Archaeologists from Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History have uncovered a 500-year-old Aztec ritual offering at the Templo Mayor site in Mexico City. The discovery consists of six volcanic stone boxes containing greenstone sculptures, thousands of marine shells, copal spheres, and pendants, all forming a complete ceremonial assemblage from the reign of Emperor Moctezuma I (1440-1469).
José Dávila's solo exhibition "The Simple Act of Positioning" opens at Sean Kelly gallery in New York, featuring sculptures that explore the relational placement of objects in space. The show includes totemic pillars of steel, concrete, volcanic rock, and automotive paint, framed by large black structures, inviting viewers to move through the gallery to fully experience the visual conversations between works. Dávila, originally from Guadalajara and trained in architecture, draws on Modernist precedents from artists like Marcel Duchamp and architects like Luis Barragán.
PHI in Montreal presents two spring/summer 2026 exhibitions: "Come See, Lies Lies" by Paola Pivi and "Other Worlds" by Jakob Kudsk Steensen. Pivi's show features surreal installations including wall-mounted shoes, suspended velvet mattresses, and a metal house with TV screens broadcasting false statements, blending fairy tale and satire. Steensen's exhibition comprises six major works from the past decade, using virtual reality, video games, and sound installations to explore ecological themes and digitized environments like Bora Bora and volcanic seabeds. Both exhibitions open April 23, 2026, and run through September 13, 2026.
Dublin’s Kerlin Gallery is hosting "Stasis field," a solo exhibition by Kathy Prendergast featuring sculpture, works on paper, and installations. The show highlights Prendergast’s long-standing fascination with cartography, where she subverts traditional maps using materials like textile, chalk, stone, and hand-applied pigments. Key works include hand-painted volcanic maps and a three-meter-high painted branch, all created through the artist's signature methodical and repetitive hand-crafting processes.
The Royal Scottish Academy (RSA) has announced its 200th Annual Exhibition, a landmark event running from May 9 to June 14, 2026, in Edinburgh. This bicentenary edition features a massive survey of contemporary Scottish art and architecture, including works by Academicians and selections from an open call. To celebrate the milestone, the RSA will host a "Big Birthday Party" on May 27 and has introduced three major new prizes, including the RSA Jack Vettriano Award, bringing the total prize fund to over £25,000.
A major retrospective of pioneering sculptor Geles Cabrera has opened at the Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, celebrating her centennial year. The exhibition, titled "Partituras Corporales," spans seven decades of her work, featuring nearly 100 sculptures in materials from volcanic stone to plexiglass, and highlights her radical focus on the expressive, often erotic, human body. It follows her recent receipt of Mexico's highest artistic honor, the 2024 Bellas Artes Medal in Visual Arts.
NBA star Devin Booker has developed a significant connection with James Turrell’s Roden Crater, visiting the massive land art project in a dormant Arizona volcano three times since 2020. The Phoenix Suns guard has formed a mutual friendship with Turrell, who praised Booker’s artistic sensibility, while Booker credited the immersive installation with providing a sense of presence and perspective that transcends his professional basketball career.
Los Angeles museums are marking Earth Month with a series of exhibitions and events focused on sustainability and environmental consciousness. Highlights include the Hammer Museum’s exhibition, "Several Eternities in a Day: Form in the Age of Living Materials," which features works by 22 artists using organic substances like avocado, cochineal dye, and volcanic rock. Meanwhile, the Fowler Museum is hosting an immersive look at the indigenous rice cultivation practices of the Ifugao people in the Philippines.
Gallery Les Bois has opened its inaugural exhibition, “Offline,” in London’s Chelsea neighborhood, running through July 22, 2025. The show explores digital saturation, online engagement pressures, and the environmental and human costs of the digital ecosystem. It features work by the artist duo Volcan, including their “Offline Series” (shown at the 60th Venice Biennale) and “Roadworks Series,” alongside contributions from Steve Foster, Oliver Tanay, Miranda Carter, and Jasmine Pradissitto. The gallery, founded by Claire-Julia Hill in 2024, aims to integrate sustainability with contemporary art.
99 Variationen eines Vulkans
Julian Charrière has released a new artist's book titled "After the Smoke Cradle," documenting a series of 99 lithographs originally exhibited at the Verein für Originalgraphik in Zurich. The project features 33 variations of three different volcanoes, created using a unique process where the artist transformed collected lava, ash, obsidian, and sulfur into printing pigments. This material-focused approach ensures that the physical essence of the volcanic sites is literally embedded into the photographic imagery.
