The Chattanooga Public Library and the Hart Gallery are opening a new art exhibit titled "Art From The Hart" at the Downtown Library on May 9, with a reception from 2-4 p.m. Curated by Hart Gallery artists and Library Services Specialist Ali Banks, the show features mixed-media illustrations, pencil drawings, paintings, sculptures, and digital art from local artists, including returning participants Alex Scoggins and Angel Pellegrino.
Animierte Körper
Latefa Wiersch presents her exhibition "Atlas Studios" at the Istituto Svizzero in Rome, featuring unsettling, puppet-like sculptures that resemble film sets. The works explore themes of bodily helplessness, imperfection, and geopolitical displacement, drawing on her earlier project "Hannibal" at the Dortmunder Kunstverein, which addressed post-migrant German realities and the demolition of a housing complex. The new installation references the Atlas Studios in Ouarzazate, Morocco, and the history of cinema, with figures made from rags and nylon stockings that appear as actors or set workers.
Internationally acclaimed Miami-based artist Edouard Duval-Carrié has been selected to represent Haiti at the 2026 Venice Biennale, the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. Ahead of the May 9 opening, Duval-Carrié hosted a behind-the-scenes preview event at his Little Haiti studio in Miami on April 24, 2026, where he discussed his conceptual approach. His installation draws on themes of history, politics, and spirituality in Haiti and the Caribbean, reflecting evolving perspectives on the nation's past and present. Duval-Carrié collaborated with Vanessa Selk, founding artistic director of the Tout-Monde Art Foundation, to frame Haiti's presence as both a national showcase and a reflection of diasporic influence and Caribbean identity. The exhibition runs through November 22, 2026.
Dataland, the world's first museum of AI arts, has partnered with L'Oréal Luxe to create an olfactory art experience for its inaugural exhibition, *Machine Dreams: Rainforest*. Co-founded by Refik Anadol and Efsun Erkılıç, the museum opens on 20 June in downtown Los Angeles. L'Oréal Luxe has developed 12 unique 'olfactive imprints' that will be diffused through smart devices, responding to artworks and visitor presence. The scents, including 'Scent of Rain' and 'Scent of Data', are drawn from Anadol's Large Nature Model, an open-source AI system based on data from 16 rainforests worldwide. The exhibition runs through 31 January 2027.
The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) in Gwacheon, South Korea, has opened a major exhibition titled “Art between Korea and Japan since 1945,” co-organized with the Yokohama Museum of Art. Running from May 14 to September 27, 2026, the show marks the 60th anniversary of normalized diplomatic ties between the two countries. Featuring some 200 works by 43 artists, including Zainichi artists and video art pioneer Nam June Paik, the exhibition traces eight decades of artistic exchange shaped by colonialism, war, division, and ongoing tensions. It previously opened in Yokohama, drawing over 37,000 visitors—significantly surpassing typical attendance—with strong interest from younger audiences.
The Hilliard Art Museum in Lafayette, Louisiana, has opened a new exhibition titled "Andy Warhol: Plus One," featuring works by Andy Warhol drawn from the museum's own permanent collection. The exhibit showcases Warhol's photographic and screenprint pieces, exploring themes of intimacy, observation, and voyeurism in the artist's life and practice.
The 2026 IVC Student Art Exhibit opened at Imperial Valley College's Juanita Lowe Art Gallery on May 6, featuring a ribbon-cutting ceremony and a diverse range of student works including sculptures, videos, paintings, mixed media, and photography. Notable pieces include Catalina Gonsalez's acrylic series "Fire-Fuego," "Wind-Viento," "Water-Agua," and "Earth-Tierra," Stephanie Carrillo's watercolor of Salvador Dali, Kimberly Rodriguez's "Fragile Dancer," and Alejandro Mendez's "Self Portrait." Artist Daniel Barrera Jr. showcased Renaissance-inspired drawings, and author Cuauhtemoc (Chucky) Cortez presented his children's book "Joaquiner Stinker" with illustrations by Jesus Felix.
