Philadelphia Art Museum exhibits Noah Davis’s tender depiction of Black life

The Philadelphia Art Museum has opened a new exhibition surveying the career of the late American artist Noah Davis, featuring over 60 works from 2007 to his death in 2015. The show, curated by Eleanor Nairne and Wells Fray-Smith, is the final stop of an international tour organized with DAS MINSK in Potsdam, the Barbican in London, and the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. It includes paintings, sculptures, and works on paper that chronologically map Davis's multimedia practice, with a final room dedicated to his last three paintings.

Noah Davis

The Philadelphia Art Museum is presenting an exhibition of works by the late artist Noah Davis, running from January 24 to April 26, 2026, in the Morgan, Korman, and Field Galleries. The show features paintings such as "Untitled" (2015), "40 Acres and a Unicorn" (2007), "Isis" (2009), "Mary Jane" (2008), and "1975 (8)" (2013), drawn from private collections and the Mellon Foundation Art Collection, with works courtesy of David Zwirner.

It’s LACMA’s World, and Hollywood Wants to Play in It

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) celebrated the opening of its new David Geffen Galleries with a star-studded gala that raised nearly $11.5 million. The event brought together architect Peter Zumthor, museum director Michael Govan, and a high-profile mix of Hollywood celebrities, artists, and major donors. The $720 million building, Zumthor's first major project in the United States, marks the culmination of a decades-long development process and is set to open to the public next week.

New York Galleries: Openings and Closings of the Week (11/11—11/16)

met gala reveals 2026 dress code fashion is art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has announced "Fashion is Art" as the official dress code for the 2026 Met Gala, complementing the Costume Institute’s upcoming exhibition, "Costume Art." Curated by Andrew Bolton, the show will feature approximately 400 objects that juxtapose couture fashion with traditional artworks and artifacts. The exhibition will be the first to inhabit the museum's new Condé M. Nast Galleries and is structured around a "typology of bodies," exploring how fashion interacts with various human forms ranging from classical nudes to aging bodies.

Korean Cultural Center New York Presents the Major Exhibition "Lee Kang So: A Field of Becoming"

The Korean Cultural Center New York (KCCNY) presents the major exhibition "Lee Kang So: A Field of Becoming," on view from May 13 to June 20, 2026. The show features the work of pioneering Korean contemporary artist Lee Kang So (b. 1943), who since the 1970s has worked across photography, painting, sculpture, installation, and performance, resisting fixed forms to explore how art emerges through process, material, and context. The exhibition includes key works from his 1970s performances and installations, as well as later sculptures and paintings that foreground gravity, chance, and bodily gesture. Lee, who was active in New York in the 1980s and participated in MoMA PS1's Studio Artist Program, returns to the city with this exhibition at KCCNY's expanded venue.

A new wing to solve the problems of the Galleria Borghese in Rome. Beautiful challenge, tedious controversy

Una nuova ala per risolvere i problemi della Galleria Borghese a Roma. Bella sfida, stucchevoli polemiche

The Galleria Borghese in Rome, one of Italy's most extraordinary museums, faces significant accessibility and capacity issues due to its historic 17th-century structure. The museum is difficult for visitors with disabilities, overcrowded, and forces visitors to book far in advance—often waiting over a month for a time slot—while many masterpieces remain in storage. In 2025, the engineering firm Proger offered to sponsor a feasibility study for a new wing, contributing nearly 900,000 euros to fund an international architecture competition and a technical-economic feasibility plan. The study, currently underway, aims to explore whether a new annex can be built within the protected Villa Borghese park to create new entrances, exhibition spaces, and services.

The New Victoria & Albert Museum Opens in April: Once Again in East London

Ad aprile inaugura il nuovo museo del Victoria&Albert. Ancora una volta nell’East London

The Victoria & Albert Museum has announced the official opening date for the V&A East Museum, a new five-story cultural landmark in London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Designed by architects O’Donnell + Tuomey, the museum will debut on April 18, 2026, featuring two permanent galleries titled "Why We Make" that showcase over 500 objects ranging from Renaissance paintings to contemporary fashion by Vivienne Westwood. The entrance will be anchored by a monumental bronze sculpture by Thomas J Price, marking the start of a robust contemporary commission program.

ArtReview Asia Spring 2026 Issue Out Now

The Spring 2026 issue of ArtReview Asia has been published, featuring a cover profile of artist Li Yi-Fan. The issue includes an in-depth look at Li's work, which explores the relationship between humans and machines through video installations and performance lectures, ahead of his representation of Taiwan at the Venice Biennale. Other articles examine the contemporary art scene in Bangkok, urban redevelopment in Colombo, a colonial-era plant hunting exhibition in London, and Taiwan's museum boom.

