This article from Cultured magazine features a series of short interviews with several art-world figures about their favorite summer activities in Aspen, Colorado. Participants include jewelry designer Jenna Blake, gallerist Marianne Boesky, collector Lesley Slatkin, art advisor Meredith Darrow, and gallerist Richard Edwards, who share personal recommendations for hikes, restaurants, spas, and the unique lifestyle Aspen offers during the summer season.
À Chaumont-sur-Loire, d’incroyables jardins recréent des films culte
The Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire in France has launched the 2026 edition of its Festival International des Jardins, themed around cinema. Participants including gardeners, landscape designers, and artists—among them actresses Sabine Azéma, Golshifteh Farahani, and Mélanie Laurent, and director Momoko Seto—have transformed small plots into living landscapes inspired by iconic films and cinematic genres, such as a vegetal Cannes Film Festival and a garden based on James Cameron's *Avatar* trilogy. The festival runs from April 22 to November 1, 2026, alongside the estate's ongoing 'Saison d'art' exhibition featuring works by Marc Desgrandchamps, Antonio Crespo Foix, and others.
A new study by University College London, published in the journal Innovation in Aging, reveals that engaging with arts and culture can slow biological aging at a rate comparable to exercise. Researchers found that attending performances or visiting galleries once a month led to a 3 percent reduction in aging speed, while weekly engagement produced a 4 percent slowdown. Those who participated in the arts at least weekly were biologically at least a year younger than non-participants, outperforming weekly exercisers, who were only six months younger biologically. The study tracked 3,356 adults from 2010 to 2012 using survey data and blood tests, measuring aging via epigenetic clocks that analyze DNA changes.
A journalist from Colossal spent a week on an uninhabited island in the Balearic Islands with nearly 80 artists for a residency program called Quarantine, conceived by artist Carles Gomila. Participants follow a rigorous, opaque schedule of talks, workshops, and mentorship sessions, with phones and internet banned, and must stay on the island from early morning until late evening. The April 2026 edition, themed "Tears in Rain" after a Blade Runner monologue, began with a theatrical tour by an actor playing Captain Horacio Hollynwood, who introduced the historic Lazaretto of Mahón, an 18th-century fortress and infirmary.
Guest curator Greg de Cuir Jr. interviews five prominent artist duos—including Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, and OJOBOCA—to explore the mechanics of collaborative practice and shared life. The participants discuss the origins of their partnerships, ranging from the necessity of navigating new environments like Berlin’s analog film scene to the shared political and aesthetic urgency following the Lebanese Civil Wars.
How Much Did It Cost to Paint a Pompeii Room Egyptian Blue?
A new study has calculated the staggering cost of painting a room in Pompeii with Egyptian blue pigment. Researchers determined that covering the walls of a recently discovered "Blue Room," a sacred shrine, would have required between 2.7 and 4.9 kilograms of the prized synthetic pigment. Based on prices recorded by Pliny the Elder, this quantity of high-grade pigment would have cost between 50% and 90% of a Roman legionary's annual salary, highlighting it as an extreme luxury.
Graphic artist Jim Phillips, the 81-year-old creator of the iconic "Screaming Hand" logo for Santa Cruz Skateboards, has opened his first solo gallery in his hometown of Santa Cruz, California. The exhibition, titled "Jim Phillips: New Fine Art Prints and Classic ’70s and ’80s Pen and Ink Drawings," runs at the R. Blitzer Gallery and features 15 new large-scale art prints and 30 hand-drawn pen-and-ink works from 1971 to 2026. The show includes his famous "Screaming Hand" and "Hand Wave" pieces, alongside surf, skate, and rock poster art from his career, which includes work for The Doors, James Brown, and Neil Young.
The Azerbaijan Artists' Union recently hosted a children's art exhibition and competition titled "My Favorite Theme" as part of the national Painting Week. Held at the Fine Art Gallery of the Children-Youth Development Palace No. 1 in Baku, the event showcased 51 artworks by 48 young participants across two age categories. Winners were selected by a jury of professional artists, with top honors going to Naomi Ahmadi and Nuray Babayeva for their respective thematic interpretations.
The Swiss Institute in New York has opened a new exhibition titled “De Anima,” pairing sculptor Elizabeth King and painter Louise Bonnet. Curated by director Stefanie Hessler, the show explores the boundaries between the living and the lifelike, featuring King's intricate automata and stop-motion films alongside Bonnet's large-scale oil paintings of fleshy, gestural figures. The artists, introduced by Hessler at an opening last year, discovered a shared fascination with involuntary bodily movements—twitching eyes, clenched jaws—and the invisible labor of artistic craftsmanship.
The Chattanooga Public Library and the Hart Gallery are opening a new art exhibit titled "Art From The Hart" at the Downtown Library on May 9, with a reception from 2-4 p.m. Curated by Hart Gallery artists and Library Services Specialist Ali Banks, the show features mixed-media illustrations, pencil drawings, paintings, sculptures, and digital art from local artists, including returning participants Alex Scoggins and Angel Pellegrino.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute has made a historic shift toward disability and body inclusivity in its annual exhibition, titled "Costume Art." For the first time, the exhibit includes a section called "The Disabled Body," featuring mannequins modeled on disabled bodies, such as those of activist Aimee Mullins, model Aariana Rose Philip, and accessibility consultant Sinéad Burke. Burke and her team at Tilting the Lens consulted on the exhibit for 18 months, suggesting disabled designers like Sugandha Gupta and Helen Cookman, and donated pieces to the permanent collection. The Met Gala also became accessible for the first time since 1948, with wheelchair user Aariana Rose Philip attending as the first ever.
