Today's Art Pulse
Art Students League launches program to nurture next‑gen public artists
The Art Students League announced a new program aimed at discovering and supporting emerging public artists. The initiative seeks to broaden the League’s community engagement and provide resources for artists working in public spaces.
New York City Blur as Method: Memory, Perception, and the Instability of the Present by Shuhan Zhang
The Nugyen Wahed Gallery’s exhibition "When Blurry Memories Awaken" reframes memory as a fluid, ongoing process rather than a static archive. Curated by Jinyi Freya Xu, the show dissolves boundaries between painting, photography and installation, using blur to activate perception and temporality. Participating artists such as Ruoyu Gong and Haidong Yang employ unstable visual signs that resist fixed representation, turning the act of viewing into a negotiation of indeterminate meaning. The exhibition positions blur as a counter‑force to today’s high‑resolution visual culture, emphasizing layered temporality and relational memory.
Sharon’s Substack / April 1, 2026
Artist Sharon Butler announces that her painting *Green Wall 3* will be featured in the American Abstract Artists’ 90th‑anniversary show “Abstract by Definition: An Index” at Art Cake in Brooklyn. Curated by critic Saul Ostrow, the exhibition juxtaposes 90 artists to...
AVL Releases Public Art RFQ
Asheville Regional Airport (AVL) has issued a Request for Qualifications to commission permanent public‑art installations as part of its AVL Forward terminal modernization. The airport seeks artists for two large‑scale works—one in the grand hall and another in the airside...
Eastern Promises
Hong Kong’s spring art auctions posted a $216 million cumulative sales volume, a 43% increase over the previous year, signaling a clear rebound after four years of decline. The market achieved an impressive 89% sell‑through rate, indicating robust buyer participation. The...
Eddie Kang at Gana Art Los Angeles
Eddie Kang’s solo exhibition, "Tale of Tales," opens at Gana Art Los Angeles from February 21 to April 11, 2026. The show presents whimsical, pastel‑toned comic‑style paintings and sculptures that deliberately avoid narrative continuity. A highlight is the "Draw your own map" series,...
Tristan Unrau at David Kordansky Gallery
Tristan Unrau’s debut solo exhibition, *Hopes and Fears*, opens at David Kordansky Gallery, showcasing oil paintings that originate from AI‑generated reinterpretations of art history, cinema and children’s imagery. The artist feeds hundreds of AI outputs into his process, hand‑picking the...
Art Sculpture Blows Rainbow Smoke Donuts Using Mirrors and Prisms
Artist Adrien Miller unveiled a hand‑crafted wall sculpture that appears to exhale rainbow‑colored smoke rings. The effect relies on strategically placed mirrors and a prism that refract incense smoke into vivid arcs. Viewers initially mistake the display for a digital...
New York City Eva Petric Talks with Whitehot About Bird of Hope For Peace by Noah Becker
Artist Eva Petric unveiled “Bird of Hope for Peace” at the Narthex Gallery of St. Peter’s Church in Manhattan, a stone’s throw from the United Nations. The sculpture, composed of nearly a thousand hand‑stitched lace roses contributed by artisans from eleven...
A New Immersive Art Exhibition on the Sistine Chapel Is Coming to New Jersey Mall
An immersive "Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel: The Exhibition" will debut at New Jersey’s Westfield Garden State Plaza on April 10. The traveling show reproduces all 34 of Michelangelo’s ceiling and altar frescoes using licensed high‑resolution imagery and advanced printing techniques. Rated...
Caravaggio Documentary Will Premiere on Marquee TV Next Week
The feature‑length documentary *Caravaggio* will debut on the arts‑focused streaming service Marquee TV on April 6, expanding its reach beyond the limited theatrical run last fall. Directed by Phil Grabsky and David Bickerstaff after five years of research, the film spotlights the...
New York’s Jewish Museum Opens Paul Klee Exhibition without Its Centrepiece
The Jewish Museum in New York opened its Paul Klee exhibition on March 20, but the centerpiece, Angelus Novus, is absent because the original remains in Israel amid disrupted air transport caused by the Iran war. An authorized facsimile now occupies a recessed...
