New art fair Arrival brings collectors to the bucolic Berkshires

Arrival, a new art fair, launched its inaugural edition on June 12 at the Tourists hotel in North Adams, Massachusetts, featuring 36 exhibitors from across the US. The biennial fair, running through June 15, includes panels, talks, and off-site programming at nearby museums. Galleries set up in hotel rooms, creating an intimate, domestic atmosphere. Founders Yng-Ru Chen, Sarah Galender Meyer, and Crystalle Lacouture—who together bring 60 years of art-world experience—aim to offer a respite from conventional convention-center fairs. Early sales included works by Hayal Pozanti, Chelsea Ryoko Wong, and Pae White, and the Williams College Museum of Art acquired three works from the fair.

A brush with… Lubaina Himid — podcast

This podcast episode features a conversation with Lubaina Himid, the Turner Prize-winning artist born in Zanzibar in 1954 and based in Preston, UK. Himid discusses her paintings, sculptures, and installations that center marginalized figures, diasporic cultures, and overlooked histories. She reflects on the influence of artists Stanley Spencer, Bridget Riley, and William Hogarth, as well as writers Audre Lorde and Essex Hemphill. The episode also covers her curatorial work in the 1980s, her role in the Black British Arts movement, and her admiration for peer Claudette Johnson. Upcoming exhibitions include a show with Magda Stawarska at Kettle’s Yard in Cambridge, a group show at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, and her representation of the British Pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale.

Women on the Verge: Five Museums in Maine Showcase Nicole Wittenberg and Ann Craven

Five museums across Maine are simultaneously presenting exhibitions featuring the work of painters Nicole Wittenberg and Ann Craven, in a coordinated initiative titled "Women on the Verge." The participating institutions include the Portland Museum of Art, the Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Rockland, the Colby College Museum of Art in Waterville, the Bowdoin College Museum of Art in Brunswick, and the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland. Each venue is showing a distinct body of work by either Wittenberg or Craven, highlighting their vibrant, often nature-inspired paintings that explore themes of femininity, perception, and the natural world.

Where to see art in Houston now: 9 intriguing new exhibits opening in June

Houston's art scene is bustling in June 2025 with nine new exhibitions opening across the city. Highlights include Lawndale Art Center's annual "Big Show," juried by Dr. Phillip A. Townsend, featuring 88 works by 77 local artists; Sawyer Yards' "Be the Art: The Silos Selfie Experience," an immersive, social-media-friendly display; and three new shows at the Blaffer Art Museum, including "a way to mend" focusing on Gulf Coast artists and healing, "¡Cuidado!" by X Arriaga Cuellar and Adán Vallecillo about migrant healthcare workers, and Saif Azzuz's debut museum exhibition "Keet Hegehlpa’ (the water is rising)" addressing land and water privatization. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston also celebrates new acquisitions spanning luxurious historical works and AI-driven futures.

30 Artists Defining Queer Art Now

Artsy has published its annual Pride Month feature 'Queer Art Now,' spotlighting 30 LGBTQ+ artists who are shaping contemporary art. The artists were nominated by leading art-world figures including curator Legacy Russell, photographer Catherine Opie, and art advisor Racquel Chevremont. The cohort spans painters, photographers, performers, and sculptors, with profiles detailing their practices and recent exhibitions. The feature also includes a reflective essay by curator Gemma Rolls-Bentley on major themes in queer art today.

A new art center debuts in an old Denver fortune cookie factory

Amanda Precourt is opening the Cookie Factory, a new art space in Denver's Baker neighborhood, on May 24. Housed in a former fortune cookie factory that Precourt purchased in 2017, the 5,700-square-foot venue features four exhibition rooms, two solo shows per year, and monthly activations. The inaugural activation on June 21 will include yoga and sound baths led by local healers. Precourt, a Denver native and philanthropist, has transformed the dilapidated building with her partner, artist Andrew Jensdotter, and added a second-story apartment for her personal contemporary art collection. The space will not display her collection but will commission new works inspired by Colorado's environment.

The Top Exhibitions To See In London: May 2025

London's galleries and museums are opening a wave of major exhibitions in May 2025. Highlights include a 30-year survey of South Korean artist Do Ho Suh at Tate Modern, featuring fabric corridors replicating his former homes; two blockbuster shows at the British Museum—Hiroshige's prints of a transforming Japan and an exploration of ancient Indian religious art; a tech-and-nature residency by physicist-artist Jasmine Pradissitto at the London Museum of Water & Steam; and an immersive tree visualization by Marshmallow Laser Feast at Kew Gardens. The Francis Crick Institute also hosts the final weeks of its free multisensory exhibition "Hello Brain!"

