Explore art’s future at Hong Kong’s Affordable Art Fair this May

Hong Kong's Affordable Art Fair (AAF) returns in May with the theme “See Art. Love Art. Own Art.”, featuring 106 local and international exhibitors—up from 98 last year—and artworks priced from HK$1,000 (US$128). The fair, held at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, aims to make art accessible to new and seasoned collectors alike, with a focus on transactions under US$50,000. Founder Will Ramsay highlights growing confidence in this market tier, citing a report by Affordable Art Fair × ArtTactic that shows 69% of galleries expect sales growth and that art fairs generate 44% of gallery revenues.

61st Venice Biennale: Cultural workers and artists strike and protest against the Israeli genocide in Gaza

Thousands of artists, cultural workers, and protesters marched through Venice on May 8, 2026, one day before the opening of the 61st Venice Biennale, to protest the Israeli genocide in Gaza and Lebanon. The strike, organized by the Art Not Genocide Alliance (ANGA), led to the closure of approximately 27 of the Biennale's 100 national pavilions, with signs reading "We Stand with Palestine." The Israeli pavilion remained closed and guarded by armed police, who clashed with protesters. Meanwhile, the European Commission threatened to suspend €2 million in EU grants to the Biennale Foundation over its decision to allow Russia to participate, citing incompatibility with EU sanctions and the invasion of Ukraine.

Gallery: Young Estonian artists' art auction exhibition opens

An exhibition of young Estonian artists has opened at the Art & Tonic gallery in Tallinn, showcasing 92 works selected from 269 submissions for the "Osta noort kunsti" ("Buy Young Art") spring auction. The auction, organized by gallery owner Reigo Kuivjõgi, features starting prices set by the artists themselves, ranging from €1 to €2,000, with past final prices reaching over €20,000. The exhibition runs free of charge from May 1 to May 14, with the live auction on May 15.

Mirror Silk Art Exhibitions

Shaniqwa Jarvis's solo exhibition 'Only Love Can Break Your Heart' opens at Public Gallery in London on 30 April 2026, featuring twelve works across silk, mirrored surfaces, aluminum, and collage. The show includes suspended silk panels in front of mirrors, floral imagery, portraiture, abstract compositions, a moving image work combining archival footage and recorded audio, and a second book titled 'GUTS' published by Super Labo with an introduction by curator Essence Harden.

Harold Keller exhibition opens in newly renovated Porter Art Warehouse gallery

The newly renovated Porter Art Warehouse in Fayetteville, Arkansas, will host its first signature exhibition, "Harold Keller: Portals," from January 15 to March 8, 2025. The show features works by Harold Keller, an artist and educator whose career spanned over seven decades, curated by Matthew Bailey from the University of Arkansas Fort Smith Collection. The exhibition includes paintings, drawings, ceramics, and artist books drawn from the largest repository of Keller's work, housed at the University of Arkansas Fort Smith, where he taught in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The Alexander Gallery, named for philanthropists Bob and Becky Alexander, opened in October 2024 after a $1 million exterior restoration by the city and a $950,000 interior renovation by Walton Arts Center.

This Long Beach Art Gallery Survived a Drunk Driver. But The Next Threat Could Mean Its End.

A drunk driver crashed into Open Gallery in Long Beach on February 24, 2024, destroying the space and forcing a year of renovations, financial strain, and displacement. Owners Liz Garibaldi and Artos Saucedo, who founded the gallery in 2019 as a live-work space for screen printers, have since reopened their gift shop and resumed programming, including the current photography exhibition "Physical Memory" curated by Matthew “NORDY” Nordman. However, the building owner now wants to sell, threatening the gallery's survival.

Location, location, location: behind the Art Basel floor plan beef

Air de Paris, a veteran contemporary gallery that has exhibited at Art Basel since 1999, announced its withdrawal from the upcoming edition after a dispute over its assigned stand. Co-founders Florence Bonnefous and Edouard Merino made their exit public by posting emails online via Provence, a French publishing house, calling the stand assignment process “brutal and unfair.” Art Basel’s chief artistic officer Vincenzo de Bellis defended the decision, noting that 58 galleries had their stands moved this year due to the launch of a new section called Premiere and the need to improve visitor flow and aesthetic dialogue between exhibitors.