San Francisco-based artist Ana Teresa Fernández has opened a solo exhibition titled 'Under Pressure' at the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago. The four-year project features a range of works, including detailed oil paintings and a sculptural piece, all centered on the theme of water and climate change. A key performance element involved Fernández leading hundreds of participants on Chicago's lakefront to form a giant S.O.S. signal using mirrors, a 'social monument' she previously staged in California.
The Martha Invitational and MarfaMUST are collaborating on a two-day arts weekend in Marfa, Texas, from May 29-30, 2026. The event, themed 'Home Coming,' features a pop-up opening at Rule Gallery for the Martha Invitational, a closing event for MarfaMUST, and open studios throughout the town, all free to the public. It reunites the founding organizers of the Martha Invitational and incorporates new participants, celebrating the local artist community across generations.
Boston College has unveiled the programming for its 2026 Arts Festival, themed "Artchella," scheduled for April 23–25. The 28th annual event will feature over 50 activities across the campus, including visual art exhibitions, theatrical performances, and musical concerts. A centerpiece of the festival is the Arts Awards Ceremony, which will honor alumni brothers Will and Anthony Nunziata for their professional achievements in the arts, alongside faculty and student awardees.
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.
Western Exhibitions in Chicago presents “Spaces for People, Systems for Spaces,” a group exhibition featuring fifteen artists who explore the intersection of architecture, urban infrastructure, and the human body. The show includes diverse approaches to mapping and structural representation, ranging from Kim Beck’s hand-woven asphalt photographs and Courttney Cooper’s massive ink-on-receipt Cincinnati maps to Brian Petrone’s basswood and limestone tectonic sculptures.
Each October, the Chateau Show takes over the historic Aldredge House on Swiss Avenue in Dallas, a Gilded Age home built in 1915-17. Founded by artists Joel Murray and Clint Bargers, the four-year-old exhibition invites a select crowd of curators, museum directors, and art world insiders to view envelope-pushing works by emerging, mid-career, and established artists. This year’s edition features 21 participants, including Alicia Eggert, Luke Harnden, Virginia L. Montgomery, and Arthur Peña, with installations ranging from site-specific pieces to more commercial works. The show is free and open by appointment from Oct. 19-25.
Nine participants in the Chicago Architecture Biennial (CAB), which opened on September 19, have withdrawn in protest over exhibition sponsor Crown Family Philanthropies' investment in General Dynamics, a military contractor supplying weapons to the Israeli military. A letter signed by 22 individuals, collectives, and firms—nearly half of whom also withdrew—argues that the sponsorship contradicts the biennial's mission of addressing architecture's role in shaping a collective future. The biennial's sixth edition, titled SHIFT: Architecture in Times of Radical Change, is led by artistic director Florencia Rodriguez. Participants had raised concerns last month, and organizers clarified that Crown Family funds support education programming, not the exhibition itself, which the letter calls "even more painful" given the destruction of schools in Gaza.
Thirty local artists, primarily from Northwest Philadelphia and members of the Northwest Village Network (NVN), will hold an exhibition at the Center on the Hill in September. The show features collage, painting, drawing, mixed media, and photography, with participants ranging from seasoned professionals to newcomers. Artists include Ron Lieberman, a former New York Times illustrator; Sara Allen, who photographs her aging body; and Dr. Claire EB. Robinson, a retired OB/GYN turned photographer. The exhibition is hosted at the Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill, which houses the Center on the Hill, a program for active adults.
Ferris State University's Kendall College of Art and Design (KCAD) alumni, faculty, and students have been recognized in the 2025 West Michigan Area Show, a juried exhibition hosted by the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts. The 64th annual competition drew nearly 500 entries from 14 Michigan counties, with 64 selected for inclusion. Eleven pieces by artists with KCAD connections were featured, and three received distinguished awards from juror Hubert Massey, a Detroit-based artist and educator. Notable winners include Lee Ann Frame, who won the Ward H. and Cora E. Nay Director’s Purchase Prize and the Southwest Michigan Printmakers Excellence in Printmaking Award, and Tatsuki Hakoyama, who received The Martin Maddox Prize for Imaginative Realism. Other participants include professor emeritus Jay Constantine, alumni Beth Purdy and Jackson Wrede, and students Sydney Donath and Kaylee Dirkmaat.