The Venice Biennale has announced the voting rules for the new Visitors' Lion awards, which replace the traditional Golden Lions after the original jury resigned before the opening. On the same day the popular voting opened, dozens of artists from the central exhibition 'In Minor Keys' and several National Pavilions announced their withdrawal from the competition in solidarity with the resigned jury, releasing a statement via e-flux on May 9, 2026. The voting system requires visitors to have attended both the Giardini and Arsenale venues, with anonymous voting open until November 22, 2026.
The FOMU photography museum in Antwerp has opened a new exhibition titled 'Families', curated by Anne Ruygt. The show explores the evolving concept of family through historical and contemporary photography, featuring works by artists such as Mous Lamrabat, Cecil Beaton, Omar Victor Diop, Mayara Ferrão, Peter Hujar, Carmen Winant, and Seiichi Furuya. It includes diverse perspectives, from 'hidden mother portraits' and post-mortem photography to AI-generated images of queer Black and Indigenous women, questioning traditional notions of kinship and representation.
Gallery, a free contemporary art event in Buenos Aires, returns for its first 2026 edition on Saturday, May 16th, connecting over 40 galleries, museums, art spaces, and foundations across the Recoleta, Retiro, and Microcentro neighborhoods. Organized by Arte al Día and Pinta, the event features guided tours led by specialists, live music performances, and special activities at each meeting point. Participating venues include Rolf Art, Vasari, Fundación Klemm, ARTHAUS CENTRAL, Isla Flotante, and others, with support from the Buenos Aires City Ministry of Culture.
Argentine artist Gabriel Chaile has opened a new commission titled "Archaeology of Memory" at London's Whitechapel Gallery. The site-specific installation features monumental adobe sculptures that incorporate everyday and decorative objects sourced from the surrounding East End neighborhood. Chaile, who is based in Lisbon, draws on the material traditions of Indigenous communities from northwest Argentina, blending roles as artist, anthropologist, and storyteller to explore themes of migration, identity, and cultural memory.
Argentine artist Gabriel Chaile has opened a new commission titled "Archaeology of Memory" at the Whitechapel Gallery in London. The site-specific installation transforms a large gallery space into an archaeological excavation site, incorporating everyday and decorative objects sourced from the surrounding East End neighborhood. These objects are embedded into monumental adobe sculptures that draw on the forms and material traditions of Indigenous communities from northwest Argentina, where Chaile originates. The artist acts as both anthropologist and storyteller, exploring a "genealogy of form" that traces recurring motifs across cultures and time.
A major retrospective exhibition titled "Feedback. Gli ambienti di Franco Vaccari" has opened at Museion in Bolzano, Italy, dedicated to the late artist Franco Vaccari (1936–2025). The show features over twenty immersive environments, historical works, and recent video experiments drawn largely from the museum's permanent collection and the Franco Vaccari Archive of Visual Writing. Curated by Frida Carazzato and Luca Panaro in collaboration with Fosbury Architecture, the exhibition explores Vaccari's cross-disciplinary practice spanning photography, writing, and participatory installation art.
Due fotografi hanno provato a raccontare la Toscana oltre i soliti cliché
The article profiles photographers Gioconda Rafanelli and August Kaciuruba, who are contributing to the "How Italy Feels" project curated by Marina Serena Cacciapuoti and Cesare Cacciapuoti of Italy Segreta. The project involves twenty local photographers capturing Italy beyond stereotypes. In the Tuscany chapter, Rafanelli and Kaciuruba present a lived, off-duty vision of the region, blending fashion, architecture, and cinematic influences. They discuss their collaborative process, their shared gaze, and how their work shifts between the fast pace of Milan and the slower rhythms of Tuscany, drawing inspiration from filmmakers like Wong Kar-wai, Stanley Kubrick, Luchino Visconti, and Michelangelo Antonioni.
La delicatezza come resistenza. Intervista alla curatrice del Padiglione Turchia alla Biennale di Venezia
For the 2026 Venice Biennale, the Turkey Pavilion, commissioned by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV), will present "A Kiss on the Eyes" by artist Nilbar Güreş, curated by Başak Doğa Temür. The exhibition takes its title from a Turkish expression conveying affectionate closeness without intrusion, and features a mix of new productions and earlier works spanning sculpture, installation, painting, and works on paper and fabric. In an interview, curator Temür explains that the project avoids a retrospective or didactic approach, instead creating a spatial rhythm of approach, pause, and slight withdrawal, where intimacy, politics, irony, and fragility press against one another.
