The National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne is hosting a major exhibition of Cartier’s historic jewelry and objects, organized in partnership with the Victoria and Albert Museum. The showcase features over 300 items, ranging from the iconic 1917 Tank watch and the surrealist 1967 Cartier Crash to opulent commissions for figures like the Maharaja of Patiala, the Duchess of Windsor, and Grace Kelly.
Ghanaian contemporary artist Ibrahim Mahama announced plans to file charges against the Ghana Police Service after allegedly being violently attacked by officers from a unit called the Black Maria. Mahama states he was accosted on a bus in Tamale, sustaining severe facial injuries including broken teeth and bruising that forced him to cancel an international lecture and work tour. The police have denied the claims, stating the unit in question was not in the region at the time.
San Francisco-based artist Anoushka Mirchandani presents a solo exhibition, 'My Body Was a River Once,' at ICA San José. The show features vibrant oil paintings that depict apsaras, ancient Southeast Asian mythological nature spirits associated with water and transformation, drawing from the artist's Indian heritage and childhood memories of sites like the Ajanta and Ellora caves.
The art exhibition ‘Like a Rising River: Stories of Women and Change’ recently opened in Nepal, showcasing the results of a collaborative project between Srijanalaya, UN Women Nepal, and the Government of Finland. The initiative sent 15 Nepali artists to four provinces—Sudurpaschim, Bagmati, Sarlahi, and Madhesh—to document the lived experiences, social struggles, and resilience of local women through various artistic mediums, including textiles, mixed-media animation, and storytelling.
The second annual "Yemeni Fingertips" art and trade exhibition recently opened in the village of Wa'lan, located in the Bilad Al-Rus District of Sana'a. Organized by the Women's Development Office, the event showcases a diverse array of locally produced goods, including traditional embroideries, fabrics, jewelry, expressive drawings, and figurines, alongside artisanal food and cleaning products. High-ranking local officials, including Deputy Governor Abu Nojoom Al-Mahaqiri, attended the inauguration to review the contributions of participating families.
Visual artist Karen Mahaffy has created a new installation titled 'Deluge' that directly responds to the devastating floods that struck Texas in the summer of 2023. The work uses materials and imagery drawn from the event to process the environmental and human impact of the disaster.
Art Basel has announced that Nairy Baghramian and Ibrahim Mahama will create major new site-specific sculptures for the 2026 edition of its flagship fair in Switzerland. Baghramian will present "Modèle vivant (S’empilant)" (2026), an elaborate installation designed for the Messeplatz fountain, while Mahama's commission details are yet to be fully disclosed. Both artists are part of Art Basel's inaugural class of Gold Awardees, with the commissions first revealed in February 2026.
Ghanaian visual artist Ibrahim Mahama has been awarded the 2026 Arnold Bode Prize by the city of Kassel. The prize, announced by his gallery White Cube, includes a €10,000 award in recognition of his artistic practice.
The Marblehead Arts Association (MAA) launched its fourth annual 'Variations' national art exhibition, drawing over 400 attendees. The show features 190 selected works from nearly 800 submissions across fine art, photography, and 3D categories, judged by artists Christina Grace Mastrangelo, Lou Jones, and Simon Kogan. Prizes were awarded in each category, and curator Paul McMahan arranged the galleries thematically to emphasize the exhibition's focus on diverse interpretations.
The Yale Center for British Art is set to debut its 2023 acquisition, Rina Banerjee’s monumental sculpture "Take me, take me, take me . . . to the Palace of love," in a dedicated exhibition running from February to July 2026. The work is a translucent, pink cellophane reimagining of the Taj Mahal, suspended from the ceiling and filled with a mix of colonial relics and mass-produced consumer goods like plastic beads and foam balls.
India’s March art calendar features a diverse array of exhibitions across major cities, highlighting themes of labor, environmental harmony, and urban survival. Key shows include Arpan Sadhukhan’s woodcut and sculptural installation at Srishti Art Gallery in Hyderabad, which explores political dissent through material resistance, and the 19th edition of 'The Baroda March' at Rukshaan Art in Mumbai, showcasing nearly fifty artists influenced by the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda pedagogy.
Art Basel has unveiled the exhibitor list for its 2026 flagship Swiss edition, featuring 290 galleries from 43 countries. The fair, scheduled for June 18–21, will include 21 first-time participants and an expanded 'Premiere' sector for recent works. Notable shifts include four galleries debuting directly in the main sector and the introduction of public commissions by Nairy Baghramian and Ibrahim Mahama as part of the inaugural Art Basel Awards.
Art Basel has launched a new fair in Doha, Qatar, opening across the Msheireb district's M7 building, Design District, and other venues. The event coincides with significant cultural milestones for Qatar, including the 50th anniversary of the National Museum and the 15th anniversary of the Museum of Islamic Art, and represents a long-term commitment with plans to expand to Al Maha Island by 2029.
