‘The Queen of the Ghetto’ Gave New York’s Immigrant Community a Voice. A Century Later, It’s Re-emerging

Anzia Yezierska, a Polish-Jewish immigrant who arrived in New York in 1890, defied traditional gender expectations to become a leading literary voice of the 1920s. Dubbed the 'Queen of the Ghetto,' she documented the raw struggles of immigrant women on the Lower East Side using a unique 'immigrant English' style that captured Yiddish idioms. After escaping a restrictive marriage and pursuing an education at Columbia University, she channeled her personal frustrations into stories of poverty, ambition, and the psychological toll of assimilation.

Can you recognize the photographers behind these 15 iconic shots?

Saurez-vous reconnaître les photographes qui se cachent derrière ces 15 clichés iconiques ?

Beaux Arts Magazine published a quiz challenging readers to identify 15 iconic photographs and their creators, from Nicéphore Niépce to Cindy Sherman. The quiz marks the bicentennial of photography in 2026–2027, featuring pioneers of the 19th century alongside contemporary masters, covering genres from photojournalism to intimate portraiture and formal experimentation.

Cameron Art Museum partners with Cucalorus on new cinema series

Cameron Art Museum (CAM) in Wilmington, North Carolina, has announced a new film series called CAM at the Movies, produced in partnership with the Cucalorus Film Foundation. The series will take place at Jengo’s Playhouse and feature screenings paired with live conversations with artists, curators, and cultural leaders. The lineup includes three films: "Legacy" (June 26), a short film about the United States Colored Troops; Andy Warhol's "Flesh for Frankenstein" (August 28); and "Always Looking: Titus Brooks Heagins" (December 11), a documentary about the photographer's work. Each screening will be accompanied by discussions with filmmakers, curators, and museum staff, connecting the films to CAM's current exhibitions.

Beyoncé, Bad Bunny and Heidi Klum take artistic liberties with Met Gala dress code

The 2026 Met Gala, celebrating the opening of the Costume Institute's "Costume Art" exhibition, saw celebrities including Beyoncé, Naomi Osaka, Emma Chamberlain, and Heidi Klum embrace the dress code "Fashion is art" with bold, sculptural, and art-inspired ensembles. Beyoncé wore a custom Olivier Rousteing skeleton dress with a feathered train and diamond crown, while Osaka stunned in a Robert Wun white sculptural dress with a red anatomy-themed reveal. Co-chairs Anna Wintour, Nicole Kidman, and Venus Williams also made notable appearances, with Williams referencing a Robert Pruitt portrait of herself. Many guests drew direct inspiration from art history, such as Lauren Sánchez Bezos channeling John Singer Sargent's "Madame X" and Lena Dunham collaborating with Valentino's Alessandro Michele to depict Artemisia Gentileschi's "Judith Slaying Holofernes."

History of soccer exhibition open at Arlington museum ahead of FIFA World Cup

The Arlington Museum of Art has opened "More Than a Match," a large-scale exhibition exploring the history of soccer through World Cup memorabilia, historic jerseys, maps, and contemporary art. The show features items on loan from the National Soccer Hall of Fame, the University of Texas at Arlington's Special Collections, and the National Football Museum in Manchester, England. Highlights include a replica of the 2006 FIFA World Cup Trophy, a jersey worn by Pelé, and artworks by Andy Warhol, Kehinde Wiley, and Darío Escobar, as well as a mural by Dallas-based artist Colton Canava depicting Lionel Messi, Jude Bellingham, and Virgil van Dijk as saint-like figures. The exhibition runs through August 2, 2026, and is located near AT&T Stadium, which will host nine World Cup matches.

Lucas Museum of Narrative Art unveils opening exhibitions

The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles has announced its inaugural exhibitions ahead of its opening on September 22. Founded by filmmaker George Lucas and philanthropist Mellody Hobson, the museum was designed by MAD Architects founder Ma Yansong. The opening will feature 18 thematic exhibitions showcasing over 1,200 works across 30 galleries, spanning genres such as cinema, photography, comics, manga, and anime, with dedicated shows for illustrators like Norman Rockwell, Jessie Willcox Smith, and Frank Frazetta. The collection also includes works by Beatrix Potter, Frida Kahlo, Winsor McCay, Alison Bechdel, Gordon Parks, and Dorothea Lange, alongside the Lucas Archives containing props and costumes from Lucas's film career.

At Yale: the commercial empire within the British empire

The Yale Center for British Art presents 'Painters, Ports, and Profits,' an exhibition of 115 items spanning a century of art and history, focusing on the East India Company's commercial empire. The show includes paintings, prints, drawings, books, and artifacts such as a 37-foot watercolor scroll of Lucknow (1826) and works by Indian artist Gangaram Chintaman Navgire Tambat, who emerges as the artistic star with 20 pieces. It also features prints of the company's opium factory and 'The Opium Fleet Descending The Ganges' by Walter Stanhope Sherwill, highlighting the company's role in the Opium Wars with China.

