Roberta Smith, the longtime co-lead art critic for the New York Times and a towering figure in American art criticism, is the subject of a new documentary titled *House of Criticism*, which premieres at the Tribeca Film Festival. The film focuses on Smith and her husband, New York magazine critic Jerry Saltz. In conjunction with the film's debut, Smith gave an interview reflecting on her career, her critical method, and her views on the art world today.
A new exhibition at Wrightwood 659 in Chicago, “Martin Wong: Chinatown USA,” presents over 100 works by the late self-taught artist, including 11 never-before-exhibited paintings and the never-before-seen back side of a large canvas. The show focuses on Wong’s depictions of San Francisco’s and New York’s Chinatowns, featuring iconic imagery such as Bruce Lee, Peking opera performer Mei Lanfang, and the pagoda-style building at 241 Canal Street. It is the first monographic institutional show of Wong’s work in nearly a decade, complemented by a concurrent New York exhibition, “Martin Wong: Popeye,” at P.P.O.W. Gallery, which closed in June 2026.
Hyperallergic interviews Jamie Nares, a New York-based painter and filmmaker, about her artistic journey and enduring focus on the brushstroke. Nares, who came out as transgender in 2019 and changed her artist name in 2024, discusses her move from London to New York in the mid-1970s, her involvement in the No Wave movement, and her recent decision to relocate permanently to Upstate New York. She explains how she reduced her practice to the single brushstroke, finding endless variation in that gesture, and describes her process as a search for the essences of things, stripping away what is superfluous.
London’s gallery sector is undergoing a reset as a slower market, rising operating costs, and changing collector behavior challenge dealers of all sizes. Despite high-profile closures, around two dozen new galleries have opened in the past few years, and many are experimenting with new business models. London Gallery Weekend (LGW) returns this month (5–7 June), highlighting a shift away from art fairs toward a renewed focus on exhibitions. New galleries like Pale Horse Gallery in Marylebone and Edel Assanti’s second space in St James’s prioritize in-gallery programming, while others like Elizabeth Xi Bauer are expanding into studios and residency programs to offer artists more infrastructure.
Hold to This Earth, the largest exhibition of contemporary Native North American art ever shown in Britain, has opened at a time when the United States prepares for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Curated by Sarah Coulson, the show features works from more than 35 tribal nations, drawn from Santa Fe’s Tia Collection. Artists such as Jeffrey Gibson, Rose B Simpson, Raven Halfmoon, Dakota Mace, and Hock E Aye Vi Edgar Heap of Birds address urgent issues including environmental exploitation, land rights, and Indigenous resilience through a blend of traditional craft and contemporary media.
This week's industry moves roundup from ARTnews includes several notable appointments and gallery changes. Makeda Best has been named Chief Curator of Photography at MoMA, coming from the Oakland Museum of California. Dawn Airey was appointed Chair of Arts Council England, the UK's primary public arts funding body. Artist Rana Begum has joined Lehmann Maupin, with her debut at Art Basel in June and a solo show in New York in September. Freeman's appointed Muys Snijders as CEO, an auction and art advisory veteran with over 25 years of experience. Additionally, Experimenter announced the tenth round of grantees for its Generator Cooperative Art Production Fund, and a work by a follower of Hieronymus Bosch sold for $537,000 at Sotheby's, more than ten times its high estimate.
Hyperallergic's weekly In Memoriam column honors several figures from the art world who recently died, including postminimalist sculptor Alan Saret (1944–2026), Franco-Argentine kinetic artist Julio Le Parc (1928–2026), art-world satirist Hilde Lynn Helphenstein (1985–2026), figurative painter Jay Milder (1934–2026), arts advocate Randall Bourscheidt (1944–2026), Vietnamese photographer Dang Van Phuoc (1935–2026), British actor and art dealer Robin Alastair Hurlstone (1958–2026), and Belgian multimedia artist Marie-Jo Lafontaine (1950–2026). Each obituary highlights their contributions, from Saret's wire sculptures and Le Parc's kinetic works to Helphenstein's satirical Instagram account and Bourscheidt's advocacy for artists with AIDS.