New Exhibition Explores the 60 Artists At the Forefront of Contemporary Fiber Art

The Golden Thread 2, a new exhibition organized by Karin Bravin and John Lee of BravinLee Programs, showcases the work of 60 contemporary fiber artists at an 18th-century mercantile building in Manhattan’s South Street Seaport neighborhood. Running until May 16, 2025, the show features a wide range of techniques including weaving, crochet, knitting, embroidery, tufting, and quilting, with pieces by artists such as Julia Bland, Lucia Engstrom, Mark Fleuridor, Sammy Bennet, Ali Dipp, Ana Maria Hernando, and Ellie Murphy. This second iteration is larger and longer than the first, which coincided with Frieze New York in 2024.

What else is happening

Was sonst noch geht

Ahead of the Gallery Weekend Berlin (May 1–3), the city is buzzing with parallel exhibitions that extend far beyond the official gallery circuit. The fourth edition of the Sellerie Weekend opens over 75 independent Off-Spaces from April 30 to May 3, featuring performances, curated tours, and a kickoff event with artist Sophia Süßmilch at the Spoiler project space. The Paper Positions art fair returns to Tempelhof Airport (April 30–May 3) with 70 international galleries specializing in works on paper, including artists like Annegret Soltau, Una Ursprung, and Stefanie Moshammer. Meanwhile, the art initiative House presents the group show "Gravity Ease Contract" in the Berghain heating plant hall (May 1–24), curated by David Douard, with works by Susan Philipsz, Julia Scher, and others. Finally, collectors Karen and Christian Boros unveil "Berlin Bunker #5" in their bunker-turned-museum, featuring recent acquisitions by Pol Taburet, Sung Tieu, and Jill Mulleady.

Mexico City's art scene gravitates to Santa María la Ribera neighbourhood

The artistic center of gravity in Mexico City is shifting from established gallery districts like Condesa and Roma to the Santa María la Ribera neighborhood. Over the past five years, a wave of artists has moved there, drawn by affordable rents, large studio spaces, and a central location, transforming the area into a vibrant, organic hub for artistic production and new, non-traditional exhibition spaces.

'ARTnews' Names 'Confessions of Fire' by Isaiah Davis '25 One of New York's Best Art Exhibitions of 2025

Isaiah Davis '25, a visual arts alumnus of Columbia School of the Arts, opened his third solo exhibition, 'Confessions of Fire,' at King's Leap gallery in Chinatown this fall. The exhibition, which runs through December 20, 2025, features steel sculptures and enamel paintings on metal that explore Black masculinity through the motifs of leather culture and steel, inspired by rapper Cam'ron's debut album. ARTnews named it one of New York's best exhibitions of 2025, with senior editor Alex Greenberger praising the sculpture 'Slave (2025)' as the most surprising work of the year. The New York Times critic Travis Diehl and Frieze critic George Egerton-Warburton also gave it positive reviews.

The best looks from the 2026 Met Gala

The 2026 Met Gala, themed 'Costume Art,' took place at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, honoring the Costume Institute's spring exhibition on the role of the dressed body in art history. Co-chaired by Nicole Kidman, Venus Williams, Anna Wintour, and Beyoncé, the event featured A-list celebrities, pop stars, and tech titans on the museum's grand staircase, with a dress code of 'Fashion Is Art' encouraging guests to treat the body as a canvas. Notable attendees included Sabrina Carpenter, Doechii, Rosé, Gigi Hadid, Katy Perry, and Charli XCX, with many wearing custom designs from houses like Marc Jacobs, Saint Laurent, Thom Browne, and Jean Paul Gaultier.

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani to Skip Met Gala, Sources Say

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and his wife Rama Duwaji will reportedly skip the 2025 Met Gala, breaking a long-standing tradition of mayoral attendance at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s premier fundraiser. Sources suggest the decision stems from a conflict between Mamdani’s socialist political platform and the event's association with billionaire sponsors, specifically Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez-Bezos.

Why Did the Met Opera Decide to Exhume Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera’s Marital Strife?

The Metropolitan Opera has staged Gabriela Lena Frank's first opera, *El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego*, which imagines a supernatural reunion between Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera on Día de los Muertos. The production, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin and starring Isabel Leonard and Carlos Álvarez, uses magical realism to explore the couple's turbulent relationship, though it largely sidelines their Communist activism and Kahlo's queer affairs in favor of a simplified reconciliation narrative.