A First Look at the $720 Million Overhaul of Lacma, L.A.’s Buzziest Museum
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) reopened on April 19, 2026 after a six‑year, $720 million renovation that added the 110,000‑square‑foot David Geffen Galleries designed by Peter Zumthor. The new glass‑and‑concrete complex houses roughly 2,500 works, ranging from ancient artifacts to modern...
Oracular Transmissions Unites Adnan and Kirby’s Collaborative Works
Oracular Transmissions by Etel Adnan and Lynn Marie Kirby. Oracular Transmissions weaves together three collaborative projects dear friends Etel Adnan and Lynn Marie Kirby completed through processes of exchange and translation: Back, Back Again to Paris (2013), The Alhambra (2016), and Transmissions (2017). To order, please visit: https://t.co/2zygdAJILo. #oraculartransmissions #eteladnan #lynnmariekirby...
Colectivo Los Ingrávidos Wins Schering Stiftung Award
Colectivo Los Ingrávidos, a Tehuacán‑based film collective, has been named the 2026 winner of the Schering Stiftung Award for Artistic Research. The prize includes €15,000 (approximately $16,500) and a solo exhibition at Berlin’s KW Institute of Contemporary Art, featuring a...
Met Museum’s First-Ever Native American Curator Resigns
Patricia Marroquin Norby, the Metropolitan Museum of Art's first Native American art curator, left the institution in December 2025, officially citing health issues. Her departure follows years of contested claims about her Indigenous ancestry, which tribal groups and the Tribal...
Iconic Pop Culture Gallery Shuts After Decades
The world's first & best pop culture art gallery is closing. And no, it's not an April Fool's joke. @Galleries1988 has been a trendsetter for decades, but now, it's going away. I wrote a personal piece about what the gallery has...
Han Ishu and Yang02 Win Tokyo Contemporary Art Award 2026
Han Ishu and yang02 have been named winners of the sixth Tokyo Contemporary Art Award, each receiving a $19,800 cash prize and up to $13,200 for overseas research. The award, founded by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and TOKAS, supports mid‑career...
Shifting Crossroads – Beirut Contemporary
The Saikalis Bay Foundation opened "Shifting Crossroads – Beirut Contemporary" at its CIRCOLO space in Milan, showcasing ten artists who explore Lebanon’s ongoing political and infrastructural turmoil. Curated as a response to the country’s unfinished crises, the show replaces the...
Theresa Hak Kyung Cha: Language of the Dispossessed
Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s posthumous retrospective, Multiple Offerings, opens at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, showcasing her pioneering 1970s feminist conceptual works that interrogate language, displacement, and nationalism. The show features seminal pieces such as the print...
How Mexico’s Art World Is Fighting to Keep Frida Kahlo
Mexico’s art community is mobilising to prevent a flagship Frida Kahlo painting from leaving the country after a private collector agreed to sell it to a European museum. The work, estimated at roughly $12 million, triggered a legal petition by the...
‘Star Spangled to Death’: Ken Jacobs’s History of the United States
Ken Jacobs’ 6½‑hour assemblage “Star Spanged to Death,” finished digitally in 2004, is now screening as an installation at the Museum of Modern Art through April 7, 2026. The work stitches together a chaotic mix of vintage cartoons, soft‑core porn, educational...
Two Monet Paintings, Unseen for a Century, Resurface at Auction
Two previously unseen Claude Monet paintings are slated for Sotheby’s Paris auction in April, marking their first public appearance in over a century. The 1883 riverboat work *Les Îles de Port‑Villez* is estimated at $3.5 million to $5.8 million, while the 1901...
James Bellerue and the Art of Custom Bike Paint
James Bellerue, the longtime custom‑paint artist at Stinner Frameworks, was featured in a new YouTube profile that pulls back the curtain on his decade‑long craft. The interview with founder Aaron Stinner explores how Bellerue evolved from a makeshift paint booth...
Thieves Swipe Renoir, Cézanne and Matisse Paintings From Italy’s Magnani Rocca Museum
Thieves broke into the Magnani Rocca Foundation near Parma on the night of March 22‑23, stealing Auguste Renoir’s “Fish,” Paul Cézanne’s “Still Life with Cherries,” and Henri Matisse’s “Odalisque on the Terrace.” The works, valued at several million euros, underscore growing security...