This week's Hyperallergic newsletter highlights artists forging their own paths. Celia Paul, known as a painter-chronicler and former muse to Lucian Freud, has her first New York exhibition in over a decade at Gladstone Gallery in Chelsea, featuring stark, desaturated portraits. Separately, the late Frank Stella's personal collection of 19th-to-20th-century Navajo weavings is on public display for the first time at Arader Galleries on the Upper East Side, ahead of a sale. The issue also covers the What Now: 2026 festival in Philadelphia, Greenpoint Open Studios in Brooklyn, a new mosaic at Brooklyn's Borough Hall subway station, and local backlash over new signage in Kingston, New York.
The Phoenix Art Museum has received a gift of 185 works of modern and contemporary Native American art from collector William P. Healey, the largest such donation in the museum's history. Assembled over the past decade with guidance from Diné artist Tony Abeyta, the collection will anchor a new exhibition titled "The Way We Came: A Century of Indigenous Art," opening August 26 and co-curated by Abeyta and JoAnna Reyes. Featured artists include Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Fritz Scholder, Allan Houser, T. C. Cannon, Kay WalkingStick, and Emmi Whitehorse, though only one artist, Michael Chiago, represents local Phoenix-area Tribes, and the Akimel O'odham, on whose ancestral lands the museum sits, have no representation.
Celia Paul's exhibition "Innervisions" at Gladstone Gallery showcases her latest paintings, including works like "Cruciform Muse" (2025) and "Burning Painter" (2025). The show features her characteristic autobiographical approach, depicting family members, self-portraits, and ocean scenes, while also exploring themes of vulnerability and power through nude figures inspired by Gwen John. The exhibition builds on Paul's established reputation as a painter and memoirist, following her book "Letters to Gwen John" (2022) and a documentary by Jake Auerbach.
On Saturday, the Centre Pompidou-Metz announced that Maurizio Cattelan's iconic artwork *Comedian*—a banana duct-taped to a wall—was stolen from the museum. Staff quickly replaced the fruit with a fresh banana and tape, as is routine every three days. The museum filed a legal complaint against unknown persons, marking the second such incident at the venue after a previous theft in 2024. The artwork's value resides in its certificate of authenticity and presentation protocol, not the perishable banana itself.
Hyperallergic reports on a new book, Matthew Campbell's 'The Man Who Stole the Gods' (2026), which centers on British dealer Douglas Latchford, who trafficked looted Cambodian antiquities on a massive scale before his death in 2020. Latchford sold objects to institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the book examines the criminal network that supplied and transported these works, as well as the museum professionals and scholars who enabled it. The article also covers Frank Stella's collection of Diné (Navajo) textiles, now on view for the first time at Arader Galleries in New York, alongside an obituary for abstract painter Jay Milder, who died at age 92.
Wolfgang Tillmans has been awarded the Roswitha Haftmann Prize, Europe's largest monetary award for living visual artists, worth CHF 150,000 (~$191,361). The prize, established in 2001 in honor of Swiss art dealer Roswitha Haftmann and administered by Kunsthaus Zürich, recognizes Tillmans for his artistic oeuvre and social commitment. In other news, Cheryl Finley was named the 2026 recipient of the David C. Driskell Prize from the High Museum of Art, and El Museo del Barrio will honor Isabel and Agustín Coppel, J Balvin, and Estrellita Brodsky with its Tony Bechara Legacy Award. Additionally, Art Basel announced over 200 exhibitors for its Paris fair, and Jack White's first public exhibition of his visual artwork will open at Damien Hirst's Newport Street Gallery on May 29.
Alan Saret, an artist known for his chaotic wire sculptures and colored-pencil drawings that helped define the 'anti-form' movement of the late 1960s and early '70s, died on Tuesday at age 81. His death was announced by Karma, the New York gallery that staged three exhibitions of his work since 2022. Saret's breakthrough came with a 1968 exhibition at Bykert Gallery, leading to inclusion in Harald Szeemann's landmark show 'When Attitudes Become Form' at Kunsthalle Bern in 1969. His wire sculptures, made from crushed and bent industrial materials, were collected by institutions including the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum. He also created 'Gang Drawings' by dragging multiple colored pencils across paper, surveyed by the Drawing Center in 2007.
Warsaw has emerged as a new hub for art collecting, driven by Poland's economic growth—projected to become the world's 20th largest economy by 2026. The city now hosts Art Warsaw, an art fair held in the historic Villa Róż, which attracted 56 galleries and around 11,000 visitors in its latest edition. Major collectors like Jerzy Starak and Artur Dela are fueling the scene, alongside the new Museum of Modern Art (inaugurated in 2024) and the long-running Warsaw Gallery Weekend.
