Marianna Simnett’s Furry Friends

Marianna Simnett’s exhibition at Société, Berlin, features a provocative mix of film, painting, and sculpture that revels in grotesque, erotic, and fantastical transformations. Works like *Hyena and Swan in the Midst of Sexual Congress* (2019) and the films *Leda was a Swan* (2025) and *Blue Moon* (2022) reimagine classical myths and fairy tales through a feminist, body-horror lens, using AI-assisted visuals and stop-motion to explore themes of animality, abjection, and pleasure. The show includes taxidermy-inspired animations, BDSM-inflected live-action shorts, and sculptures that ensnare human figures in animal forms.

25th Biennale of Sydney Review: From the Margins

The 25th Biennale of Sydney, titled "Rememory" and curated by Hoor Al Qasimi, features 143 works by 83 artists and collectives from 37 countries across five venues. The exhibition explores marginalized, fragmented, and repressed histories, drawing on Toni Morrison's concept of 'rememory' as a space between remembering and forgetting. Key works include Tuan Andrew Nguyen's film on Vietnam War trauma, Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme's immersive installation on Palestinian displacement, Khalid Albaih's photographs of Sudan, and Massinissa Selmani's drawings on Algerian socialist building projects.

ArtReview April & May 2026 Issue Out Now

ArtReview's April & May 2026 issue explores boundaries and limitations in art, with a focus on the 61st Venice Biennale opening amid global conflicts. The cover features Japanese-American performance artist Ei Arakawa-Nash with his husband and twin babies, whose collaborative installation at the Japanese Pavilion incorporates the unpredictability of childcare. The issue includes coverage of controversial national pavilions (Russian, Israeli, American), profiles of artists representing Mongolia and Singapore, and features on Beverly Buchanan, Arthur Jafa, Richard Prince, and Zehra Doğan's report from Rojava. It also reviews the 82nd Whitney Biennial, the 25th Biennale of Sydney, and the 15th Shanghai Biennale.

The Interview: Ei Arakawa-Nash

Ei Arakawa-Nash, a Japanese American performance artist, was selected to represent Japan at the 61st Venice Biennale, becoming the first non-Japanese national to do so in a solo presentation. This follows his first solo museum exhibition, "Paintings Are Popstars," at Tokyo's National Art Center in 2024, which was also the center's first solo show devoted to a performance artist. In an interview with ArtReview, Arakawa-Nash discusses his naturalization as a U.S. citizen, his complex relationship with national identity, and his upcoming Venice exhibition titled "Grass Babies, Moon Babies," cocurated by Lisa Horikawa and Takahashi Mizuki, which will explore themes of care and reparation using babies as a central motif.

Desmond Morris, zoologist, presenter and surrealist painter, 1928–2026

Desmond Morris, the zoologist, author, television presenter, and surrealist painter, has died at the age of 98. He was best known for his 1967 book *The Naked Ape* and the television program *Zoo Time*, but maintained a parallel, influential career in the visual arts as a painter and curator.

There Has Never Been an Apolitical Venice Biennale

The Venice Biennale, with its national pavilion structure, has always been a platform for political expression and soft power, a reality evident from its early 20th-century origins. Contemporary critic Arturo Lancellotti's 1909 review of the German and British pavilions was steeped in geopolitical context, revealing how national artistic displays were interpreted through the lens of imperial power and military alliances.

Event: Hammad Nasar and Billy Tang, Off the Record

ArtReview and Ursula magazine have announced a collaborative talk featuring curators Hammad Nasar and Billy Tang as part of their "Off the Record" series in London. The event, held at the Farm Shop in Mayfair, is designed as an intimate, live conversation focused on the working methods and inspirations of creative visionaries. Nasar, a veteran curator and MBE recipient, will join Tang, the Artistic Director of the new Yan Du Project, to discuss their respective practices and the evolution of creative thinking.

Citing “Unfixable” Gallery Model, Pace Makes Deep Cuts to Artist Roster, Staff

Pace Gallery has cut fifty artists from its roster of 135 and eliminated fifty of its 250 staff, according to a New York Times report. The layoffs were announced before staff were notified, with a town hall scheduled for the following morning. CEO Marc Glimcher stated that the current gallery model is "unfixable" and that Pace is returning to its roots by focusing on around 80 artists, including an intergenerational mix. Among the dropped artists are Glenn Kaino, Keith Coventry, John Gerrard, TeamLab, and several others, while the gallery retains its blue-chip status alongside Gagosian, Hauser & Wirth, and Zwirner.