Bark Art Stuns Opening Night Crowd

The Wondai Regional Art Gallery in Queensland, Australia, opened its May 2025 exhibitions with a standout piece: a 3D bark portrait of the late actor Uncle Jack Charles by art student Charlotte Simpson, which won the People's Choice award. The show also features a rare photograph of a bee urinating, captured by Moffatdale photographer Liz Barratt, alongside works by the Tomlinson Family Collective and other local artists. The exhibitions were officially opened by South Burnett Mayor Kathy Duff and will run through May 31.

In West Philly, “third space” Studio 34 offers healing to everyone

Studio 34, a wellness and community center located at 4522 Baltimore Avenue in West Philadelphia, is hosting a new solo exhibition by Lebanese multidisciplinary artist Tracy Chahwan. Titled “Alien of Extraordinary Abilities,” the show runs through the end of May and features over a decade of Chahwan's work in posters, textiles, and comics. The exhibition traces her journey from designing posters for Beirut's music scene and collaborating with the Samandal and Zeez comics collectives to arriving in Philadelphia during the pandemic, where she was stranded after a planned short visit turned into a permanent relocation.

月を射る @ KAG

KAG in Tokyo is presenting a group exhibition titled "月を射る" (Shooting the Moon), running from May 19 to August 16, 2026. The show takes its starting point from a prose poem of the same name by Korean poet Yun Dong-ju (1917–1945), who wrote it in 1939 under Japanese colonial rule and later died in a Fukuoka prison. The exhibition spans pre-war and wartime educational films, propaganda, performance, and contemporary fieldwork, featuring works by artists such as Inoue Kan (Lee Byung-woo), Choe Seung-hui, Kamei Fumio, Yoshimi Yasushi, Atsugi Taka, Fujii Hikaru, Yamamoto Seiko, T.T. Takemoto, Morita Reine, Gataro, and Shirakawa Masao. It examines the management models formed by the former empire and the spiritual structure of colonialism that underlies contemporary issues, centering on works that carry the "memory of censorship"—banned, deleted, or denied existence by national, administrative, or social norms.

Echigo-Tsumari MonET Continuous Exhibition Vol. 10: Ryosaku Miyasaka "Ryosaku Miyasaka ART 75 Years Old" @ Echigo-Tsumari Satoyama Museum of Contemporary Art MonET

越後妻有MonET 連続企画展Vol.10 宮坂了作「宮坂了作　ＡＲＴ　７５歳」@ 越後妻有里山現代美術館 MonET

The Echigo-Tsumari Satoyama Museum of Contemporary Art (MonET) has announced a major solo exhibition for artist Ryosaku Miyasaka, titled "Ryosaku Miyasaka: ART 75 Years Old." Curated by renowned art critic Noi Sawaragi, the show features early map paintings, recent "plant character" works where the artist grows and eats edible calligraphy, and new pieces created in the Echigo-Tsumari region. Miyasaka, a former student of Allan Kaprow at CalArts, has spent decades balancing his creative output with life as a rice farmer in Nagano Prefecture.

Series: Meg Ninja Drawing and Sleeping Part 4

連載 メグ忍者 Drawing and Sleeping 第四回

Artist collective member Meg Ninja reflects on recent travels and performances in the fourth and final installment of their column "Drawing and Sleeping." The piece recounts a performance event at Toyota Municipal Museum of Art, where Meg Ninja organized a participatory piece based on Guy Debord's *The Society of the Spectacle*, and a research trip to South Korea via Tsushima and Busan for the upcoming international art festival "Aichi 2025." The narrative weaves together experiences of sleep, movement, and the boundary between daily life and artistic practice.

AKKA Venice Project: Beyond the Exhibition

Lidija Khachatourian, founder of AKKA Project, discusses her gallery's evolution from Dubai to Venice, where it remains the only gallery dedicated to African and diasporic artists. In an interview with ART AFRICA, she explains her shift from a market-driven model toward a research-led, custodial approach that prioritizes long-term relationships and slowness over high-volume programming. The gallery, established in Venice in 2019, operates with a deliberate resistance to market pressures, focusing on care, continuity, and direct material support for its artists.

