One of LACMA's first commissions finds new life at David Geffen Galleries

Alexander Calder's monumental fountain sculpture "Three Quintains (Hello Girls)" has been reinstalled at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's new David Geffen Galleries, more than 60 years after it was first commissioned for the museum's original 1965 campus. The colorful, whimsical piece features four water jets that propel mobile-like paddles, and its water jets were turned back on in March 2025. The sculpture now anchors the northeast corner of the new building, placed alongside the main cafe and near the W.M. Keck Education Center, with a technically advanced filtration system to address previous environmental challenges.

Flying Back With the Birds to My Hometown of Tehran

The author, an Iranian artist living in the diaspora, describes the profound psychological impact of the ongoing war on her homeland. She experiences a constant state of displacement and terror, feeling tethered to Tehran through news of bombings in the Alborz Mountains, which transforms her sense of geography and home into one of anxiety and helplessness.

Tate St Ives to host first UK museum exhibition of groundbreaking artist

Tate St Ives will present the first UK museum exhibition of Aleksandra Kasuba, a Lithuanian American artist (1923–2019), from May 2 to October 4, 2026. The show spans seven decades of her career, featuring early paintings, mosaics, sculptures, and public artworks, including the spatial environment *Spectrum: An Afterthought* and a recreation of her *Live-In Environment*. Works are drawn from the Lithuanian National Museum of Art's collection, where Kasuba donated her pieces.

Milwaukee Art Museum to Present Widline Cadet’s First U.S. Museum Solo Exhibition

The Milwaukee Art Museum has announced "Currents 40: Widline Cadet," the first U.S. museum solo exhibition for the Haitian-born artist. Running from May 8 through August 9, 2026, the show features the debut of her decade-long project, "Seremoni Disparisyon (Ritual [Dis]Appearance)." The exhibition utilizes photography, video, and installation to explore themes of Black diasporic life, migration, and the creation of a "living archive" through staged imagery and autobiographical details.

In Hayv Kahraman’s New Show, the Artist Heals From Devastation

Hayv Kahraman's latest solo show, "Ghost Fires," at Jack Shainman Gallery in New York City features paintings of women with smoke rising from their fingertips and pupil-less eyes, using scorched textures and marbled pigments. The body of work is her first since the January wildfires in Los Angeles displaced her and her family from their Altadena home, and it explores trauma, memory, and healing without directly depicting flames.

Susan Philipsz: East by West | June 13, 2025

Susan Philipsz is presenting a new exhibition titled "East by West" at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, opening June 13, 2025. The show features the artist's signature sound-based installations, exploring themes of geography, memory, and displacement through audio works that blend field recordings and musical compositions.

Sun Woo: ‘I’m interested in how the body navigates unfamiliar territory’

Sun Woo, a Korean-born artist who moved to Canada as a child, is featured in the Korean Artists Today project, which selects emerging Korean artists with global potential. Her work explores displacement, cultural hybridity, and the body's navigation of unfamiliar territories, blending digital and analogue techniques. Her paintings, sculptures, and installations often merge bodily elements with mechanical devices, referencing female exploitation and labor, as seen in her 2024 painting *Weaver's Room*.

Mirna Bamieh “Sour Things: The Door” at NIKA Project Space, Paris

NIKA Project Space in Paris presents "Sour Things: The Door," a new installation by Palestinian artist Mirna Bamieh, on view from April 17 to May 23, 2026. Curated by Anne Davidian, the exhibition marks Bamieh's return to the gallery following her solo presentation that inaugurated NIKA's Paris space in 2024, and serves as the latest chapter in her ongoing "Sour" series.

Kunsthalle Mainz Facing the End?

Kunsthalle Mainz vor dem Aus?

The Kunsthalle Mainz is facing potential closure by the end of the year following the withdrawal of funding by the Mainzer Stadtwerke. The crisis is compounded by the departure of director Stefanie Böttcher, who is moving to the Kunsthalle Kiel, and the fact that her position has not been advertised for replacement. Despite its international reputation and successful recent exhibitions, such as the current Britta Marakatt-Labba retrospective, the institution lacks a secured financial future and a leadership succession plan.