Lost Leonora Carrington Work to Make Public Debut

A long-lost painting by British Mexican Surrealist Leonora Carrington, titled *Villa Pilar* (1940), will make its public debut at London’s Freud Museum this summer. The work was rediscovered with an heir of Dr. Luis Morales, the psychiatrist who treated Carrington at a psychiatric hospital in Santander, Spain, where she was institutionalized after a mental breakdown following her partner Max Ernst’s arrest by the Nazis. The painting will be featured in the exhibition “Leonora Carrington: The Symptomatic Surreal,” which has been extended through August 10, and will later travel to the arts center Faro Santander in September.

Spanish Government Threatens to Fire Director of Museo Reina Sofía

Manuel Segade, director of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Spain, has been threatened with removal by lawmakers if he does not complete a full inventory of the museum’s over 25,000 artworks by December 31, 2025. The pressure comes from Spain’s Court of Auditors, which has criticized the museum’s cataloguing methods for years, and is backed by the far-right and the conservative Popular Party. Segade, appointed in 2023, has been overseeing a multi-year renovation and has increased the representation of women artists to 35%, though only 15% of the collection’s 26,000 pieces are by women. The museum recently refused to lend Picasso’s *Guernica* to the Guggenheim Bilbao, and a pro-Israel group filed a complaint over a Palestinian flag display and a seminar series.

Ascendant Philanthropists Make $23 Million Donation to Met

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has received a $23 million donation from newly elected trustee Jennifer Rubio and her husband Stewart Butterfield, made through the Rubio Butterfield Foundation. The principal gift will endow the museum's undergraduate and graduate internship program in perpetuity, which will be renamed after the couple starting September 2026. An additional donation supports the Met's new Tang Wing for modern and contemporary art, set to open in 2030.

Renoir Not Seen in Public for 97 Years Will Go Up for Auction in May

A major portrait by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, "La femme aux lilas (Portrait de Nini Lopez)" (1876–77), will be sold at Christie's on May 18. The painting, which has been held privately by the Whitney Payson family for 97 years, is expected to fetch between $25 and $35 million.

LACMA Sets May 4 Opening Date for $724 Million “Curvaceous Concrete Sandwich” as Reviews Pour In

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) has announced that its new David Geffen Galleries will officially open to the public on May 4, 2025. Designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Peter Zumthor, the $724 million "curvaceous concrete sandwich" spans Wilshire Boulevard and replaces four previous buildings. The inaugural exhibition, organized by a massive team of forty-five curators, will forgo traditional chronological displays in favor of a thematic framework centered on global oceanic exchange, featuring both permanent collection highlights and new commissions from contemporary artists like Lauren Halsey and Do Ho Suh.

Getty Center to Close in Los Angeles as Major Renovation Looms

The Getty Center in Los Angeles will close for a full year starting March 15, 2027, to undergo its first major renovation since opening in 1997. The "modernization initiatives" include updates to the galleries, a redesign of the Welcome Hall with a new café, and the replacement of the iconic tram system to increase passenger capacity. During the closure, the Getty Villa in Malibu will remain open and display highlights from the Center’s permanent collection, while additional programming will be held at a temporary space on Sepulveda Boulevard.

Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Estate Sold to Florida Resort

The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation has sold the late artist’s twenty-two-acre estate on Captiva Island, Florida, to the neighboring South Seas resort for $45 million. The sale includes ten buildings, most notably Rauschenberg’s custom-built 8,000-square-foot studio and his historic "Beach House." While the resort plans to integrate the property into its operations and host art-related programming, the foundation cited escalating maintenance costs and environmental risks from climate change as the primary reasons for the divestment.

The Top Exhibitions To See In London: June 2026

London's June 2026 art scene features a diverse lineup of exhibitions, including Japanese photography at Japan House and the Photographers' Gallery, the opening of the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration with debut shows, a Marilyn Monroe centenary at the National Portrait Gallery, Rachel Maclean's AI-themed exhibition at Josh Lilley Gallery, and a celestial-themed show at Saatchi Gallery. These exhibitions span photography, illustration, pop culture, and contemporary art, offering free and ticketed options across the city.

Hayward Gallery announces major Nan Goldin exhibition.

