Chicago museums have announced a slate of ambitious summer exhibitions, including the opening of the Obama Presidential Center, an Anne Frank exhibition, and a Pokemon-themed show. These exhibits span a range of cultural and historical topics, aiming to attract diverse audiences to the city's major cultural institutions.
A new exhibition titled "Vistas: From Takao Tanabe’s Travels" has opened at the Audain Art Museum in British Columbia, featuring works by Japanese-Canadian artist Takao Tanabe. The show highlights landscapes from his travels across British Columbia, North America, the Arctic, and Europe, translated into paintings that blend observation with poetic reflection. Curated by Kiriko Watanabe, the exhibition runs until Sept. 21 and coincides with Tanabe’s upcoming 100th birthday on Sept. 16, as well as a related exhibition "Takao Tanabe: Inside Passage" opening June 13.
The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) announced a major gift of 1,986 photographs from Joy of Giving Something, Inc. (JGS), a nonprofit founded by financier Howard Stein. The donation includes works by over 450 artists, spanning the 19th century to the present, with highlights such as rare daguerreotypes by Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey, prints by Gustave Le Gray and Eugène Atget, and significant holdings in American documentary photography from figures like Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans. The gift follows an earlier 2023 donation of portfolios and series, and positions VMFA to open five new photography galleries in 2027 as part of its expansion.
Boston Art Review (BAR) has published an article titled “Edmonia Lewis: Said in Stone” that reconstructs the life of the 19th-century sculptor Edmonia Lewis across fragmented historical records. The piece examines Lewis’s career, her neoclassical marble works, and the challenges of piecing together her biography due to limited archival materials.
Hong Kong Secretary for Culture, Sports and Tourism Rosanna Law Shuk-pui visited Venice to support the Hong Kong Collateral Event at the 61st Venice Biennale, themed “Fermata: Hong Kong in Venice.” The exhibition features artists Kingsley Ng and Angel Hui, with five installations exploring poetic rhythms in everyday life, curated by the Hong Kong Museum of Art (HKMoA). Law also viewed American artist Nick Cave’s sculpture *Amalga (Plot)* and announced the Venice Biennale Internship Programme 2026, which will send six arts-background interns to Venice for a six-week residency.
Kunstmuseum Basel has opened a major exhibition of Helen Frankenthaler's work, running from April 18 to August 23, 2026, featuring over 50 large-format pieces spanning six decades. The Helen Frankenthaler Foundation loaned 37 works for the show. The article also notes recent auction results, including Christie's offering of 'The Last Minute in April' (1974) for an estimated $2–3 million, and Sotheby's sales of 'St. John' (1971) for $2.1085 million and 'Perseus' (1983) for $2.804 million. Previous European exhibitions of Frankenthaler's work are listed, including shows at Museo di Palazzo Grimani, Museum Folkwang, Palazzo Strozzi, and Museum Reinhard Ernst.
The High Museum of Art in Atlanta is presenting an exhibition titled "American Sublime" featuring works by artist Amy Sherald, including her portrait of Breonna Taylor and the painting "She Always Believed the Good about Those She Loved," which used a model who stood in for the late Breonna Taylor. The exhibition opened on Friday, May 15, 2026, and draws visitors to view Sherald's distinctive figurative works.
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH) is hosting the U.S. debut of a major collection of masterworks by Pablo Picasso, Paul Klee, and Henri Matisse, assembled by the Berggruen family. The exhibition brings together iconic paintings, drawings, and sculptures from one of the most renowned private collections of modern art, offering American audiences a first look at works that have rarely been seen outside Europe.
The Seattle Art Museum's new exhibition, 'Monochrome: Calder and Tara Donovan,' opened May 13, pairing works by mid-20th-century American artist Alexander Calder with newly developed pieces by contemporary artist Tara Donovan. Curated by Catharina Manchanda, the show features Calder's iconic mobile 'Jacaranda' and his massive 'Mountains' stabiles alongside Donovan's site-specific works like 'Transplanted,' a slab of layered roofing tiles, and other pieces made from slinkys, mylar, and stir sticks. Donovan's process emphasizes letting materials dictate form, creating contrasts in mass and movement while engaging with the gallery space.
