Know What's Happening in Art
Know What's Happening in Art
Hong Kong’s $306M “Cat Economy” Takes Over Public Spaces
Giant cat installations—from an eight‑metre interactive feline at the airport to inflatable cats at the West Kowloon Cultural District—have turned Hong Kong into a feline‑focused holiday destination. The city’s “cat economy” is estimated at $306 million annually, driven by roughly 100,000 cat owners who spend about $254 each on related goods and experiences.
Museum Ludwig in Cologne has opened a sprawling Yayoi Kusama retrospective featuring more than 300 sculptures, paintings, installations and drawings. The exhibition, timed with the museum’s 50th anniversary, marks the most extensive display of the Japanese icon’s work in Europe and is expected to attract record‑breaking visitor numbers.
German artist Heinz Mack turned 95 and is being celebrated with a retrospective at Beck and Eggeling in Düsseldorf. The show, running through May 23, 2026, presents 12 ceramic pieces, 16 collages and 14 pastel drawings that trace his evolution from the ZERO movement...
Michael Hafftka, a 72‑year‑old figurative expressionist whose work has been shown at MoMA, the Met and Parisian galleries, has uploaded roughly half of his oeuvre to the AI platform Hugging Face. He frames the move as a modern catalogue raisonné...
Art critic Paul Carey‑Kent highlights Georges Seurat’s 1888‑9 painting “Port‑en‑Bessin, Entrance to the Outer Harbour,” noting its meticulous pointillist technique that creates light through optical fusion. The work employs orthographic projection, patterned shadows, and a painted internal frame to amplify...
Artnet’s 2026 Intelligence Report notes that global auction sales increased for the first time since 2021, spurred by a strong late‑season surge in New York. The UK market grew 11.3% after a $136 million sale of Pauline Karpidas’s Surrealist collection, while ultra‑contemporary...
Luc Tuymans’ latest exhibition, “The Fruit Basket,” opens at David Zwirner’s Los Angeles gallery, featuring a sequence of ten paintings that move from representational scenes to abstract “Illumination” canvases, culminating in a massive nine‑panel, blue‑washed tableau. The work foregrounds themes of...
A handcrafted wooden dragon that gently flaps its wings has become a Kickstarter sensation, raising nearly $200,000. The sculpture is made entirely by hand from beech or walnut wood, with each unit unique in grain and finish. It features a...
Stage Kiss, a new production at Sydney’s New Theatre, uses a play‑within‑a‑play structure to lampoon melodrama while probing the performative nature of love. Written by Sarah Ruhl and directed by Alice Livingstone, the farce follows an actress auditioning for a...
This Keep on Truckin' art by Robert Crumb was on everything back in the 70s https://t.co/BxOgkfQKya
The Smithsonian American Art Museum has launched a major retrospective, "Grandma Moses: A Good Day’s Work," spotlighting Anna Mary Robertson Moses as a multifaceted figure in American art. Curator Leslie Umberger explains that the museum spent a decade building a...
The Brooklyn Museum has started a $13 million renovation to turn 6,400 sq ft of former storage into permanent Arts of Africa galleries. Funded by city, federal and private grants, the project aims to showcase over 300 works and deepen community engagement, with...
Art Basel Hong Kong opened its 2026 edition with a fresh curatorial wing called Echoes and the debut of Zero 10, a digital‑art focused sector. The fair spotlights a mix of established and emerging talent, including Kazakh sculptor Aya Shalkar, Mongolian painter...
FEDORA Opera Prize 2025 winner “The Curing Line” will debut worldwide at the Kilkenny Arts Festival’s Watergate Theatre in Ireland on August 7, 2026. The immersive work, composed by Michael Gallen and co‑directed by Shawn Fitzgerald Ahern, fuses traditional Irish...
The Wagner Foundation announced Tomashi Jackson, Lucy Kim, and Yu‑Wen Wu as recipients of its 2026 Wagner Arts Fellowships, each receiving a $75,000 unrestricted grant. Launched in 2023, the fellowship supports mid‑career or established Boston‑area artists whose work engages social...
