The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden has launched the "50 for 50" loan program, a landmark initiative to disperse over 200 artworks from its collection to museums in all 50 U.S. states and Puerto Rico. Major works by artists like Jackson Pollock, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Willem de Kooning will be loaned for up to five years, with a focus on reaching underserved and rural communities.
Artnet News published its quarterly analysis of the most exhibited living artists at over 250 U.S. museums in March 2025, identifying more than 3,700 artists. The top artist is photographer Cara Romero, who appears in multiple museum shows including a major retrospective at the Hood Museum at Dartmouth College. Three of the six most featured artists have Native American backgrounds, reflecting a surge in exhibitions celebrating Indigenous art. The list excludes the late Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, a Native painter and curator who died in January 2025 at age 85 and would have ranked highly.
Firelei Báez presents her first New York exhibition with Hauser & Wirth, featuring a constellation of new paintings, works on paper, and large-scale bronze sculptures across two floors of the gallery's 22nd Street location. The show includes 'View of Nature' (2026), an eight-panel painting based on John Emslie's 1852 engraving, alongside bronze ciguapa figures from Dominican folklore and a series of monumental works on paper that explore atmospheric and cosmic themes.
Hauser & Wirth is hosting a launch event during the opening weekend of Firelei Báez's solo exhibition 'Feet squelching on wet grass, nourished by uncertainty' at its 22nd Street gallery in Chelsea, celebrating the release of Ursula issue No. 16. The issue features a portfolio by Báez titled 'The Earth That Remains,' a cover story on collector Eileen Harris Norton, and contributions on Elsa Schiaparelli, Christopher Harris, Alice B. Toklas, and LACMA director Michael Govan. The free event includes Casa Dragones tequila and access to Báez's exhibition alongside 'Carol Rama. I See You You See Me.'
A global celebration marks the centennial of Robert Rauschenberg's birth on October 22, 1925, with a bumper program of exhibitions at major museums including the Museum of the City of New York, the Guggenheim in New York, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Des Moines Art Center, the Menil in Houston, Museum Ludwig in Cologne, and M+ in Hong Kong. The article highlights eight key facts about Rauschenberg's life and career, from his early use of the G.I. Bill to study art in Paris and at Black Mountain College, to his rebellion against teacher Josef Albers, and his invention of the "Combines"—radical painting-sculpture hybrids that broke with Abstract Expressionism and predicted Pop Art.
Ben Millett, a quilt maker based in Des Moines, Iowa, is presenting his first solo exhibition of quilts at the Des Moines Art Center as part of the Iowa Artists 2025 series. The show, on view through November 2, features approximately 20 quilts that explore themes of queer identity, pop culture, and the practice of quilting itself. Millett draws on Abstract Expressionism, Color Field painting, and queer abstraction, using solid-color fabrics inspired by the Progress Pride flag to create works that navigate transitions and nuance.
This article presents Robert Moore's "Lil' Lucy Figure" (2022), a mold-injected vinyl sculpture measuring 8 × 3 3/20 × 3 inches, available through APC Gallery in Miami Beach and Los Angeles. The work is hand-signed by the artist, comes with a certificate of authenticity, and is part of Moore's "Lil Lucy" series. Moore, a self-taught multidisciplinary artist born in 1983 in Des Moines, Iowa, creates paintings, sculptures, and installations that explore mental health, Black identity, and social justice, drawing on personal biography, art-historical references, and American iconography.
The Buffalo AKG Art Museum has announced a major upcoming exhibition titled "Let Us Gather in a Flourishing Way," featuring fifty-eight contemporary Latinx artists. Curated by Andrea Alvarez, the show examines how artists from the Latin American and Caribbean diaspora are redefining the traditions of painting while challenging political and disciplinary boundaries. After its debut in Buffalo in March 2026, the exhibition will embark on a national tour to Des Moines, Phoenix, and Seattle.
A selection of 15 pieces from the Waterloo Center for the Arts' Haitian art collection—the largest publicly held collection of its kind in the United States—is now on display at the Des Moines Art Center through summer 2025. The exhibition, titled "Light with Ourselves: Haitian Art in Iowa," includes paintings, metalwork, ritual objects, and beaded sequined banners called drapo, co-curated by Elizabeth Gollnick of the Des Moines Art Center and Chawne Paige of the Waterloo Center for the Arts. The collection began with a donation from F. Harold Reulin and his wife and has grown to over 2,000 pieces since 1977.
On the first Friday of every month, Mainframe Studios in Des Moines transforms into a free, interactive art museum, drawing over 2,400 visitors. Approximately 200 artists open their studios to the public, and each event features a different theme. The April edition, curated by Iowa-based artist Jill Wells, featured the exhibition "Diverse by Design," showcasing works by more than 35 contemporary Iowa artists of all abilities and identities, with a focus on multi-sensory engagement and inclusivity.
Inkfish Gallery in Des Moines will open a new exhibition titled “Creatures of the Deep” on Saturday, Dec. 20, featuring marine-inspired works by local artists George C. Scott and Fred Andrews. The opening reception runs from 2 to 5 p.m. at the gallery, located at 22220 7th Avenue South, and is free to the public. The exhibition includes glass art, paintings, photographs, collages, and sculptures, with live jazz guitar by Ron Peters.
Mainframe Studio in Des Moines, Iowa, partnered with the Grinnell Area Arts Council to host a special exhibition in October featuring works by 16 artists from Grinnell, a rural Iowa community. The show, displayed on the studio's third floor, included diverse mediums such as book art, sculpture, and painting, with contributors including Professor Mirzam Cristina Pérez, Professor Erik Simpson, and Professor Pascal Lafontant. Opening night on October 3 drew around 1,600 visitors, highlighting the studio's role in bridging rural and urban art scenes.