The Good, the Bad, and the Fugly From the 2026 Met Gala

Cultured magazine's 2026 Met Gala coverage features a roundtable of critics and writers offering candid, often humorous takes on celebrity looks from the red carpet. Emma Chamberlain's hand-painted Mugler gown is widely praised as the most on-theme, while Troye Sivan's Prada homage to Robert Mapplethorpe and Chase Infiniti's Thom Browne trompe-l'œil dress also earn acclaim. Gabrielle Richardson calls for more color, noting the theme is about art, and criticizes the monochromatic trend. Mackenzie Thomas pans Alysa Liu's look as "prom" and "quinceañera," while others celebrate Naomi Osaka's Robert Wun Couture and Connor Storrie's Saint Laurent ensemble. The article is structured as a series of short, punchy quotes from multiple contributors, each focusing on specific attendees' fashion choices.

design art precious okoyomon garden

Precious Okoyomon, editor of CULTURED at Home gardens, selects five unconventional natural landscapes that thrive against difficult odds. These include Dumbarton Oaks in Washington DC with its ancient wisteria, the radioactive waste site Dead Horse Bay in Brooklyn where invasive species bloom, the childhood haven Glen Helen Nature Preserve in Ohio, the Persian-inspired Untermyer Gardens in Yonkers, and Derek Jarman's seaside garden beside a nuclear plant in Dungeness, UK. Each location is described through Okoyomon's personal reflections, illustrated by Erin Knutson.

LATIN AMERICA AT THE VENICE BIENNALE: A VISUAL TOUR OF THE CENTRAL EXHIBITION

LATINOAMÉRICA EN LA BIENAL DE VENECIA: UN RECORRIDO VISUAL POR LA MUESTRA CENTRAL

The 61st Venice Biennale, titled "In Minor Keys," opened its preview days on May 8, 2025, curated by the late Koyo Kouoh (1967–2025). The central exhibition, realized by a team she selected before her death, features 110 participants from around the world, with a strong Latin American presence of 15 artists, collectives, and organizations. The show explores themes of colonial history, plantation economies, geological memory, and environmental crisis through works that emphasize shared materials, politics, and poetics across geographies from Dakar to San Juan.

Form in the Age of Living Materials. Interview with Curator Pablo José Ramírez

LA FORMA EN LA ERA DE LOS MATERIALES VIVOS. ENTREVISTA AL CURADOR PABLO JOSÉ RAMÍREZ

The Hammer Museum in Los Angeles is presenting "Several Eternities in a Day: Form in the Age of Living Materials," an exhibition curated by Pablo José Ramírez running until August 23. Featuring 22 artists from the Americas, the show explores materials such as avocado, cacao, achiote, cochineal, stone, clay, and natural dyes that evolve, degrade, or transform over time. Organized into three acts, the exhibition challenges conventional notions of the art object by treating these materials as living agents with memory and agency, rooted in Indigenous knowledge and the concept of "brownness." In an interview, Ramírez discusses how these materials destabilize extractivist logics and institutional frameworks, forcing a rethinking of conservation protocols and the very conditions of exhibition-making.

DHM main building likely closed until 2031

DHM-Hauptbau wohl bis 2031 dicht

The German Historical Museum (DHM) in Berlin will remain without its main building, the Zeughaus on Unter den Linden, until at least 2031 due to further delays in its renovation. Museum director Raphael Gross announced that a binding timeline from the property owner and the federal construction authority is not expected until 2027, and a reopening before 2031 is unrealistic. In the meantime, the museum is using its modern Pei-Bau wing to host a new exhibition titled "Objekte. Geschichte. Geschichten," featuring around 200 highlights from its collection of one million objects, including a samurai armor once gifted to Adolf Hitler and objects from a refugee shelter.

Martin Schongauer en toute majesté

The Louvre Museum in Paris has opened a major retrospective dedicated to Martin Schongauer (c. 1445–1491), the German engraver and painter from Colmar, bringing together a large portion of his known works. The exhibition features around one hundred pieces, including fifty engravings, five of his rare drawings, and nearly all of his attributed paintings—such as the "Virgin and Child at the Window" (c. 1480) from the Getty Museum and the "Orlier Altarpiece" (c. 1470–1475) from the Musée Unterlinden. The centerpiece is Schongauer's "Virgin of the Rose Bush" (1473), displayed at low height to reveal its botanical precision. Co-curated by Pantxika Béguerie De Paepe and Hélène Grollemund, the show also highlights Schongauer's influence on contemporaries and later artists through comparative works by Rogier van der Weyden and others.

