Marica Vilcek, art historian and co-founder of the Vilcek Foundation, has died at 89 in New York. She and her husband Jan, both immigrants from Czechoslovakia, established the foundation in 2000 to provide grants and prizes, primarily to immigrant artists, curators, and scientists, celebrating their contributions to American society.
Turkish-American artist Bilgé (Bilgé Civelekoğlu Friedlaender), a largely overlooked figure in American Minimalism, is the subject of a new institutional exhibition in New York titled “Torn Time: Bilgé” at the Institute for Arab and Islamic Art (IAIA). The show, curated by IAIA Founding Director Mohammed Rashid Al-Thanion and on view through October, highlights works from the two decades following her 1972 deep-sea dive in the Bahamas, which sparked a period of prodigious creation using delicate paper interventions. Bilgé studied at the Istanbul Academy of Fine Arts and NYU, exhibited at Betty Parsons Gallery and Kornblee Gallery in 1974, and was included in the Smithsonian’s “Paper as Medium” (1978), the International Istanbul Biennial (1989), and the International Biennial of Paper Art (1992). The exhibition draws from her estate, represented by Sapar Contemporary.
The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) have launched "A Nation of Artists," a massive dual-museum exhibition running through late 2027. The show features over 1,000 works, including the public debut of 120 pieces from the private Middleton Family Collection, owned by Philadelphia Phillies owner John Middleton. While the PMA presents the works chronologically from 1700 to 1960, PAFA offers a thematic exploration, both aiming to integrate underrepresented Black, Indigenous, and immigrant artists alongside canonical figures like Georgia O’Keeffe and Jackson Pollock.
George Febres (Guayaquil, 1943 – New Orleans, 1996) was an Ecuadorian artist whose work blended pop art, neo-surrealism, and Southern U.S. culture, shaped by his experience as a migrant and queer individual. The article traces his life from a privileged but unstable childhood in Ecuador to his migration to the United States, where he was drafted during the Vietnam War and eventually settled in New Orleans. Febres used bilingualism and ironic appropriation of tropical imagery to create a hybrid, irreverent body of work that challenges the official historiography of Ecuadorian art.
An open-air art exhibition titled "Always Changing. Always Welcoming" has launched at the O2 Centre in West Hampstead, London, curated by the Ben Uri Gallery and Museum. The exhibition transforms hoarding around a former Homebase site into a public gallery, featuring works by refugee and immigrant artists who lived and worked in north London, including Tam Joseph's "The Hand Made Map of the World" and Elisabeth Tomalin's "Head." The display aims to make rarely seen collection works accessible to local communities.
The inaugural exhibition at the newly renovated Intuit Art Museum in Chicago, titled "Catalyst: Im/migration and Self-Taught Art in Chicago," brings together 75 works by 22 self-taught immigrant artists who have shaped the city's cultural landscape. Featured artists include Carlos Barberena, Drossos P. Skyllas, Charles Warner, Alfonso "Piloto" Nieves Ruiz, and others, with works spanning linocuts, hyperrealistic paintings, found-object sculpture, and mixed media. The show runs through January 11, 2026.
This episode of The Art Newspaper's podcast 'The Week in Art' covers three major stories. First, a host of exhibitions and events celebrating the 100th anniversary of Swiss kinetic artist Jean Tinguely, including shows at the Tinguely Museum in Basel, Lehmbruck Museum in Duisburg, Hauser & Wirth Somerset, and the Grand Palais in Paris. Second, the newly opened Fenix museum in Rotterdam, a museum dedicated to migration, featuring a dramatic stainless steel tornado staircase. Third, the episode's Work of the Week focuses on Ben Shahn's 1941 study 'Harvesting Wheat' for his mural 'The Meaning of Social Security,' discussed in conjunction with a major exhibition of Shahn's work at the Jewish Museum in New York.
The Alpharetta Arts Center is hosting a solo exhibition of works by Cuban-born, Atlanta-based artist Alexi Torres through April 18. The showcase features a diverse range of media, including intricate oil paintings that mimic woven textures, bronze sculptures, and embroideries that explore themes of spiritual connection and human consciousness. Torres, who follows lunar cycles for his creative process, utilizes symbolic imagery such as a scarlet wicker Buddha and a Statue of Liberty rendered in baseball stitching to convey complex narratives.
