7 must see museum shows on view across asia in 2026 2723845

Artnet News highlights seven must-see museum exhibitions across Asia in 2026, with a focus on women artists and diverse themes. Key shows include a retrospective of Korean sculptor Kim Yun Shin at the Hoam Museum of Art in Yongin, a posthumous exhibition of Japanese painter Rey Camoy at the Ishikawa Prefectural Museum of Art, a manga and fantasy art survey at M+ in Hong Kong, and a solo show by Belgian artist Carsten Höller at the UCCA Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing.

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Art Basel Hong Kong has announced its exhibitor list for the 2026 edition, featuring 240 galleries from 42 countries and territories, roughly the same size as last year's 242 galleries. The fair runs March 27–29 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, with preview days on March 25–26. New additions include 32 first-time exhibitors from Australia, Japan, Turkey, France, Germany, and the US, while 33 galleries from the previous edition are absent—some due to closures (Blum, Clearing, Kasmin) or acquisitions (Millan bought by Almeida & Dale). A new sector called Echoes will showcase works created in the last five years, and the Encounters sector will be curated by a team led by Mami Kataoka. Media artist Ellen Pau will oversee the film program for the first time, and Shahzia Sikander has been commissioned to create a public artwork for the M+ Museum facade.

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Artnet News published its quarterly museum artist ranking for June 2025, analyzing temporary exhibitions at over 250 U.S. museums to identify which living artists received the most institutional attention. The list includes over 4,500 names, with Indigenous contemporary artists dominating the top ranks: Cara Romero and Sky Hopinka remain highly visible, joined by Jeffrey Gibson and Andrea Carlson. Cindy Sherman appears in at least 10 group shows nationwide, while Alex Katz continues as a rare painter favored by museums at age 97. The ranking prioritizes career retrospectives, dedicated exhibitions, and special commissions over group show appearances.

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Belgian billionaire Guy Ullens, a key figure in promoting Chinese contemporary art, died at age 90. His death was announced by the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA) in Beijing, which he founded in 2007 as one of China's first privately run contemporary art centers. The article also covers Art Basel Hong Kong, Art Dubai's digital art sales, Gallery Weekend Beijing's new invitation-only system, Bluerider Art's expansion to Los Angeles, the appointment of Ho Tzu Nyen as artistic director of the 16th Gwangju Biennale, the Turner Prize 2025 shortlist, the opening of New Taipei City Art Museum, and Saudi Arabia's new typefaces.

Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential List Includes Artist Cao Fei and Photojournalist Lynsey Addario

Time magazine has named artist Cao Fei and photojournalist Lynsey Addario to its 2026 list of the 100 most influential people in the world. Cao Fei is recognized for her multidisciplinary work exploring digital technology and modernity, while Addario is honored for her decades of courageous reporting from global conflict zones, including her Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the war in Ukraine. The list also acknowledges prominent art patrons Susan and Michael Dell.

New York Galleries: Openings and Closings (03/09-03/15)

New York City’s gallery scene is set for a major wave of activity between March 10 and March 15, 2026, with dozens of new exhibitions opening across Manhattan. High-profile showcases include Sam Gilliam and Chuck Close at Pace Gallery, Maria Lassnig at Petzel, and Paul Chan at Greene Naftali. The week features a diverse range of media, from David Armstrong’s portraiture at Artists Space to Bat-Ami Rivlin’s industrial installations at Management.

In memoriam: remembering art world figures who died in 2025

This article from The Art Newspaper, published as 2026 begins, memorializes key figures from the art world who died in 2025. The list includes artist and activist Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, filmmaker and artist David Lynch, conceptual artist Mel Bochner, collector and patron Guy Ullens (co-founder of Beijing's UCCA), curator Koyo Kouoh (the first African woman to curate the Venice Biennale), photographer Sebastião Salgado, broadcaster Alan Yentob, and sculptor Joel Shapiro. Each entry summarizes their career highlights and contributions.

Openings

The Art Newspaper is promoting its digital newsletter, which offers a daily digest of essential news, views, and analysis from the international art world, delivered directly to subscribers' inboxes. The article serves as a call to action for readers to subscribe to stay informed about the latest developments in the art sector.

