Film Notes has published a new essay by scholar Tiago de Luca, drawn from his research on environment and cinema. The essay focuses on the conceptual and aesthetic role of the background in film, tracing its technical history and examining its relation to power, marginalization, and environmental crisis.
The Norwich Castle Open Art Show, titled 'In Proximity,' received an overwhelming 900 submissions from artists across the East of England, highlighting a vibrant regional art scene. The exhibition opens this Saturday at Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery, showcasing a diverse range of works from painters, printmakers, textile artists, and ceramicists.
Artist Ed Woodham reflects on the evolution and co-option of socially engaged art, using his own projects like 'The Keepers' protests and the Art in Odd Places initiative as examples. He describes a troubling trend where the language and strategies of social practice art, once used to challenge systems, are now being adopted by developers, corporations, and institutions for branding, place-making, and community engagement initiatives that often operate within the very economic structures driving displacement and eroding public space.
National Gallery Singapore presents 'When Art Meets Nature', a children's art exhibition running from 30 April to 1 November 2026. The show features two installations: 'Peace Forest' by Singaporean artist Soh Ee Shaun, located in the Keppel Centre for Art Education, and 'Where the River Runs' by Yenting Hsu, displayed in the City Hall Alcove. The exhibition is co-curated by the Taoyuan Museum of Fine Arts and National Gallery Singapore, offering interactive experiences such as a scavenger hunt and a woodblock art station, alongside a video and audio installation exploring the Dahan River in Taiwan.
The Cleveland Museum of Art has opened "Epic of the Northwest Himalayas: Pahari Paintings from the ‘Shangri’ Ramayana," an exhibition featuring 40 rare paintings from a 1700s royal commission. These works, which depict the life of the Hindu deity Rama, have been reunited from 12 different lenders after being dispersed globally for centuries. The display is augmented by digital stations that animate over 100 additional paintings to illustrate the narrative's themes of virtue and heroism.
The blockbuster exhibition "Ramses the Great and the Gold of the Pharaohs" has opened in London near Battersea Power Station, featuring over 180 ancient Egyptian treasures. Produced by Neon Global in collaboration with Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, the show includes the coffin of Ramses II, animal mummies, and a VR experience. The tour has already visited cities like Paris and Sydney, serving as a major international cultural ambassador for Egypt.
The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) has opened a call for artists for "Lake Effect: Artists from Cleveland Now," a juried group exhibition celebrating the museum's 110th anniversary in 2026. The exhibition will be held from July 9 to November 22 at CMA's Transformer Station in Ohio City's Hingetown neighborhood, and is open to artists living or working in Northeast Ohio counties. Submissions are due by April 24, with selections announced May 1, and three $1,000 micro-grants will be awarded.
ARTE Museum New York has opened at Chelsea Piers, a 52,000-square-foot immersive digital art experience created by the Korean art-tech studio d’strict. The exhibition, themed 'Eternal Nature,' features multisensory rooms with lifelike digital waterfalls, blooming flowers, ocean waves, jungle animals, and a tornado, using cutting-edge projection mapping and interactive technology that responds to movement, sound, and scent. Visitors can also enjoy an interactive animal sketching station and unwind at the ARTE Tea Bar. The museum has locations in Miami, Las Vegas, and Dubai as well.
The Mori Art Museum in Tokyo has opened "The Architecture of Sou Fujimoto: Primordial Future Forest," the first major survey of the Japanese architect's thirty-year career. Running from July 2 to November 9, 2025, the exhibition spans eight thematic sections, featuring over 1,000 models, sketches, videos, installations, and even stuffed toys. Highlights include a large-scale installation of Fujimoto's key projects, a timeline by architectural historian Kurakata Shunsuke, full-scale mock-ups of his Grand Ring for Expo 2025 Osaka, and a futuristic city proposal developed with data scientist Miyata Hiroaki. The show aims to be accessible to all visitors, not just architects.
Hattie Grimm, artist-in-residence at the Charles Allis Art Museum in Milwaukee, has created a new exhibition titled "BIRD BODY" featuring 20 original wooden paintings and sculptures. Inspired by her personal relationship with birds formed during a difficult time, the works explore birds as symbols of freedom, intuition, and bodily wisdom. The exhibit includes interactive elements such as drawing activities and storytelling stations, encouraging visitors to reflect on their own connections to birds and their bodies.
Museumsbau Berlin Modern verzögert sich bis 2030
The completion of Berlin Modern, a major new museum in Berlin, has been delayed again until 2030 due to moisture damage and microbial infestation found in parts of the raw structure. The Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz (SPK) announced an estimated eight-month postponement, though no construction stop was required. The museum, designed by Herzog & de Meuron, is being built near Potsdamer Platz to expand the Neue Nationalgalerie's exhibition space. Costs have risen from an initial €200 million to a projected €507 million.