An exhibition of Edward Hopper's work at the Seoul Museum of Art has broken attendance records, drawing 330,000 visitors—the highest for any exhibition that year. The show marks the first solo exhibition of the American painter in South Korea, where Hopper was virtually unknown until the 1990s. The article traces Hopper's growing recognition in the country, from his first appearance in Korean media in 2002 to the 2011 co-hosted exhibition 'This Is American Art' at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, which introduced his work 'Railroad Sunset' (1929) to local audiences.
The Armenian Museum of America in Watertown has extended the exhibition “Arshile Gorky: Redrawing Community and Connections” through September 27 due to overwhelming interest and positive reviews from publications including Boston Art Review and Artscope magazine. Curated by Kim S. Theriault and sponsored by the JHM Charitable Foundation, the show brings together works from private collectors and institutions such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Housatonic Museum of Art, and Yale University Art Gallery, and was highlighted as a top pick by the Boston Globe and GBH Arts Editor Jared Bowen.
The Getty Foundation has awarded $1.8 million in grants to eight institutions through its Black Visual Arts Archives initiative, a multi-year program aimed at increasing access to archival collections related to Black artists and arts organizations. The grants will support processing, digitization, and public programming at venues including Afro Charities, Auburn Avenue Research Library, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Charles H. Wright Museum, Morgan State University, South Side Community Art Center, the University of Chicago's South Side Home Movie Project, and the David C. Driskell Center. This brings Getty's total funding for the initiative to $4.5 million since 2022, supporting 20 grants nationwide.
The Armenian Museum of America has extended its landmark exhibition "Arshile Gorky: Redrawing Community and Connections" through September 27, 2026, due to overwhelming interest and positive reviews. This is the first exhibition of Arshile Gorky's work in an Armenian museum, featuring paintings and drawings on loan from the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Housatonic Museum of Art, Yale University Art Gallery, private collectors, and other lenders. Curated by Kim S. Theriault and sponsored by the JHM Charitable Foundation, the show opened to coincide with the 100 Years of Arshile Gorky programming in Watertown, Massachusetts.
Mario Ayala's first US museum exhibition, 'Seven Vans,' is on view at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (CAMH) through 2025–26. The show features life-sized canvases of vans suspended in the museum's basement space, exploring car culture, memory, and community through Ayala's Southern California and Gulf Coast influences. The article includes an interview with Ayala by Rosa Boshier González, discussing his upbringing in the Inland Empire, his father's lowrider scene involvement, and his 'Research While Driving' project that inspired the exhibition.
The Lowe Art Museum at the University of Miami is presenting two simultaneous exhibitions that together form the most comprehensive survey of Afro-Cuban art ever assembled. "El Pasado Mio/My Own Past," organized by Harvard's Afro-Latin American Research Institute, features over 81 works by 44 Cuban artists of African descent spanning two centuries, including nine paintings by Wifredo Lam and works by eleven female artists shown together for the first time. The companion exhibition, "Afrocubanismo: Highlights from the Ramón and Nercys Cernuda Collection," examines the cultural movement of the 1930s when artists began centering Cuba's African roots despite widespread societal suppression. The shows run through September 12 with free general admission.
The Armenian Museum of America (AMA) in Watertown, Massachusetts, has extended its exhibition "Arshile Gorky: Redrawing Community and Connections" through September 27, 2026, due to overwhelming interest and positive reviews from publications such as Boston Art Review and Artscope magazine. Curated by Kim S. Theriault and sponsored by the JHM Charitable Foundation, the show is the first exhibition of Gorky’s work in an Armenian museum, featuring loans from the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Housatonic Museum of Art, Yale University Art Gallery, private collectors, and the Armenian diaspora.