National Museum of Asian Art Opens New Exhibition in June About Its Origin Story

The Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art will open a new exhibition titled "A Museum in the Making" on June 27, 2026, running through August 8, 2027. The show explores the origin story of the Freer Gallery of Art, America's first national art museum, by examining how collector Charles Lang Freer used his Detroit home as a living laboratory for museum design. It highlights collaborations with artists and architects, including James McNeill Whistler, Stanford White, and Mary Chase Perry Stratton, and features a video walkthrough of the Freer House. The exhibition is part of the nation's 250th anniversary celebrations and the Smithsonian's broader "Our Shared Future" initiative.

Landmark Exhibition at the Smithsonian American Art Museum Unites U.S. Bicentennial Photography Surveys for the First Time

The Smithsonian American Art Museum will present "Much Here Is Beautiful: Photography Surveys of the U.S. Bicentennial," a landmark exhibition opening September 18, 2026, that brings together for the first time photography surveys created through a federally funded grant program by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) around the 1976 U.S. Bicentennial. Featuring 225 photographs by more than 70 photographers, the show draws on the museum's holdings and collections nationwide, including previously unseen works, and places them in the context of federal survey photography dating back to the 19th century.

It’s not all movies: LA’s art, museums and exhibitions are world class

Los Angeles is expanding its cultural offerings with several new and renovated art institutions. The Museum of AI Arts, called Dataland, is set to open this spring at the Grand L.A. complex, created by artist Refik Anadol. It claims to be the world's first museum dedicated to AI art, featuring immersive installations like an Infinity Room with AI-generated scents. Meanwhile, the Natural History Museum completed a $75 million renovation in 2024, adding a 60,000-square-foot wing and displaying a unique green-boned dinosaur named Gnatalie, along with Barbara Carrasco's previously censored mural. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is opening the David Geffen Galleries on May 4, a 110,000-square-foot space for its permanent collection.

Self-Made at the American Folk Art Museum explores a century of artists inventing themselves

The American Folk Art Museum has launched "Self-Made: A Century of Inventing Artists," an exhibition exploring the work of self-taught creators who operated outside traditional institutional frameworks. Featuring a diverse array of drawings, paintings, and sculptures by figures such as Henry Darger, Bill Traylor, and Sister Gertrude Morgan, the show examines how these artists used their practice to construct identities and narratives in environments that often offered little formal recognition.

Don Brown & Max Cole’s art in ‘Postcards From Home’ exhibit

The Michelson Museum of Art in Marshall, Texas, recently debuted 'Postcards from Home,' a collaborative exhibition featuring the works of regional artists Don Brown and Max Cole. The opening reception drew a significant local crowd, including three generations of Cole’s descendants, to celebrate the legacy of two figures who captured the landscapes and history of East Texas. The show, which runs through July 4, was organized in partnership with the Harrison County Historical Museum and the Meadows Museum of Art.

Marlene Dumas becomes first contemporary woman artist to join Louvre's permanent collection

Marlene Dumas has become the first contemporary woman artist to join the Louvre's permanent collection. Nine site-specific paintings by the South African-born artist were unveiled at the Paris museum last Thursday, now on permanent display in the Porte des Lions atrium. The series, titled Liaisons, depicts faces that draw on the "horrors" of the world today, as described by the artist. Dumas collaborated with Donatien Grau, the Louvre's head of contemporary programmes, and was selected by director Laurence des Cars, who called her the "obvious choice" for the commission.

Indigenous Artists Infiltrate the Met With a Guerrilla A.R. Project

On Indigenous Peoples' Day, nonprofit media lab Amplifier launched an unsanctioned augmented reality exhibition titled “Encoded” at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. The project features 17 Native artists who have digitally altered 25 iconic American artworks from the Met's collection—such as Thomas Cole's *View on the Catskills – Early Autumn* and Emanuel Leutze's *Washington Crossing the Delaware*—overlaying Indigenous perspectives onto the museum's American Wing. Visitors can view the AR works on smartphones or iPads, and Amplifier representatives are on-site to distribute guides and offer tours through the end of the year.

Venture Forward gifts name Wilmerding Pavilion and Anschutz Galleries in Princeton University Art Museum

Two major gifts from Louisa Stude Sarofim and The Anschutz Foundation, part of Princeton University's Venture Forward campaign, will name the Wilmerding Pavilion and the Anschutz Galleries in the new Princeton University Art Museum. The pavilion honors the late John Wilmerding, a pioneering American art historian and professor at Princeton, while the galleries within it will showcase the museum's American art collections. The museum opens on October 31, 2025, and the new space will allow a nearly five-fold increase in displayed works, including a broader definition of American art encompassing Spanish Colonial and Native American art.

