The National Museum of Mexican Art (NMMA) in Chicago was founded in 1987 by a group of public school educators, led by Carlos Tortolero, to address a lack of Mexican history and culture in the curriculum. It has grown into a 48,000-square-foot institution with a collection of over 20,000 objects, spanning from Pre-Columbian times to the present, and was the first Latino museum in the U.S. to be accredited by the American Alliance of Museums.
The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London has reportedly removed maps and images from exhibition catalogues on multiple occasions following pressure from its Chinese publisher, C&C Offset Printing. The publisher cited directives from China's General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP), which enforces the Chinese Communist Party's official narratives on sensitive topics like territorial borders.
The Cleveland Museum of Art has unveiled "Epic of the Northwest Himalayas: Pahari Paintings from the ‘Shangri’ Ramayana," an exhibition reuniting a widely dispersed 18th-century pictorial series. The show features 40 physical paintings alongside digital animations that reconstruct the original episodic sequences of the Hindu epic. This presentation is part of a larger collaborative initiative involving the Cincinnati Art Museum and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art to study and display works from the Catherine Glynn Benkaim and Ralph Benkaim Collection.
White Columns in New York is hosting "Art (by) Dealers," a group exhibition featuring works by 25 artists who also work as art dealers. Curated by Kathy Huang and Will Leung, the show runs from March 13 through April 25, 2026, highlighting the dual identities of professionals who navigate both the creative and commercial sides of the industry.
Lake City, South Carolina, is set to host the annual ArtFields festival from April 10 to May 2, 2026. The event transforms the town into a massive gallery, displaying hundreds of works by Southeastern artists across local boutiques, restaurants, and historic warehouses. This year's competition features over $100,000 in prize money, with winners determined by both a professional jury and a popular vote.
The Cleveland Museum of Art has opened "Epic of the Northwest Himalayas: Pahari Paintings from the ‘Shangri’ Ramayana," an exhibition featuring 40 rare paintings from a 1700s royal commission. These works, which depict the life of the Hindu deity Rama, have been reunited from 12 different lenders after being dispersed globally for centuries. The display is augmented by digital stations that animate over 100 additional paintings to illustrate the narrative's themes of virtue and heroism.
The Charles H. MacNider Art Museum in Mason City has opened a solo exhibition titled "Ray Colby: Nature Photographer" in its Kinney-Lindstrom Gallery. The show features digital photographs printed on canvas, focusing on three specific themes: backyard insects and arachnids of the Midwest, urban birds from Minneapolis, and migrating Sandhill Cranes in Wisconsin. The works on display will be sold via auction to benefit the museum's programming.
The Azerbaijan National Carpet Museum has launched "Images Imprinted in Memory," a solo exhibition by multidisciplinary artist Madina Gasimova. Supported by the .ART domain, the showcase features 28 works produced over the last five years, including five new carpets woven using the museum's traditional techniques based on the artist's contemporary sketches. The exhibition highlights the fluidity of artistic motifs as they transition across various media, including painting, stained glass, mosaic, and digital formats, accompanied by a sound installation of the carpet-weaving process.
Artist Shaniqwa Jarvis is set to debut her first UK solo exhibition, "Only Love Can Break Your Heart," at London’s Public Gallery on April 30, 2026. The show features twelve new works that blend photography with silk, mirrored surfaces, aluminum, and collage to explore themes of grief, memory, and renewal. Central to the exhibition are immersive silk installations that create live double exposures and a new film work that weaves together personal archival footage with intimate conversations on motherhood, labor, and identity.
The University of Wisconsin-Whitewater's Crossman Gallery recently hosted the BA & BSE Senior Show, a showcase of diverse artworks created by graduating students. The exhibition featured a wide range of mediums, including photography, painting, sculpture, and print design, highlighting the creative versatility of the senior class. The event served as a professional milestone for students, allowing them to navigate the gallery submission process and network with faculty and the community.
The Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art (BMoCA) has announced the official date for its 2026 ARTMIX event. This signature annual fundraiser typically features a curated auction, live performances, and community engagement initiatives designed to support the museum's exhibition and education programs.
