May First Friday 2026: 20+ events, exhibition openings in Lancaster city this Friday

Lancaster city's May First Friday 2026 features over 20 events, including exhibition openings, concerts, and performances. Highlights include a new exhibition 'Hybrids' by artist Jeremy Waak at Curio Gallery & Creative Supply, the Demuth Museum's 'Demuth Invitational: American Reflections' tied to the U.S. 250th anniversary, and the Lancaster Living Poetry Museum II with performers embodying poets at venues like the Lancaster Public Library and Lancaster Art Vault. Other offerings include salsa dancing at Binns Park, works by York County painters at The Framing Concept, and a show inspired by Yayoi Kusama at Friendship Heart Gallery + Market.

Amalia Pica at Herald St

Herald St in London is presenting "Daisy Chain," an exhibition of new work by Argentine-born, London-based artist Amalia Pica, running from March 19 to May 16, 2026. The show includes a press release, checklist, and 14 exhibition images documented by photographer Jack Elliot Edwards.

Sahar Khoury, RJ Messineo at The Green Gallery

The Green Gallery in Milwaukee is presenting a two-person exhibition featuring works by artists Sahar Khoury and RJ Messineo, running from April 10 to May 16, 2026. The show includes 31 images documenting the exhibition, with no videos or text descriptions provided in the press release.

Selome Muleta at b-side

Selome Muleta presents a solo exhibition at b-side gallery in Jakarta, running from April 1 to May 3, 2026. Curated by 47 Canal, the show features works by the artist, with images provided courtesy of Muleta and Roh Projects, Jakarta. The exhibition is documented on Contemporary Art Daily with five images and no videos.

Matt Connors at Herald St

Matt Connors presents his exhibition 'Cooperative Village' at Herald St gallery in Bologna. The show runs from February 6 to May 16, 2026, and is documented with 17 images by photographers Carlo Favero and Charles Benton.

Brett Goodroad at Crèvecoeur, Left Bank

Brett Goodroad at Crèvecoeur, rive gauche

San Francisco-based artist Brett Goodroad presents a solo exhibition titled "Bells" at Crèvecoeur’s Rive Gauche location in Paris. The exhibition features a series of new paintings that showcase Goodroad’s signature style of fluid, gestural abstraction and figurative ambiguity, documented through an extensive digital archive of installation views and individual work shots.

Raoul de Keyser at Trautwein Herleth

Trautwein Herleth in Berlin is hosting a solo exhibition of works by the late Belgian painter Raoul de Keyser. The presentation features a selection of the artist’s signature abstract compositions, characterized by their tactile surfaces, muted palettes, and the subtle tension between formalist geometry and organic forms.

Monika Baer at Kölnischer Kunstverein

The Kölnischer Kunstverein in Cologne is hosting a solo exhibition by German artist Monika Baer titled "Defection." Running from February 27 through May 3, 2026, the presentation features new and recent works supported by Greene Naftali and Trautwein Herleth. The exhibition continues Baer’s long-standing exploration of the boundaries of painting, utilizing her signature blend of technical precision and surrealist-inflected imagery.

What is it like to be a young artist in Milan today? Denise Ceragioli answers

Com’è oggi essere una giovane artista a Milano? Risponde Denise Ceragioli

The article features an interview with young Milan-based artist Denise Ceragioli, who discusses the challenges and realities of sustaining an artistic practice in the city after graduating from the Brera Academy. She details her journey of finding a studio, the evolution of her painting from figurative to highly material-based work involving wax, and the importance of building relationships within Milan's art ecosystem of institutions, galleries, and independent spaces.

Calls for Artists: May 2026

Burnaway's May 2026 Calls for Artists roundup lists multiple opportunities with deadlines in early May. These include the Joan Mitchell Center's call for figurative works, the Michael P. Smith Fund for Documentary Photography for Gulf Coast photographers, the Center for Craft Teaching Artist Cohort offering $10,000 grants to mid-career craft artists, the Hopper Prize grants totaling $13,000, residencies at The Studios of Key West and Trillium Arts, and the National Performance Network Creation & Development Fund. Each opportunity has specific eligibility, fees, and deadlines ranging from May 3 to May 18, 2026.

