling experience for visitors.
Avec « Video Games & Music », la Philharmonie de Paris se prend au jeu
The Philharmonie de Paris has launched "Video Games & Music," an immersive exhibition exploring the history and evolution of video game music (VGM). Curated by Fanny Rebillard and Jean Zeid, the show features a non-linear scenography inspired by open-world games, incorporating 29 playable consoles, archival photography by Ira Nowinski, and contemporary art by Mounir Ayache and Invader. The exhibition traces the medium's journey from 8-bit bleeps to complex orchestral scores and its influence on club culture and mainstream pop.
Brazilian artist Alex Senna creates large-scale, black-and-white murals that depict figures gathering, interacting, and connecting with their own shadows. His work, often set against colorful urban backdrops, emphasizes themes of community, emotional bonds, togetherness, and belonging.
Rajib Ahasen's debut solo exhibition, 'Embrace of the Earth', opened on April 24, 2026, at La Galerie, Alliance Française de Dhaka (AFD). The show features around 36 works in watercolour and acrylic, rooted in the artist's memories of rural Bangladesh and his transition to urban life. Scenes of earthen roads, canals, riverbanks, and agrarian life dominate the collection, reflecting a personal narrative shaped by observation and recollection. Ahasen, who earned a Mawlana degree from a Qawmi madrasah in 2014 without formal fine arts training, has previously participated in national and international exhibitions including the Friendship Art Exhibition and Kahal International Art Fair.
Quddus Mirza’s latest exhibition, "New Works" at Canvas Gallery in Karachi, marks a significant stylistic shift as the veteran artist, critic, and educator embraces the concept of "unlearning." Drawing inspiration from the raw honesty of children's drawings, Mirza presents twelve striking paintings that shed academic discipline in favor of blunt expression and intuitive mark-making. The works frequently utilize a dominant red palette to signal urgency, revolution, and bloodshed, juxtaposing domestic imagery with symbols of global unrest.
The Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art will debut 25 new mannequins for its 2026 Met Gala exhibition, "Costume Art." The mannequins are modeled on a diverse range of real body types, including individuals with disabilities, and are intended to challenge the fashion industry's historical reliance on standardized, thin display figures.
The Brooklyn non-profit space Pioneer Works is hosting an exhibition titled "How to Get to Zero" by artists Tega Brain and Sam Lavigne, featuring climate-focused interactive installations. The centerpiece, "Cold Call" (2023), invites visitors to don headsets and call fossil fuel executives, following a script designed to keep them on the line as long as possible to disrupt their productivity. Another work, "Offset" (2023-25), parodies carbon offset markets by allowing visitors to purchase credits for dissident acts like deflating SUV tires, with proceeds going to activists. The exhibition also includes "Perfect Sleep" (2021), an anti-productivity phone app that encourages rest to reduce carbon footprints, and "Synthetic Messenger" (2021), where cell phones click on climate news ads to boost journalism engagement.
This article highlights nine visual art exhibitions in Seattle for June, curated as staff picks to embrace themes of change, regeneration, and healing. Featured shows include "Taking Care: Embrace with Tenderness" at Seattle University's Hedreen Gallery, which closes next year when the building is razed for a new museum; "Jill Kyong: Between Spaces" at SlipStitch Studio; "Mel Carter: bitter, the mourning" at Gallery 4Culture; "Gina Ariko: Ikebana and the Art of Resilience" at Gallery 110; "Healing Our Roots" at The Fishbowl gallery; and "Third Eye" at Base Camp Studios, among others. The exhibitions span photography, glass art, floral arrangements, and group shows, all free and open to the public.
Whitney-Biennale zwischen Niedlichkeit und Panik
The Whitney Museum of American Art has unveiled its latest Biennial, a sprawling survey of contemporary art that navigates the tension between playful aesthetics and existential dread. Curators have embraced an expanded definition of American art, incorporating global perspectives and diverse media to reflect a nation grappling with political instability and social change. The exhibition oscillates between moments of "cuteness" and "panic," utilizing strong visual narratives to address the complexities of the current era.