ARTnews and Art in America have jointly compiled a list of the 100 best artworks about America, selected by their editors. The list spans from before the nation's founding in 1776 to the present day, featuring paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, videos, films, and digital works. Notable entries include rafa esparza's 2019 performance 'bust: indestructible columns,' which involved chiseling himself out of a concrete Ionic column on the Ellipse near the White House as a metaphor for democracy; Bureau of Inverse Technology's 1997–98 project 'BIT Plane,' a surveillance critique using a radio-controlled aircraft over Silicon Valley; and Bruce Nauman's 1981–82 neon work 'American Violence,' which combines sexual advances and white nationalist imagery.
Gallery Weekend Beijing (GWBJ) took place in the 798 Art District, drawing visitors who mingled art-viewing with shopping and leisure in a commercialized landscape. The 10th annual event featured solo exhibitions by younger Chinese artists, including Ouyang Chun's "Nirvana" and Yang Fudong's "Fragrant River," with collectors and patrons like Tian Jun and Zhu Zhu actively shaping the programming. Despite an economic downturn, veteran galleries such as Hive Center for Contemporary Art and Tang Contemporary Art maintained robust activity, while emerging artists explored themes of technological anxiety, bodily perception, and material systems.
Artnet News' gossip column "Wet Paint" reports on the Whitney Museum's 2026 annual gala, a major fundraising event. The author describes the scene: donors and celebrities like Jewel, Neil Patrick Harris, and Nigel Barker mingled with artists Julie Mehretu (the honoree) and Glenn Ligon. Notably, the 56 artists in the current Whitney Biennial were not invited due to limited seating, a policy confirmed by the museum. The evening raised $6.3 million, with individual seats costing $7,500.
The Guardian published a photo essay celebrating American photographer Lee Friedlander, featuring images from his career spanning the 1950s to the 2010s. The article highlights his new book "Life Still," published by Aperture, which collects over 130 photographs—most previously unpublished—showcasing his signature wit and his eye for the American social landscape, including chain link fences, roadside signs, and still lifes. The piece includes commentary from curator Peter Galassi and notes Friedlander's influences from Walker Evans and Robert Frank.
This article is a weekly entertainment guide from The Guardian, covering cinema, gigs, art, stage, streaming, games, albums, and brain food. In the art section, it highlights three upcoming exhibitions: Hulda Guzmán's first major European show at Turner Contemporary in Margate (23 May to 13 September), featuring her lush, mystical tropical paintings exploring Caribbean identity; Lewis Hammond's exhibition of dark, old master-inspired portraiture at The Hepworth in Wakefield (23 May to 1 November); and Joanna Piotrowska's show at The Common Guild in Glasgow (23 May to 18 July).
Keine Haltung, nirgends Gesinnung, null Bedeutung
The article critiques the current state of the art world and broader culture, arguing that right-wing calls for depoliticized art are intensifying while the progressive art establishment silently tolerates a culture war that restricts free expression. It uses the 2025 Met Gala as a prime example, describing the event as a heartless display of wealth and power aligned with Trump-era capitalism, where celebrities and artists perform progressive values while participating in a spectacle sponsored by anti-union figures like Jeff Bezos. The author draws on Hannah Arendt's ethics lectures to suggest that moral norms have collapsed overnight, and that the commercial art world now legitimizes anti-democratic tendencies through its silence.
"Gemeinsames Basteln, Anfassen und Hinlegen"
Christie's in New York achieved record auction results, with Jackson Pollock's "Number 7A, 1948" selling for $181.2 million and Constantin Brâncuși's bronze sculpture "Danaïde" reaching $107.6 million, both from the S. I. Newhouse collection. Meanwhile, critic Gesine Borcherdt published a scathing review of the Marina Abramović exhibition "Balkan Erotic Epic" at Gropius Bau Berlin, arguing that museums increasingly demand audience participation—crafting, touching, lying down—under the guise of democracy, which she likens to group therapy and warns carries authoritarian tendencies. In London, makeup artist and designer Isamaya Ffrench opened a hybrid gallery and concept store called Studio Iron, featuring works by Abramović, Paul McCarthy, Kelly Wearstler, and Anne Imhof, aiming to blur boundaries between art, design, and function.