The Hayward Gallery in London has announced a major solo exhibition of American artist and activist Nan Goldin, titled "You Never Did Anything Wrong." Running from 24 November 2026 to 7 March 2027, the show will mark Goldin's first institutional exhibition in the UK since 2002, featuring her intimate photographs and slideshows that document personal relationships, addiction, and queer communities over five decades. The exhibition rounds off the Southbank Centre's 75th anniversary year and includes works such as "Flowers with cup and Gaja" (2024) and "Diana in the bath" (2024).

A Preview of Museum Exhibitions Opening in North Texas this Fall

A roundup of fall 2025 museum exhibitions in North Texas highlights shows at the Crow Museum of Asian Art, the Nasher Sculpture Center, the Meadows Museum, and the Dallas Museum of Art. Key exhibitions include "Groundbreakers: Post-War Japan and Korea" at the Crow Museum, featuring Mono-ha, Dansaekhwa, and Gutai movements alongside contemporary artists Do Ho Suh and Tatsuo Miyajima; a major Antony Gormley survey at the Nasher Sculpture Center, his first U.S. museum retrospective; "Roaming Mexico: Laura Wilson" and a companion show of Manuel Álvarez Bravo at the Meadows Museum; and two Dallas Museum of Art exhibitions—"Creatures and Captives: Painted Textiles of the Ancient Andes" and "Constellations: Contemporary Jewelry." The New York Academy of Art also presents its Chubb Fellows and Friends at Green Family Art Foundation.

Art Movements: Sam Gilliam Foundation Names Its First Director

The Sam Gilliam Foundation has appointed Dr. Steven Nelson as its inaugural executive director. Nelson, formerly of the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art, will oversee the foundation's mission to preserve Gilliam's legacy while supporting emerging artists and civic activism. Separately, Aperture will open its new permanent headquarters on New York's Upper West Side on September 18 with an inaugural exhibition titled "Aperture Loves New York." The article also reports that five artists—Diana Al-Hadid, Jordan Ann Craig, Lavar Munroe, Ronald Rael, and Kiyan Williams—received VIA Art Fund's spring 2026 Artistic Production Grants, and that the New Museum has partnered with Penske Media Corporation to launch an event called "Art Week NYC."

È morto Duane Michals, il fotografo che ha trasformato l’immagine in racconto

Duane Michals, the influential American photographer known for transforming photography into a narrative and poetic medium, died on June 9, 2026, at age 94 in New York. Born in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, in 1932, Michals began his career as a freelance photographer for magazines like Esquire, Mademoiselle, and Vogue after a trip to the Soviet Union in 1958. He rejected the dominant photojournalistic tradition of the "decisive moment," instead developing sequenced images, double exposures, and handwritten texts that turned photographs into hybrid works of storytelling, philosophy, and autobiography. His work entered major collections including the Museum of Modern Art, the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and he participated in Documenta 6 in 1977. His archive is housed at the Carnegie Museum of Art.

A Basel without Art Basel?

"Ein Basel ohne Art Basel?"

The article reports on several art-world developments. The board of trustees of the KHM Museum Association in Vienna has reaffirmed its confidence in directors Jonathan Fine and Paul Frey after an independent investigation by labor law expert Sieglinde Gahleitner found that allegations of mobbing and bossing by Veronika Sandbichler were not substantiated, though communication deficiencies were noted. Separately, Luisa Taliento explores unusual Italian 'Casa-Musei' (house museums) as an alternative to overcrowded major museums, highlighting the Museo Casa Mollino in Turin, Casa Museo Lodovico Pogliaghi in Varese, and Casa Museo Remo Brindisi as total works of art. In architecture news, Hanno Rauterberg reflects on the renovation of Schloss Bellevue and the move of the German president to a new building by Sauerbruch Hutton, while critics Gesine Borcherdt and Tobias Timm offer opposing views on the exhibition 'Freiraum Kunst' at the palace. Finally, Claude Bühler investigates whether Basel is losing relevance as Art Basel expands into Paris, citing concerns from Basel gallerist Stefan von Bartha.

Beer With a Painter: Samia Halaby

Hyperallergic's "Beer With a Painter" series features Palestinian-American abstract painter Samia Halaby in her longtime Tribeca studio. Over sage tea, Halaby discusses her seven-decade career, her experimentation with color, and how she "accidentally stepped into abstraction." The article covers her early life—born in Jerusalem in 1936, displaced during the Nakba, and moving to the U.S. in 1951—as well as her Marxist philosophy, her activism for Palestinian rights, and the evolution of her work from geometric still lifes to kinetic digital paintings. It also notes that her first museum survey was held in 2024 at the Broad Art Museum, but Indiana University canceled its half of the show, which many view as suppression of Palestinian voices.

