Hong Kong's art scene is preparing for a massive influx of programming to coincide with the 2026 edition of Art Basel Hong Kong. Beyond the main fair, major institutions and private galleries across the city—from M+ and the Hong Kong Museum of Art to the gallery hubs in Central and Wong Chuk Hang—are staging flagship exhibitions to capture the international audience.
Five 18th-century gold snuffboxes recovered after a violent daylight robbery in Paris are set to go on public display at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The objects were stolen in November 2024 from the Musée Cognacq-Jay during a high-profile heist that targeted pieces from the Rosalinde & Arthur Gilbert Collection, the Louvre, and the UK Royal Collection. Following an extensive police investigation and delicate restoration work by Parisian goldsmiths to repair damage sustained during the theft, the items will headline the opening of the V&A’s newly revamped Gilbert Galleries.
Recent US-Israeli strikes in the Iranian city of Isfahan have caused significant damage to several UNESCO World Heritage sites and historic landmarks. Reports indicate that the 17th-century Chehel Sotoun Palace suffered shattered windows, broken doors, and a large crack in a major fresco depicting Shah Tahmasp and the Mughal Emperor Humayun. Nearby, in the historic Naqsh-e-Jahan Square, the Ali Qapu Palace and the Jame Abbasi Mosque also sustained damage, including the destruction of iconic turquoise tiles and intricate fretwork.
A new report from the National Audit Office (NAO) warns that state-funded UK museums are reaching a breaking point as they attempt to offset significant government funding cuts with self-generated income. Analyzing 15 major institutions including the British Museum and Tate, the report reveals that while self-generated revenue rose by 53% since 2021-22, it remains highly volatile and susceptible to external factors like tourism costs and membership churn. Despite a recent £31m funding boost from the DCMS, over half of these institutions report being in a worse financial position than they were three years ago.
The Racine Art Museum (RAM) in Wisconsin is preparing to launch its 17th annual PEEPS exhibition on April 1, 2026. This quirky community-driven show invites artists of all ages to create dioramas, sculptures, and paintings using or depicting the iconic marshmallow candies. To accommodate growing interest, the museum is moving the exhibition to its larger first-floor gallery and will feature a special installation by Chicago-based artist Andrea Jablonski.
The Aspen Chapel Gallery is hosting a mixed-media exhibition titled "40 Years of Art in Aspen" to celebrate its 40th anniversary. The show, opening February 25, features over 40 local artists from the Roaring Fork Valley and is the gallery's 265th consecutive exhibition since its founding in 1985. The event also serves as a benefit for the gallery and will honor the memory of longtime arts patron Susan Marx.
Wavelength Space art gallery in Chattanooga, Tennessee, has extended the deadline to January 28 for its open call exhibition "Glimmer & Shine," celebrating Women’s History Month in March 2026. Sponsored by the Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies Department at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC), the exhibition invites artists to explore themes of radiance, reflection, and resilience through works that engage with light as both phenomenon and metaphor. The show is guest-juried by artist Ayo Janeen Jackson and is open to all U.S. residents, with free entry for UTC students and faculty and a $30 fee for others.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is presenting "The Infinite Artistry of Japanese Ceramics," an exhibition featuring approximately 350 works that trace Japan's ceramic history from 12,000-year-old pottery to contemporary pieces. The show draws primarily from the museum's Harry G. C. Packard Collection, marking the 50th anniversary of that landmark acquisition, and includes five rotations of artworks running from January 2026 through August 2027. The exhibition places ceramics in dialogue with lacquers, textiles, paintings, and prints to explore broader cultural contexts.
Felix Anderson-Goldsmith, a 17-year-old pencil artist from Timaru, New Zealand, is preparing for his first solo exhibition at the Red Bird Gallery in Timaru. The exhibition opens on January 9, 2026, and runs until February 3, featuring ten works including pencil realism pieces and two pop art paintings on skateboards. Anderson-Goldsmith previously gained recognition as a shortlisted entrant in the 2024 Parkin Drawing Prize, where he received a highly commended award. Gallery owner Polly Rowe offered him the show after being impressed by his sketches, and has guided him in developing a cohesive body of work.
The Frost Art Museum at Florida International University in Miami has opened "MOSAICO: Italian Code of a Timeless Art," an exhibition featuring ancient Italian mosaics, including fragments from a ship belonging to Roman emperor Caligula and 11th-century stone slabs from the tombs of Saints Benedict and Scholastica. These artifacts, on view in the US for the first time, are loaned from the Capitoline Museums in Rome and are presented alongside immersive digital projections by Magister Art that recreate sites like the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia and the Basilica of San Vitale. The exhibition is organized by region, highlighting Unesco World Heritage sites and spanning techniques from the Hellenistic period to Roman opus sectile.