The article is a personal essay by a writer who, after undergoing a colectomy in 2023, found inspiration in Tracey Emin's unflinching self-portraiture following her 2020 cancer diagnosis. The author describes taking her own post-surgery photographs, echoing Emin's mantra "This is mine, I own it," and reflects on Emin's current work, including the Tate Modern exhibition and paintings like "I watched Myself die and come alive" (2023) and "Barbed Wire Stitches" (2024). The essay also connects Emin's approach to that of Frida Kahlo, whose retrospective is upcoming at Tate.
A Jackson Pollock drip painting, *Number 7A* (1948), formerly owned by media magnate S. I. Newhouse, sold at Christie’s on Monday night for a hammer price of $157 million, totaling $181.2 million with fees. The work, measuring nearly 11 feet wide, received over 60 bids in a 10-minute bidding war and set a new auction record for the Abstract Expressionist artist, surpassing the previous high of $61 million set in 2021. The winning bid was placed by a buyer represented by Christie’s global president Alex Rotter, with Swiss mega-dealer Iwan Wirth acting as an underbidder, possibly for collector Laurene Powell Jobs.
VALIE EXPORT, the Austrian pioneer of feminist performance art, died on 14 May, three days before her 86th birthday. Her death was confirmed by her representative, Thaddaeus Ropac. Born Waltraud Lehner in Linz in 1940, she developed a radical artistic language centered on the female body, known for works such as *Tap and Touch Cinema* (1968–1971) and *Body Configurations* (1972–1976). Tributes have poured in from artists, writers, and institutions, including the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin and the Belvedere Museum in Vienna, where director Stella Rollig noted their ongoing collaboration on the exhibition *Feminist Futures Forever*.
The Guardian's weekly entertainment guide includes a section on art exhibitions, highlighting two shows opening in the UK. Godfried Donkor's solo exhibition at Firstsite in Colchester runs from 22 May to 30 August, weaving stories of resistance from Boudicca to Yaa Asantewaa through collage, painting, and textile. Delcy Morelos's installation at the Barbican in London, running until 31 July, fills the space with huge mounds of earth, clay, and spices to create immersive environments based on Andean and Amazonian knowledge. The guide also mentions Phantasmagoria at the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds, exploring video games and digital art.
Art Dubai opened its 20th edition at Madinat Jumeirah with a significantly reduced number of exhibitors—50 largely regional galleries, down from the originally expected 120—after being delayed from mid-April due to geopolitical tensions following the U.S.-Iran ceasefire on April 8. The fair, which offered free entry for the first time and refunded booth costs for participating galleries, saw strong attendance from Gulf and Middle Eastern collectors, with an upbeat mood and a more intimate atmosphere reminiscent of pre-Covid editions. Galleries from Lebanon and other conflict-affected regions were present, emphasizing art as a form of resilience and cultural identity.
The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London has opened "Rising Voices: Contemporary Art from Asia, Australia and the Pacific," a major exhibition produced in partnership with the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) in Brisbane. Featuring over 70 works never before exhibited in the UK, the show draws from QAGOMA's Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT), which began in 1993. Highlights include Michael Parekōwhai's sculpture of a Māori bouncer, Montien Boonma's terracotta bell installation, and Takahiro Iwasaki's intricate wooden model. The exhibition is the first APT survey to be held outside Australia and Chile, arriving after years of planning by V&A exhibitions director Daniel Slater.
The article reports on the opening of the 61st Venice Biennale, highlighting the central exhibition "In Minor Keys" conceived by the late Koyo Kouoh, along with national pavilions and collateral events. It notes standout contributions from artists such as Alvaro Barrington, Kaloki Nyamai, Florentina Holzinger, Ei Arakawa-Nash, Li Yi-Fan, and Dries Verhoeven, while describing the American pavilion as lackluster and the overall commercial offerings as uneven. The text also covers performances and exhibitions featuring nudity and body horror, including Tino Sehgal's "The Kiss" and Maja Malou Lyse's video with the collective DIS.
Valie Export, the Austrian performance artist and film-maker known for her provocative feminist works that challenged the male gaze, has died at age 85. Her foundation announced she died in Vienna on Thursday, three days before her 86th birthday. Export gained notoriety in the late 1960s for low-budget performances such as "Tapp und Tastkino" (1968), where she invited shoppers to touch her bare breasts through a tiny curtain strapped to her chest. She also co-founded the Austrian Filmmakers Cooperative, participated in documenta (1977, 2007) and the Venice Biennale (1980), and was a professor of multimedia and performance at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne.