CISCO MEREL: LA CHANTIN
Kunsthalle Lissabon in Lisbon, Portugal, is presenting 'La Chantin,' the first solo exhibition in the country by Panamanian artist Cisco Merel. The exhibition features a site-specific installation exploring the house as an open, collective, and evolving system, inspired by the mobile, wooden 'shanty' structures built by the Afro-Caribbean diaspora during the construction of the Panama Canal.
Iris van Herpen's mid-career retrospective "Iris van Herpen: Sculpting the Senses" has opened at the Brooklyn Museum, marking the designer's first major museum presentation in the United States. Originally mounted at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris in 2023, the exhibition features over 140 haute couture looks alongside artworks, design objects, fossils, videos, and natural specimens. The show begins with a water-themed section and includes garments made from materials such as glass bubbles, bioluminescent algae, and 3D-printed polyamide, exploring themes of skeletal structures, primordial fear, and cosmic movements. A centerpiece room, the Atelier, displays swatches, prototypes, and experimental materials, highlighting van Herpen's scientific approach to fashion design.
Congolese choreographer Faustin Linyekula is staging "The Galeazze Project," a performance in a 16th-century shipyard complex in Venice that has been inaccessible since World War II and never open to the public. Commissioned by the nonprofit Scuola Piccola Zattere, the work will bring up to 500 people into the 32,291-square-foot open-air ruin for two nights during the 2026 Venice Biennale preview week. The rental fee from the performance will help stabilize and restore the floors of the historic Galeazze site.
Yu-Chi Lyra Kuo, an entrepreneur, investor, and Harvard-educated lawyer, is profiled for her pioneering work at the intersection of frontier technology and art. A former Princeton academic and one of the youngest board members of the Shed in New York, Kuo began collecting art as a child with a jade gourd from her grandfather's museum of Asian carvings. She was an early entrant into blockchain in 2011, co-founded OpenSea 2.0, and now advises frontier tech companies like Orchid Health. Kuo believes technologies such as AI and robotics can enhance human creativity, enabling individualized artworks, autonomous creations, and robot performances, rather than replacing human cultural meaning.
On Monday evening, the New Museum held its 2026 gala at Cipriani South Street, honoring outgoing Director Lisa Phillips, who led the institution for over three decades. The event featured a performance by Blondie's Debbie Harry, a live auction with works by Jack Pierson, Billy Sullivan, Rashid Johnson, and Cindy Sherman, and remarks from John Waters, Maya Lin, and Whitney Museum director Adam Weinberg. Notable attendees included artists Hank Willis Thomas, Derrick Adams, Marilyn Minter, and Anne Imhof, as well as arts leaders Thelma Golden, Yvonne Force Villareal, and Noah Horowitz.
Carol Bove, the Swiss-born, California-raised sculptor known for transforming steel into malleable, seductive forms, has opened a major career survey at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. The exhibition fills the museum's iconic rotunda, marking the largest stage of her career to date. The article also features a Q&A in which Bove discusses her influences (including filmmaker Stanley Kubrick), her love of driving, and her desire for more 'pointlessness' in the art industry.
Marcel, a new restaurant, opened on April 17 in the lower level of Sotheby’s new home at the Marcel Breuer building on the Upper East Side. Designed by Roman and Williams in partnership with the auction house, the space features walnut-paneled walls, an open kitchen, and a pâtisserie. Chef Marie-Aude Rose, who also oversees La Mercerie downtown, created a “continental” menu rooted in French technique but influenced by Breuer’s Hungarian heritage, with dishes like chicken paprikash and lobster bisque with turmeric and ginger. The wine list comes from Sotheby’s own collection, allowing guests to purchase bottles they enjoy during their meal.
Over 500 guests gathered on a Tribeca rooftop for the 2026 Bronx Museum Gala, a fundraising event held in advance of the museum's South Wing renovation, slated to open in 2027. The evening honored artist Awol Erizku, designer Colm Dillane (KidSuper), and patron Lois Plehn, with newly-installed museum director Shamim M. Momin and co-chairs Danielle Falls and Annie B. Taylor wearing custom KidSuper suits. The gala featured a live auction led by Phillips auctioneer Sarah Krueger, including works by Ann Craven and Joyce McDonald, and an afterparty with DJ sets by Erizku and DJ Düe Champ.