The Louvre museum in Paris will increase ticket prices by 45% for visitors from outside the European Union, effective January 14, 2026. The cost for non-EU visitors from countries such as the UK, US, and China will rise from €22 to €32, generating an estimated €17.5 million in additional annual revenue. The decision comes as the museum faces significant budget cuts, including a 7% reduction in public subsidies, and seeks funding for a €1.1 billion renovation project. Staff unions have criticized the move as undermining the museum's universal mission since its founding in 1793.
Young Irvine artist Euan Tait, 23, a recent graduate of the University of the West of Scotland, will present his first major solo exhibition at the Harbour Arts Centre in Irvine next month. The show, running from November 6 to January 10, features a range of new paintings and original prints, many produced at the Glasgow Print Studio where Tait is an active member. He has previously participated in group exhibitions at venues including the Maclaurin Art Gallery, the Dick Institute, and the Society of Scottish Artists' 127th Annual Exhibition at the Royal Scottish Academy.
The Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum at Florida International University is hosting the exhibition “Harmony of Nature and Art” to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the sister-state agreement between Florida and Wakayama Prefecture, Japan. The traveling exhibition, which previously appeared at the Florida Capitol’s 22nd Floor Art Gallery and the Atlantic Center for the Arts, features traditional Noh masks by master carver Hakuzan Kubo, netsuke miniature sculptures from the Frost Art Museum collection, and paintings by the Florida Highwaymen. It is organized by the Florida Department of State Division of Arts and Culture with loans from multiple institutions and private collectors.
The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) announced its first major Native American exhibition in 30 years, titled "The Contemporary Anishinaabe Art: A Continuation," opening September 28, 2025. The show will feature 60 U.S.-based Anishinaabe artists and include jewelry, basketry, painting, pottery, and woodworking, with gallery text in Anishnaabemowin. The exhibition was curated with an advisory council of Ojibwe, Ottawa, and Potawatomi artists.
The Bowers Museum in Santa Ana is hosting the 'Arts on the Move' traveling exhibit through July 18, showcasing artwork by student artists with disabilities from across Orange County. The free display, open daily from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the museum’s Lee Court, features pieces originally shown at the 49th annual Orange County Arts and Disability Festival, including works from local school districts and the Orange County Department of Education’s Connections program. A special reception was held on July 13 to celebrate the artists, their families, and teachers.
Alex Kachkine, a mechanical engineer and PhD student at MIT, has developed AI-generated digital masks to restore damaged paintings. The system uses a removable, precision-printed polymer film with clear and painted areas, applied over the artwork like a custom graphic wrap. Kachkine tested the technique on a late-15th-century oil-on-panel painting attributed to the Master of the Prado Adoration of the Magi, using generative AI to reconstruct 5,612 areas of loss, including an obliterated infant Jesus. The masks are produced in hours and are physically separated from the paint surface by a conservation-grade varnish.
The Cincinnati Art Museum will open a new exhibition titled "Rediscovered Treasures" this fall, featuring approximately 60 East Asian masterpieces from its own collections, including Japanese armor, Chinese scrolls, Korean lacquer, a Japanese bronze "magic mirror," a Qing dynasty portrait of Lady Nian, and a Meiji period sumo wrestler's embroidered apron. The exhibition runs from September 19, 2025 to January 18, 2026, and is organized into three thematic sections: Rediscovery, New Identities, and Conservation. Admission is free.
The University of California, Davis, will host the Arts & Humanities 2025 Graduate Exhibition from June 5–22 at the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art. The multidisciplinary showcase features 31 graduate students from art studio, art history, design, comparative literature, English, environmental science and policy, music, and performance studies. Works include photography, painting, sculpture, video, performance, and textiles, with live performances and awards on opening night. Participants explore themes such as human-technology relationships, environmental resilience, African diaspora, and emotional healing.
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art (NMAA) in Washington, DC, has repatriated fragments of the ancient Zidanku Silk Manuscripts to China. The artifacts, dating from the fourth to third century BCE, were looted from a tomb near Changsha, Hunan Province, and smuggled into the US in 1946. The NMAA deaccessioned Volumes II and III of the manuscripts, which were given to the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery by an anonymous donor in 1992. The transfer was formalized in a ceremony at the Chinese embassy following an agreement signed earlier this month, with the fragments handed over to the National Cultural Heritage Administration (NCHA) of China.
Fullerton College Art Gallery is currently hosting its 2025 Student Art Exhibition, showcasing 210 selected works from 316 submissions. The free exhibition, open until May 21, features student work across drawing, painting, illustration, printmaking, graphic design, 3D modeling, sculpture, and ceramics. Gallery Technician Seija Rohkea and Adjunct Professor Jasmine McNeal collaborated with student artists and gallery assistants to install and curate the show, highlighting the college's Museum Studies program—one of few at the community college level in California.