Sanford Biggers's first major solo exhibition on the East End, "Drift," opens at the Parrish Art Museum on Sunday and runs through September 13. The show features new works and site-responsive installations, including the monumental "Unsui (Cloud Forest)" (2025), a series of illuminated cloud sculptures suspended from the museum's arched ceiling. Co-curated by Corinne Erni and Scout Hutchinson, the exhibition spans Biggers's multidisciplinary practice—painting, sculpture, video, performance, and textile works—drawing on influences from Buddhism to graffiti culture and Gee's Bend quilts. Highlights include examples from his "Codex" series, made from repurposed antique quilts with spray-painted cloud forms, and a new sand installation inspired by prayer rugs and Japanese Buddhist mandalas.
미국의 광부들 사진전 'Beneath the Surface' 순회: 내셔널 갤러리(DC)-밀워키미술관-에이먼카터미술관(포트워스, TX)
The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., will present 'Beneath the Surface: Mining and American Photography' from May 23 to August 23, 2026, the first exhibition to focus exclusively on the relationship between resource extraction and American photography. Featuring 150 photographs by over 100 artists—including Richard Avedon, Walker Evans, Lewis Hine, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Dorothea Lange, and Gordon Parks—the show spans nearly 200 years, from early daguerreotypes of the California Gold Rush to contemporary large-scale works. After its Washington run, the exhibition will travel to the Milwaukee Art Museum (October 23, 2026–January 18, 2027) and the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, Texas (February 14–May 9, 2027).
The Branch Museum of Design in Richmond, Virginia, has opened a new exhibition titled “Imagining Best Products,” which revisits the radical architectural and graphic designs of the defunct catalog showroom retailer Best Products. Founded in 1957 by Frances and Sydney Lewis, the company commissioned experimental storefronts from architect James Wines and the firm SITE, creating iconic “anti-buildings” that challenged commercial architecture. The show features architectural drawings, models, photographs, sketches, and printed materials, and runs through June 21, 2026.
An anti-war exhibition titled "Art and War" has opened at a top museum in Tehran, featuring works by American pop artists Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Indiana, and James Rosenquist. The pieces, including Rosenquist's "F-111" and Lichtenstein's "Brattata," were selected for their anti-war themes and come from the museum's major collection of American and European modern art, acquired in the 1970s by former Empress Farah Pahlavi and largely kept from public view since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The exhibition opened amid ongoing tensions and a recent ceasefire in the Middle East, with the museum director stating it was a deliberate response to current events.
The New Britain Museum of American Art in Connecticut will present "John Hitchcock: We are Defined by the Beat" from May 16 to November 29, 2026, marking the artist's first mid-career retrospective. John Hitchcock, an enrolled member of the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma with Comanche and Northern European ancestry, has spent over three decades transforming the sonic and cultural rhythms of his homeland into a distinct visual language. The exhibition explores his integration of visual and sonic forms across printmaking, neon, textiles, sound, video, and installation, featuring series such as "Flatlander" (2011-18), "Bury the Hatchet" (2019-2020), "Blanket Songs" (2022-2023), "Soundscapes" (2021-2024), and "Celebration" (2025). Hitchcock's work pays homage to his ancestors, confronts histories of Indigenous displacement and trauma, and celebrates community, resilience, and survival, drawing on the sounds and landscapes of his ancestral home in Medicine Park, Oklahoma.
The Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia presents "Freedom Dreams," an exhibition exploring Black freedom through moving images, curated by Maori Karmael Holmes and James Claiborne. The show features five works by intergenerational artists including David Hartt, Ja'Tovia Gary, Garrett Bradley, Tourmaline, and Arthur Jafa, with pieces that draw on historical films, literature, and activism to examine Black identity, joy, and radical imagination. The exhibition runs through August 9, 2026.