The New Museum in New York has reopened after two years with a major expansion designed by OMA / Shohei Shigematsu and Rem Koolhaas, doubling its size to 60,000 additional square feet. The inaugural exhibition, “New Humans: Memories of the Future,” curated by Massimiliano Gioni, features over 800 objects by more than 200 artists, scientists, and designers across three main floors. The show explores how concepts of the human have evolved in response to technological innovation over the past century, with thematic chapters such as “Reproductive Futures” and a site-specific sculpture by Klára Hosnedlová in the new Atrium Stair.
Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin celebrated its 30th anniversary with a landmark benefit gala titled "A Night in Berlin," gathering over 500 cultural leaders from art, film, music, fashion, and philanthropy. The evening launched four new awards: the Studio Award to artists Abdulhamid Kircher, Monilola Olayemi Ilupeju, and Jonas Roßmeißl; the Lifetime Achievement Award to Mona Hatoum; the Global Arts Patronage Award to collector Kiran Nadar; and the Changemaker Award to the Delfina Foundation. The gala featured performances, spatial installations, and a red neon sculpture by Monica Bonvicini, with actor Cate Blanchett presenting and Alice Sara Ott performing.
Los Angeles-based artist Lauren Halsey has realized a long-held dream with the opening of "sister dreamer," a public sculpture park at the corner of Western Avenue and 76th Street in South Central LA. The park features eight 22-foot-tall pillars modeled after local heroes, sphinxes, benches, fountains, native plants, and gardens, and will remain for 18 months before finding a permanent home. It also serves as a hub for Halsey's nonprofit Summaeverythang Community Center, offering free programming in art, education, and wellness, including partnerships with the Broad, tutoring, yoga, and community dinners.
Quattro Gatti has been named the official gin of the 61st Venice Biennale, which opens in May 2026. The Umbrian-crafted spirit will be the exclusive gin available across Biennale sites including the Giardini della Biennale and the Arsenale, with a special Biennale cocktail planned. The brand was founded in 2022 by the Mordant family, led by Simon Mordant, a British-born arts patron who served as Commissioner for the Australia Pavilion in 2013 and 2015 and is Global Ambassador for Australia in 2026. The Mordants also led the rebuilding campaign for the Australian Pavilion, which opened in 2015 as the first 21st-century pavilion in Venice.
The article explores the intersection of art and playground design, highlighting how artists have created inspiring play spaces that double as works of art. It begins with the 1954 Museum of Modern Art competition for creative playground equipment, won by Virginia Dortch Dorazio's Fantastic Village, and discusses Isamu Noguchi's Playscapes, including his only U.S. installation in Piedmont Park, Atlanta, commissioned by the High Museum of Art in 1975. The piece then profiles four artist-designed playgrounds: Carsten Höller's Pink Mirror Carousel in St. Moritz, Toshiko Horiuchi MacAdam's Woods of Net in Japan, Niki de Saint Phalle's Tarot Garden in Italy, and others, each blending sculpture with interactive play.
Art critic and writer Jarrett Earnest travels to Warsaw for the opening of "The Woman Question 1550–2025," a major survey of women artists curated by Alison M. Gingeras at the Museum of Modern Art (MSN Warsaw). The exhibition features nearly 200 works spanning from Renaissance to contemporary art, including pieces by Artemisia Gentileschi, Frida Kahlo, Lisa Yuskavage, and many Eastern European artists. Earnest reflects on the enduring theme of the female nude and the political context of Poland, where far-right policies have restricted women's rights.
Naomi Beckwith, deputy director and chief curator of the Guggenheim Museum and Foundation, has relocated to Kassel, Germany, as artistic director of Documenta 16, which opens in June 2027. The article follows her early impressions of Kassel, a city shaped by immigration and still grappling with its post-reunification identity, and touches on the political and cultural debates surrounding Documenta after controversy over antisemitic imagery in its previous edition. Beckwith is also organizing a concurrent exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, titled "Echo Delay Reverb: American Art, Francophone Thought."
Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka open their Hamptons and New York homes to CULTURED for a two-part tour, discussing their art collection and its connection to their new cocktail cookbook, *Both Sides of the Glass*. The couple's first acquisition was a Robert Longo "Wave" study, and their collection includes provocative works by Titus Kaphar, Patrick Jacobs, Andy Warhol, and a Banksy smashed into a fireplace. Burtka describes a common thread of hidden stories and mysteries in their pieces, while Harris notes the importance of works that reveal new details on closer inspection.
The article reports on "Perfume: Sculpture of the Invisible," a retrospective exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris celebrating 30 years of work by renowned perfumer Francis Kurkdjian. Curated by Jérôme Neutres and running through Nov. 23, the show features over 40 scents, including collaborations with artists like Sophie Calle, Yann Toma, and musicians Kilo Kish, alongside immersive installations such as L’Alchimie des Sens, which translates Kurkdjian's Baccarat Rouge Édition Millésime into a multi-sensory experience involving taste, sound, and sight.
Performa celebrated its 20th anniversary and the opening of its 2025 biennial with a multi-venue event in New York, starting at Harlem Parish and moving to a Lower East Side hub at 424 Broadway. The evening featured experimental music by Luciano Chessa, Eric Mingus, Elliott Sharp, and Joan La Barbara, a silent auction of custom wine blends by artists Julie Mehretu, Paul Pfeiffer, and Jessica Rankin, and a feast by chef Marcus Samuelsson. The party was co-chaired by artist Rashid Johnson and the late Agnes Gund, with guests including RoseLee Goldberg, Anne Imhof, Joan Jonas, Sanford Biggers, Laurie Simmons, and many others. The event also launched Performa's first magazine, *Works in Practice*.
On Monday, more than 750 artists, patrons, and friends gathered at the riverside Glasshouse in New York to celebrate the Studio Museum in Harlem's upcoming reopening after seven years of renovations. The event, hosted by director and chief curator Thelma Golden, featured performances by the Hudson Horns, honored five longtime trustees, and awarded the Joyce Alexander Wein Artist Prize to Kenturah Davis. Notable attendees included Spike Lee, Usher, Colson Whitehead, and numerous artists such as Nina Chanel Abney, Derrick Adams, and Carrie Mae Weems.
Belma Gaudio, founder of the London fashion, homeware, and wellness boutique Koibird, opens her art-filled London home to CULTURED magazine, offering a rare glimpse into her eclectic collection. The article, presented as a collector questionnaire, features works by René Magritte, Lucio Fontana, Christina Quarles, and others, photographed by Mary McCartney. Gaudio discusses her childhood as a refugee from Bosnia and Herzegovina, her instinct for collecting objects from Barbies to snakeskins, and how her global upbringing shaped her eye for mixing eras and styles—from traditional Italian to contemporary.
The Yale Center for British Art opens "Passages," the most comprehensive exhibition of Hew Locke's work to date, featuring nearly 50 works spanning three decades. Central to the show is a site-specific installation of Locke's ship sculptures, three of which are suspended in the foyer of the museum's Louis I. Kahn building. The exhibition will travel to the Wexner Center for the Arts and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. In an interview, Locke discusses his studio practice, his ongoing exploration of imperialism's symbolism, and his plans for new bronzes and prints.
A new exhibition titled "Dirty Looks: Desire and Decay in Fashion" opens September 25 at the Barbican in London, exploring how fashion designers have embraced decay, dirt, and imperfection. Curated by Karen Van Godtsenhoven, the show features garments from over 60 designers, including Hussein Chalayan's iron-filing-stained dresses, Vivienne Westwood's transgressive tears, Issey Miyake's gunpowder-speckled pleats, and wine-stained couture by Robert Wun. It also highlights five emerging designers like Elena Velez and Michaela Stark who use dirt and decay to challenge conventional beauty standards.
Calder Gardens, a new $90 million cultural institution in Philadelphia, will open on September 21. Designed by Herzog & de Meuron with gardens by Piet Oudolf, the 18,000-square-foot space will feature rotating displays of Alexander Calder's sculptures without wall labels, thematic exhibitions, or a permanent collection. Developed with philanthropist Joseph Neubauer and supported by the Barnes Foundation, the project is led by Alexander S.C. Rower, the artist's grandson and president of the Calder Foundation, and senior director of programs Juana Berrío. The institution aims to prioritize contemplation and personal experience over traditional museum education.