The Vilcek Foundation is accepting applications for its 2026 grant cycle, offering up to $20,000 per grant to nonprofit organizations that highlight immigrant contributions in the arts, sciences, and culture. The total funding pool is $200,000, with a deadline of April 30, 2026. This initiative marks the second year of this specific grant program, expanding the foundation's long-standing mission as it celebrates its 25th anniversary.
Award-winning artist Adriana Groza has announced the grand opening of the Adriana Groza Art Gallery & Studio at 38 Spring Street in Princeton, New Jersey, in the former Kopp’s Cycle building. The ribbon-cutting event takes place on Tuesday, November 25, from 5:25 to 7:25 p.m., coinciding with the 21st anniversary of Groza and her husband's arrival in the United States. Groza has been an active member of the Princeton arts community since 2021, maintaining a studio at Princeton Makes, an artist cooperative founded by Jim Levine. The new gallery will showcase her original paintings and serve as a hub for workshops, exhibitions, and community engagement.
Villepin in Hong Kong presents 'As the Ground Holds', a focused exhibition running from 21 May to 8 August 2026. The show brings together works by Léonard Tsuguharu Foujita, Zenzaburō Kojima, Lê Phổ, and Mai Trung Thứ—four artists who made Paris their home during the city's modernist heyday. It marks Kojima's debut in a Hong Kong gallery and reunites works by these migrant artists who navigated the École de Paris in the 1920s and 1930s.
Korean American visual artist Sungmo Cho is returning to South Korea after 14 years to exhibit his 'Along the LOVE Road' series in Seoul and Buyeo. Cho, who moved to New York in 1992, has created over 30 solo shows and 150 group shows across four countries. His works explore themes of migration, memory, and the tension between civilization and nature, with roads serving as a central symbol of both human progress and environmental destruction.
Above & Beyond Children's Museum (ABCM) in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, will host a listening session on May 4, 2025, as it prepares the second iteration of its Culture Exchange Exhibit, this time focusing on the Mexican immigrant experience. The museum is partnering with Gabriela Marván, a Mexican artist from Viroqua and co-founder of the Mexican Folk Art Collective, who specializes in cartonería (paper sculpture). Marván will create monumental alebrijes, an ofrenda altar, and papel picado for the exhibit, which will be installed in November. The project also includes workshops, Aztec dance, bilingual story times, and loteria games, aiming to engage visitors in Mexican folk traditions over several years.
Animierte Körper
Latefa Wiersch presents her exhibition "Atlas Studios" at the Istituto Svizzero in Rome, featuring unsettling, puppet-like sculptures that resemble film sets. The works explore themes of bodily helplessness, imperfection, and geopolitical displacement, drawing on her earlier project "Hannibal" at the Dortmunder Kunstverein, which addressed post-migrant German realities and the demolition of a housing complex. The new installation references the Atlas Studios in Ouarzazate, Morocco, and the history of cinema, with figures made from rags and nylon stockings that appear as actors or set workers.
An exhibition titled "Sown by the Traveler: Women and Migrants in Philippine Art" has opened at UPV MACH (UP Visayas Museum of Art and Cultural Heritage) in Iloilo City, featuring 16 paintings by six Filipino artists who lived abroad: Fernando Zobel, Alfonso Ossorio, Macario Vitalis, Juvenal Sanso, Anita Magsaysay-Ho, and Nena Saguil. Curated by Patrick D. Flores from the collection of the Lopez Museum and Library, the show runs until May 8, 2026, and explores themes of migration and longing for home, with its title drawn from Jose Rizal's poem "To the Flowers of Heidelberg."
Saina Heshmati and Amir Amini have opened ANTiPODE Art Gallery in Seattle’s Pioneer Square, a new space dedicated to showcasing the work of immigrant artists. Located in a basement shared with the Seattle Jazz Fellowship, the gallery functions as a multi-modal hub for cultural exchange, hosting art exhibitions alongside film screenings, tea ceremonies, and experimental music. The founders, both Tehran natives, aim to bridge the gap between Seattle and distant global cities through diverse programming that emphasizes the intersection of different artistic disciplines.