The Fruitful Dialogue Between AI, Knowledge, and Creation in a Free Festival at the BnF

Le dialogue fécond entre IA, savoir et création dans un festival gratuit à la BnF

The Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) is hosting the inaugural edition of "Noûs," a free festival exploring the intersection of artificial intelligence, archival knowledge, and artistic creation. Located in the hall of the François-Mitterrand site, the event features eight artistic projects that utilize the library's vast catalog to reveal hidden histories rather than generate falsehoods. Highlights include Audrey Large’s 3D-printed sculptures exploring suppressed female knowledge, Justine Emard’s immersive digital cave of AI-generated sirens, and the collective Obvious’s speculative botanical frescoes based on historical scientific plates.

Banksy statue appears in Central London.

A large statue mysteriously appeared in central London earlier this week and has been confirmed as the work of the street artist Banksy. The piece, bearing the artist's signature, depicts a suited man carrying a flag that obscures his face as he walks off a plinth. It was installed in Banksy's signature guerrilla style at Waterloo Place in St. James's, near statues of Edward VII and Florence Nightingale.

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South Africa’s official pavilion at the Venice Biennale will remain empty this year following the government's abrupt cancellation of artist Gabrielle Goliath’s planned exhibition. The controversy erupted when Culture Minister Gayton McKenzie pulled the project just days before the deadline, labeling Goliath’s work "highly divisive" due to its inclusion of a tribute to Palestinian poet Hiba Abu Nada. Despite the official ban and a failed court challenge by the artist and curator, the work, titled *Elegy*, will now be staged independently at the Chiesa di Sant’Antonin nearby.

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The Ukrainian Pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale will present a project titled "Security Guarantees," focusing on the failure of international promises to protect Ukraine, specifically referencing the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. Artist Zhanna Kadyrova will exhibit her concrete sculpture, Origami Deer, which was evacuated from eastern Ukraine as the Russian frontline advanced. The work will be suspended from a crane on a truck along the lagoon, and the pavilion will include archival material and a video installation tracing the sculpture's journey.

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El Salvador will debut its first national pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale, featuring Salvadoran American artist J. Oscar Molina. The pavilion, titled "Cartographies of the Displaced," will be curated by Alejandra Cabezas and commissioned by Astrid Bahamond, the national director for museums and exhibition spaces of El Salvador's Ministry of Culture. Molina will install at least 15 of his "Children of the World" sculptures at Palazzo Mora in Venice's Cannaregio district, each accompanied by QR codes linking to interactive stories from displaced communities, including his own experience fleeing El Salvador's civil war in 1989.

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President Donald Trump announced eight new appointees to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum board via a social media post on Thursday night, replacing trustees previously appointed by former President Joe Biden. The new appointees include Betty Schwartz, Fred Marcus, Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz, Sid Rosenberg, Ariel Abergel, Barbara Feingold, Alex Witkoff, and Robert Garson. They fill vacancies created after Trump removed Biden's appointees, which included Doug Emhoff, Ron Klain, Tom Perez, Susan Rice, and Anthony Bernal, leaving the council with only 41 members instead of the typical 55 presidential appointees.

Watch: Khaled Sabsabi and Michael Dagostino in Conversation

Artist Khaled Sabsabi and curator Michael Dagostino discuss their project 'conference of one’s self' for the Australia Pavilion at the 61st Venice Biennale. Sabsabi explains how the work draws on the twelfth-century Sufi poem 'The Conference of the Birds' by Farīd al-Dīn ʿAṭṭār, mapping its seven spiritual valleys and adding an eighth level of 'wholeness and completeness'. He also reflects on his childhood in Lebanon, migration to Australia, and how his return to Lebanon in 2002 reconnected him with his Sufi lineage, which informs his artistic practice focused on memory, displacement, and social justice.