Remembering Raghu Rai, Jack Thornell, and Jarvis Rockwell

Hyperallergic's weekly 'In Memoriam' column honors eight recently deceased figures from the art world, including Indian photojournalist Raghu Rai (1942–2026), Argentine abstract painter Ides Kihlen (1917–2026), Israeli painter and activist Yair Garbuz (1945–2026), British photographer Mark Gerson (1921–2026), Japanese art collector Kurt Gitter (1937–2026), Danish antiquities dealer Ittai Gradel (1965–2026), indigo textile artist Leigh Magar (1968–2026), and Kenyan muralist Patrick Mukabi (1967–2026). Each entry summarizes their life, career highlights, and contributions to visual art and photography.

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Artnet News profiles five ultra-contemporary artists working in China today, highlighting their practices amid shifting cultural narratives, economic pressures, and technological change. Featured artists include Xia Yu, known for tempera paintings of everyday life, and Ye Linghan, who creates monumental "data portraits" from smartphone screenshots. The article details their backgrounds, notable exhibitions, market prices, and upcoming projects, emphasizing their growing appeal to collectors and curators.

Venice Biennale’s 2026 Golden Lion Jury to Be Led by Videobrasil Founder

The Venice Biennale has announced the five-member jury for its 2026 edition, which will award the prestigious Golden Lion prizes. The jury president is Solange Oliveira Farkas, founder of the Videobrasil Biennial, and she will be joined by curators and academics Zoe Butt, Elvira Dyangani Ose, Marta Kuzma, and Giovanna Zapperi.

Manitoba Anishinaabe Artist Designs Moon Patch; Uffizi Targeted by Cyberattack

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Anishinaabe artist Henry Guimond has designed a mission patch for Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen to wear during the Artemis II lunar mission. The artwork features seven symbolic animals representing the Seven Sacred Laws of Anishinaabe custom, intended as a universal message for humanity that will literally travel beyond Earth's orbit.

californias beloved di rosa art center is reborn with a love letter to incorrect art 2682187

Six years after announcing plans to deaccession its 1,600-work collection—the world's foremost trove of Post-war Northern California art—the di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art has reopened in a new downtown San Francisco space. The inaugural exhibition, "Far Out: Northern California Art," features artists such as Enrique Chagoya, Peter Saul, Viola Frey, Roy De Forest, and Jay DeFeo, celebrating the radical, countercultural ethos of the region. The space, located at the Minnesota Street Project in Dogpatch, had been vacant since the McEvoy Foundation for the Arts closed in 2023. Curator Twyla Ruby reports that visitors have been emotionally moved by seeing the collection reunited.

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Guy Ullens, a Belgian billionaire and pioneering collector of Chinese contemporary art, has died at age 90. The news was announced by the UCCA Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing, which he co-founded. Ullens began collecting Chinese antiquities in the 1980s before shifting to contemporary works, amassing a collection of 1,500 to 2,000 pieces by artists such as Ai Weiwei, Liu Xiaodong, and Zeng Fanzhi. He and his late wife Myriam established the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing's 798 Art Zone in 2007, later selling it to Chinese investors in 2017, after which it was renamed UCCA. Ullens also helped build the secondary market for Chinese contemporary art, notably selling Zeng Fanzhi's 'The Last Supper' for $23.3 million at Sotheby's Hong Kong in 2013, a record at the time.

25 of 2025: 5 Sculptors to Watch

Artnet News has published the latest installment of its '25 of 2025' series, spotlighting five sculptors to watch. The article profiles Lotus L. Kang, a Canadian artist who had a solo show at 52 Walker in New York, was recently picked up by Esther Schipper, and has appeared in group exhibitions at MoMA, Jeffrey Deitch, and the Hessel Museum. It also features Raven Halfmoon, a Caddo Nation artist whose totemic ceramic works draw on Indigenous traditions and folklore, and who had her major institutional debut at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in 2023. The series aims to highlight emerging talents shaping contemporary art.

The Storm Hits the Art Market

The article reports on the severe downturn in the art market during the first half of 2025, focusing on the closure of New York-based Clearing gallery. Despite opting out of Art Basel to host an alternative exhibition in a rented villa to cut costs, the gallery could not survive its financial losses and announced bankruptcy in August. It is one of several prominent galleries—including Blum, Venus Over Manhattan, and Kasmin—that have closed amid falling sales, high overheads, and reduced collector spending.