Shirin Abedinirad, an Iranian land artist and faculty member at Utah Valley University School of the Arts, has created works for the exhibition "Healing Waters: Restoring Our Relationship with Utah Lake" at the UVU Museum of Art. After immigrating to the United States four years ago and studying at Michigan State University, she felt disconnected from Michigan's humid landscape. A trip to Utah, where the desert environment reminded her of Iran's Urmia Lake and the Great Salt Lake, inspired her to create land art again. Her pieces in the show include videos of performance art filmed on Utah Lake's shores and a striking installation of red felt roots symbolizing the connection between all living things.
This article from Rough Draft's Sketchbook newsletter highlights two Atlanta-focused art stories. Painter Carlos Solis, who left Venezuela for Kennesaw nearly two decades ago, curates "In the Beginning," a group exhibition opening May 9 at the Hudgens Center's Fowler Gallery in Duluth, featuring 15 artists from around the world who now call Georgia home. Separately, designer and illustrator George F. Baker III, originally from Nebraska and shaped by Detroit, was commissioned by the Mayor's Office of Cultural Affairs to create the key art for the 49th annual Atlanta Jazz Festival, and he discusses how the musical souls of both Detroit and Atlanta influenced his design.
Studio 34, a wellness and community center located at 4522 Baltimore Avenue in West Philadelphia, is hosting a new solo exhibition by Lebanese multidisciplinary artist Tracy Chahwan. Titled “Alien of Extraordinary Abilities,” the show runs through the end of May and features over a decade of Chahwan's work in posters, textiles, and comics. The exhibition traces her journey from designing posters for Beirut's music scene and collaborating with the Samandal and Zeez comics collectives to arriving in Philadelphia during the pandemic, where she was stranded after a planned short visit turned into a permanent relocation.
El Salvador will debut its own national pavilion at the 61st Venice Biennale, running from May 9 to November 22, 2025. The exhibition, titled "Cartographies of Displacement," features the sculptural series "Children of the World" by Salvadoran-American artist J. Oscar Molina, curated by Alejandra Cabezas and commissioned by Dr. Astrid Bahamond. The pavilion is located at Palazzo Mora, showcasing Molina's elongated, faceless monumental figures that explore the migrant experience and global diaspora.
During the Milwaukee Art Museum’s annual Art in Bloom event, the Journal Sentinel gathered feedback from hundreds of attendees and digital survey respondents about what they want from arts coverage. The new arts and culture reporter, who wrote the article, outlines the key requests: more advance event coverage (especially free, family-friendly, and hands-on activities), support for smaller and underground art scenes, profiles of local artists including youth, coverage of overlooked art forms like graffiti and fabric arts, and diverse representation of Latino, women, LGBTQ+, and immigrant artists.
Two best friends, Amir Amini and Saina Heshmati, founded ANTiPODE gallery in Seattle in September 2025. The gallery prioritizes immigrant and established artists, with 70% of exhibitions dedicated to immigrant artists and 30% to local artists, aiming to act as a cultural bridge between Seattle and cities like Tehran. The founders previously curated a group exhibition called "Postcard from Tehran" at the RailSpur building, which inspired the gallery's mission. ANTiPODE also hosts events such as movie nights and experimental music and dance performances to connect with the local community.
Martin Dominguez of Warwick, Uruguay, presents his solo exhibition “PLACEment” at Orange Hall Gallery, SUNY Orange, from September 26 through November 21, 2025, coinciding with Hispanic Heritage Month. The show features paintings, sculptures, and hand-crafted stop-motion film sets that explore the immigrant experience through themes of displacement, resilience, and belonging. An opening reception on September 26 includes pianist Darius Beckford.
More than 20 local artists are showcasing works in the "Wildest Dreams" exhibit at Nino Studio & Gallery in Seattle's Pioneer Square, running through July 31. Curated by Seattle-based artist Rya Wu, the show honors the histories, experiences, and cultures of first-, second-, and third-generation immigrants. Artists like Yaminee Patel use grains and legumes to depict the journey of food, while Allan Carandang addresses U.S. colonialism and the legacy of Spam in Guam. The exhibit is an extension of Wu's larger series "Have You Eaten," which began in 2023 to explore identity and home for the Asian diaspora.
The New York Times article profiles several immigrant artists in the United States who are responding to heightened anti-immigrant rhetoric and policy changes by doubling down on their creative practices and public engagement. Rather than retreating, these artists are using their work to assert their presence, explore themes of displacement and belonging, and challenge xenophobic narratives. The piece highlights specific artists and their recent projects, exhibitions, and statements that directly confront the current political climate.