Cultured magazine highlights several fall gallery shows in Los Angeles, featuring solo exhibitions by Mire Lee at Sprüth Magers, Rebecca Morris at Regen Projects, Lukas Geronimas at Parker Gallery, Christina Kimeze at Hauser & Wirth, and Herman Cherry at Sebastian Gladstone. The shows run through October and November 2025, showcasing a range of media from Lee's industrial paintings and Morris's abstract compositions to Geronimas's architectural sculptures, Kimeze's mystical figurative works, and Cherry's abstract expressionist paintings.
Raúl de Nieves, a queer Mexico-born artist based in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, is preparing for his latest institutional exhibition, “In Light of Innocence,” opening September 12 at Pioneer Works in Red Hook. The show features 40 new stained glass assemblages made from tape, acetate, and inexpensive materials, installed above a single floor-bound work—a departure from his typically maximalist style. De Nieves, who has exhibited at the ICA Boston, the Baltimore Museum of Art, and the Cleveland Museum of Art, and gained prominence after the 2017 Whitney Biennial, describes the exhibition as a valediction, stating it will be the last time he creates this kind of work.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is opening "When Objects Dream," the first exhibition to examine Man Ray's rayographs in the context of his broader oeuvre. Opening September 14, the show features over 60 rayographs alongside 100 paintings, objects, drawings, and films spanning the artist's career. The exhibition is supported by the haute couture house Schiaparelli, whose founder Elsa Schiaparelli was a close friend and collaborator of Ray's, both central figures in the 1920s Parisian avant-garde.
James Frey, the controversial author of "A Million Little Pieces" and "Bright Shiny Morning," opens his home in Pound Ridge, New York, to discuss his personal art collection. The collection includes works by Rashid Johnson, Robert Colescott, Nate Lowman, Richard Prince, Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons, and Auguste Rodin, among others. Frey describes his art-buying philosophy as driven by emotion rather than market trends, and recounts purchasing his first pieces—a Picasso drawing and a Matisse drawing—for cash in 1994.
The Studio Museum in Harlem will reopen on November 15 after a seven-year closure, unveiling a new seven-floor, 82,000-square-foot building designed by Adjaye Associates and executed by Cooper Robertson. To mark the occasion, Cultured magazine convened three conceptual artists—Nikita Gale, Camille Norment, and Sable Elyse Smith—who received early support from the museum, each reflecting on how the institution shaped their careers. Norment, featured in the 2001 exhibition "Freestyle," is creating a new installation for the reopening; Gale and Smith both participated in the 2017 show "Fictions."
Christine Mack, a collector born in the Philippines and raised in Sweden, is bringing her collection to the Southampton Arts Center this summer. The exhibition, titled “Beyond the Present: Collecting for the Future,” opens July 26 and features works by 71 artists, including blue-chip names like Rashid Johnson and Cindy Sherman as well as emerging talents such as Ana Benaroya and Woody De Othello. The show also includes pieces by 12 artists who have participated in a residency at the Mack Art Foundation’s Greenpoint space. Mack, who serves on councils for the Studio Museum and the Guggenheim, sees the exhibition as a platform to support artists and highlight her residency program.
Site Santa Fe has announced its 12th International exhibition, titled "Once Within a Time," opening June 27 and running through January 2026. Curated by Cecilia Alemani, who previously curated the 59th Venice Biennale, the show draws its name and dreamlike logic from a 2022 film by Santa Fe artist Godfrey Reggio. Featuring over 70 artists and more than 300 works—including new commissions, archival interventions, and contemporary selections—the exhibition uses 20 figures with ties to New Mexico as narrative catalysts, among them Navajo code talker Chester Nez, novelist Willa Cather, and the Fire Spirit from local folklore. For the first time, the International will be fully embedded within Santa Fe's urban fabric, activating sites such as a historic foundry, a toy store, and a dispensary alongside traditional cultural partners. Participating artists include Simone Leigh, David Horvitz, and Dominique Knowles, with contributions from writers Tommy Orange, Lucy R. Lippard, and Estevan Rael-Gálvez.