Once taboo, now on view: Seoul debuts major queer art exhibition

Art Sonje Center in Seoul has launched "Spectrosynthesis Seoul," the first large-scale institutional exhibition in South Korea dedicated specifically to queer art. Organized in partnership with the Sunpride Foundation, the show features 74 international and Korean artists across two major sections, exploring themes of identity, sign language bias, and the historical queer spatiality of Seoul neighborhoods like Itaewon.

Spectral Nomenclature. Anastasia Pavlou  by Arnisa Zeqo

Artist Anastasia Pavlou’s practice is explored through her engagement with literature, memory, and the materialization of language. Her large-scale paintings, which draw formal comparisons to Art Informel and Abstract Expressionism, function as conceptual lexicons where titles—often direct citations from writers like Dionne Brand and Virginia Woolf—carry as much weight as the paint itself. Works such as "The Reader Interrogates Narrative, but Poetry Interrogates the Reader" demonstrate her interest in the "spectral" side of nomenclature, where naming serves to summon ghosts of the past while acknowledging the failures of language to capture emotion.

art investing market trends art basel report

Art advisor Ralph DeLuca returns to his Street Smarts column to dissect the 2026 Art Basel & UBS Art Market Report. He notes that global art sales reached approximately $59.6 billion in 2025, a 4% increase after two down years, but cautions that the recovery is uneven—sales of artworks above $10 million rose 30%, while the middle market stagnates. The U.S. remains the dominant market, accounting for 44% of global sales, though tariff threats and political volatility continue to disrupt the trade.

parties jncquoi club comporta portugal

Cultured magazine hosted a dinner at Coco's private club in Manhattan to celebrate JNĉQuoi's forthcoming destination in Comporta, Portugal. The 164-hectare campus, designed by Vincent Van Duysen, will combine a beach club, residential community, and hotel, located an hour outside Lisbon. Founders Paula Amorim and Miguel Guedes de Sousa welcomed a crowd of collectors, gallerists, and art advisors, including Chad Leat, Ida Liu, Alexandra Stanton, Jason and Michelle Rubell, Seth Stolbun, Ellie Rines, Rob Teeters, and Sarah Ivory, with a performance by Portuguese soprano Leonor Vasconcelos.

art sam penn max battle photography book

Sam Penn and Max Battle have released a new photography and writing volume titled "Max," published alongside an exhibition at New York Life Gallery. The book features intimate and explicit photographs by Penn of her collaborator and partner Max Battle, interwoven with his written reflections, documenting their attempt to balance a private sex life with artistic practice. The exhibition includes 19 of Penn's works from the book printed at large scale, with the first image confronting viewers directly.

nat ward ditch plains beach monograph

Photographer Nat Ward has published a new book titled "Ditch: Montauk, NY 11954," featuring panoramic images taken over four summers at Ditch Plains Beach in Montauk, New York. The project began during a residency at the Edward F. Albee Foundation in 2018, using a medium format panoramic camera to capture the diverse human interactions on the crowded beach. Ward's photographs document strangers becoming neighbors, political tensions dissolving under umbrellas, and the raw honesty of beachgoers, including a woman in a red MAGA hat and a young man confident in his desirability.

The Exhibition Before The Exhibition: Art In The Making

Puke Ariki museum in New Plymouth, New Zealand, is hosting TUKU: Open Studio | Emerging Māori Artists, a collaborative project where senior artist Wharehoka Smith mentors early-career artists Jodie Tipa and Dwayne Duthie in creating eight manaia (spiritual guardian figures) in a public studio setting. Running from today through 12 July, the open studio prepares the museum's Temporary Gallery for the upcoming Kiingi Tuheitia Portraiture Award exhibition, which opens on 25 July and features 40 tūpuna portraits. Visitors can watch the artists at work, engage with their creative process, and participate in free public events including workshops and talks.

Grohmann Museum Exhibit Focuses on Veterans and Service

The Grohmann Museum in Milwaukee has opened a new exhibition pairing two shows by contemporary American artists focusing on military service. Ohio-born Mary Whyte's "We the People: Portraits of Veterans in America" features 50 large-scale watercolor portraits of veterans from various wars and backgrounds. Milwaukee photographer Dennis Darmek's "Boots and Sand: The Marines of 29 Palms" presents two dozen color photographs taken at the Marine Corps base in California's Mojave Desert, where Darmek himself trained in 1969. The photos capture both posed and candid moments, highlighting diversity within the modern Marine Corps, including women in combat roles.