Galle Facing

Colombo’s skyline has undergone a radical transformation into a forest of glass and steel towers, epitomized by projects like the Lotus Tower and Port City. This rapid urbanization, driven by a state ambition to create a 'world-class city' following decades of civil war, has resulted in the displacement of local neighborhoods and the burial of historical layers under new infrastructure.

'ART FROM WAR TO WAR: CHASING BUTTERFLIES OVER THE VERGE OF A CLIFF' at Beck & Eggeling International Fine Art, Düsseldorf, Germany on 28 May–15 Aug 2026

An exhibition titled 'ART FROM WAR TO WAR: CHASING BUTTERFLIES OVER THE VERGE OF A CLIFF' is on view at Beck & Eggeling International Fine Art in Düsseldorf, Germany, from 28 May to 15 August 2026. Curated by Antonio Geusa and Kay Heymer, the show features selected works from the Valeria Rodnianski collection, spanning artists from Germany and the Soviet/post-Soviet space. It is structured around two historical turning points—the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961 and Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022—and organized into three thematic sections: Topos, Anthropos, and Logos, exploring place, human experience, and language.

Exhibition | Dai Chenlian, 'Waxing and Waning of the Augustness III' at ShanghART, M50, Shanghai, China

ShanghART Gallery presents Dai Chenlian's solo exhibition 'Waxing and Waning of the Augustness III' at its M50 space in Shanghai from April 10 to May 29, 2026. The show is the final chapter of the artist's 'Mother Trilogy,' centering on his mother's life from 1954 to 2025. Through a reconstructed old house made from loom parts, along with painting, installation, performance, sound narration, and shadow puppetry, the exhibition explores themes of memory, migration, and female resilience, drawing on a line by Tang dynasty poet Li Shangyin.

Smithsonian’s governing body quietly losing members

The Smithsonian Institution's Board of Regents is shrinking, with two members' terms expiring in March and no replacements announced. A third regent's term expires next week, with three more set to end in the autumn, and there are no concrete plans to fill these vacancies. The delay stems from a requirement for both Congress and the President to approve new members.

Other Worlds of Light: Zarina’s “Beyond the Stars”

Luhring Augustine gallery in New York is presenting 'Beyond the Stars,' the first posthumous solo exhibition of the late Indian-born artist Zarina. The show features prints, collages, cast paper works, and sculptures spanning seven decades, focusing on themes of borders, displacement, and exile shaped by the Partition of India and her nomadic life.

New book explores the complex history of Jewish country houses

A new book titled *Jewish Country Houses*, edited by Juliet Carey and Abigail Green, explores the history of approximately 1,000 country estates built or remodeled by wealthy Jewish families across Great Britain and Continental Europe from the French Revolution until World War II. These houses, such as Waddesdon Manor and Château de Champs-sur-Marne, served as symbols of social arrival and assimilation, blending eclectic architectural styles with art collections from European auction houses. The volume, published by Profile and Brandeis University Press in association with the National Trust, features contributions from an international team of historians and curators, with photographs by Hélène Binet, and includes case studies of a dozen houses now open to the public.

Getty Center will close for a year to undergo major renovations

The Getty Center in Los Angeles will shutter for one year beginning March 15, 2027, to undergo its most significant renovation since opening in 1997. The $600 million to $800 million project focuses on infrastructure and visitor experience, including a total replacement of the campus's aging tram system, a redesign of the welcome hall, and the renovation of 27,000 square feet of gallery space. While the hilltop campus is closed, the Getty Villa will remain open, and a new permanent space will debut on Sepulveda Boulevard.