Joe Macken Spent 21 Years Hand-Assembling a Vast Model of New York City

Joe Macken, a Queens resident, spent 21 years hand-assembling a vast 50-by-27-foot scale model of New York City, completing it in 2025. The model, built from cardboard, glue, and balsa wood, comprises 340 individual sections and is now on long-term display at the Museum of the City of New York in an exhibition titled "He Built This City: Joe Macken’s Model." Visitors can walk around the model and use binoculars to spot familiar buildings and neighborhoods.

Masha Foya’s Airy Illustrations Embrace the Universality of Emotions

Kyiv-based illustrator Masha Foya has released a new series of dreamlike works that blend human emotion with the natural world. Her illustrations often feature surreal architectural and organic elements, such as foliage tunnels forming into hands or planes flying through bird-shaped apertures, to represent the boundlessness of the human imagination. The collection includes a mix of personal explorations and high-profile commissions for international publications.

A Delightful Short Film Highlights the Remarkable Self-Taught Art of George Voronovsky

Ukrainian-born artist Jonko “George” Voronovsky transformed his modest retirement room at Miami’s Colony Hotel into a dense, vibrant sanctuary of over 5,000 artworks. After surviving the horrors of the Russian Revolution, Nazi labor camps, and permanent separation from his family, Voronovsky immigrated to the U.S. and spent his final years creating "memoryscapes." These works, crafted from found materials like pizza boxes and soda cans, depicted idyllic, colorful scenes of his youth in Ukraine, contrasting sharply with the trauma of his past.

‘Love Is a Sensation’ Spotlights the Boundless Creativity of L.V. Hull

The Mississippi Museum of Art is hosting "Love Is a Sensation," a major exhibition dedicated to the work of L.V. Hull, a self-taught Black artist who transformed her Kosciusko home into a vibrant, immersive art environment. The show features a diverse array of Hull’s assemblages and painted found objects, ranging from Rock’Em Sock’Em Robots to glass bottles and straw hats, many of which were preserved by the Kohler Foundation.

Artemis II Captures Spectacular Images of ‘Earthset’ from Deep Space

NASA’s Artemis II mission has released a series of stunning high-definition images captured during its 10-day journey around the Moon, marking the first crewed lunar mission in over half a century. Among the most striking visuals is a photograph of an 'Earthset,' showing our home planet descending behind the lunar horizon. The mission is currently underway and is expected to conclude with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean on April 10.

Dispatch: Beijing

The article reports on a series of significant shifts in Beijing's art world since 2024. UCCA Center for Contemporary Art faced financial troubles; its director and CEO Philip Tinari ended his 14-year tenure to lead Hong Kong's Tai Kwun. Taikang Art Museum also disclosed leadership changes. Smaller venues like DRC NO. 12 and fRUITYSPACE closed due to lease issues. Independent publishing faces sharp restrictions, and art book fairs are being replaced by cultural-lifestyle merchandise events. Official figures show Beijing lost over a million young residents since 2020 due to soaring living costs and tightening regulations.

Khaled Sabsabi: Splintered Worlds

Khaled Sabsabi, a Lebanese Australian artist, explores the intersection of spirituality and perception through video and mixed-media installations rooted in Sufism. His work, such as the 18-minute video *Lefke Morning* (2012–18), captures the Naqshbandi-Haqqani Sufi Order's dawn meditations, using blurred imagery and soundscapes to challenge Islamophobic media tropes and evoke a sense of unity. Sabsabi's practice also draws on hip-hop, which he performed as "Peacefender" in the 1980s, using music to address social issues and support marginalized communities in Western Sydney.