Sotheby's second auction in Saudi Arabia, 'Origins II,' concluded with strong results, achieving a hammer total of $15.4 million and an 89% sell-through rate. The sale demonstrated robust demand for regional artists, particularly Arab Modernists, while some high-profile Western works were withdrawn or failed to sell. The standout lot was a 1968 painting by the late Saudi pioneer Safeya Binzagr, titled 'Coffee Shop in Madina Road,' which sold for $1.1 million, significantly outperforming a Picasso work in the same sale.
Blunk Space gallery in Point Reyes Station, California, is presenting '100 Candleholders', an exhibition running from 17 January to 28 March 2026. The show features 100 artists and designers from around the world—including Max Lamb, Bethan Laura Wood, Ido Yoshimoto, and Jonathan Cross—each invited to create a candleholder inspired by the late sculptor JB Blunk, his work, or his self-built home and studio, Blunk House. This is the second installment in the '100' series, following '100 Hooks' in 2023-24, and takes its cue from Blunk's own 1981 exhibition '100 Plates Plus', which explored the artistic potential of everyday objects.
Metro Art, the public art program of Los Angeles County's transit authority, is celebrating National Arts & Humanities Month in October 2024 with a series of exhibitions and events across the Metro system. Highlights include 'Love, Leimert' at Leimert Park Station, featuring moving-image works by ten artists; 'LA on the Move' at Union Station, an exhibition exploring how people and wildlife navigate the city; and guided tours of large-scale artworks at Grand Ave Arts/Bunker Hill Station. The program also features a wrapped Metro Art Bus showcasing rider portrait photography.
The UK government has selected sculptor Martin Jennings to create a statue of Queen Elizabeth II for St James’s Park in London, as part of a larger memorial designed by Norman Foster's architecture firm. The memorial will also include a figurative sculpture of the Queen alongside Prince Philip at Birdcage Walk and a Prince Philip gate. Jennings, known for his bust of the Queen Mother and his coin effigy of King Charles III, describes the project as a work in progress, with a provisional construction budget of £23m–£46m. Final design details are expected next year.
The New Art Exchange (NAE) in Nottingham, UK, is hosting its fifth Open Exhibition, a competitive open-call showcase for contemporary artists from the Global Ethnic Majority and all artists based in Nottinghamshire. The exhibition features a wide range of mixed-media works—including painting, video, live art, photography, textiles, and sculpture—selected by a diverse panel of neighbors, artists, and curators. Standout pieces include Broken Glass's 'Deforestation (Desmatamento),' a critique of environmental destruction in Brazil; Mamu Umu's 'Capitalist Champion,' exploring the tension between artistic passion and economic survival; Emily Catherine's photorealistic charcoal portrait 'Phuong'; and Aida Wilde's 'BUTCHERED.'
Sebastião Salgado, the legendary Brazilian photographer known for his monumental documentary projects capturing collective humanity and environmental activism, has died. Born in 1944 in Aimorés, Brazil, Salgado studied economics at the University of São Paulo and was exiled to France for political activism before turning to photography in the 1970s. He joined Magnum Photos in 1979 and went on to create epic, multi-year projects such as "Workers" (1986-93), "Migrations" (1993-99), "Genesis" (2005-13), and "Amazônia" (2011-19), which redefined documentary practice through total immersion and scale. His work earned him the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador role, and numerous awards including the W. Eugene Smith Grant and the Royal Photographic Society’s Centenary Medal.
The article highlights standout works at Osaka Art & Design 2025, including Maki Takato's 'Yokai Unity' installation at Nankai Namba Station, Shotaro Sanada's 'Next Landscape', and alan's 'Re:Re:' piece. It also promotes designboom's upcoming guides and exhibition roundups, such as the Venice Art Biennale 2026 and a monthly selection of global art and design shows.
In mid-2025, the Trump administration rescinded $9 billion in public media funding, including $1.1 billion for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CBP), which subsequently voted to dissolve. While NPR stated its mission would continue unchanged, the cuts disproportionately impacted rural member stations that relied on CBP for about 13% of their revenue, threatening local access to public media.
A PIONEERING EXHIBITION AT THE MAC IN BARRANCO
The Museum of Contemporary Art (MAC Lima) and the Lima Art Museum (MALI) have launched "Thought is a Hybrid Garden," a comprehensive exhibition spanning six decades of work by Francesco Mariotti and María Luy. The show draws from the Mariotti-Luy Archive and features light installations, acoustic works, and silkscreens that blend technology with Amazonian myths and environmental activism. Curated by Miguel A. López and José-Carlos Mariátegui, the exhibition includes never-before-seen works in Peru, such as the "Hybrid Gardens" series which uses bioluminescence as a metaphor for ecological health.