Teresinha Soares, Artist Who Brought Sex and Feminism to Pop Art, 1927–2026
Teresinha Soares, the Brazilian Pop artist who fused sexual politics with avant‑garde imagery, died at 99. Educated during Brazil’s early military dictatorship, she produced provocative paintings and shaped wooden panels that tackled Vietnam, American imperialism, and gender oppression. After an...
‘The Sharp Perception only a Woman Can Bring to Observing Other Women’: Dorothy Bohm’s Photographs Go on Show at Lee...
Dorothy Bohm’s photography will be showcased in the new "About Women" exhibition at Farleys House & Gallery, opening on 2 April and running through 26 July. The show presents seven decades of her female‑focused black‑and‑white and colour work, tracing a career that...
CIRCA and Michelangelo Pistoletto Transform Global Screens Into Year-Long Preventive Peace Initiative with the United Nations
From April 1 2026, artist Michelangelo Pistoletto and CIRCA will air a moving‑image work called Three Mirrors on public screens in cities such as London, Milan, Los Angeles, Accra and Seoul. The year‑long project, curated by Josef O’Connor and backed by the UN...
A Year Staring at One Painting Transforms Perception
📍Loci: What happened when I visited a single art gallery painting for a full year. https://t.co/kvLw3OW8dO
Basque Government Seeks First Loan of Picasso’s “Guernica” To Bilbao by 2026
The Basque regional government has asked Spain’s Ministry of Culture to approve a loan of Picasso’s “Guernica” to the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao for October 2026‑June 2027, marking the first time the masterpiece would leave Madrid since 1992. Officials frame the move as...
Greater New York 2026
MoMA PS1 announced the 53 artists and collectives for Greater New York 2026, the museum’s flagship survey of New York‑based creators. Opening April 16 and running through August 17, the exhibition features site‑specific installations, newly commissioned works and a live...
Mongolia Pavilion Announces Artistic Team for 2026 Venice Biennale
Mongolia’s pavilion for the 61st Venice Biennale has been announced, featuring artists Nomin Bold, Dorjderem Davaa, Gerelkhuu Ganbold and Tuguldur Yondonjamts. The exhibition, titled “Entanglements: Connectivities Across Borders,” is curated by Uranchimeg Tsultem with Thomas Eller and will explore interspecies relations, spirituality...
London's Must-See Blockbuster Exhibitions Unveiled
London is full of blockbuster exhibitions. Read about them in my latest newsletter via @Londonist https://t.co/zaOTIWe0Mc
Catherine Opie: The Pause That Dreams Against Erasure
Catherine Opie’s first institutional solo exhibition in Germany opens at the Fridericianum in Kassel, running from February 14 to July 19, 2026. The show, titled “The Pause That Dreams Against Erasure,” presents a site‑specific survey of more than three decades...
Hong Kong Auction Results Show Big Wins for Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Phillips, and Other News.
Spring 2026 auctions in Hong Kong rebounded, with Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips reporting stronger bidding and improved sell‑through rates, driven by Asian collectors seeking blue‑chip modern and contemporary works. Meanwhile, the Art Newspaper’s 2025 museum attendance data shows the Louvre...
A Purist Approach to Media Art Societies
Media creep, the gradual widening of acceptable media in art societies, is sparking debate in the UK. The Royal Institute’s recent watercolour exhibition featured 11.5 % acrylic works, prompting calls for stricter medium definitions. The Royal Institute of Oil Painters responded...
Timor-Leste Pavilion Reveals Details for 2026 Venice Biennale
Timor‑Leste announced its 2026 Venice Biennale pavilion, titled “Across Words,” curated by scholar Loredana Pazzini‑Paracciani. The exhibition features textile artist Verónica Pereira Maia, sound‑performance creator Etson Caminha, and video artist Juventino Madeira, foregrounding the nation’s ethnolinguistic diversity and the memory of the 1991...
Chris “Daze” Ellis "Orchid Rain on the Underground" @ PPOW Gallery, NYC
Chris “Daze” Ellis opens his third solo show at PPOW Gallery, titled *Orchid Rain on the Underground*, running April 1‑25, 2026. The exhibition features new paintings, a site‑specific mural, and an immersive multimedia installation that references the artist’s graffiti roots and 1980s...