5 Artists on Our Radar in May 2025

Artsy's May 2025 edition of 'Artists on Our Radar' highlights five emerging visual artists: Julia Jo, Raina Lee, Yaya Yajie Liang, and two others. Julia Jo, a Korean painter based in New York, showed new works at the Independent art fair with Charles Moffett, featuring emotionally charged, abstract figurative paintings. Raina Lee, a Taiwanese American ceramicist, presented pocket-sized glazed stoneware at NADA and Future Fair during New York Art Week, inspired by travel and cultural relics. Yaya Yajie Liang, a Chinese painter based in London, creates oil paintings with fluid brushstrokes exploring bodily sensations and interconnectedness.

Photo London reveals details of tenth anniversary edition

Photo London will celebrate its tenth anniversary edition from May 15-18, 2025 at Somerset House, which is itself marking 25 years as an international arts destination. The fair will feature a strong roster of returning and new international galleries, the return of the Discovery section for emerging galleries, and a new Positions section for unrepresented photographers championed by collectors. Special programming includes a 'London Lives' exhibition showcasing around 30 leading photographers, a solo show by Colin Dodgson presented by Belmond, a new Book Market for independent publishers, a talks programme curated by Thames & Hudson, and awards such as the Photo London x Nikon Emerging Photographer of the Year and the Photo London x Hahnemühle Student Award.

Preview: Upcoming Summer Shows at Houston Area Museums

Houston-area museums and art spaces have announced their upcoming summer exhibitions, including immersive installations, figurative group shows, and presentations addressing environmental issues. Highlights include A.A.Murakami's "Floating World" at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), the first solo U.S. museum presentation for the artist duo; Francesca Fuchs's "The Space Between Looking and Loving" at the Menil Collection, which explores a personal connection between the artist's father and John de Menil; and "Figurative Histories" at the Moody Center for the Arts, featuring works by Black Texas artists examining sociopolitical histories.

For its 10th edition Photo London aims to look beyond the notorious ‘Kate Moss Index’

Photo London, the UK's leading photography fair, is preparing for its 10th edition from 15 to 18 May at Somerset House under new director Sophie Parker. Parker, the fair's first female director and a longtime staff member, aims to move beyond the so-called 'Kate Moss Index'—industry slang for the prevalence of safe, traditional photographic subjects like supermodel portraits—by rewarding galleries that take risks with more experimental work. The fair has cycled through several directors in recent years, including Roderick van der Lee and Kamiar Maleki, but Parker brings an insider's perspective and a working-class background to the role.

Do Ho Suh is searching for home in a major new exhibition at Tate Modern

Do Ho Suh's major new exhibition "Walk the House" has opened at Tate Modern's Blavatnik Building, featuring large-scale fabric constructions that recreate architectural fragments from homes the South Korean artist has lived in across Seoul, New York, London, and Berlin. The centerpiece, "Nest/s" (2024), is a monumental sewn passageway made from polyester using a historic Korean fabric technique, incorporating fine details like logos on air vents and light switches. The show also includes "Rubbing/Loving: Seoul Home" (2013-22), a 1:1 paper-and-graphite rubbing of his childhood home, alongside models, drawings, and film that explore memory, migration, and domestic space.

Art Brussels 2025 Is Keeping Up with Its European Art Fair Cousins

Art Brussels returned for its 41st edition from April 24-27, 2025, at Brussels Expo Hall on the Heizel Plateau in Laeken, Belgium. The fair featured 165 galleries from 35 countries, 38% of which were first-time exhibitors, showcasing works by over 800 artists across five curated sections: Prime, Solo, Discovery, '68 Forward, and Invited. New initiatives included The Screen, a curated video art section selected by KANAL-Centre Pompidou’s Eliel Jones and filmmaker Alex Reynolds, and Monumental Artworks, a large-scale sculpture section curated by Carine Fol. Highlights included works by Kai-Chung Chang, Guy Van Bossche, Mircea Suciu, Bendt Eyckermans, and others, alongside a special edition of the Belgian Art Prize marking its 75th anniversary.

RADICAL SOFTWARE: WOMEN, ART & COMPUTING 1960–1991

Kunsthalle Wien presents "Radical Software: Women, Art & Computing 1960–1991," a landmark exhibition foregrounding the pioneering role of women in early digital art. Organized with Mudam Luxembourg, the show brings together over one hundred works by fifty artists from European and U.S. collections, spanning painting, sculpture, installation, film, performance, and computer-generated works. The title references the 1970 magazine "Radical Software" by Beryl Korot, Phyllis Segura, and Ira Schneider, which envisioned decentralized access to information. The exhibition traces digital art from mainframe experiments in the 1960s through the microcomputer revolution, highlighting artists like Charlotte Johannesson, who traded a tapestry for an Apple II in 1978.