Cultural institutions tap power of art to heal national fractures

More than 300 museums and art institutions across South Korea will participate in the 2026 Museum and Gallery Week, a nationwide cultural festival organized by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, running from May 1 to May 31. The event adopts the theme "Museums Uniting a Divided World" from the International Council of Museums, and features three main programs: "Museum × Meet" highlighting 50 signature objects, "Museum × Enjoy" with exhibitions and performances at 18 institutions, and "Museum × Wander" offering guided tours connecting galleries with historic sites.

Curator shares Figge exhibition highlights and visit planning tips

Vanessa Sage, a curator at the Figge Art Museum in Davenport, Iowa, appeared on the local TV show Quad Cities Live to promote the museum's current exhibitions and offer practical advice for visitors. She discussed highlights of the shows on view, what makes them meaningful, and how to navigate multiple exhibitions without feeling overwhelmed, including recommendations on where to start and how much time to allocate.

'There's Always a Beef': A New Exhibition Turns Identity Politics Between Arabic Speakers Into Art

A new exhibition titled 'Mother Tongue' has opened at the Haifa Museum of Art, exploring the hierarchy of Arabic dialects and the politics of language among Arabic speakers. The show turns identity politics into art, examining how language can be a battlefield in a region where one language holds power over another and political expression can lead to legal consequences.

Artist-run gallery in Old Town Scottsdale’s Art District among best in Valley

On The Edge Gallery, an artist-run collective in Old Town Scottsdale's Arts District, has been named one of the top 10 galleries in the Phoenix metropolitan area by Modern Luxury Magazine. The gallery operates as a co-op where local Arizona artists create the work, set their own prices, and often work on-site, allowing visitors to interact directly with the creators.

Awards presented at 3rd annual Focus on Photography art exhibit reception in Oregon

The Coliseum Museum in Oregon hosted the opening reception for its third annual Focus on Photography art exhibit, where Judge Danielle Koenig announced the competition winners. Glenn Bodish received the Best of Show award for his work “Pakistani Elder Making Lassi,” leading a group of winners that included Bob Cholke, Stephonie A. Schmitz, and Steve Toole. The exhibition features 59 works by 29 different artists, showcasing a range of techniques from traditional film to digital and mixed media.

Divinity in print | The Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition, New York

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is hosting "Household Gods: Hindu Devotional Prints, 1860–1930," an exhibition exploring the evolution of Hindu visual culture through the rise of chromolithography. The show traces how mass-produced prints transitioned sacred imagery from exclusive temple environments into the intimate, everyday spaces of domestic shrines.

Art Gallery of Burlington hosts spring gala with farm-to-table dinner and more

The Art Gallery of Burlington (AGB) has announced its upcoming spring gala, "Seeds of Change," scheduled for May 7th. The event features a farm-to-table dinner helmed by Executive Chef Matteo Paonessa, a silent auction, and a preview of a new solo exhibition by Argentine artist Celina Eceiza titled "A material called Earth, Vol 1: The life of corners." The gala also highlights the gallery's new Community & Medicine Garden, an initiative where artists-in-residence will harvest natural materials for pigments and textiles.

On Showing My Paintings in Auschwitz

Artist and Holocaust survivor Yehudis Barmatz-Harris has installed a series of paintings within the barracks of Auschwitz-Birkenau, marking a profound personal and artistic return to the site of her family's trauma. The works, which utilize materials like salt and organic textures, are placed directly on the wooden bunks where prisoners once slept, creating a visceral dialogue between contemporary Jewish life and the void left by the Shoah.

Mapped by Tide and Time art exhibition in Mumbai

The solo exhibition "Mapped by Tide and Time" has opened in Mumbai, showcasing over three decades of work by Indian artist Vishakha Apte. Curated by Ina Puri, the show features a diverse range of mediums including painting, printmaking, paper constructions, and ceramics. The collection highlights Apte’s career-long investigation into tactile depth and material dialogue, moving away from artistic spectacle in favor of quiet, process-led inquiry.