Weekly News Roundup: April 16, 2026

The art landscape in Asia is undergoing significant shifts with Art Basel renewing its five-year commitment to Hong Kong and the Centre Pompidou announcing a June opening for its new Seoul branch. Meanwhile, the Ayala Foundation unveiled designs by architect Kulapat Yantrasast for Kontempo, a major new contemporary art center in Manila slated for 2028, and the Kochi-Muziris Biennale appointed Jitish Kallat as president following the resignation of cofounder Bose Krishnamachari.

Why our country needs the artist Lubaina Himid right now: "I had to figure out how to represent Britain"

Lubaina Himid has been selected to represent Great Britain at the Venice Biennale, taking over the British Pavilion. The announcement came just before Christmas 2024, shortly before the opening of her first solo exhibition in China at the UCCA Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing, which features major works including 'Naming the Money' (2004). Himid, who was born in Zanzibar and raised in London, is a Turner Prize-winning artist known for centering Black narratives and marginalized histories through theatrical, life-size cut-out figures.

Art and authoritarianism in Auckland

Auckland Art Gallery is presenting 'Forever Tomorrow: Chinese Art Now,' a major survey of Chinese contemporary art featuring 67 works by 42 artists, running from May 2 to August 23, 2026. The exhibition includes Xiao Lu's iconic 1989 work 'Dialogue,' which she famously shot with a gun hours after its opening, an act later linked to the Tiananmen Square protests. Xiao Lu comments on the political resonance of the show in New Zealand amid global shifts in democracy and US-centric world order.

This Groundbreaking New Showcase of Nearly 60 Works Is the Biggest-Ever Exhibition of LGBTQ+ African Art

The Smithsonian's National Museum of African Art has opened "Here: Pride and Belonging in African Art," the largest-ever exhibition dedicated to LGBTQ+ African art. The show, curated by Kevin Dumouchelle and Serubiri Moses, features nearly 60 works by 30 artists from across Africa and its diasporas, spanning photography, painting, tapestry, collage, and sculpture.

Closures Can’t Dim the Spark: 9 Unmissable Bay Area Art Shows This October

The article highlights nine must-see art exhibitions in the Bay Area for October, despite recent gallery closures like KADIST and Gallery 16. Key shows include the Museum of the African Diaspora's twin exhibitions 'Continuum' and 'Unbound' for its 20th anniversary, Drew Villanueva's first solo exhibition at Good Mother Studio inside Ikea, Jim Melchert's retrospective at di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art, and Mills College Art Museum's '100 Years of Creative Visions'. The programming is anchored by the second edition of Nexus, a Bay Area art week spotlighting Black voices and bridging regional divides.

Rose Art Museum Presents Tell Me More, the Painter Danielle Mckinney’s Solo U.S. Museum Debut

The Rose Art Museum in Waltham, Massachusetts, will present "Danielle Mckinney: Tell Me More," the painter's first solo museum exhibition in the United States, running from August 20, 2025, to January 4, 2026. Curated by Dr. Gannit Ankori, the show features thirteen intimate paintings, including two new works, that explore the interior lives of Black women, reimagining art-historical motifs like the odalisque through a contemporary, empowered lens. The exhibition coincides with Mckinney's 2025 Ruth Ann and Nathan Perlmutter Artist-in-Residence Award at the Rose.

148 News Roundup: Career Moves, Infrastructure, Controversies, Public Domain

Curator and writer Reuben Keehan has been appointed artistic director of the forthcoming Kontempo – Center for Contemporary Art in Manila, a new institution developed by the Ayala Foundation. Keehan will relocate from Australia, ending his 15-year tenure as curator of contemporary art at Brisbane’s Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art. In other career moves, Manuel Rabaté has become CEO and director of New Delhi’s Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, bringing over 25 years of museum leadership including his previous role as inaugural director of Louvre Abu Dhabi. Additionally, the Kochi Biennale Foundation has named board member and Mumbai-based artist Jitish Kallat as president of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, succeeding Bose Krishnamachari who resigned in January.

