Mary Weatherford presents a new body of work in her exhibition "The Surrealist," featuring large-scale abstract paintings that incorporate unconventional materials such as neon, coral, and starfish. The show includes works like "A Rose Tree" (2025), "Bonfire" (2025), and the titular "The Surrealist" (2024–2025), all executed in flashe on linen with mixed media elements.
Multiple Maine museums are collaborating this summer to present simultaneous exhibitions of two mid-career gestural painters, Nicole Wittenberg and Ann Craven, whose work deeply engages with nature and landscape painting. Wittenberg's shows include "A Sailboat in the Moonlight" at the Ogunquit Museum of American Art (through July 20), "Nicole Wittenberg: Cheek to Cheek" at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art (through Sept. 14), and a Paris exhibition at the Fondation Le Corbusier. Craven's exhibitions span the Farnsworth Art Museum ("Ann Craven: Painted Time," through Jan. 4, 2026), the Portland Museum of Art ("Spotlight: Ann Craven," May 14 to Sept. 14), and Bowdoin College Museum of Art (starting May 22).
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.
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.
Frieze New York 2025 features a strong textile and fiber art presence across multiple gallery stands. Highlights include Proyectos Ultravioleta's all-textile installation with embroidery by Edgar Calel and knitted crochet by Claudia Alarcón; Sonia Gomes's wrapped-wire sculptures at Mendes Wood DM; Carolina Caycedo's netted tribute to Zilia Sánchez at Instituto de Visión; Citra Sasmita's Kamasan canvas works at Yeo Workshop; Kyungah Ham's embroideries made in collaboration with North Korean artists at Kukje Gallery; Lee ShinJa's wearable fiber cape at Tina Kim Gallery; Grayson Perry's tapestries responding to Baroque works at Victoria Miro; and Małgorzata Mirga-Tas's fabric portraits at Frith Street Gallery. Prices range from $20,000 to $100,000.
Rujeko Hockley, an associate curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art, shares her personal highlights from Frieze art fair, selecting works by artists including Joey Terrill, Chitra Ganesh, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, Ernie Barnes, Jeremy Frey, Maia Ruth Lee, Beverly Buchanan, and Luana Vitra. Each selection is accompanied by Hockley's commentary on the themes and techniques that draw her to the pieces, ranging from new media and biographical elements to Indigenous craft and migration narratives.
Tschabalala Self's sculptural relief "Art Lovers" (2025) will be installed on the façade of the New Museum in New York when it reopens this autumn with a new 60,000 sq. ft expansion designed by OMA. The 13ft-tall artwork depicts a Black couple kissing in a swirling embrace, inspired by Self's 2022 painting "Madly" and the architectural "kiss point" where the new building meets the original Sanaa-designed structure. The commission continues the museum's façade sculpture programme, which previously featured works by Chris Burden, Isa Genzken, and Glenn Ligon.
Hong Kong-based gallery Kiang Malingue is opening a new outpost on the Lower East Side of New York on May 9, joining a wave of Asian galleries expanding into the city. The 3,500 sq. ft space at 50 Eldridge Street, formerly an artist's studio, will debut with a solo show by Japanese artist Hiroka Yamashita titled 'The Lights from the Deep Mountains.' Other recent arrivals include Manila's Silverlens (Chelsea, 2022), Taipei's Nunu Fine Art (Lower East Side, 2023), Hong Kong's Alisan Fine Arts (Upper East Side, 2023), and Shanghai's Bank (Lower East Side, March 2025).
Frieze New York 2025 will take place from 7 to 11 May at The Shed, featuring over 65 leading contemporary art galleries from more than 25 countries. The fair offers collectors access to blue-chip works by major artists and pieces by emerging talents, alongside amenities such as the US debut of Korean luxury beauty brand The Whoo showcasing three South Korean female artists, and a Ruinart champagne bar with a commissioned installation by artist Sam Falls. Notable booths include Mendes Wood DM presenting a new sculpture by Sonia Gomes and works by Kishio Suga, a joint presentation by Apalazzogallery and Emalin featuring Augustas Serapinas, and Tina Kim Gallery highlighting a multigenerational selection of women artists including Maia Ruth Lee.