Li Yi-Fan: Error and Effigy

Taiwanese artist Li Yi-Fan, born in 1989 and based between Taipei and Amsterdam, creates unsettling digital marionettes using modified game engines and digital puppetry. His pale, chalky figures with uncanny proportions discuss voyeurism, sexual fantasies, philosophy, memes, and computer programming, often resembling the artist himself. Li works a nine-to-five schedule, spends hours on computer games as research, and describes himself as 'probably the most boring artist.' His practice relies on free or subscription software and purchased digital assets, staging what it feels like to make digital art within platform systems and corporate infrastructure.

Roksana Pirouzmand’s Dual‑Site Meditation on Loss

Roksana Pirouzmand’s dual-site exhibition in Los Angeles, hosted at OXY ARTS and JOAN, features performance-based sculptures and installations that utilize literal erosion to explore themes of loss and displacement. The works include anatomical clay casts of the artist and her mother, which are subjected to water, vibration, and physical interaction, causing them to crack and deteriorate over the course of the show. At OXY ARTS, a kinetic metal floor involves the viewer directly, as their footsteps cause clay hands to collide and break, illustrating the physical impact of movement and presence.

The Biennale of Quiet Tones

Die Biennale der leisen Töne

The 61st Venice Biennale's main exhibition, titled "Gardens, Processions, Art as Expression of Lived Realities," places humanity at its center. Curators revealed minimal biographical details for the 111 participating artists, only noting the oldest (Marcel Duchamp, born 1887) and youngest (Mohammed Z Rahman, born 1997), signaling a deliberate shift away from individual fame toward collective experience.

Our Favorites of the Main Exhibition

Unsere Favoriten der Hauptausstellung

The article highlights standout artists from the main exhibition of the Venice Biennale, focusing on those whose works range from quiet observations of daily life to broader explorations of identity, memory, and community. Among them is Billie Zangewa, a Malawian-born artist based in Johannesburg, who uses raw silk to stitch intimate domestic scenes such as a morning in a bathrobe or a child in arms, transforming overlooked moments into tactile, narrative artworks.

The Future Will Be Neither Good Nor Bad, But Strange

"Die Zukunft wird nicht gut oder schlecht, sondern seltsam"

Mike Winkelmann, known as Beeple, has brought his "Regular Animals" series to the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin. The works feature digital creatures that blend pop-culture figures like Mark Zuckerberg with art-historical references such as Picasso, continuing Beeple's signature style of satirical, software-generated imagery. The exhibition marks a significant institutional debut for the artist, who rose to fame by selling the most expensive NFT ever and posting daily digital art online.

Georg Baselitz ist tot

German artist Georg Baselitz has died at the age of 88. According to Galerie Thaddeus Ropac, he passed away peacefully on Thursday. Born Hans-Georg Bruno Kern in 1938 in Deutschbaselitz, Saxony, Baselitz fled East Germany in 1957 after political repression and academic conflicts. His first solo exhibition in West Berlin in 1963 was shut down due to scandal, and works were confiscated. He became internationally known in the late 1960s for his radical upside-down painting, a signature inversion that destabilized pictorial logic. He also created an extensive sculptural body of work. Key career milestones include representing Germany at the Venice Biennale in 1980 alongside Anselm Kiefer, multiple Documenta appearances, the Praemium Imperiale in 2004, and election to the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 2019. Major late-career exhibitions included "Nackte Meister" at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna in 2023.

"Eine Idee, die gut ist, kann fast alles verändern"

Henrike Naumann's final major artistic project, the German Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, is completed posthumously by friends after her death from cancer at age 41. Meanwhile, the sudden death of curator Koyo Kouoh at 57 has left her team to finish the central exhibition "In Minor Keys" for the Biennale, opening May 9. The US Pavilion is openly crowdfunding for its 2026 presentation by sculptor Alma Allen, citing opaque funding under the Trump administration. Israel's foreign ministry has accused the Venice Biennale jury of boycotting its artist Belu-Simion Fainaru by excluding countries whose leaders face International Criminal Court charges.