The Art Gallery of Peterborough is set to host "Elizabeth Thompson Advises," a multimedia exhibition by Cavan-based artist JoEllen Brydon running from April to June 2026. The show centers on the work of Brydon’s late mother, Jean Armstrong Brydon, who wrote a progressive advice column for The Globe and Mail under the pseudonym Elizabeth Thompson between 1966 and 1978. The exhibition integrates original letters and columns with JoEllen’s bold paintings, audio recordings, and short films to bring these mid-century narratives to life.
The William Havu Gallery in Denver is hosting "Sea Change," the 11th solo exhibition by artist Amy Metier. The show features a new body of work consisting of paintings on panel and works on paper that utilize abstraction to reference landscapes, still lifes, and architectural forms. Metier, a seasoned artist with a significant international residency history, continues her long-standing relationship with the gallery through this latest collection.
The Newport Art Museum is set to host "Voices of Springboard" on April 16, a moderated panel discussion featuring four artists from its current members' juried exhibition. Led by juror and art consultant Julie Keyes, the event features artists Karin Gielen, Tas Mahr, Saberah S. Malik, and Janice Smyth. The discussion will explore the transition from emerging to professional status, the impact of branding on artistic careers, and how contemporary practices engage with historical museum collections.
The Michener Art Museum is hosting "Pieces of a Life," a retrospective exhibition dedicated to the 60-year photography career of Bruce Katsiff. Running from April 11 to August 12, the show features 60 works including his 1970s "River Town Portraits," the "Nature Morte" series exploring mortality through animal remains, and his recent digital "Face Maps." The exhibition is guest-curated by art historian Dorothy Fisher and highlights Katsiff's technical mastery ranging from platinum prints to modern digital composites.
The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) has launched a long-term exhibition titled 'Guests of Honor,' featuring significant loans of Jewish ceremonial objects from the Jewish Museum in New York. Running through January 2027, the display includes intricate items such as Torah crowns, pointers, menorahs, and spice boxes sourced from Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. The objects are integrated into various galleries, including the Arts of the Islamic World section, to highlight shared aesthetic motifs and historical connections between different cultures.
The Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine is launching a dual exhibition featuring "From These Hills" and "Making it in America," opening April 14 in Roanoke. "From These Hills," on loan from the William King Museum of Art and curated by Kathy Foley, showcases contemporary Appalachian art across various media that explore regional identity and memory. Complementing this, photojournalist Heather Rousseau’s "Making it in America" documents the lived experiences of immigrants and refugees in Southwest Virginia, capturing the resilience of Afghan, Ukrainian, and Latino newcomers through five years of visual storytelling.
Johannesburg-based artist Nyakallo Maleke presents her solo exhibition, 'A Soft Language of Distance,' at Bode in Berlin. The show features an expanded practice of drawing that incorporates textiles, wax paper, and intricate stitching to explore themes of movement, memory, and spatial experience. Maleke, who was recently named the recipient of the 2025 Standard Bank Young Artist Award, utilizes these unconventional materials to create a tactile vocabulary that bridges the gap between intimate gesture and architectural form.
Students at Emerson College recently completed a comprehensive curatorial project titled "Gather," an exhibition that served as the capstone for their Curatorial Practices course. Tasked with managing every facet of the show—from registrarial duties and marketing to the physical installation of artworks—the students juried a regional open call that resulted in a final selection of 14 artists. The project was designed to provide a holistic understanding of the industry, moving beyond the siloed experience of traditional museum internships to prepare students for a volatile professional landscape.
The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford has launched "Climate Culture Care," the first solo exhibition by a Bangladesh-based artist in a UK museum, featuring the work of Soma Surovi Jannat. Developed during her residency at the institution, the show includes approximately 40 works, ranging from intricate drawings on paper to a 30-foot-long scroll and an ephemeral site-specific wall drawing. The exhibition is part of the Ashmolean NOW series, which tasks contemporary artists with creating new interventions inspired by the museum’s historical and archaeological collections.
Florida Atlantic University’s Center for Autism and Related Disabilities (CARD) partnered with the City of Boynton Beach to host the fifth annual 'Art and Autism' exposition. Held at the Boynton Beach Arts & Cultural Center in honor of Autism Awareness Month, the event featured approximately 50 artists—a significant increase from the three or four participants at its inception in 2021. The showcase included a diverse array of media, from graphic illustrations and children's books by artists like Kiora Slate to live musical performances by Patrick Fahely, providing a public platform for neurodivergent creators to sell their work and share their personal stories.