The 36th Bienal de São Paulo has opened with a site-specific installation by Nigerian-American artist Precious Okoyomon, titled "Sun of Consciousness. God Blow Thru Me – Love Break Me" (2025), which features a spiraling path of moss-covered earth and waterfalls evoking Brazil's deforested Cerrado region. The biennial, curated by Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung with an international team, includes 125 artists—97 international and 28 Brazilian—with more than half of the works commissioned for the exhibition. Notable presentations include a career-spanning display of over 20 paintings by British artist Frank Bowling, alongside works by Brazilian artist Gervane de Paula, who has the largest presence in the show.
Elizabeth Peyton's 1996 double portrait of Oasis brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher, titled *Liam + Noel (Gallagher)*, is set to be auctioned at Sotheby's contemporary art sale in London on June 24. The painting is expected to fetch between £1.5 million and £2 million GBP ($2.03–$2.71 million USD). Created at the peak of the band's fame following their historic Knebworth Park shows, the portrait captures the brothers in a tight embrace, with Sotheby's specialist Antonia Gardner noting the "quiet tension" that foreshadowed their 2009 breakup. The work will be on public view at Sotheby's London galleries from June 18–24.
Pop star Robbie Williams opened his new exhibition "Radical Honesty" at the Moco Museum in London on May 2, 2025, featuring his latest sculptures and paintings. The show was attended by celebrities including documentary maker Louis Theroux, artists Chris Levine and Daniel Lismore, and comedian Leigh Francis. Williams's works incorporate his trademark sarcastic and self-deprecating humor, with one painting bearing the text: "To be completely honest I’m not sure if we are friends or we’ve just been in the same room a lot in the last 15 years." This is not Williams's first art venture; in 2022 he presented 14 large-scale works at Sotheby's London co-created with Ed Godrich under the name Williams Godrich, and he is also an art collector with pieces by Banksy, Peter Blake, Christopher Page, and Morris Wade.
The third week of the University's 2025 art studio senior thesis exhibitions opened on April 9, 2025, at the Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery, featuring works by eight seniors: Kerri Bel, Beatrice Campomori Garuti, Olivia Gomez, Vicky Gong, Will Hardison, Aleah Hurwitz, Ava Liberace, and Alp Yücel. The exhibition spans diverse mediums and themes, including Vicky Gong's "Ether," which explores technology, intimacy, and alienation through material and affect; Will Hardison's "The Sand Remembers the Waves," a monotype series about memory and landscape; and Alp Yücel's "Obstructed View," a sculptural installation that challenges visual perception and physical movement through the gallery space.
CULTIVATING A VIRTUAL GARDEN LEO CASTANEDA S NEW INTERACTIVE DIGITAL WORK
The Whitney Museum of American Art has launched a new interactive digital artwork titled 'Camoflux Recall Grotto' by artist Leo Castañeda. Commissioned for the Whitney Biennial 2026, the web-based game invites players to cultivate a garden within a surreal, primordial landscape inspired by the Amazon and the Everglades, blending organic and technical infrastructures.
The Instituto Cervantes in New York presents *Aquel Amplex*, the first institutional exhibition of Venezuelan artist Cassandra Mayela Allen, on view until June 28, 2026. Curated by Fabiola R. Delgado and Carlos Núñez, the show features braided textile sculptures, paintings, and drawings that examine Allen's process-driven practice within the legacies of Venezuelan and Latin American modernism and informalism. The title, meaning "that embrace," references a 1969 letter from Hélio Oiticica to Lygia Clark, evoking longing and forced migration. Allen, a self-taught artist who migrated from Venezuela in 2014, uses communal braiding gatherings to transform found fabrics and garments into architectural works that deconstruct national and artistic heritage.
Ecco di cosa parlerà la Biennale Architettura di Venezia 2027 dei curatori cinesi Lu Wenyu e Wang Shu
For the first time in the history of the Venice Architecture Biennale, two Chinese architects—Wang Shu (Pritzker Prize 2012) and Lu Wenyu—have been appointed as curators of the 20th International Architecture Exhibition, scheduled from May 8 to November 21, 2027. The duo, who co-founded Amateur Architecture Studio in 1997 and are partners in life and work, previously participated in the Biennale in 2010 under Kazuyo Sejima (receiving a Special Mention for their project "Decay of a Dome") and in 2016 under Alejandro Aravena. Their edition will follow the 2025 edition curated by Carlo Ratti and will be titled "Fare Architettura" (Doing Architecture), focusing on the coexistence of diversity in real reality.