The global art market contracted by 12% in 2024, falling to an estimated $57.5 billion in sales from its 2022 peak, according to the Art Basel and UBS Art Market Report 2025 compiled by Dr. Clare McAndrew. Despite the overall decline, the number of transactions grew by 3%, driven by a broadening collector base and increased engagement with more affordable works. The report highlights a surge in interest in female artists, with galleries raising their representation to 41%, and notes that art fairs remain the most common entry point for new buyers. The Aotearoa Art Fair, opening May 1-4 at Auckland's Viaduct Events Centre, exemplifies these trends with strong Indigenous and Pacific representation, emerging artist platforms like Horizons 2025, and affordable works under $5,000 from established galleries such as Gow Langsford Gallery.
Cannon Crawford-Wilson, a sculpture and ceramics student at UNC Greensboro, took Art History 490: Museums and Exhibition Spaces and helped curate the exhibition “Embodied: Finding Meaning in the Human Form” at the Weatherspoon Art Museum. Under the guidance of Dr. Emily Stamey, she and her classmates selected artworks, wrote labels, and designed the gallery layout for the Spring 2025 season, working with museum staff like preparator Susan Taaffe. The show features pieces such as Toyin Ojih Odutola's “What’s in a Mistake?” (2014) and Do Ho Suh's “Bowl with Hands.”
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.
Expo Chicago's 12th edition opened at Navy Pier on April 24, featuring over 170 galleries from 36 countries, with a strong South Korean contingent supported by the Galleries Association of Korea and notable participation from Canada, Latin America, and smaller US cities. Highlights include a knitted men's locker room installation by Nathan Vincent at Walter Maciel Gallery and a video project by Deborah Oropallo and Andy Rappaport at Catharine Clark Gallery, alongside a tribute to veteran gallerist Rhona Hoffman, who is closing her namesake gallery after nearly 50 years.
Slip House, a new gallery co-founded by Ingrid Lundgren and Marissa Dembkoski, will open to the public on May 9, 2025, during Frieze Week. Located in a 1,000-square-foot, three-story former carriage house at 246 East 5th Street in New York's East Village, the gallery's inaugural exhibition features a multigenerational roster of artists, including historic works by Jack Whitten and Claude Viallat alongside contemporary pieces by Anne Hayden Stevens, Lizzy Gabay, Max Guy, and others. Former Sprüth Magers Director Jessica Draper co-curates the debut presentation. The space includes a second-floor fireplace and kitchen, and a third-floor live/work area that will host a rotating artist residency, with co-founder Dembkoski living onsite during the first year.
This article profiles ten young painters to watch this spring, highlighting their innovative approaches to the ancient medium of painting. Featured artists include British painter Francesca Mollett, whose abstractions have exceeded market expectations with works like 'Two Thistles' fetching over GBP 250,000 at auction; Samuel Hindolo, whose mysterious figurative and abstract paintings have caught the attention of critic Hilton Als; and Stanislava Kovalčíková, whose provocative mythological works were exhibited at Aspen Art Museum and who runs the independent space The White Ermine in Düsseldorf. Other artists mentioned include Evelyn Plaschg, who transforms mundane objects into unsettling meditations, with a solo museum exhibition opening at HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark.
The Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University has acquired works by artists Dhambit Munuŋgurr and Yu-Wen Wu for its permanent collection, selected by the Sam Hunter Emerging Artist Fund Committee. Munuŋgurr's piece, Bäru (2024), is a larrakitj memorial pole reimagined with white clay and ultramarine, while Wu's Recitations (2024) is a wall installation made from Taiwanese tea, gold, and red thread. Both works will debut in the exhibition Fabricated Imaginaries: Crafting Art opening August 20, 2025.
Rhona Hoffman, the 90-year-old Chicago gallerist, is closing her eponymous gallery at the end of May 2025 after nearly five decades in operation. The final group show, “Not Just A Pretty Picture,” ends April 26. Hoffman, who opened her gallery in 1976, gave early platforms to artists like Sol LeWitt, Mickalene Thomas, and Carrie Mae Weems, and is especially known for championing women artists such as Cindy Sherman, Barbara Kruger, and Jenny Holzer. She was also made an honorary member of the Guerrilla Girls after documenting her exhibition history of women artists. Hoffman plans to remain in Chicago, curating shows and working with artists, but will not use the term "pop-up" for her future activities.