In Surprising Twist, ADAA Art Fair Will Now Benefit the Whitney Museum

The Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA) has named the Whitney Museum of American Art as the new philanthropic beneficiary of its annual fair at the Park Avenue Armory. This decision follows the ADAA's abrupt termination of a 30-year partnership with the Henry Street Settlement, a social services nonprofit that relied on the fair's preview gala for approximately $1 million in annual unrestricted funding. The new event, rebranded simply as the ADAA Fair, will direct its gala proceeds toward the Whitney’s educational and artistic programming.

art abbas akhavan venice biennale canadian pavilion

Abbas Akhavan has transformed the Canadian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale into a greenhouse-like installation titled "Abbas Akhavan: Entre chien et loup." The pavilion's wooden doorway has been replaced with glass, revealing a pond with pinkish water illuminated by sunlight and LED grow-lamps. Visitors encounter mossy boulders, a vintage fur coat sprayed with water, sharpened bronze sticks, and custom frosted mirrors that blur the architecture. The centerpiece will be three giant Bolivian water lilies, grown from seeds sent from Kew Gardens to Padua, which will gradually take over the pond over the summer. The exhibition is curated by Kim Nguyen, commissioned by the National Gallery of Canada, and supported by the Canada Council for the Arts.

new york art guide jenni crain gordon hall 2

Gordon Hall's exhibition "Hands and Knees" at the Kitchen in New York features sculptures made from chrome cantilevered chairs with seats and backs removed, arranged in configurations that evoke bodies on all fours. The show includes unannounced performances where performers are carried in on stretcher-like sculptures and placed on the chair forms, exploring themes of submission, rest, and bodily interaction. Separately, the article reviews Martha Diamond's posthumous exhibition "After Image" at David Kordansky Gallery, highlighting her 1986 painting "White Light" and her abstract depictions of New York City.

Historic Architecture Emerges from Stone in Matthew Simmonds Ethereal Sculptures

Historic Architecture Emerges from Stone in Matthew Simmonds Ethereal Sculptures

Sculptor Matthew Simmonds meticulously carves miniature, hyper-realistic architectural interiors—including gothic cathedral arches, vaulted ceilings, and stairwells—directly into hunks of Carrara marble and limestone. His recent works, often based on real sites like Bamberg Cathedral or Tuscan cities, reveal ornate, smooth interiors that contrast with the stone's raw exterior, and he is currently using a quieter period to experiment with how light and space within the sculptures can express a sacred quality.

Sophie Von Hellerman “After a Dream” at Greene Naftali, New York

Greene Naftali presents Sophie von Hellermann's eighth solo exhibition, "After a Dream," featuring pairs of figures drawn from literature, art history, the artist's personal acquaintances, and imaginative constructs. The show explores creative relationships through the charged dynamic of the couple, presenting narrative chimeras that examine different forms of alignment and connection.

As Told By: Slavs and Tatars at Rossi & Rossi

Slavs and Tatars, the research-based art collective, opened their first solo exhibition in Hong Kong titled “胡 ( هو / who) are you?” at Rossi & Rossi, running until May 9, 2026. The show gathers iconic projects and new commissions across various media, playfully probing the philosophical question of identity and belonging. Co-founder Payam Sharifi discusses works such as the handblown glass melon sculptures in "Dark Yelblow" (2025), which explore cultural stereotypes and the figure of the Other, and the "Love Me, Love Me Not" series, which recovers original place names and scripts to reveal the layered complexity of empires.

Getty’s Black Visual Arts Archives receives additional $1.8m in funding

The Getty Foundation has awarded an additional $1.8 million to its Black Visual Arts Archives initiative, bringing total funding to $4.5 million across 20 awards. The program supports institutions in processing, digitizing, preserving, and activating archival collections related to Black artists and arts organizations in the US. Grantees include Afro Charities, the Auburn Avenue Research Library, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Charles H. Wright Museum, Morgan State University, the South Side Community Art Center, the University of Chicago’s South Side Home Movie Project, and the David C. Driskell Center. Notable discoveries include footage of the original Wall of Respect mural from the South Side Home Movie Project.