4 Details to Understand Martin Schongauer’s 'Madonna of the Rose Bower' Currently at the Louvre

4 détails pour comprendre « La Vierge au buisson de roses » de Martin Schongauer actuellement au Louvre

The Musée du Louvre is hosting a major exhibition dedicated to the Rhenish master Martin Schongauer, featuring his 1473 masterpiece, 'Madonna of the Rose Bower.' On loan from the Dominican Church in Colmar, the painting is a rare survivor of Schongauer’s small extant painted corpus and is making a significant journey to Paris despite its extreme fragility. The work is celebrated for its intricate detail and grace, qualities that earned the artist the nickname 'Handsome Martin' and influenced successors like Albrecht Dürer.

Enter the unsettled space of Asian American abstraction

The Milton Resnick and Pat Passlof Foundation in New York is hosting the exhibition "How Asian Is It?", featuring 12 pioneering East Asian American abstractionists born between 1928 and 1955. Curated by Lilly Wei, the show includes works by Barbara Takenaga, Emily Cheng, Charles Yuen, and David Diao, among others. These artists navigated an art world where downplaying their Asian identities often felt necessary for survival, especially after the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act reshaped US immigration policy. The exhibition explores how their abstraction—marked by attention to interval, pause, and what remains unsaid—reflects a disciplined negotiation with space rather than a shared style or manifesto.

Venice Diary Day 2: “In Minor Keys” Is a Major Statement on Perseverance and Play

The article is a diary entry from the 2026 Venice Biennale, focusing on the exhibition "In Minor Keys" curated by the late Koyo Kouoh. The author describes an emotional experience, beginning with a poem by Refaat Alareer on the Arsenale wall, and highlights works by Guadalupe Maravilla, Alexa Kumiko Hatanaka, and others that address themes of perseverance, healing, and survival. Maravilla's sculptures reference a child kidnapped by ICE, while Hatanaka's linocuts explore bipolar disorder as an adaptive trait. The show also features artist-led collectives like Denniston Hill and fierce pussy, emphasizing institution-building and world-making.

First Impressions of a Venice Biennale Torn Apart by the Present

The 61st Venice Biennale, titled "In Minor Keys," opens amid turmoil: its curator Koyo Kouoh died of cancer during planning, and the festival jury resigned after a controversial statement about excluding Israel and Russia from prizes, replaced by a Eurovision-style people's choice award. The main exhibition, completed by a team of five collaborators using Kouoh's plans, features over 110 artists and collectives, with highlights including works by Big Chief Demond Melanchon, Tammy Nguyen, Guadalupe Maravilla, Ayrson Heráclito, and a section focused on Michael Armitage's Nairobi Contemporary Art Institute.

This Watch Witnessed the Rise of the Empire State Building. Now It’s Up for Sale

A rare 1929 Patek Philippe wristwatch, originally owned by Paul Starrett—the chairman of the corporation behind the Empire State Building—is headed to auction at Phillips in New York. The Tiffany & Co. signed timepiece was purchased by Starrett during the construction of the iconic skyscraper and features unique floral engravings alongside his initials. It is expected to fetch between $15,000 and $30,000 during the June sale.

auctions houses middle market competition art

The auction industry's "middle market"—typically defined as lots under $1 million—is facing a period of intense competition and shrinking profit margins. While these lower-priced works account for the vast majority of transaction volume and a significant portion of earnings, the overhead costs of selling them remain high. Furthermore, aggressive financial maneuvers like guarantees and "enhanced hammers," once reserved for blue-chip masterpieces, are now being demanded by sellers and advisors at much lower price points.

doja cat lacma art film gala performance

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) has booked American singer and rapper Doja Cat as the musical guest for its annual Art+Film Gala on November 1. The event will also honor visual artist Mary Corse, a key figure in the Light and Space movement, and filmmaker Ryan Coogler, known for 'Black Panther' and 'Sinner'. The gala is co-chaired by LACMA trustee Eva Chow and actor Leonardo DiCaprio.

george soros trump open society foundations investigation

The Trump administration has escalated its attacks on billionaire philanthropist George Soros, with the Justice Department calling for an investigation into his Open Society Foundations. The foundations, which provide substantial grants to artists and human rights organizations globally, are accused of potential racketeering, wire fraud, and material support for terrorism, based on allegations from the conservative Capital Research Center. Soros, a major Democratic donor, has previously been targeted by Trump and Vice President JD Vance, who claim the foundations fund leftist protests. The Open Society Foundations have awarded $100,000 fellowships to numerous prominent artists, including Firelei Báez, Yto Barrada, and Nicholas Galanin, and provided $1.2 billion in funding in 2024 alone.