The Olana Partnership opens "Frederic Church: Global Artist" on May 17 at Olana State Historic Site in Hudson, New York, commemorating the 200th anniversary of Frederic Church's birth (1826–1900). The exhibition brings together monumental oil paintings, drawings, oil sketches, and photographs from Church's global travels, with loans from major institutions including the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, The New York Historical, and the Terra Foundation for American Art. It is organized by Elizabeth Kornhauser, Tim Barringer, and Jennifer Raab, and is part of the broader Frederic Church 200 initiative.
The Walker Art Center, in collaboration with the Whitney Museum of American Art, presents "All Day All Night," a survey of the past 15 years of work by Berlin-based deaf artist Christine Sun Kim. The exhibition, on view until August 30, spans three galleries and includes drawings, videos, participatory pieces, and site-specific installations such as charcoal music notes on floors and stairwells. Kim's early works from the 2010s explore sound waves and Deaf culture, while later pieces incorporate her experiences as a mother and partner, using infographics and ASL-inspired imagery to challenge assumptions about spoken versus signed language.
LACMA's new David Geffen Galleries, designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Peter Zumthor, are now open to the public. The building features a single-floor, sculptural form made of architectural concrete and glass, with natural light and transparency that encourages visitors to explore 6,000 years of art and culture. In collaboration with the American Institute of Architects Los Angeles, LACMA is hosting a series of free workshops on May 15-17, including guided walks, drawing sessions, and landscape tours, to help visitors engage with the building's architecture and design.
The Carnegie International, the longest-running international art show in North America, returns in 2026 for its 59th edition at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh. Founded by Andrew Carnegie in 1896, the exhibition takes place roughly every four years and features contemporary works from artists around the world, including Zhao Yao (China), Hans Ragnar Mathisen (Sapmi/Norway), Cinthia Marcelle (Brazil), and Walter Scott (Canada). The 2026-2027 edition is themed "If The Word We," exploring the first-person plural as an open and evolving concept. The show is integrated throughout the museum alongside permanent collection pieces, and extends to venues such as the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh, Mattress Factory, and the Thelma Lovette YMCA.
The Maryhill Museum of Art in Goldendale, Washington, is celebrating the 100th anniversary of its dedication by Queen Marie of Romania. Founded by entrepreneur Samuel Hill in 1907, the museum houses an eclectic collection including over 80 works by Auguste Rodin, French haute couture fashions, and thousands of Indigenous art objects. To mark the centennial, the museum has opened three new exhibitions highlighting Queen Marie's contributions: Russian icons, Romanian embroidery, and folk pottery, alongside her personal items like coronation gowns and gilded furniture.
Bruges' new city art gallery, BRUSK, opens on Friday in a substantial new building designed by architects Robbrecht and Daem and Olivier Salens. Located in the museum quarter, the gallery features two enormous first-floor exhibition spaces and a light, open ground floor. It debuts with two simultaneous exhibitions: 'Breedbeeld' ('Wide Angle'), a historical show curated by Oxford professor Peter Frankopan and Sibylla Goegebuer, exploring Bruges' medieval global connections through 250 objects including Hans Memling's 'The Passion of Christ'; and 'Latent City', a data-driven installation by Turkish-American artist Refik Anadol that delves beneath the city's surface.
The article describes a new exhibition at the National Gallery of Art that examines the American experience through visual art. The show brings together works from the museum's collection to explore themes of identity, history, and culture in the United States.
For the Ascension long weekend (May 14–17, 2026), Paris offers a curated selection of ten must-see exhibitions. Highlights include a major Hilma af Klint retrospective at the Grand Palais, exploring her spiritualist and abstract works; 'Jardins des Lumières' at the Grand Trianon in Versailles, focusing on 18th-century landscape garden design; 'Sèvres, a Rothschild Passion' at the Mobilier National, showcasing Rothschild porcelain collections; and a Giovanni Segantini exhibition at the Marmottan Monet Museum, featuring his Alpine Symbolist and Divisionist paintings.