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.
Milan is experiencing a surge in new gallery and art space openings in 2025, signaling its emergence as a strategic destination for contemporary art. Notable developments include the arrival of Thaddaeus Ropac's gallery, announced in January 2025, alongside openings such as Scaramouche, Limbo, Una/Castiglioni, and Romero Paprocki. These spaces are establishing long-term investments in the city's urban fabric, with exhibitions featuring artists like James Brown, Ludovica Anversa, Federico Arani, Leilei Wu, Valentina Furian, Alessandro Carano, Kaï-Chun Chang, Max Coulon, and Jordan Madlon.
The San Francisco Art Fair opened on April 17 at the Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture, running through April 20. Rebranded from ArtMrkt San Francisco last year, the fair featured 88 exhibitors, including a strong contingent from the East Bay, such as Oakland-based galleries pt.2, Johansson Projects, and Good Mother Gallery. Notable moments included artist Marc Horowitz using DeBoer Gallery's stand as a live studio, selling paintings for $25,000 and up, and the Alternative Art School showcasing works by four artist-members. Dealers reported healthy sales, with works priced from a few hundred dollars to the lower five figures, and local galleries like Micki Meng donated proceeds to the environmental non-profit Art into Acres.
Artist Jennie C. Jones has unveiled 'Ensemble', a new site-specific commission for the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Roof Garden, on view until October 19. The installation features stark, powder-coated aluminum sculptures inspired by stringed instruments—a zither, a harp, and a Blues-inspired one-string—that incorporate acoustic elements, inviting viewers to listen as well as look. This is Jones's second large-scale outdoor project, following her 2020 work 'These (Mournful) Shores' at the Clark Art Institute, which used Aeolian harp principles to evoke the Middle Passage.
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An exhibition titled 'Proximities,' featuring over 110 works by 47 UAE-based artists, opened at the Seoul Museum of Art (SeMA) in December and closed on March 29. The show, co-curated by Maya El Khalil and SeMA's Eunju Kim, aimed to present nuanced, everyday perspectives of life in the UAE through sections organized by artist-curators like Farah Al Qasimi and Mohammed Kazem, moving beyond stereotypes of gilded excess.
The current Istanbul Biennial, titled "The Three-Legged Cat," will end prematurely after its first leg because curator Christine Tohmé resigned due to personal circumstances. The biennial was conceived as a three-part show spanning three years, with an academic program planned for 2026 and a second exhibition set for 2027. The first exhibition ran from September 20 to November 23 across eight venues in Istanbul, attracting over 600,000 visitors. The Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (IKSV), which manages the event, announced the conclusion and stated that planning for the 19th Istanbul Biennial in 2027 will begin soon, with a curator announcement expected in 2026.
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.
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.
Newly released documents from the Justice Department's Epstein files reveal that New York art collector and Galerie magazine founder Lisa Fayne Cohen and her husband, real estate developer Jimmy Cohen, were in close contact with financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in 2015 and 2016. The emails show Cohen seeking Epstein's advice and arranging to photograph his Paris apartment for her magazine, which later featured the residence anonymously in its second issue.
Artnet News examines the recurring trope of art dealers as villains in popular cinema, highlighting seven films that feature duplicitous gallerists, auction house specialists, and art advisors. Examples include Rhodora Haze in *Velvet Buzzsaw* (2019), a ruthless gallerist who profits from a dead artist's work against his dying wish, and Virgil Oldman in *The Best Offer* (2013), an auction house director entangled in forgery and deception. The article also references Victor Taft in *Legal Eagles* (1986), where a performance artist's father's suspicious death drives the plot.
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."
Nicholas Fox Weber's new biography, *Anni Albers: A Life*, draws on his nearly 25-year friendship with the artist to offer an intimate, nuanced portrait of the pioneering textile artist. The book traces Albers's journey from her birth in Berlin in 1899, through her studies and teaching at the Bauhaus and Black Mountain College, her escape from Nazi Germany in 1933, and her later years in Connecticut. Weber, who serves as executive director of the Josef & Anni Albers Foundation, fills the biography with lively anecdotes—from her love of Kentucky Fried Chicken to her sharp wit—while correcting the "stock stories" she often repeated, revealing her personality and artistic dedication with rare depth.