The Louvre announced its most ambitious restoration to date, removing the 24‑painting Marie de’ Medici cycle by Peter Paul Rubens from public view for four years. The Baroque masterpieces, covering roughly 3,100 square feet, suffer from yellowed varnish and discordant...
Hong Kong’s Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau has sealed a five‑year partnership with Art Basel, setting the stage for the 2026 edition that will feature 240 galleries, new digital platforms and a Samsung Art Store collection. The deal underscores the...
A three‑page letter written by Howard Carter in 1934 reveals that he blamed journalist Arthur Weigall for inventing the infamous “Curse of the Pharaohs” surrounding Tutankhamun’s tomb. Carter argued the curse story was a retaliatory spin by Weigall after being...
The Center for Art and Advocacy is hosting “A Language We Share: Beverly Price and Gordon Parks,” a dual exhibition that juxtaposes Price’s contemporary portraits of Black Washington, D.C., with Gordon Parks’ historic photographs. The show presents a visual dialogue...
The Brooklyn Museum is launching a $13 million renovation to convert 6,400 sq ft of former storage into permanent Arts of Africa galleries. The project, designed by Peterson Rich Office with historic‑preservation input from Beyer Blinder Belle, will begin in summer 2026 and open in fall 2027....
I wonderful in-pwrson discovery of an artist I have long followed on Instagram, who currently lives and works in Iran: affs00ngar Seen at outsiderartfair at pulpholyoke
The 61st Venice Biennale will debut on May 9, 2026 with a €31 million ($36 million) overhaul of its historic Central Pavilion and a high‑profile British Pavilion commission by Lubaina Himid, backed by Cork Street Galleries. The upgrades and new artworks signal...
Büro Ole Scheeren unveiled renderings of the Róng Museum of Art, a 53‑metre tall, 4,500‑square‑metre cultural landmark under construction in Shenzhen. Commissioned by Tenova Future, a private venture of Tencent founder Ma Huateng, the museum targets 20th‑ and 21st‑century visual...
On this episode of our #podcast, @annagammansart & I speak with artist & scientist Jasmine Pradissitto about the intersection of art & science, and her pioneering use of the depolluting material Noxorb >> https://t.co/eoVnIyQbAa #LondonArtCritic https://t.co/WicjWFhUm0
The Screen Cuba festival is showcasing classic and contemporary Cuban films, including Tomás Gutiérrez Alea’s *Hasta Cierto Punto* and Juan Padrón’s animated shorts, as a cultural counter‑point to heightened U.S. pressure under former President Trump. The event highlights the resilience of...
Rashid Johnson, renowned for exploring Black intellectual life, photographed Jay‑Z for GQ’s April 2026 issue, creating intimate portraits that position the rapper as a modern thinker. Johnson drew visual inspiration from Harlem Renaissance photographer James Van Der Zee and the surreal interiority...
Marilyn Minter has spent decades confronting taboos with glossy, hyper‑real paintings, photographs and videos that celebrate raw sexuality. Signature works like the 1990s "Porn Grid" series appropriated explicit pornographic stills, turning them into enamel‑on‑metal canvases that both shocked and fascinated...
On 25 April 2026 the European Central Bank will open the historic Grossmarkthalle and its adjoining public areas for Frankfurt’s Night of the Museums. Visitors can join two guided tours—one focused on the ECB’s contemporary art collection and the other on the...
The Art Fund charity announced the Empowering Curators fellowship, a multi‑year scheme that will place 20 curators from Global Majority backgrounds in UK museums and galleries. The initiative targets the chronic under‑representation of Black, Asian, Brown, mixed‑heritage and Indigenous curators...
Stephanie J. Williams’s experimental stop‑motion short *The Expectation of the Observed* is being shown on the mobile “I’ll Meet You There” truck touring Washington, D.C. The film features a seven‑inch foam puppet whose torn latex limbs convey themes of stress, labor,...
Larry Clark and James Gilroy have released "Bedtime Stories for Bad Boys and Girls," a new book and accompanying exhibition that delves into unsettling childhood vignettes through stark photography. The project, rooted in their 1970s New York partnership, mixes themes...