The third edition of the De Linea Art Festival took place on May 2-3 at the Certosa di Pontignano near Siena, Italy. Curated by Matteo Marsan and Riccardo Guasco, the event transformed the historic monastery into a living laboratory of drawing, illustration, and performance. Nine illustrators—including Marina Marcolin, Francesco Poroli, Elisa Macellari, Gianluca Folì, Ale Giorgini, Gloria Pizzilli, Matteo Berton, Giovanna Giuliano, and Daniele Caluri—participated in a week-long residency, producing works inspired by the site and the festival's theme "Crepe e spiragli" (Cracks and Glimmers), a contemporary interpretation of a Leonard Cohen quote. Over 500 visitors attended workshops, talks, and shared creative sessions, including a workshop by Fondazione Il Bisonte and performances by actress Daniela Morozzi and graphic poet Alessandro Valenti (Alvalenti).
Ecco le foto del Padiglione Austria alla Biennale di Venezia (quello pieno di performer nude che è vietato fotografare)
The Austrian Pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale, titled "Seaworld Venice" and curated by Nora-Swantje Almes, features provocative performances by artist and choreographer Florentina Holzinger. The installation includes four distinct nude female performances: a performer acting as a bell clapper on the hour, a female Deposition of Christ scene with three women on a rotating vertical structure, a nude woman riding a jet ski in circles, and a reenactment of Giorgione's Sleeping Venus in a urine-filled tank. The pavilion has become the most talked-about and Instagrammed at the Biennale, drawing long queues despite a ban on photography.
Intervista a Nina Wakeford del Padiglione Svizzero alla Biennale di Venezia 2026
Nina Wakeford, artist and curator of the Swiss Pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale, discusses the pavilion's project "The Unfinished Business of Living Together." The exhibition draws on two Swiss television broadcasts from 1978 and 1984—Telearena and Agora—in which gay, lesbian, and trans individuals spoke on national television. Rather than treating these as historical artifacts, Wakeford and her team (Gianmaria Andreetta, Luca Beeler, Miriam Laura Leonardi, Lithic Alliance, and Yul Tomatala) reactivate them as points of tension, creating a multimedia environment that explores unresolved issues of coexistence, visibility, and social difference.
Maine College of Art & Design (MECA&D), in collaboration with the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) at MECA&D, presents the 2026 MFA Thesis Exhibition, showcasing the culminating work of nine graduate candidates in the Master of Fine Arts in Studio Art program. The exhibition features artists Abigail G. Cloutier, Harley Ngai Grieco, Molly Knobloch, Stephen Medeiros, Darby Miller, Dylan Ouellette, Caitlin Perrigo, Jonathan Spath, and Isaac L. Stern, working across ceramics, drawings, photography, prints, sculpture, sound, and video installations. The show runs from May 7–16, 2026, at the ICA in Portland, Maine.
A seagull nesting near the Polish pavilion at the Venice Biennale has become an unexpected attraction, drawing bemused visitors and media attention. The bird laid eggs in the Giardini grounds, and a fence with a warning sign in English and Italian was erected around the nest. Organizers say this is the first known instance of a seagull nesting in such a prominent area of the exhibition. The Polish pavilion was closed on May 8 as part of a historic strike protesting the inclusion of aggressor states in the Biennale, with a sign supporting the Ukrainian Pavilion.
From May 13 to June 20, 2026, Lippitt House Museum in Providence, Rhode Island, will host an exhibition titled "On Being American: Contemporary Artworks, Echoes of the Past." The show features new works by five local contemporary artists—Susan Hardy, Steven Easton, Amalia Galdona Broche, Lynne Harlow, and McDonald Wright—who draw on the museum's architecture, period, and stories to explore themes of American identity. A special opening reception and artist talk will take place on May 13, with additional open house hours throughout the run.