Art Basel Miami Beach (ABMB) will return from December 5 to 7, 2025, with 285 galleries, including 41 first-time exhibitors—a significant increase from previous years. The fair will emphasize Latinx, Indigenous, and diasporic artistic currents, and will feature galleries from 44 countries, with over two-thirds operating in the Americas. New participants include New York galleries such as David Peter Francis, Candice Madey, and Margot Samel, as well as Erin Cluley Gallery from Dallas, Miami’s Nina Johnson, and Voloshyn Gallery, the first Ukrainian exhibitor at the fair. Returning mega-galleries include Gagosian, Hauser & Wirth, David Zwirner, Pace Gallery, and White Cube. The fair will also debut the Art Basel Awards, with gold medalists announced on December 4.
Eleven Warsaw galleries opened their doors to eleven international counterparts for the second edition of Constellations, a gallery-sharing event running until May 10. Organized by Piktogram, Dawid Radziszewski, Stereo, and Wschód, the initiative pairs galleries from Basel, Berlin, Bucharest, Frankfurt, London, Naples, Paris, Shanghai, Stockholm, and Vienna with Polish art spaces like Foksal, Raster, and experimental newcomer Turnus. Highlights included Iris Touliatou's installation "untitled (still not over you)" at Import Export, which won the Friends’ Art Prize, funding an acquisition for the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (MSN).
Five Canadian artists have been selected for the main exhibition of the Venice Biennale, titled *In Minor Keys*, which opens to the public next Saturday. The participants are Abbas Akhavan (featured in the Canada Pavilion), Manuel Mathieu, Rajni Perera, Marigold Santos, and one additional artist. The exhibition is the first Biennale curated by a Black woman, Cameroonian-Swiss curator Koyo Kouoh, who died suddenly in May last year after a cancer diagnosis, just six months after her appointment. Despite her death, the Biennale proceeded with her plans, with her team completing the work.
Corazón Cafe in downtown San Luis Obispo hosts an annual art gallery called "Chingonas" during March and April, celebrating Women's History Month. The gallery, curated by co-owner Sara McGrath, features around 20 participants ranging from ages 5 to 85, displaying works that honor "badass women"—from famous figures like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Gloria Steinem to everyday family members. The term "Chingonas" is a reclaimed Mexican-Spanish slang for strong, independent women.
Sharjah Art Foundation has announced details for the 17th edition of the Sharjah Biennial, titled “What remains, sits restive,” running from January 21 to June 13, 2027. The large-scale contemporary art event will feature 109 participants across multiple sites in the emirate, including Sharjah City, Al Dhaid, Khor Fakkan, and Kalba. Confirmed artists include Anri Sala, Hassan Khan, Ibrahim Mahama, Oscar Murillo, Zina Saro-Wiwa, and Angela Ferreira. The biennial will be curated by Angela Harutyunyan and Paula Nascimento, each presenting separate sections under a shared theme examining how past political and cultural histories shape present-day realities through time, memory, and space.
The Palmer Museum of Art is hosting "Who Wears the Pants?! Fashion History One Leg at a Time," an exhibition exploring the intersection of gender, power, and mobility through the history of clothing. Curated by Charlene Gross and Keri Mongelluzzo, the show features 29 works from the museum's collection ranging from the seventh century to 2007. The display is organized into four thematic sections—gender, labor, mobility, and self-expression—and includes notable works such as Mary Beth Edelson’s feminist lithograph "Some Living American Women Artists/Last Supper."
Sotheby's second auction in Saudi Arabia, 'Origins II,' concluded with strong results, achieving a hammer total of $15.4 million and an 89% sell-through rate. The sale demonstrated robust demand for regional artists, particularly Arab Modernists, while some high-profile Western works were withdrawn or failed to sell. The standout lot was a 1968 painting by the late Saudi pioneer Safeya Binzagr, titled 'Coffee Shop in Madina Road,' which sold for $1.1 million, significantly outperforming a Picasso work in the same sale.
A new documentary, *Once Upon a Time in Harlem*, is screening at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah, offering an intimate look at the Harlem Renaissance. The film is assembled from 28 hours of 16mm footage shot in 1972 by the late filmmaker William Greaves at Duke Ellington's home in Harlem, capturing a gathering of key figures from the movement. Greaves's son David, who was one of the original cameramen, completed the film after his father's death. The footage includes interviews and reflections from artists, writers, musicians, and activists such as Romare Bearden, Aaron Douglas, James Van Der Zee, Eubie Blake, and Arna Bontemps.
Savannah Penven, a 2024 graduate of Virginia Tech, has returned to the Center for the Arts as exhibitions program manager, a decade after her own artwork was featured in the center's first "Young Artists" exhibition in 2014. She now coordinates the current "Young Artists: dreamscapes" show, featuring 39 students from Craig County High School, and works to create validating, professional-level exhibition experiences for young creatives.
Hypha Studios has announced the launch of three new galleries at No.1 Poultry, the iconic James Stirling-designed postmodern building in the City of London. Opening on 24 September with celebratory events, the galleries will host a year-long programme of culture, each presenting eight unique exhibitions. Galleries 1 and 3 will feature contemporary artists and curators, while Gallery 2, in partnership with recessed.space, will focus on exhibitions related to the living environment. The inaugural shows include "The Turn" curated by Shakthi Shrima, featuring artists such as Cajsa von Zeipel and Janine Antoni, and a group exhibition led by maker Nina Oltarzewska from Blackhorse Lane Makers.