Marriott International’s Luxury Group has launched “Art of Arrival,” an artist‑residency program featuring emerging Chinese creator Chen Zuo. The inaugural residency at The Ritz‑Carlton Suzhou produced a new commission that will debut during Hong Kong Art Month, then travel to Art Basel...
Danielle Orchard’s second Paris show, "Borrowed Chord," opens at Perrotin and runs through April 18 2026. The exhibition presents new paintings that revisit modernist fragmentation, classical composition, and the reclining female figure while shifting their emotional tone. Orchard uses a restrained, luminous...
The 61st Venice Biennale runs from May 9 to November 22, 2026, featuring a newly restored central pavilion and the curatorial theme “In Minor Keys,” which spotlights subtle undercurrents shaping daily life and the planet. A diverse slate of exhibitions spans the Giardini,...
A woman walks past a stained glass "Nuit de Noel, 1952" (Christmas Eve, 1952) by painter Henri Matisse (1869-1954) during a press visit of the exhibition "Matisse, 1941 - 1954" at the Grand Palais in Paris, France, March 23, 2026....
Australian producers are optimistic about expanding touring opportunities across the Asia‑Pacific, buoyed by the federal government’s Invested 2040 strategy and the newly‑launched ASEAN‑Australia Centre. Initiatives by boutique agency Turning World show growing artistic reciprocity, yet cultural‑sector literacy between Australia and Southeast...
The Genius of Raphael in Three Works of Art https://t.co/hqO9ji0wXr The latest fascinating piece by my brilliant art critic brother Blake.
Rochelle Voyles’s solo show *Unreliable Narrators* (through April 11, 2026) presents dense wood collages assembled from found paper ephemera. The works interrogate gender, labor, myth and the instability of images, refusing to resolve any narrative tension. By foregrounding fragments and their collisions,...
Kunié Sugiura’s solo show at Moskowitz Bayse surveys six decades of experimental photography, featuring X‑ray images, photograms, and scale shifts. The exhibition pairs early works like the 1971 sand‑grain piece "Beach 2" with recent pieces such as the 2021 "Vertebra" series,...
Giovanni Bellini’s 15th‑century San Giobbe altarpiece is undergoing its most extensive restoration in over five centuries. The two‑year, $580,000 project will stabilize the fragile wood panel, analyze pigments with ultraviolet and infrared imaging, and clean the surface, all behind glass...
Paris Internationale, the nonprofit gallery‑led art fair founded in 2015, announced its inaugural Milan edition featuring thirty‑four galleries and nonprofits. The fair will run April 18‑21, with a VIP preview on April 17, at the historic Palazzo Galbani, and limits...
White Columns, New York’s longest‑standing nonprofit gallery, staged “Art (by) Dealers,” an exhibition featuring over ninety works created by gallerists themselves. The show is explicitly for sale, with each piece labeled by anonymous numbers and a checkout system designed to...
The New Museum reopened after a two‑year expansion, unveiling the sprawling survey exhibition “New Humans: Memories of the Future,” which showcases roughly eight hundred works ranging from Surrealist drawings to Carlo Rambaldi’s original animatronic E.T. model. The reopening also prompted Artforum...
Internationally renowned artist Ai Weiwei will stage a 24‑hour live recreation of his 2011 secret detention at Manchester’s Aviva Studios on July 3‑4. The performance, titled “Sewing a Button,” runs alongside his largest site‑specific exhibition, marking a rare blend of political activism...
Way too many artists use images downloaded off the Internet as references for their art. The more of this you do, the less your art is about you, the more it is about "them," and the further it is from...
An 8.5‑foot segment of the Eiffel Tower’s original spiral staircase will be auctioned by Artcurial on May 21, with estimates between €40,000 and €50,000 (about $46,300‑$57,900). The staircase was removed in 1983, cut into 24 pieces, and most have been dispersed...
Renowned photographer Norbert Schoerner releases a provocative new book, Aura: Collaborations with Human and Other Minds 2011‑2023, that contains no images captured by him. The volume assembles four distinct bodies of work created over a twelve‑year period, each probing the...