Hong Kong's art scene is witnessing a significant rise in the visibility and institutional embrace of LGBTQ+ art, particularly during its annual Art Week. Exhibitions like the Sunpride Foundation's 'Myth Makers—Spectrosynthesis III' at Tai Kwun Contemporary have acted as major accelerants, moving queer discourse from semi-private contexts into prominent public institutions.
The article explores the street art scene in Luxembourg, highlighting cities and towns like Esch-sur-Alzette, Leudelange, Koler, and Ettelbruck where murals and graffiti adorn buildings, schools, and even waste bins. It traces the movement's origins to the 1980s hip-hop-inspired rebellion, when graffiti was illegal and artists like Sumo, Spike, Stick, Dan Sinnes, and Alain Tshinza emerged. Today, urban art is embraced as a tool for social cohesion and expression, with projects like Kufa's Urban Art Esch in Esch-sur-Alzette featuring over fifty murals by international artists. The article also notes techniques such as grid systems, projections, and reverse graffiti, exemplified by Klaus Dauven's 2023 tribute on the Vianden dam.
Polish photographer Janusz Jurek, who works as a graphic designer and commercial photographer, creates candid street photographs that capture humor, happenstance, and the bizarre. He focuses on authentic moments outside the mainstream, often turning away from main attractions to observe people's reactions, small gestures, and strange coincidences. Jurek is preparing a photo collection titled "Look, Before It’s Gone," compiling five years of his street photography.
Resonancias Desde El Abismo Artistas Uruguayos
The exhibition 'Resonancias desde el abismo. Prácticas artísticas entre presiones y frecuencias extrañas' (Resonances from the Abyss. Artistic Practices Between Pressures and Strange Frequencies), curated by Fabiana Puentes, opened at the Centro Cultural de España in Montevideo. It features works by eight Uruguayan artists—including Guadalupe Ayala, Karina Flores, and Sofía Córdoba—working across sculpture, video, sound, and installation. The show uses the extreme, dark, and high-pressure ecosystem of the ocean abyss as a conceptual framework to explore artistic practices that resist immediate interpretation and conventional systems of reference.
The article describes a visit to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York to see two concurrent exhibitions: Sam Contis's "Phases," featuring black-and-white motion portraits and a three-channel film of teenage girls running a five-kilometer race, and Diane Simpson's "Formal Wear," a sculptural exploration of femininity's exoskeletons using industrial materials. Literary accompaniments were commissioned for both shows—Kathryn Scanlan wrote a story for Contis's exhibition, and critic Audrey Wollen contributed an essay for Simpson's—blending visual art with prose to examine themes of adolescence, identity, and self-construction.
Cultured magazine profiles photographer Charlie Denis, who works across commercial and fine art photography. Denis is nominated by Nadia Lee Cohen and known for his exuberant style, with clients including Levi’s and Skims. He co-directed a four-minute experimental Christmas film starring Kim Kardashian in 2024. In the article, Denis discusses his creative process, comparing photographing women to playing with Barbie dolls as a queer child, and explains his embrace of theatricality over strict realism.
The article reports on the 2026 Met Gala, where celebrities embraced art-inspired fashion on the red carpet. The event, known for its extravagant themed dress code, featured stars wearing outfits that referenced famous artworks, artistic movements, or museum collections.
Harta Space in Penang is hosting 'A Third Eye', an exhibition paying tribute to the late multi-dimensional artist Askandar Unglehrt. Born in Germany, Unglehrt studied at the Sorbonne in Paris during the 1960s, where he was influenced by Dadaism and surrealist poet Jean Hans Arp. He later settled in Malaysia, taught at Universiti Sains Malaysia, and developed a distinctive artistic practice rooted in collage, assemblage, and the concept of a 'third eye' that synthesizes Eastern and Western perspectives. The exhibition explores his humorous, esoteric works and his lifelong questioning of art's seriousness.