Expo Chicago connects the Midwest to the global art market

Expo Chicago returns for its second edition under Frieze ownership from April 24-27, featuring over 170 galleries from 93 cities across 36 countries. The fair includes 50 new exhibitors, a new partnership with the Galleries Association of Korea bringing 20 South Korean galleries, and a curated sector called Contrast. Local stalwarts like Rhona Hoffman and Gray gallery are participating, balancing international growth with Midwestern roots.

Michaelina Wautier review – an astounding lost artist steps out of her male contemporaries’ shadows

A major exhibition at the Royal Academy is presenting the work of 17th-century Flemish painter Michaelina Wautier, an artist whose significant oeuvre was long misattributed to her male contemporaries, including her brother Charles. The show acts as a real-time art historical investigation, using scientific analysis, scholarship, and connoisseurship to reconstruct her career and assert her authorship of ambitious works like the monumental 'The Triumph of Bacchus'.

national gallery of art artemisia gentileschi painting

The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., has acquired its first painting by Baroque artist Artemisia Gentileschi, titled *Mary Magdalene in Ecstasy* (ca. 1625). The work, once thought lost, resurfaced in a French private collection in 2011 and was sold at Sotheby's in 2014 for $1.1 million, setting a then-auction record for the artist.

dana awartani venice biennale 2026 saudi arabia

Palestinian Saudi artist Dana Awartani has been selected to represent Saudi Arabia at the 2026 Venice Biennale. Her pavilion will be curated by Antonia Carver, director of Art Jameel, with assistance from Hafsa Alkhudairi. Awartani, known for her material interpretations of conflict in the Middle East, draws on Saudi Arabia's craft and cultural legacies, often collaborating with local artisans or displaced craftspeople. Her recent works include a response to heritage site destruction at the 2024 Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale and an archive of recreated stone carvings at the 15th Sharjah Biennial.

White Stripes Frontman Jack White Is Showing Art at Damien Hirst’s Gallery

Jack White, frontman of the White Stripes, is opening a sculpture exhibition at Damien Hirst’s Newport Street Gallery in London. Titled “Jack White: THESE THOUGHTS MAY DISAPPEAR,” the show runs from May 29 to September 13 and features found-object sculptures, furniture designs, notebooks, and photography. White and Hirst first met in 2021 when White was opening a Third Man Records store near Hirst’s studio, and Hirst encouraged White to mount a show after seeing his artwork.

Sur Arte Radio et dans une expo, l’enquête d’Adrianna Wallis sur les traces de sa grand-mère peintre spoliée par les nazis

Artist Adrianna Wallis (born 1981) discovers that her paternal grandmother, painter Diane Esmond (1910–1981), was a victim of Nazi looting during World War II. After being contacted by historians Patricia Helletzgruber and Sophie Juliard, Wallis learns that much of Esmond's work was systematically destroyed by the ERR, the Nazi organization responsible for art theft in occupied countries. This revelation sparks a personal investigation that becomes a podcast for Arte Radio titled "Il restera la gravité," blending documentary, autobiographical inquiry, and sound installation. Wallis delves into archives, examining microfilms and lists that detail 46 of Esmond's paintings—each methodically described and declared destroyed, such as "Woman in blue evening dress: annihilated."

The Divine Powers of “Chicken Linda”

Performance artist Linda Mary Montano, now in her 80s, invited writer Taliesin Thomas into her home in Saugerties, New York, which functions as a living shrine filled with altars, experimental sculptures, and religious iconography. Montano, who calls herself “Chicken Linda” to connect with the Holy Spirit, discussed her six-decade career as an endurance performance artist, her Catholic faith, her studies with guru Shri Bhramananda Saraswati, and her influential early years in San Francisco during the First Wave feminist art movement. She also recounted personal tragedies, including the murder of her former husband Mitchell Payne, which led to her video work “Mitchell’s Death,” now in the collections of MoMA and the Museum of Conceptual Art, Los Angeles.

The Painted Book Cover Is Back

The article reports on a growing trend in book cover design: the use of painted, figurative artwork instead of stock photos or digital renderings. Publishers are increasingly licensing paintings by artists from Hilma af Klint to Shannon Cartier Lucy, seeing them as a way to signal cultural authority and intellectual rigor. The trend is discussed through examples like Victoria Redel's *I Am You* (2025) and Kyung-Ran Jo's *Blowfish* (2025), with insights from LiteraryHub Managing Editor Emily Temple and Astra House publisher Benjamin Schrank.

‘Her crotchless trousers are etched in my brain for ever’: Valie Export remembered by the artists she influenced

Valie Export, the pioneering Austrian feminist artist known for provocative performances like *Tapp-und-Tastkino* (1968) and *Genital Panic* (1969), is remembered by four artists she influenced: Peaches, Florentina Holzinger, Joan Jonas, and Candice Breitz. Each shares personal reflections on Export's radical use of the female body as a political weapon, her confrontational public interventions, and her legacy of civil disobedience against patriarchal structures.