An exhibition titled 'Café Society: Art and Sociability in Belle Epoque Paris' is opening, featuring over 50 paintings that explore the role of cafés in late 19th-century Parisian social and artistic life. The show will travel from the Ordrupgaard museum in Copenhagen to two venues in the United States: the Dixon Gallery and Gardens in Memphis and the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha.
The British Museum has sent approximately 80 artifacts on long-term loan to the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS) in Mumbai, India. The loan includes an ancient Egyptian wooden riverboat model, Sumerian statues from 2200 BCE, a Roman mosaic from London, and a marble bust of Emperor Augustus. It is the largest loan of ancient material to India and the first such deal between the British Museum and a non-Western museum. The exhibition aims to counter "colonial misinterpretation" by emphasizing India's contributions to civilization.
The British Museum has launched a new long-term lending program, transferring some 80 Greek and Egyptian antiquities to the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS) in Mumbai, India, for a three-year exhibition. Director Nicholas Cullinan presented the initiative as a collaborative alternative to the contentious debate over repatriation, aiming to share artifacts with former British colonies without permanently deaccessioning them. The loans are part of a 15-year partnership between the two museums, and Cullinan has signaled plans to negotiate similar arrangements with China, Nigeria, and Ghana.
Cannupa Hanska Luger's exhibition 'Dripping Earth' at the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, Nebraska, runs until March 8, 2026. The show explores Indigenous futurity through material and conceptual responses to 19th-century watercolors by Swiss artist Karl Bodmer, who documented Luger's ancestral Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara, and Lakota communities during an 1832-1834 expedition. Luger's works include speculative lithographs, a giant buffalo-shaped abacus, and hand-woven bison regalia, addressing colonization's violent legacy and the unreliability of colonial archives.
The British Museum is lending 80 significant Greek and Egyptian artifacts to Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS) as part of a new initiative promoting "decolonization through collaboration" rather than restitution. Director Nicholas Cullinan described the long-term loans as a form of "cultural diplomacy" that offers a constructive alternative to ownership disputes. Separately, the Rothschild family's secretive private art collection at Château de Pregny, dubbed a "mini-Louvre," is at the center of a legal battle between Nadine de Rothschild and her daughter-in-law Ariane de Rothschild over whether the artworks should remain in the château or be moved to a public museum in Geneva.
Art Basel launched its inaugural Art Basel Awards ceremony at the New World Center in Miami Beach during Art Basel Miami Beach week. The awards, first introduced in New York in May, recognized 36 medalists across categories including Icon, Established, Emerging, Patron, Institution, Curator, and Media & Storytelling. Top winners included Cecilia Vicuña (Icon), Nairy Baghramian and Ibrahim Mahama (Established), Mohammad Alfaraj and Saodat Ismailova (Emerging), and Meriem Bennani (BOSS Award). The event was hosted by musician and collector Kasseem "Swizz Beatz" Dean, with performances by cellist Kelsey Lu and recorded narration by actor Emma D'Arcy. Each artist received $50,000, and established artists will debut commissions at Art Basel in Switzerland next year.
The sixth edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (KMB) in Kerala, India, titled "For the Time Being," will open on December 12, 2025, and run until March 31, 2026. Curated by artist Nikhil Chopra and his collective HH Art Spaces, the biennial features 66 artists or groups, including Marina Abramović, Tino Sehgal, Otobong Nkanga, Ibrahim Mahama, and Adrián Villar Rojas. South Asian artists make up about two-thirds of the lineup, with works addressing political themes such as the Kashmir conflict and the Gaza genocide, despite a climate of censorship in India. The central venue, Aspinwall House, will be partially used after previous access issues with developer DLF.
ArtReview has released its 2025 Power 100 list, ranking the most influential figures in the art world over the past year. Artists dominate the top ten, with Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama taking the first place for using his art profits to build institutions and community spaces in Tamale. Other top artists include Wael Shawky, Ho Tzu Nyen, Amy Sherald, Kerry James Marshall, Forensic Architecture, and Wolfgang Tillmans. Gulf royalty also feature prominently: Sheikha Al-Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani of Qatar ranks second, and Sheikha Hoor Al Qasimi of Sharjah ranks third, reflecting the region's growing art-world influence. The list also includes academic Saidiya Hartman as a "thinker" in eighth place.
A new exhibition titled 'Resonant Histories' has opened at Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS) museum, running until 16 February 2026. It is the first show to focus on the relationship between Indian and Arab Modernism, featuring over 40 works lent by the Sharjah-based Barjeel Art Foundation alongside pieces from Mumbai's Jehangir Nicholson Art Foundation (JNAF). The exhibition highlights visual and thematic resonances between artists from both regions, such as Syrian painter Marwan Kassab-Bachi and Indian master Francis Newton Souza, and addresses shared post-colonial struggles through works by artists like Chittaprosad Bhattacharya, Krishen Khanna, Abdul Qader Al Rais, and Naim Ismail. It also explores direct cultural exchanges, for example Egyptian artist Nazek Hamdi's adaptation of Bengali folk-art.