Nayland Blake Doesn’t Believe in Fixed Selves

Nayland Blake, a nonbinary and pansexual artist known for their cerebral, kinky, and humorous work, is featured in Hyperallergic’s 2026 Pride Month series. The interview covers their coming out, their artistic process of making work to understand identity, and their belief that identity is unfixed and continually remade. Blake discusses their early inspirations from theater and literature, and how they interrogate their own creations to explore who they are. They are a co-director of the Studio Art program at Bard College and have exhibited at major institutions including SFMOMA and the Whitney Museum.

Danielle Mckinney's Portraits of Black Women at Rest

Danielle Mckinney's exhibition "Forest for the Trees" at Marianne Boesky Gallery in Chelsea presents portraits of solitary Black women in states of leisure and repose, rendered in both watercolor and oil. The works feature recurring motifs like red nails, metallic eye accents, and cigarette smoke, creating intimate scenes of private domestic space. The exhibition coincides with a survey of Mckinney's work at the Norton Museum of Art, running through October 4.

Inside Chicago’s Obama Center

The article reports on the upcoming opening of the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago's Jackson Park, a new $850 million campus designed to embody the legacy of Barack and Michelle Obama. It features artworks by Idris Khan, Maya Lin, and others, and is set to open to the public later this month. The piece also covers a planned nationwide strike by Italian cultural workers on June 12, demanding better working conditions and solidarity with Palestine, and notes controversial renderings of a Penn Station redesign that prominently display Trump's name.

The World That Held Peter Hujar and Paul Thek

Andrew Durbin's new dual biography, *The Wonderful World That Almost Was: A Life of Peter Hujar and Paul Thek* (2026), explores the intertwined lives of photographer Peter Hujar and visual artist Paul Thek. The book traces their relationship from their first meeting in Florida in their early 20s through their artistic development, shifting from lovers and confidantes to a more complex bond marked by longing and resentment, ending with both dying of AIDS in the late 1980s. The review highlights a renewed interest in the artists, citing recent exhibitions and a film.

Sanford Wurmfeld’s Unstable Geometry

Hyperallergic reviews Sanford Wurmfeld's exhibition "Squares 1971–74" at Ceysson & Bénétière in New York, featuring six paintings and one study from 1971 to 1974. The show highlights Wurmfeld's methodical exploration of color through gridded compositions of one-inch squares, using a limited palette of four hues to create optical interactions that shift as the viewer looks. Wurmfeld, who was the youngest artist in MoMA's 1968 "Art of the Real" exhibition, has long operated under the radar of the New York art world.

"Ohne die Künstler sind wir als Galeristen alle nichts"

A recent art news roundup from Monopol covers several stories: a debate in 'Frieze' criticizes contemporary art for ignoring digital misogyny and the 'manosphere'; the AfD's cultural policy in German states promotes a 'patriotic turn' and rejects modern art like Bauhaus; a possible lead in the Louvre jewel heist points to Belgium, with photos of the Galerie d'Apollon found on suspects' phones; and Marion Ackermann discusses cultural polarization and defending artistic freedom.

It's Art-World Summer in NYC

Hyperallergic's New York newsletter celebrates the unofficial start of summer in the art world, highlighting key exhibitions and events. These include Betye Saar's personal collection of Black dolls on view at the New York Historical, a promised gift for her 100th birthday; Roberto Lugo's hand-painted portraits in Madison Square Park; and Pioneer Works's annual 3D-printed boat regatta. The newsletter also features performance artist Linda Mary Montano's home-shrine tour, an MFA show confronting Columbia University over Gaza, and critical reviews of Ceija Stojka at the Drawing Center and Karla Knight at Andrew Edlin Gallery.

How Betye Saar Set Black Dolls Free

An exhibition at the New York Historical celebrates Betye Saar’s promised gift of her collection of over 100 Black dolls to the institution, coinciding with her upcoming 100th birthday. The show, on view through October 4, features dolls alongside Saar’s paintings, prints, and sculptures, including works like “The Liberation of Aunt Jemima” (1972) and “Indigo Mercy” (1975). Saar began collecting Black dolls in 1949 and has incorporated them into her art since the 1970s, using watercolors during the COVID-19 pandemic to reimagine them in mystical scenes.