National Gallery Singapore has opened a major exhibition titled 'Passion is Volcanic: Desire in Southeast Asian Art.' The show, which carries an unprecedented R18 rating and prohibits photography, presents a comprehensive exploration of eroticism, pleasure, and the body through a wide range of artworks from the region's collection and loans. It is curated by Dr. Patrick Flores, Dr. Adele Tan, and Dr. Kathleen Ditzig, who frame desire as a culturally specific yet universal force shaped by history and power.
National Gallery Singapore has opened its first R18 exhibition, 'Passion Is Volcanic: Desire In South-east Asian Art', featuring around 60% of works from the national collection, many shown for the first time, alongside regional loans. The show includes a 14th-15th century tantric Buddhist sculpture of kissing buddhas, a pastel painting by pioneering gay Singaporean artist Tan Peng, Liu Kang's 1953 painting 'Scene In Bali', and long-exposure photography by Lavender Chang originally commissioned for a Viagra campaign. Co-curators Adele Tan and Kathleen Ditzig contextualize the exhibition with pre-modern works to demonstrate that artists' interest in the body, desire, and sex is enduring in Asia.
Australian photographer Elle Leontiev has been named the Open Photographer of the Year at the 2026 Sony World Photography Awards. Her winning image, titled 'Barefoot Volcanologist,' features Phillip Yamah standing on a lava bomb at Mount Yasur in Vanuatu. Leontiev captured the surreal portrait under challenging technical conditions, relying entirely on autofocus beeps after her camera screens shorted out due to volcanic activity.
James Turrell, the renowned American artist known for his immersive light installations, continues to explore the perceptual and spiritual dimensions of light in his latest works. The article highlights his ongoing projects, including the monumental Roden Crater in Arizona, a volcanic crater transformed into a naked-eye observatory, and recent exhibitions that showcase his signature use of light as a medium. Turrell, now in his 80s, remains deeply committed to his artistic vision, pushing the boundaries of how viewers experience space and illumination.
Le sculture biomorfiche di Alma Allen nel Padiglione USA alla Biennale d’Arte di Venezia 2026 (tra le polemiche)
Alma Allen, a self-taught American sculptor, has been selected to represent the United States at the 61st Venice Biennale in 2026 with the exhibition "Call Me the Breeze." The pavilion, curated by Jeffrey Uslip, will feature site-specific biomorphic sculptures that explore the concept of "elevation" through a hybrid creative process combining pre-industrial carving and hand-modeling with advanced robotic sculpting. Works will incorporate local American materials such as walnut burl, Cantera green volcanic rock, and Yule marble from Colorado, and the pavilion is tied to America250, the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Declaration of Independence.
Central Oregon’s art scene is hosting a diverse array of exhibitions this week across Bend, Sisters, Sunriver, and Redmond. Notable highlights include Jana Charl’s mixed-media showcase "This is not a Love Story" at Art Adventure Gallery, Hilary Baker’s moth-themed "Prophets" at the High Desert Museum, and a collection of literary-inspired quilts at the Deschutes Historical Museum. The offerings span various mediums, from nomadic woven macramé and custom jewelry to volcanic science explorations and historic cartography.
Photographer Jon McCormack, who grew up in the Australian Outback and has traveled to all seven continents, has a new book titled "Patterns: Art of the Natural World," forthcoming from Damiani Books. The project emerged during the pandemic when limited travel led him to revisit local spots and develop a patient, attentive approach to capturing nature's hidden harmony and symmetry. The book features 90 images ranging from microscopic crystals to aerial views of flamingos in Kenya, along with text contributions from fellow photographers and conservationists.
A new study published in the Journal of Cultural Heritage warns that rising sea levels will impact Chile’s Rapa Nui National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site, by 2080. Coastal flooding threatens at least 51 culturally significant artifacts, including the iconic Moai statues—nearly 1,000 volcanic tuff figures created by a native Polynesian tribe over 500 years ago, some weighing up to 80 tons. Researchers from the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa used advanced computer models to simulate wave patterns and map projected flooding, overlaying this data with the locations of cultural assets provided by local partners.
The LensCulture Portrait Awards 2026 have announced their winning and shortlisted photographers, showcasing a diverse range of styles from documentary realism to conceptual invention. Highlights include an Australian photographer's winning portrait of a 'barefoot volcanologist' and poignant series documenting the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and the reclamation of identity in post-colonial contexts.
Poet Ella Frears has composed a new literary work in response to Charlie Prodger’s 2024 drawing, 'Volcano Snake Sun, September'. The poem explores themes of observation, physical detachment, and the tension between tranquility and underlying violence, mirroring the shift in Prodger’s practice from conceptual film to representational pencil-and-pastel works on paper.