The Bristol Arts & Culture Commission has approved funding for several local initiatives, including a historic amusement exhibit titled "Laff in the Dark" by artist Charlie Burnham at the Carousel Museum. Other key developments include the announcement of a new worker-centric exhibition at the American Clock & Watch Museum and the commissioning of a public heart sculpture by artist Eva Mendoza to commemorate the upcoming America 250 celebrations.
The Triennale Milano is hosting a dedicated exhibition celebrating the prolific output of the British design duo Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby. The showcase highlights the studio's influential career, featuring a range of industrial design projects that have defined modern British aesthetics over the past two decades.
Art Dubai has announced a significantly scaled-back "special edition" of its 20th-anniversary fair, set for May 14–17 at the Madinat Jumeirah venue. The fair was postponed and reformatted due to the US-Israel war in Iran, which caused major logistical disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz and spiked oil prices, hampering air travel in the UAE. It will now feature only 50 exhibitors, a reduction of nearly 60% from the originally planned 120.
Laura V. Putnam has been promoted to Curator of Exhibitions at the Ashley Gibson Barnett Museum of Art (AGB) at Florida Southern College in Lakeland. Putnam, who has worked at the museum since 2013 and previously served as manager of exhibitions and adult programs, stepped into an expanded role following the departure of former Executive Director and Chief Curator Alex Rich. She has curated recent exhibitions including "Darkroom Alchemy: Photographs by Jerry Uelsmann," "Surreal Scenarios: The Art of Susanne Schuenke," and "The Medici Dynasty: Renaissance in Florence."
May’s art guide highlights several exhibitions across Dayton, Cincinnati, and Columbus, including "The Future of Female" at the Dayton Society of Artists, a juried show exploring women-identifying artists' perspectives; "At This Moment" at the Main Library's 2nd Floor Gallery, reflecting on contemporary life; "Teresa Olavarria: Lichen" at The Contemporary Dayton, featuring works in vitreous enamel and bronze; and a color-themed collaborative exhibition at the Edward A. Dixon Gallery in partnership with Dayton Collaboratory. The guide also features a 35mm film series by photographer Jake Schneider documenting Greenville’s Swinging 8’s Square Dance Club.
Marina Abramović, the Serbian pioneer of performance art, inaugurated her latest exhibition "Transforming Energy" at the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice, days before the official opening of the Biennale International Art Exhibition. The show features a pile of plaster bones and crystal objects, with guides in white coats encouraging visitors to interact with the crystals to detox from modern technology. Abramović is the first living woman artist to present an exhibition at the Gallerie, which is known for its Renaissance masterpieces.
The Clay Studio has organized "Radical Americana," a sprawling exhibition series featuring 45 artists across 22 sites in the Philadelphia area. Curated by Jennifer Zwilling, the project includes a central "welcome hub" at The Clay Studio and 25 satellite exhibitions at venues such as the Museum for Art in Wood, Cliveden, and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Artists were prompted to reflect on the Declaration of Independence and envision a better future, resulting in works that explore feminism, social justice, and LGBTQ rights through media including ceramics, wood, fiber, metal, glass, paper, and bookmaking. Notable participant Roberto Lugo presents "American Crib: What's Happening?" at The Clay Studio, blending Puerto Rican heritage with historical references.
Seattle's art scene in May 2026 features six diverse exhibitions. Highlights include 'Influences: Japanese Prints and Northwest Art' at the Cascadia Art Museum, exploring the impact of Japanese woodblock printing on regional artists; a site-specific installation by Carly Sheehan at the appointment-only Double Garage Gallery; Clare Johnson's exhibition of over 6,000 artworks on sticky notes at Gallery 4Culture; Emma Bergman's surreal multimedia installation 'The World to Come' at Specialist Gallery; and a landmark retrospective of light-art pioneer Tom Lloyd at the Frye Art Museum.
The Fall River Museum of Contemporary Art (FR MoCA) has launched "Citadel," a group exhibition featuring nine international artists including Lydia Ourahmane and Kambel Smith. Curated by Cory John Scozzari, the show utilizes diverse media—from sculpture and video to performance—to explore themes of urban movement, geopolitical complexity, and the mechanisms of surveillance and control. The exhibition is set to run through July 19, 2026, with an opening reception and curator-led walkthroughs scheduled for April.