Artist Nancy Lupo is preparing a new exhibition titled "Meow Meow Real Estate" at the Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation in London. The show shares its name with a novel she is writing, both projects emerging from a period of personal displacement and a fixation on finding a home. The exhibition continues a trajectory of shows that serve as interconnected, physical manifestations of her literary and emotional exploration of place.
Arts District Liberty Station in San Diego has launched a new Open-Air Gallery, a self-guided tour featuring murals, sculptures, and public art installations. The tour is available in English and Spanish, with an interactive online StoryMap providing behind-the-scenes content. The organization also announced two local artists, Mischka Ippólita and Beliz Iristay, for its 2025 Installations at the Station program, which commissions site-specific works celebrating the San Diego-Baja region.
La galleria The Flat di Milano trasloca: nuovo spazio da 280 mq vicino alla Stazione Centrale
The Flat – Massimo Carasi gallery is relocating to a new 280-square-meter space near Milan’s Central Station after 18 years in the Porta Venezia district. To mark the opening on April 9, 2026, the gallery will present "Here… Now!", a group exhibition featuring artists such as Hiva Alizadeh, Michael Johansson, and Leonardo Ulian. The show serves as a retrospective of the gallery’s history since its founding in 2002, showcasing the experimental and international practices that define its program.
Collectible design fair returned for its second edition in New York, taking over the entire 39th floor of the WSA building in Manhattan’s Financial District. The fair featured 123 exhibitors, many local, presenting limited-edition and unique design objects. Highlights included Tuleste Factory's lighting-heavy stand 'Afterglow' with ceramic lamps by Ethan Streicher, a collaborative living-room set by Streicher and Ian Love called the Kindred Collection, and a special-projects section with a performance dinner and a piercing station. Co-founder Liv Vaisberg emphasized the fair's curated, designer-centered approach and experimental spirit.
Following the devastating 7.7 earthquake on 28 March in Myanmar, the country's art community—both at home and in exile—has mobilized fundraising efforts to support relief and rebuilding, deliberately bypassing the ruling Tatmadaw junta. Curator Kyel Sin Lin is auctioning a work by prominent artist Htein Lin depicting the epicenter Sagaing and the collapsed Ava Bridge, while galleries in Yangon such as The Collector Art Gallery, Sar Ga Gallery, and Nawaday Tharlar Gallery are holding earthquake relief sales. In Hong Kong, 10 Chancery Lane raised $13,000 through a fundraising night and online sale of works by Moe Satt and Htein Lin, and Karin Weber Gallery is selling a painting by Burmese Modernist San Win to benefit the educational non-profit Prospect Burma.
Japanese artist Manabu Kosaka creates hyperrealistic, scale replicas of everyday and retro objects using only paper. His meticulously crafted sculptures—ranging from 35mm film cameras and vintage transistor radios to luxury wristwatches and fast food—feature functional internal components like gears, levers, and moving hatches that mimic the mechanics of the original items.
Daniel Hopp's exhibition "Fictional Healing" at Kunsthaus Hamburg explores how transit spaces like train stations and public squares reveal social divisions, focusing on sites such as Berlin's Leopoldplatz and Hamburg's Drob Inn, a drug consumption counseling center. The show examines the collision of addiction, homelessness, and survival strategies in these urban environments.
Liu Shuai, a multimedia artist from Shandong province, China, presented an interactive installation titled "The Kiss" (2025) at VILLA tbh in Shanghai during the 15th Shanghai Biennale (2025–26). The work, co-created with carpenter bees, features bamboo stalks punctured by the insects and transformed into hanging instruments. It was part of the biennale's "City Projects" and housed in Liu's temporary studio within the Shanghai Botanical Garden, offering a poetic exploration of interspecies collaboration.
Michaela Yearwood-Dan has unveiled her first major UK institutional exhibition, 'The Practice of Liberation,' at the Whitworth. The immersive installation integrates fourteen new paintings with ceramic vessels and soundscapes, reimagining traditional religious motifs through a contemporary, secular lens. By deconstructing elements like stained glass and the Stations of the Cross into abstract forms, the artist creates a sanctuary that explores themes of ritual, memory, and personal identity.
LA PROCESIÓN COMO FORMA DE MUNDO: ARTISTAS LATINOAMERICANOS EN LA BIENAL DE DIRIYAH
The third Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale, titled 'In Interludes and Transitions,' is open until May 2nd in Saudi Arabia's historic Diriyah district. Curated by Nora Razian and Sabih Ahmed, the exhibition features 68 artists from over 37 countries and frames the world as a multitude of processions, using movement as its central theme and methodology. The exhibition design by Formafantasma encourages a fluid, nomadic journey through four thematic movements and site-specific 'arenas' within the repurposed industrial halls of the JAX creative district.