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The Ukrainian government has enacted a new resolution to streamline the evacuation of over three million cultural objects from conflict zones as the Russian invasion nears its fourth year. The policy establishes a mandatory evacuation zone for museum items within 50 kilometers of the frontline and requires storage at least 75 kilometers away. Crucially, the resolution empowers museum directors to act independently during crises and introduces a three-stage evacuation system based on the cultural value of the property.

using flight simulators peggy ahwesh crafts an elegy to a disused palestinian airport and the freedom it represented 1234766630

Peggy Ahwesh's solo exhibition "The Wayfinders," recently on view at New York's Microscope Gallery, marks a new direction for the experimental filmmaker. For the first time, she incorporates footage from an early-2000s flight simulator alongside original video and animation to create a large-scale installation. The work serves as an elegy for the abandoned Qalandia/Atarot airport, situated between Qalandia and Jerusalem, which operated as a civilian airport from 1948 to 1967 before Israel annexed the site. Through poetic voiceover and imagery of travel and navigation, Ahwesh reflects on Palestine's thwarted right to the sky, the history of wayfinding by the stars, and the porous borders of the past contrasted with today's restrictions.

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The Louvre Museum in Paris has ended its long-running partnership with Nintendo that provided Nintendo 3DS consoles as museum guides. Launched in 2012, the program loaned 5,000 devices to the museum, which visitors could rent for a few euros. The 3DS units featured a multimedia library of over 700 artworks, 30 hours of audio commentary, and geolocation for personalized tours. Nintendo later discontinued the 3DS in 2020, and smartphones have since become the dominant tool for accessing information in museums. The Louvre has not yet announced a replacement.

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Air de Paris, a leading French contemporary art gallery, has withdrawn from the 2025 edition of Art Basel in Switzerland after a dispute over booth placement. The gallery was offered a less desirable second-row spot (N3) despite its long history of prime placement (L23) on the second floor. Cofounders Florence Bonnefous and Edouard Merino described the allocation process as "brutal and unfair" in a letter to the fair, which was circulated online. Art Basel defended its decision, stating that placement is at its sole discretion and made in consideration of all 290 participating galleries.

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Adriano Pedrosa, the first Latin American and openly queer curator of the Venice Biennale, has unveiled a record-breaking artist list for the 60th edition titled "Foreigners Everywhere." Featuring 331 artists, the main exhibition is the largest in the event's history and introduces a "nucleo storico" designed to provide belated recognition to overlooked figures from the Global South and marginalized communities. Pedrosa’s selection process intentionally challenges the Western-centric traditions of the art world by focusing on themes of displacement and the "stranger."

John Hitchcock’s sonic and cultural rhythms

The New Britain Museum of American Art in Connecticut will present "John Hitchcock: We are Defined by the Beat" from May 16 to November 29, 2026, marking the artist's first mid-career retrospective. John Hitchcock, an enrolled member of the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma with Comanche and Northern European ancestry, has spent over three decades transforming the sonic and cultural rhythms of his homeland into a distinct visual language. The exhibition explores his integration of visual and sonic forms across printmaking, neon, textiles, sound, video, and installation, featuring series such as "Flatlander" (2011-18), "Bury the Hatchet" (2019-2020), "Blanket Songs" (2022-2023), "Soundscapes" (2021-2024), and "Celebration" (2025). Hitchcock's work pays homage to his ancestors, confronts histories of Indigenous displacement and trauma, and celebrates community, resilience, and survival, drawing on the sounds and landscapes of his ancestral home in Medicine Park, Oklahoma.

Stories the Soil Remembers Exhibition by Jyoti Tyagi to Open at Shridharani Gallery in New Delhi

A solo exhibition titled "Stories the Soil Remembers" by Delhi-based artist Jyoti Tyagi will open from 8 May to 14 May 2026 at Shridharani Gallery, Triveni Kala Sangam, New Delhi. Curated by poet and art critic Prayag Shukla, the show features works in charcoal, acrylic, and mixed media on paper and canvas, exploring themes of nature, memory, and ecological sensitivity. Recurring motifs such as trees, birds, and landscapes reflect on the interdependence between humans and nature, while Tyagi's technique of scratching into painted surfaces evokes a sense of time and transformation.