Three Dinosaur Fossils Are Up for Grabs at This New York Art Gallery

Amanita, a New York art gallery, is presenting three Maiasaura dinosaur fossils alongside a John Chamberlain sculpture in an exhibition titled "Land Before Time: Three Dinosaurs and a Gondola" at its Bowery location through August 9. The fossils, sourced from Tucson-based Granada Gallery, include an 85 percent complete adolescent, a 68 percent complete adult, and a 62 percent complete juvenile—marking the first time a full Maiasaura growth cycle has been displayed. The Chamberlain piece, "Gondola Marianne Moore" (1982), was procured with help from Hauser and Wirth. Only the fossils are for sale, with prices undisclosed.

‘Entertainment is often violence shrouded in a fun disguise’: Marianna Simnett on being tickled for hours and having Botox injected into her throat

Marianna Simnett, a Croatian British multi-disciplinary artist, discusses her new exhibition 'Circus' at the Secession in Vienna, which features a light, sound, and sculpture installation in a pitch-black basement. The show includes works like 'Catherine Wheel' (2026), a blue spinning reflective skirt accompanied by the sound of the artist being tickled for four hours, and 'Fountain' (2026), a neon of a woman urinating referencing Balkan folklore. Simnett explores themes of violence, desire, pain, and power, often using her own body as a site of transformation, as in her earlier work 'The Needle and the Larynx' (2016) where she had Botox injected into her throat.

At Birmingham's Ikon Gallery, Angela de la Cruz's audacious, visceral art takes no prisoners

Angela de la Cruz's exhibition "Upright" at Ikon Gallery in Birmingham (until 6 September) marks her first UK institutional show since her 2010 Camden Arts Centre survey, which earned her a Turner Prize nomination. The exhibition features her signature painterly sculptures and sculptural paintings that blur boundaries between mediums, including works like "Still Life with Table" (2000), "Limp" (2000), and "Bloated 111 (Blue)" (2012), which combine Minimalist language with anthropomorphic, emotional qualities. De la Cruz, who has been based in the UK since the late 1980s, continues to create work that channels influences from art history, literature, and personal experience, even after a paralyzing stroke in 2005.

Greta Thunberg, Hugh Bonneville sign letter defending Southbank Centre chair Misan Harriman

A petition signed by Greta Thunberg, Hugh Bonneville, and other prominent figures defends Misan Harriman, the photographer and chair of London's Southbank Centre, against what the letter calls a "dishonest smear campaign." The controversy stems from two incidents: Harriman shared a social media post about a stabbing attack in Golders Green, noting that a Muslim victim received less press coverage than two Jewish victims, and later posted a video reflecting on the rise of the right-wing Reform party, citing a conversation about the Holocaust. Right-wing outlets like The Daily Telegraph accused him of equating Reform's electoral success to the Holocaust, leading to widespread backlash. Harriman denies making such equivalences, and nearly 70,000 people have filed complaints with the press regulator IPSO—the largest campaign in its history.

‘Street culture is about revolution’: Brazilian ‘hip-hop’ painter Paulo Nimer Pjota

Brazilian artist Paulo Nimer Pjota, now 37, is preparing for his first UK institutional exhibition, 'Encantados (Enchanted),' at the South London Gallery. The show features 11 new paintings on canvas alongside a large wall drawing, drawing on imagery from ancient civilizations, Brazilian folklore, art history, and children's literature. Pjota, who began painting at age 12 and sold his first work at 15, describes his process as akin to a hip-hop producer sampling diverse sources. His background includes graffiti and hip-hop culture in São José do Rio Prêto, where he trained at a local hip-hop school and collaborated with renowned Brazilian graffiti artists like Os Gêmeos, Ise, and Nunca.

The Monumental Impact of Indian Miniature Painting

Aicon Art in New York has opened its first exhibition dedicated entirely to Indian miniature painting, titled "Courtly Visions: Indian Miniature Painting." The show features a breadth of works created between roughly 1630 and the early 19th century, showcasing the intricate detail and narrative scenes characteristic of the genre. It aims to highlight the diverse styles and themes that emerged from various royal courts across the Indian subcontinent.

Matt Connors at Herald St

Matt Connors presents his exhibition 'Cooperative Village' at Herald St gallery in Bologna. The show runs from February 6 to May 16, 2026, and is documented with 17 images by photographers Carlo Favero and Charles Benton.

Pioneering 19th century women artists inspire new city castle exhibition

A new exhibition titled "Chain of Flowers" opens at Norwich Castle on May 16, featuring works by Cambridge-based artist Miranda Boulton. The exhibition draws inspiration from pioneering 19th-century women artists Emily Stannard and Eloise Stannard, members of the Norwich School of Artists. Boulton retraced Emily Stannard's 1820s journey to the Netherlands to study Jan Van Huysum's paintings at the Rijksmuseum, creating a series of oil paintings that contrast the Dutch Golden Age's detailed style with thick impasto and spray paint.