Artists v fascists, Khmer Rouge horrors, fab flowers and an eye-popping nude – the week in art

This week's art roundup from The Guardian features a major exhibition at Towner Eastbourne titled 'Comrades in Art: Artists Against Fascism,' which examines how artists, poets, and intellectuals used their work to resist the rise of extremism in 1930s Europe, drawing on the history of the Artists International Association (AIA). Other highlights include 'Hidden: Photography and Displacement Under the Khmer Rouge' at The Wiener Holocaust Library in London, a show of early Netherlandish drawings at the British Museum, Katharina Grosse's colorful installations at White Cube, and a flower-themed survey at Kettle's Yard. The image of the week is Sylvia Sleigh's 1963 portrait 'The Bridge (Johanna Lawrenson),' part of a new exhibition of the Welsh artist's work. The article also covers news items such as Lydia Ourahmane's Venice Biennale installation, a Holbein portrait mystery, a restored stained-glass window by Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris, and Anish Kapoor's call to exclude the US from the Venice Biennale due to 'politics of hate.'

Venice Biennale 2026 Highlights: Arsenale & Giardini

ArtReview editors highlight the must-see national pavilions at the 61st Venice Biennale, running from 9 May to 22 November 2026. Notable presentations include Austria's Florentina Holzinger turning her pavilion into a toilet and sewage-treatment plant with naked performers, and Germany's pavilion featuring works by Sung Tieu and the late Henrike Naumann, who died in February 2026, exploring East German memory and conceptual minimalism.

Tefaf New York wishlist: a Tiffany window and an Egyptian goddess with a nose job

The article highlights three standout artworks being offered at Tefaf New York. A Tiffany Studios stained-glass window, "Birches and Irises" (around 1915), designed by Agnes Northrop, is priced at $1.25 million through Macklowe Gallery. An Egyptian goddess bust from 570-526 BC, rediscovered at a regional auction in England and later authenticated after scientific study, is offered for £1.5 million by David Aaron. A painting by Cecily Brown, "Functor Hideaway" (2008), is listed at $3.9 million by Berggruen Gallery, coinciding with her current exhibition at London's Serpentine Gallery.

Aspen Art Fair Names More Than 35 Exhibitors for 2026 Edition at Hotel Jerome

The Aspen Art Fair has announced more than 35 exhibitors for its third edition, returning to the Hotel Jerome from July 29 through August 1, 2026. This will be the first edition under director Kelly Cornell, who also leads the Dallas Art Fair. Newcomers include Albertz Benda, Friedman Benda, Library Street Collective, Monique Meloche Gallery, and R & Company, alongside returning galleries such as Marianne Boesky Gallery, Perrotin, Sean Kelly, and Galerie Gmurzynska. The fair will debut an outdoor sculpture garden and continue its Art Prize Program with residencies and commissions through Anderson Ranch Arts Center and Buckhorn Public Arts. It also coincides with the AIR festival organized by the Aspen Art Museum and partners with the Aspen Education Foundation to support local student artists.

At a Powerful Carnegie International, Solidarity Is a Means of Survival

The 2026 Carnegie International, titled “If the word we,” opened at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, featuring 61 artists from around the world. Curated by Ryan Inouye, Liz Park, and Danielle A. Jackson, the exhibition emphasizes collective survival and interdependence, with works including Khalil Rabah’s video about Palestinian resilience, Shala Miller’s abstraction inspired by Toni Morrison, and a performance by Brooke O’Harra and collaborators celebrating teamwork through a historic basketball dunk by Julius Erving. The show extends to three other venues, including the Mattress Factory, where married artists Claudia Martinez Garay and Artur Kameya present a sprawling installation.