The article, published by L'Officiel Art, provides a guide to fashion-brand-sponsored exhibitions at the 2026 Venice Biennale. It highlights projects by luxury houses including Bottega Veneta, Louis Vuitton, Zegna, and Bvlgari, framing them as unmissable cultural events within the broader Biennale program.
Joyce Effinger, a self-taught visual artist based in Corbeil, Ontario, opens her solo exhibition "Anyflatsurface" at the Alex Dufresne Gallery on May 9. The show features paintings on unconventional surfaces such as paddles, saws, rocks, cloth, and found objects, transforming everyday items marked by use and history into vibrant studies of color, form, and place. Effinger, who came to painting later in life, draws inspiration from northern Ontario's landscapes and heritage, as well as poetry and personal reflection.
The Paul W. Zuccaire Gallery at Stony Brook University hosted the opening reception of the ninth annual combined Senior Show and URECA Arts Exhibition on April 29, drawing about 300 attendees including students, faculty, staff, university leaders, and local museum curators. The Senior Show, a nearly 50-year tradition, features works by senior studio art majors and minors, while the URECA exhibition highlights undergraduate research-based art selected by faculty. This year's exhibition is noted for its diversity in subject matter and materials, from chalk painting to digital media, and runs through May 22.
The annual Long Branch District Student Art Exhibition returns to the Long Branch Arts & Cultural Center in New Jersey, running from May 7 through May 15. The showcase features paintings, drawings, mixed media pieces, and other creative projects by students across all grade levels in the Long Branch Public Schools district, with an opening reception on May 11 from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m.
London-based artist Irum Rahat presents her first solo exhibition in India, 'Yeh Kab Ki Baat Hai', at Pristine Contemporary in Delhi. The show features 16 new works that draw from her upbringing in a South Asian household, transforming mundane domestic scenes—making chai, sitting in rooms, family interactions—into a visual archive of memory and intimacy. Rahat's paintings, influenced by cinema and her own photography, use soft, hazy colors to evoke nostalgia and the ambiguity of time.
This article lists numerous gallery openings and ongoing exhibits across Central Oregon, including venues such as Amejko Artistry, Art Adventure Gallery, Artists’ Gallery Sunriver, and the High Desert Museum. Featured shows include nomadic woven artwork by Anna Amejko Peterson, a 40th anniversary exhibition of Jefferson County artists, “A Man Named York” at the Belknap Exhibit Center, and “Drawn West — A History of Promoting Place” at the High Desert Museum, among many others spanning pottery, photography, fiber art, and historical displays.
Belleville Art on the Square returns for its 24th year from May 15-17, 2026, in downtown Belleville. The festival features over 100 artists from more than 27 states and one international artist, showcasing works in multiple mediums. Highlights include artist demonstrations by the Gateway East Artists Guild, a high school art show with judged awards, a Children's Art Garden with interactive activities, live entertainment at the Wine Court, and food vendors offering a variety of cuisines. Admission is free, and the event runs Friday evening through Sunday afternoon.
The Danish Arts Foundation has opened 'Things To Come', an exhibition by Danish artist Maja Malou Lyse at the Danish Pavilion in the Giardini, Venice, as part of the 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. Curated by Chus Martínez, the show runs until November 22, 2026, and features a film developed with the collective DIS, shot in a real sperm bank and special effects studio, alongside an installation titled 'Stars in My Pocket' that incorporates cryogenic fertility bank boxes and online 'sperm races' clips. The exhibition title references H.G. Wells' 'The Shape of Things to Come' and draws on scientific studies linking virtual sexual stimuli to increased sperm motility.
The Mennello Museum in Loch Haven, Orlando, has launched the fourth edition of its 'Our Orlando' group exhibition, featuring three local artists: Tasanee Durrett, Mado Smith, and Martha Jo Mahoney. The show, curated by museum director Shannon Fitzgerald and co-curator Flynn Dobbs, includes four works each by Durrett and Mahoney and two by Smith, drawn from studio visits. The exhibition runs through late August with an opening reception on Friday.