A True-to-Life Biennale

Hakim Bishara, editor-in-chief of Hyperallergic, reflects on the 61st Venice Biennale after returning to New York, describing it as historical, political, and thrilling. He counters critics who claimed the Biennale imploded due to boycotts and resignations, arguing it was more alive than ever. The late Koyo Kouoh's main exhibition "In Minor Keys" is praised for reflecting global woes and joys. The article also highlights a major strike by artists and cultural workers that disrupted the pre-opening, the first cultural strike in the Biennale's 131-year history, with 54 artists in the international exhibition and 22 national pavilion teams withdrawing from awards consideration in solidarity with the jury's resignation.

The Kyrgyzstan Pavilion at the Venice Biennale Builds a Bridge Between Two Cultures

Il Padiglione del Kirghizistan alla Biennale di Venezia getta un ponte tra due culture

Alexey Morosov presents "BELEK" at the Kyrgyzstan Pavilion of the 61st Venice Biennale, a project inspired by the mountainous landscapes, glaciers, and brutalist dams of Kyrgyzstan. Combining video, sculpture, painting, and sound, Morosov explores water as a key resource for the future and a deep cultural memory of Central Asia, linking the region's hydro-engineering transformations with the nomadic heritage of the Kyrgyz people. The project centers on the traditional equestrian game Kok-Börü, which Morosov describes as constitutive of Kyrgyz identity, and features centaur-like figures made from raw earth used in local dwellings.

American Folk Art Museum Workers Picket Gala, Calling for Higher Wages

Workers at the American Folk Art Museum in New York City, represented by UAW Local 2110, picketed the museum's annual gala at the Mandarin Oriental in Manhattan on May 6, 2026. They demanded higher wages and better benefits after contract negotiations stalled for nearly two years. Frontline workers earn $19 per hour, about $12,000 below the city's living wage, while the museum's CEO Jason Busch earned $321,882 in 2024. The union requested a three-year contract raising wages to $30 per hour, but management offered only $21.50 and refused to guarantee existing benefits, leading to the protest.

Remembering Georg Baselitz, Nicole Hollander, and Doris Fisher

Hyperallergic's weekly 'In Memoriam' column honors seven figures from the art world who recently passed away, including German Neo-Expressionist painter Georg Baselitz, feminist cartoonist Nicole Hollander, and arts patron Doris F. Fisher, co-founder of The Gap. Other notable figures remembered are photographer Stephanie Chernikowski, West Coast assemblage artist George Herms, Spanish artist and designer José María Cruz Novillo, and Bay Area muralist Dan Fontes. The article provides brief biographies and highlights of their contributions to visual art, photography, comics, and public art.

The Carnegie International Looks Back at Itself

The 58th Carnegie International at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh looks back at its own 130-year history, featuring a gallery dedicated to past iterations. The exhibition includes Chris Ofili's "The Adoration of Captain Shit and the Legend of the Black Stars" (1998), which was originally shown in the 53rd International in 1999, the same year Ofili's more notorious "The Holy Virgin Mary" sparked controversy at the Brooklyn Museum. The article reviews how the current iteration captures the excitement of earlier exhibitions while providing commentary on authoritarianism and militarism.

The Enigma of Alison Knowles

Lauren Moya Ford reviews the only book dedicated to Fluxus artist Alison Knowles, who died six months ago. The book, "Performing Chance: The Art of Alison Knowles In/Out of Fluxus" by Nicole L. Woods (2026), attempts to illuminate Knowles's life and work, but Ford notes that much of her personal life remains mysterious despite the author's efforts. The article is part of a broader books newsletter that also features new tomes on Hans Holbein’s portraits, Jan Staller’s photographs of Manhattan construction sites, and a discussion of a Black Panther family album at the Studio Museum in Harlem.

Opportunities in May 2026

Hyperallergic's May 2026 Opportunities Listings compile residencies, fellowships, grants, and open calls for artists, writers, and art workers. Featured opportunities include the Center for Craft's Craft Archive Fellowship, the Oak Spring Garden Foundation's Fellowship for Distinction in Fine Crafts and Design, the Provincetown Art Association and Museum's Robert Motherwell & Renate Ponsold Fellowship, the Bennett Prize for women figurative realist painters, the Pine Meadow Ranch Center for Arts & Agriculture residency, the Wassaic Project's Haunted Barn Open Call, the Jonathan and Barbara Silver Foundation's Grant for Writing on Sculpture, the Academy of American Poets' James Laughlin Award, and VIA Art Fund's Artistic Production Grants.