Vasari Codex. A living chronicle of the art world.

museum exhibitions schedule Jun 4, 2026

British Landscapes: A Sense of Place shows how ideas of scenery have evolved across 300 years of art

Pallant House Gallery in Chichester has opened "British Landscapes: A Sense of Place," an exhibition of 160 works by 60 artists drawn entirely from the gallery's own collection. Spanning from Thomas Gainsborough and the Smith brothers in the 18th century to Prunella Clough's inner-city wastelands of the 1990s, the show examines how British artists have responded to landscapes over 300 years. Highlights include works by Paul Nash, whose intense relationship with landscape and war experiences anchor the exhibition, alongside pieces by Edward Bawden, Eric Ravilious, Winifred Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth, and Wilhelmina Barns-Graham. The exhibition also features a room devoted to wood engraving and printmaking, an artform many artists turned to after World War I.

article culture schedule May 8, 2026

How super-skinny red carpet trend at Met Gala clashes with own its body-positive Costume Art show

The Met Gala, organized by Vogue and themed around "costume art," was accompanied by an exhibition of the same name at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art opening May 10, focusing on the dressed body. While the exhibition has been praised for using inclusive mannequins representing diverse body types—including variously abled, fat, thin, and pregnant forms—the red carpet was criticized for its overwhelming thinness and the involvement of honorary chairs Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos, who reportedly sponsored the event for $10 million, sparking boycott calls. Fashion commentators like Diet Prada noted the Gala was more poorly received than ever, with some celebrities absent.

museum exhibitions schedule Apr 23, 2026

Turner prize 2026 shortlist points to sculpture as a way of thinking about power, ecology and belief

The Turner Prize 2026 shortlist has been announced, featuring four artists—Simeon Barclay, Marguerite Humeau, Kira Freije, and a fourth unnamed artist—whose practices are rooted in sculpture and installation. The jury, chaired by Alex Farquharson (director of Tate Britain) and including Sarah Allen, Joe Hill, Sook-Kyung Lee, and Alona Pardo, praised the artists for their material intelligence and ability to link sculptural language to systems of power, memory, and belief. Barclay's work combines performance and industrial materials to explore British national identity, Humeau's speculative sculptures investigate non-human intelligence and belief systems, and Freije's hybrid figures examine vulnerability and identity through fabric and metal.

museum exhibitions schedule Apr 20, 2026

Perspectives on a collection: why you should explore New Asian Art at the National Gallery of Australia

The National Gallery of Australia in Canberra is currently presenting 'New Asian Art,' a permanent collection display featuring recent acquisitions and highlights from across Asia. The exhibition includes a significant suite of works by Thai-born artist Korakrit Arunanondchai, featuring video and sculptural elements, as well as pieces by Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake, the artist collective teamLab, and painter Yoshitomo Nara, exploring themes of globalization and cultural exchange.

museum exhibitions schedule Mar 5, 2026

Zimbabwean artist Option Nyahunzvi explores cultural values in a bold new exhibition

Zimbabwean artist Option Dzikamai Nyahunzvi has launched a major solo exhibition titled 'Zvatiri' (Who We Are) at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe. The show features a multidisciplinary approach, combining installations, live-art performances, and paintings created with a unique technique of layering and etching Fabriano paper onto canvas. The works heavily reference Shona identity, specifically the 'hunhu' (or ubuntu) belief system and the artist's own Mbizi (zebra) totem, aiming to reconnect contemporary audiences with ancestral wisdom.

museum exhibitions schedule Dec 9, 2025

Artist Olafur Eliasson brings the outside world thrillingly to life inside the art gallery

Icelandic-Danish artist Olafur Eliasson's major survey exhibition 'Presence' has opened at the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) in Brisbane, Australia. Curated by Geraldine Kirrihi Barlow, the show synthesizes three decades of Eliasson's immersive installations, photography, and sculpture, including iconic works like 'Riverbed' (2014) and 'The cubic structural evolution project' (2004), both from QAGOMA's permanent collection. A spectacular new installation also titled 'Presence' features a pulsing artificial sun using mirrors and monofrequency light to create an illusion of infinite space.

museum exhibitions schedule Jun 17, 2025

Artist Eric Smith won 3 Archibalds, then vanished. A new show reveals his unseen works

A new exhibition at Macquarie University Art Gallery reveals unseen works by Eric Smith (1919-2017), a celebrated Australian artist who won three Archibald Prizes and six Blake Prizes before unexpectedly vanishing from public life. Despite his early fame—including a role in launching Australian abstract expressionism with the group show Direction 1—Smith's career stalled after the death of his gallerist Rudy Komon in 1982, leaving him without a connection to the art world. He continued painting prolifically for four more decades, working daily in his studio, but destroyed more than half his output and had no major gallery shows after 1989.

article local schedule May 29, 2025

Mbare Art Space: a colonial beer hall in Zimbabwe has become a vibrant arts centre

Moffat Takadiwa, a leading figure in Zimbabwe's artist-run spaces movement, has transformed a former colonial-era beer hall in the Mbare township of Harare into the Mbare Art Space. Opened in 2019 under a long lease from the Harare City Council, the nonprofit hub now houses studios, an exhibition hall, a digital hub, and office space, serving as a vibrant center for artistic and community revival. The beer hall was originally built by British colonial authorities as a tool of social control and segregation, but Takadiwa has repurposed it into a site of creative freedom and empowerment, inspired by global precedents like Theaster Gates' Stony Island Arts Bank in Chicago.

person The Conversation