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Two curatorial teams have won the Hyundai Blue Prize+ 2025, an award organized by Hyundai Motor Company to support curators addressing contemporary issues in an Asian context. The winners are Hyejin and Yoonyoung Park, a Seoul-based duo whose proposal examines AI's reliance on natural resources and labor, and Yifeng Wei and Penny Dan Xu, based in Dublin and London, who invite viewers to reimagine the future of modern technology. Selected from over 160 proposals, the teams participated in a mentorship program and research trip before being chosen by an international jury. Their exhibitions will be held at Hyundai Motorstudio Beijing between mid-2026 and early 2027, with each receiving 800,000 RMB (about $110,000) for production costs.

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The UCCA Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing allegedly withheld staff wages for six months from January to June, according to the South China Morning Post. The institution, founded by the late Belgian collectors Guy and Myriam Ullens in 2007, has faced financial challenges including lower ticket sales, higher international freight costs, stricter rental demands from its landlord in Beijing's 798 Art District, and difficulty collecting payments from international partners. Its Shanghai branch, UCCA Edge, has seen no activity since June after an exhibition co-presented with the Saudi Ministry of Culture. Director Philip Tinari acknowledged a difficult year for museums in China, citing a slower consumer economy, and said the UCCA is working on long-term funding solutions.

frieze seoul 2025 exhibitor list 1234743703

Frieze Seoul 2025 will bring together 120 galleries from over 30 countries for its fourth edition, running September 4–6 at the COEX convention center with a preview day on September 3. The fair coincides with Kiaf Seoul and is split into three sections: the main Galleries section (90 exhibitors), Focus Asia (10 solo presentations of emerging artists), and Frieze Masters (20 booths covering works from the Middle Ages to the 20th century). Blue-chip participants include Gagosian, Hauser & Wirth, Pace Gallery, and David Zwirner, alongside leading Korean galleries such as Gallery Hyundai and Kukje Gallery. Five galleries have graduated from Focus Asia to the main section, and 20 first-time participants join the main section.

philip tinari leaves ucca beijing hong kong tai kwun 1234769464

Philip Tinari is leaving his role as director and CEO of UCCA Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing after 14 years to become deputy director and head of art at Tai Kwun Culture & Arts in Hong Kong, starting February 23. He succeeds curator Pi Li, whose contract expires in February. Tinari oversaw UCCA's transition to a nonprofit museum in 2018 and its expansion with three new venues, including UCCA Dune, UCCA Edge, and UCCA Clay, while organizing major exhibitions of artists such as Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, Cao Fei, and Anicka Yi.

‘Anchors of Light’ reframes 30 years of MOCA North Miami

The Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami (MOCA) celebrates its 30th anniversary with a new exhibition, “Anchors of Light,” which opened on April 15. Curated by Miami native Catherine Camargo, founder of Queue Gallery, the show features nearly 50 artists from the museum’s collection, including historical figures like Robert Rauschenberg and Claes Oldenburg, past retrospective subjects such as Maryan S. Maryan and Edouard Duval-Carrie, and local favorites Purvis Young and Pepe Mar. The exhibition includes a video corridor for multiple video works, addressing space constraints, and highlights Camargo’s preference for dark, muted colors and unconventional materials, exemplified by Will Boone’s painting “Widowmaker.”

Theaster Gates’ Smart Museum Show Marks a Historic Moment for His Hometown Legacy

Theaster Gates is presenting a major exhibition at the Smart Museum of Art in Chicago, marking a historic moment for the artist’s legacy in his hometown. The show brings together his multidisciplinary practice spanning sculpture, installation, performance, and urban intervention, reflecting his deep engagement with Chicago’s South Side communities and histories of race, labor, and urban renewal.

Rene Matić wins 2026 Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize

Rene Matić has won the 2026 Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize, becoming the first British winner in over a decade. The announcement was made at The Photographers’ Gallery in London on May 14, 2025, where Matić received £30,000 for their exhibition *AS OPPOSED TO THE TRUTH*, which uses photography, installation, and sound to explore identity and belonging. Matić was nominated for the show at the Center for Contemporary Arts Berlin (CCA Berlin) and is also a recent Turner Prize nominee. The prize exhibition runs at The Photographers’ Gallery until June 7, alongside works by fellow shortlisted artists Jane Evelyn Atwood, Weronika Gęsicka, and Amak Mahmoodian.