‘This is the place of dreams’: Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo’s Venetian island venue opens to public

Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo opened San Giacomo, a Venetian lagoon island she and her husband bought in 2018, to the public on May 7 during the Venice Biennale. The former military site now houses exhibition spaces in converted munitions storehouses, featuring a solo show by Matt Copson curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, selections from the Sandretto collection with works by Michael Armitage, Sarah Lucas, Victor Man, and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, and outdoor installations by Pamela Rosenkranz, Claire Fontaine, Hugh Hayden, and Goshka Macuga. The island also includes a chapel-like structure by Hayden and a rocket sculpture by Macuga.

For Fashion Iconoclast Iris van Herpen, ‘Nature Is the Best Artist’

The Brooklyn Museum has opened "Iris van Herpen: Sculpting the Senses," a major exhibition surveying two decades of the Dutch designer's avant-garde fashion. Curated by Matthew Yokobosky and Imani Williford, the show features over 140 of van Herpen's biomorphic couture pieces, including designs worn by Lady Gaga and Björk, alongside works by contemporary artists like Agostino Arrivabene and Tara Donovan. The exhibition, which originated at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris in 2023, highlights van Herpen's use of cutting-edge technology such as 3D printing and magnetic sculpting, as well as her deep inspiration from natural phenomena like fossils, coral, and water.

Radiohead Brings Its Strange Visual Universe to Life in an Immersive Spectacle

Radiohead has launched "Motion Picture House," an immersive audiovisual installation at Brooklyn Navy Yards in New York, on view through June. The exhibition draws from the band's albums *Kid A* (2000) and *Amnesiac* (2001), featuring glitching televisions, cryptic posters, stick-figure sculptures, and alien landscapes. It culminates in a 75-minute film, *KID A MNESIA*, directed by Sean Evans, originally released in 2021. The show debuted at Coachella Festival and will travel to Chicago, Mexico City, and San Francisco through early 2027.

What You Should Definitely Avoid in Venice

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The article humorously critiques the Venice Biennale, highlighting several disappointments. It describes a Japanese pavilion installation by Ei Arakawa-Nash featuring baby dolls for diaper-changing, which a critic dismisses as a male artist over-romanticizing parenthood. Other flops include long queues for the German and Austrian pavilions, underwhelming main exhibition "In Minor Keys," and annoying self-promotional performers outside venues. The piece also laments the presence of loud American collectors and donors who dominate the event.

The 2026 Venice Biennale Is Quintessential Biennial Art

The 61st Venice Biennale, titled "In Minor Keys" and curated by the late Swiss-Cameroonian curator Koyo Kouoh, opened in 2026. The main exhibition at the Arsenale and Giardini features works by artists such as Éric Baudelaire, Maria Magdalena Campos Pons, Mohammed Z. Rahman, Sohrab Hura, and Rose Salane, among others. The exhibition centers on themes of mourning, colonial history, slavery, and healing, with works like Baudelaire's video installation linking the flower trade to the transatlantic slave trade, and a tribute section honoring artists Beverly Buchanan and Issa Samb.

Still in 'war mode': Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art reopens with exhibitions about conflict

The Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art (TMoCA) has reopened with a weekly rotating post-ceasefire program called 'Art and War,' following weeks of bombardment that forced its closure and prompted emergency efforts to protect its collection. The program began with works by American Pop artists James Rosenquist, Roy Lichtenstein, and Robert Indiana, and this week features three works from Pablo Picasso's Weeping Woman series, focusing on Spain. Museum director Reza Dabirinezhad described the challenges of safeguarding the collection during US-Israeli strikes, including removing 80% of the oil from Noriyuki Haraguchi's installation 'Matter and Mind' (1977) to prevent fire risk, and protecting outdoor sculptures by Henry Moore, René Magritte, and Max Bill.

The British Museum Is Recreating the Bayeux Tapestry’s Medieval Woodland

The British Museum is installing a temporary woodland installation called "Tapestry of Trees" in its forecourt from May 16 to June 2, evoking the 11th-century English landscape depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry. Designed by garden designer Andy Sturgeon, the installation features 37 silver birch trees and planters with dyed hessian wraps matching the tapestry's colors, alongside woodland species like Guelder Rose and Foxglove. It launches public programming ahead of the tapestry's historic loan from France, which will be displayed in a blockbuster exhibition on the Norman Conquest starting in September.