What We Throw Away Does Not Disappear

Was wir wegwerfen, verschwindet nicht

The Museum Ostwall at the Dortmunder U in Dortmund has opened a new exhibition titled "Müll – die globalen Wege des Abfalls" ("Waste – The Global Paths of Garbage"), curated by Christina Danick and Michael Griff. Featuring around 50 international artworks from the 20th and 21st centuries, including two newly commissioned pieces, the show uses art to explore waste as material, motif, and aesthetic strategy. Key works include Kader Attia's "Los de Arriba y Los de Abajo," which addresses power imbalances through the lens of garbage in Hebron, and historical pieces by César Baldaccini, Arman, and HA Schult. The exhibition also highlights contemporary issues such as e-waste, global waste trafficking, and the environmental impact of industrial nations on the Global South.

"Wir wollen Rücknahme von Kürzungen"

Berlin's cultural senator Sarah Wedl-Wilson resigned on Friday after the Berlin Court of Auditors ruled that millions in funding for antisemitism prevention projects were illegal. The resignation has sparked a political debate, with CDU general secretary Ottilie Klein defending governing mayor Kai Wegner against opposition criticism, while Franziska Stoff of the Berlin Culture Conference demands stability and a reversal of budget cuts. Thomas Fehrle, director of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, expressed personal regret over Wedl-Wilson's departure, praising her competence and engagement.

Liu Ding and Carol Yinghua Lu to Curate the 19th Istanbul Biennial

Liu Ding und Carol Yinghua Lu kuratieren 19. Istanbul-Biennale

The 19th Istanbul Biennial, scheduled from September 18 to November 14, 2027, will be curated by Chinese artist and curator Liu Ding and art historian and curator Carol Yinghua Lu, as announced by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV). The duo has worked together since 2007, previously co-curating the 8th Yokohama Triennale (2024), the Trans-Southeast Asia Triennial (2021), the Anren Biennale (2017), and the Shenzhen Sculpture Biennale (2012).

Einatmen – Ausatmen

Lee Ufan, the renowned Korean artist known for his meditative single brushstroke paintings, is the subject of a feature article in Monopol. The piece visits his home in Kamakura, Japan, where he lives and works in a simple wooden cube house, reflecting the minimalist philosophy that defines his art. The article explores how Lee finds the entire universe in a single brushstroke, and how the art world is increasingly captivated by his serene, contemplative works.

Federal President praises Emder Kunsthalle: 'Extraordinary quality'

Bundespräsident lobt Emder Kunsthalle: "Außerordentliche Qualität"

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier praised the Emder Kunsthalle on its 40th anniversary, calling its collection of "extraordinary quality." The museum was founded in 1986 by Henri Nannen, the late founder of Stern magazine, and his wife Eske Nannen. Steinmeier spoke at a ceremony attended by 500 guests, including his wife Elke Büdenbender and Lower Saxony's Minister President Olaf Lies. The anniversary exhibition "Bilder, die wir lieben" (Pictures We Love) showcases 200 works from the collection, which has grown to around 1,700 pieces, including pieces by Gabriele Münter, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Max Beckmann, and Franz Marc.

"Etwas zaghaft, etwas ängstlich, etwas sicher"

The article surveys recent art-world commentary, focusing on a critical review of the Turner Prize shortlist in The Guardian, where Eddy Frankel calls the selection "timid, anxious, safe" and laments a self-perpetuating, elitist system. It also covers a Hyperallergic essay by Lisa Siraganian questioning whether artworks can possess personhood, sparked by Pierre Huyghe's Venice exhibition. Additionally, it reports on controversy at the Venice Biennale, where the jury preemptively excluded countries whose leaders are sought by the International Criminal Court—namely Russia and Israel—drawing sharp criticism from Die Welt's Marcus Woeller. A podcast interview with US sculptor Alma Allen, selected for the US Pavilion, rounds out the coverage.