Ndidi Dike at Secession, Vienna
British‑Nigerian artist Ndidi Dike presents her first major solo show, *Rare Earth Rare Justice*, at Vienna’s Secession. The installation confronts the exploitation of cobalt in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, linking it to colonial legacies, climate devastation, and systemic...
Woman With Her Back to the Viewer in Gallery Photos Speaks Out
In a tongue‑in‑cheek Hyperallergic interview, the anonymous figure known as "Woman With Her Back to the Viewer in All Those Gallery Photos" finally speaks, insisting the camera stay behind her. She describes a grueling daily regimen of 100 deadlifts and...
Aloha as Method: Curating the Hawai‘i Triennial
Wassan Al‑Khudhairi, a partner at C/O: Curatorial Office, is co‑curating the Hawai‘i Triennial 2025, grounding the project in the concept of “ALOHA NŌ.” The theme reframes aloha from a greeting to a practice of deep care, resistance to extraction, and relational...
Can the Biennial Serve a City, or Just “Big Art”?
The essay examines the rise of regional triennials such as FRONT International, highlighting how they emerged to replace historic juried shows and to capitalize on the "creative class" narrative. While these large‑scale exhibitions attract institutional funding by promising economic impact,...
Whither Biennials? On the Crisis of Global Art
Artforum’s 2003 roundtable on large‑scale exhibitions resurfaced this spring as the Whitney Biennial, Carnegie International and Venice Biennale opened, highlighting a two‑decade evolution of the biennial model. The format has multiplied worldwide, prompting talk of "biennial fatigue" and new critiques...
Biennials and the Environmental Cost of Global Art
The article examines how biennials, as itinerant art events, rely on carbon‑intensive shipping and travel, exposing a paradox between their climate‑focused themes and the environmental cost of their circulation. It argues that criticism of biennial mobility often overlooks similar ecological...
These Photos From Ukraine Capture the Absurdity of Life in Wartime
British‑Iranian artist Aria Shahrokhshahi’s new photo book *Wet Ground* documents life on the Ukrainian front, capturing surreal scenes such as a youth military camp’s nightclub with dancing podiums. The images were shot just 30 km from active combat zones, juxtaposing ordinary...
Schiaparelli Retrospective Opens at London’s V&A, Showcasing 400 Iconic Pieces
The Victoria & Albert Museum unveiled its first UK Schi aparelli exhibition, displaying 400 objects and 100 ensembles, including the iconic 1938 Skeleton dress. The show runs through November 8, 2026, positioning the surrealist house alongside other fashion legends in museum...
Gabrielle Goliath Stages Cancelled South African Pavilion Independently at Venice Biennale
Gabrielle Goliath will show her ongoing 'Elegy' project at the Chiesa di Sant’Antonin in Venice from May 5 to July 31, after South Africa’s government pulled the official pavilion from the 2026 Biennale. Backed by the Bertha Foundation and Ibraaz,...
Georg Herold at Capitain Petzel
Georg Herold’s solo exhibition opens at Capitain Petzel in Berlin from February 27 to April 11, 2026. The show presents 33 newly created works, documented in a comprehensive series of images, and is supported by bilingual press releases and a detailed floor plan. Capitain Petzel, known...
Rare Rauschenberg Experimental Dance Revived at Brooklyn Roller Rink
The Trisha Brown Dance Company will resurrect Robert Rauschenberg’s only choreographed work, *Pelican*, for a one‑night gala at Brooklyn’s vintage Xanadu roller rink next month. The event, timed with the centennial of Rauschenberg’s birth, also presents two historic pieces by...
Art Smith, Modern Cuff, c.1948
Art Smith’s Modern Cuff, featured in Elephant’s March column, showcases cold‑flat brass sheets linked by thin twisted rods, creating a sculptural, wearable piece. Smith, a Black gay artist active in New York’s Greenwich Village from the 1940s‑1970s, helped define the studio...
I Founded Australia’s First Silo Art Trail – Here’s Why the Movement Now Needs to Evolve
The Creative Director of Juddy Roller, who launched Australia’s first curated Silo Art Trail in 2015, has overseen more than 45 silo murals nationwide. While the movement has boosted regional tourism and community pride, the author warns that artistic ambition...