Naked jetskiers, giant bells and a celebrity seagull! Venice Biennale’s wildest moments – in pictures

The Guardian presents a photo essay capturing the most eccentric and memorable moments from the 61st Venice Biennale, running until 22 November 2026. Photographer David Levene documents installations including a concrete 'Origami Deer' evacuated from war-torn Pokrovsk, Ukraine, by artist Zhanna Kadyrova; a seagull that became a minor celebrity after nesting outside the Polish pavilion; and the Holy See pavilion's immersive sound installation curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Ben Vickers. Other highlights include the Egyptian pavilion's touch-and-smell 'Silence Pavilion' and a Polish pavilion film featuring deaf and hearing singers.

Esther fair goes out on top

The Esther art fair, a satellite of Frieze New York, opened its third and final iteration at Estonian House on East 34th Street. Founded by Estonian gallerists Olga Temnikova and Margot Samel, the fair eschews conventional stands, instead arranging 22 participating galleries and three bespoke projects throughout the historic Beaux-Arts building’s basement, salons, and upper floors. Highlights include sold-out presentations at Adams and Ollman and Management, works by Katja Novitskova, Jill Goldstein, and Elīna Vītola, and a special project by Darja Popolitova and Madlen Hirtentreu turning beauty-industry equipment into installations. Gallerists praised the cooperative atmosphere, contrasting it with larger, more institutionalized fairs.

What does a woman swimming in urine tell us about the state of the world? Lots! – Venice Biennale review

The 2026 Venice Biennale, curated by the late Koyo Kouoh under the theme "In Minor Keys," has been plagued by months of turmoil including countries withdrawing, artists being fired, exhibitions cancelled, funding pulled, and protests during the preview. A five-person curatorial team took over after Kouoh's death, resulting in what the critic describes as a disjointed, committee-driven exhibition that prioritizes quiet contemplation and healing over direct political engagement. The central shows in the Giardini and Arsenale feature a vast, poorly explained array of art from the global south, with installations of ceramics, textiles, slide projectors, and serene natural scenes that the critic finds anachronistic and dull.

A Londra si allestisce un’installazione di Christo e Jeanne-Claude che non si era mai vista prima

An unprecedented installation by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, titled "Air Package on a Ceiling," is being exhibited for the first time at Gagosian's Grosvenor Hill space in London, opening May 21, 2026. The work was originally conceived in 1968 for the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia but never realized due to technical constraints. It was rediscovered in 2018 when Lorenza Giovanelli, Christo's former studio manager, found a detailed scale model hidden inside a pedestal. The exhibition also includes early works such as "Wrapped Automobile—Volvo, Model PV-544" (1981), not seen in thirty years, alongside preparatory drawings and collages.

Several Eternities in a Day: Form in the Age of Living Materials

The Hammer Museum in Los Angeles presents "Several Eternities in a Day: Form in the Age of Living Materials," a spring 2026 exhibition running from April 5 to August 23. Curated by Jill Spalding, the show features works by artists including Edgar Calel, Guadalupe Maravilla, Carmen Argote, and others, exploring the concept of "Brownness"—a fluid identity rooted in ancestral memory, animal kinship, and a profound connection to living materials. The exhibition is organized into three acts: large-scale installations, paintings and works on paper, and ceramics, offering a visceral and immersive experience that draws on precolonial traditions across the Americas.

Public art blossoms around New York

New York City's public spaces are blooming with large-scale outdoor art this spring, complementing the gallery and museum season. From the High Line to Brooklyn Bridge Park, the Bronx to Stuyvesant Square, artists including Derek Fordjour, Raven Halfmoon, Monira Al Qadiri, Judith Modrak, Woody De Othello, Shellyne Rodriguez, and Graciela Cassel have installed sculptures, murals, and interactive works. Highlights include Fordjour's mural *Backbreaker Double* (2025), Halfmoon's ceramic bust *West Side Warrior* (2025), and Rodriguez's *Phoenix Ladder: Monument to the People of the Bronx* (2025), which commemorates housing loss in the 1970s.

New Museum unveils Sarah Lucas's bawdy Bowery commission

The New Museum unveiled Sarah Lucas's sculpture "VENUS VICTORIA" (2026) on May 12 as the inaugural commission for its new public plaza on the Bowery in New York. The work features a pink-hued figure in yellow high heels straddling a giant cast-concrete washing machine, riffing on the classic reclining nude. Lucas's proposal was selected by an all-artist jury including Teresita Fernández, Joan Jonas, Julie Mehretu, Cindy Sherman, and Kiki Smith. The sculpture will remain on view for two years, after which another commission by a woman artist will take its place.

Pioneering British photographer Julia Margaret Cameron honoured with a blue plaque in London

A blue plaque has been unveiled on the London home of pioneering British photographer Julia Margaret Cameron at 10 Chesham Place in Belgravia, celebrating her legacy. Cameron took up photography at age 48 and created iconic portraits of figures like Alfred Tennyson, Charles Darwin, and Thomas Carlyle, as well as images of her family and neighbors. The plaque was installed by English Heritage, with family members including musician Jules Cameron, singer Jasmine van den Bogaerde (Birdy), and artist Julian Bell attending the ceremony. Cameron's great-great-great-granddaughter Jules Cameron noted that the honor feels like a continuation of her work to fix presence in light and memory.

Exhibitions marking 250th anniversary of the US open in New York

Several New York museums have opened exhibitions marking the 250th anniversary of the United States, which falls on 4 July 2026. The New-York Historical Society presents "Old Masters, New Amsterdam," drawn from the Leiden Collection, focusing on the lives of Dutch colonists. The Hispanic Society Museum & Library offers "Goya and the Age of Revolution," linking the American Revolution to European upheavals and Goya's depictions of war. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has installed "Revolution!" in its American Wing, reexamining the nation's founding through art. A rare copy of the Declaration of Independence handwritten by Thomas Jefferson will also be on view at the New York Public Library.

Venice Diary Day 3: Offsite Highlights Include Fleshy Films and Vegetarian Videos

The article reports on the author's third day at the Venice Biennale, focusing on offsite exhibitions. Highlights include Li Yi-Fan's animated video "Screen Melancholy" (2026) at the Taiwan Pavilion, described as chaotic, absurdist, and uncanny, featuring a naked CGI character interacting with ChatGPT. The author also praises Janis Rafa's video installation "Baby I'm Yours, Forever" (2026) at Fondazione In Between Art Film, which transforms scenes from a meat refrigeration plant into haunting surreal imagery. The piece notes the resurgence of video art, aided by LED screens that create immersive environments.

‘I shared a single bed with my mother for three years’: Sung Tieu on her monument to immigrant workers in Venice

Artist Sung Tieu has clad the German pavilion at the 2024 Venice Biennale with a mosaic replica of the Gehrenseestrasse complex, a now-abandoned housing estate in Berlin where she lived as a child. The work, titled "Human Dignity Shall Be Inviolable," uses three million mosaic stones to recreate the facade of the prefabricated blocks that housed Vertragsarbeiter—contract workers from Vietnam, Mozambique, Angola, and Cuba who bolstered East Germany's economy. Tieu, who shared a single bed with her mother in the complex for three years, conceived the pavilion alongside the late artist Henrike Naumann.

On Paranoid Time

Film Notes has published Qingyuan Deng's essay exploring the intersection of Lacan's concept of retroactive meaning and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's distinction between paranoid and reparative reading, as applied to recent artists' films and moving-image installations. The essay examines how works like Alison Nguyen's installation "Perforation, Ellipse" at New York's Storefront for Art and Architecture use cinematic techniques—such as perforations, splices, and missing scenes—to hold the temporal gap between an event and its belated political comprehension, focusing on the censorship of Vietnamese bolero songs after the American War.

How Dayanita Singh Got Into Venice’s Archives

Artist Dayanita Singh mounted a major exhibition titled "ARCHIVIO" at the State Archives of Venice, which opened to the public as an exhibition venue for the first time in its history. Without institutional funding or a public relations budget, Singh relied on a "friendship economy" to install her signature "photo-pillars"—images of Indian archival documents bound in red cloth. The show attracted visitors despite the lack of traditional promotion, as documented in an interview with Hyperallergic Editor-at-Large Hrag Vartanian.

Rare Early Basquiat Works Return to Brooklyn After HBCU Tour

An intimate collection of early Jean-Michel Basquiat works and ephemera, titled "Our Friend, Jean," is returning to Brooklyn's The Bishop Gallery starting May 16, 2026. The exhibition draws primarily from the archive of Alexis Adler, Basquiat's former roommate and partner from 1979–80, and includes paintings on sweatshirts, postcards, writings, and photographs Adler took of the artist. Originally presented in 2019, the show traveled to six historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) between 2022 and 2024, attracting 10,000 visitors and involving students in the installation process.

Getting Messy in the Archive at LA’s Art Book Fair

Printed Matter's Los Angeles Art Book Fair returned to the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena for its 13th edition, featuring over 250 exhibitors—slightly fewer than last year—with about a fifth participating for the first time. A common thread across the fair was the archive: publications that excavate, remix, and repurpose historical media, from a book chronicling a 1960s hoax about animal nudity to a compendium of vintage photographs that subvert male subjectivity, and a collection of found photos from abandoned houses in rural Maine. The fair also highlighted diasporic and personal archives, including a Palestinian-American artist's cassette mixtape tracing music from the Middle East and an artist-run press focusing on translation as cultural resistance.

Dale Chihuly Is Synonymous With Seattle. But Venice Gave Him a Medium, a Career Blockbuster, and a Son.

Dale Chihuly returns to Venice with "Chihuly: Venice 2026," a public exhibition marking the 30th anniversary of his landmark 1996 project "Chihuly Over Venice." The new show features three large-scale glass sculptures installed along the Grand Canal, viewable from the Accademia Bridge, at Palazzo Franchetti, Palazzo Querini alla Carità, and Palazzo Balbi-Valier Sammartini. The article also recounts Chihuly's 1968 Fulbright-funded study at Venini, where he learned Murano glassblowing and embraced glass as his primary medium, and reveals that his son Jackson Chihuly was conceived in Venice after a party hosted by the late Paul Allen.

‘This is an opportunity that will never happen again’: Syrian artist Sara Shamma on rebuilding her country

Syrian artist Sara Shamma has been selected to represent Syria at the 2026 Venice Biennale, marking the country's return to the event with a single-artist national pavilion for the first time. Her immersive installation, 'The Tower Tomb of Palmyra,' curated by Yuko Hasegawa and commissioned by Syria's ministry of culture, combines painting, architecture, light, sound, and scent. It draws on the ancient funerary towers of Palmyra destroyed by Islamic State in 2015, addressing cultural loss and the possibility of reconstruction. Shamma, who returned to Syria in September 2024 after eight years abroad, describes living through the fall of the Assad regime and the country's rebirth as a transformative personal and national moment.

What Does a Booth Cost at a New York Art Fair?

Hyperallergic surveyed 13 New York art fairs about their booth pricing, revealing a wide range of costs from $3,500 at NADA Projects to over $105,000 for large booths at Frieze. The article details specific pricing tiers at Frieze ($31,977–$105,717), NADA ($3,500–$11,000), and Independent ($110 per square foot), noting that Frieze has kept 2025 prices for its 2026 edition and that NADA's costs have remained stable since 2022. The investigation also highlights the debut of the Sherman Family Foundation Acquisition Fund at Frieze and the partnership between Independent and the Henry Street Settlement.