UC Santa Barbara’s Art, Design & Architecture Museum presents the MFA Thesis Exhibition titled "it’s about time," featuring works by four graduating artists: Lucy Bell, Austin McCormick, Autumn Nicole, and Rose Schlossberg. The show runs from May 17 to June 1 and includes video, sculpture, painting, and immersive installation that examine the relationships between time, memory, and materiality. Curatorial text by doctoral student Kristin Yinger frames the exhibition as a parenthetical pause that contains the artists' experiences during the MFA program.
The Fowler Museum at UCLA has opened 'Construction, Occupation,' an exhibition exploring the intersection of art, activism, and housing justice. The show revisits the 2016–17 occupation of the abandoned Cambridge Hotel in São Paulo, Brazil, by low-wage workers, refugees, and artists—a project known as the Cambridge Artistic Residency (CARe)—which led to the building's transformation into government-funded social housing and a cultural hub. Curated by Alex Ungprateeb Flynn, Juliana Caffé, and Yudi Rafael, the exhibition features 24 artists and collectives, primarily from Brazil, with photography, video, installations from the original residency, and newly commissioned works. It runs through January 11, 2026.
An exhibition of 70 artworks by legendary writer Flannery O'Connor has opened at Andalusia, the farm outside Milledgeville, Georgia, where she spent her final years. The paintings and pencil drawings—depicting birds, cows, landscapes, and a striking self-portrait—were discovered in a storage unit behind a Cook Out restaurant, where they had been hidden for decades. Curated by Cassie Munnell, the show offers a rare glimpse into O'Connor's visual art practice, revealing another dimension of the author known for her Southern Gothic prose.
The Address gallery in Brescia is presenting the group exhibition "Tales from Fractured Minds," which explores the psychological concept of dissociation through the work of contemporary artists. The show examines how artists translate this complex mental state, characterized by a separation from reality across memory, identity, and perception, into visual form.
Bloch Bauers Gallery of Fine Art has officially opened in downtown North Bay, Ontario, at 222 McIntyre St. W. The new space features regional, Indigenous, and Inuit art, along with works from private estates and consignments. The opening event included speeches, a ribbon cutting, and the unveiling of the "Lawrence Nickle Collection." A self-portrait by longtime local art teacher Ernest "Ernie" Taylor drew particular attention from attendees, including Nipissing MPP Vic Fedeli and Mayor Peter Chirico, who praised the gallery's connection to the city's artistic heritage. Co-owner and curator Joey Nadeau noted the months of preparation behind the opening and emphasized the importance of showcasing Indigenous art, including works by painter Stephen Snake.
In February 2025, the University of North Texas (UNT) in Denton abruptly canceled a solo exhibition by Brooklyn-based artist Victor “MARKA27” Quiñonez just nine days after its opening. The show, titled “Ni de Aqui, Ni de Allá,” was displayed at the College of Visual Art & Design (CVAD) Gallery and featured works from Quiñonez’s I.C.E. Scream series, including large-scale paleta sculptures embedded with handcuffs and firearms, and a cart bearing the phrase “U.S. Department of Stolen Land Security.” The exhibition was closed without notice, its street-facing windows covered with brown paper, and UNT terminated its loan agreement with Boston University Art Galleries, which had originally hosted the show in September 2025. Faculty and students responded with an open letter to UNT President Harrison Keller, condemning the censorship and demanding transparency.
MedStar St. Mary’s Hospital and the St. Mary’s County Arts Council have unveiled the third installment of their rotating art exhibition in the hospital’s emergency department in Leonardtown, Maryland. The latest exhibit features handsewn art quilts by Washington, D.C. artist Andrea “Andi” Cullins, whose collection “Second Life Quilter” includes intricate fabric mosaics. The quilts will be on display through January 2026, following earlier exhibits of traditional paintings as part of a philanthropy-led initiative to create a more welcoming environment.
Hot Snakes Studio, a six-member arts collective based in Leith's Custom House in Edinburgh, is preparing for its second exhibition, titled "Year of the Snake," opening later this month. The group, composed of working creators including Phil Morrell (Surface Ritual), Robbie McKay (Whisky Kuts), Matt Sloe (Sinclair), Ross MacRae, Rhory Gardiner (Hungry Window), and Tom Hatch (Journeyman Signs), will showcase personal work that explores themes such as folklore, African traditions, and environmental issues. The show is entirely self-funded and grassroots, with support from local businesses like Pizza Geeks.
Students from the Estonian Academy of Arts (EKA) opened a new sound art exhibition titled "TRACKING _ wrrrrr, bzzzt, zzrrt" at the ((NYT)) Art Space in Berlin on May 23. The exhibition features sound installations by nine artists, including Trevor Kinna, Liisi Kõuhkna, and Olev Kuma, and explores sound as a carrier of relation, interference, and emancipation. A contemporary dance group, ADAM, performed the piece "Windy Days" at the opening.
The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has signed a temporary lease with seasonal retailer Spirit Halloween to occupy its space, aiming to generate alternative revenue. This move is intended to supplement funding for a $250 million renovation project, as federal funds originally earmarked for the capital project were reportedly reallocated to the Department of War.