ArtReview April & May 2026 Issue Out Now
ArtReview’s April‑May 2026 issue examines the limits of artistic expression against a backdrop of international conflict, centering on the 61st Venice Biennale. The cover features performance artist Ei Arakawa‑Nash with his family, reflecting his installation in the Japanese Pavilion and a planned collaboration with the Korean Pavilion. The magazine surveys a wide roster of contributors—from Mongolia’s Tuguldur Yondonjamts to Singapore’s Amanda Heng—and includes reviews of the Whitney, Sydney and Shanghai biennials. It also highlights essays on art’s role in war zones, archival practice, and appropriation.
Beverly Buchanan’s Anti-Monuments
Beverly Buchanan’s “anti‑monuments”—weathered concrete mounds, ruins and modest stone assemblages—have long interrogated Southern histories of slavery, neglect and public memory. Signature works such as Marsh Ruins (1981) and Unity Stones (1983) employ tabby concrete that erodes with tide, echoing ancient...
Sara Shamma on Representing Syria at the 61st Venice Biennale
Syrian artist Sara Shamma will represent her country at the 61st Venice Biennale with a 15‑metre‑high immersive installation called “The Tower Tomb of Palmyra.” The work fuses painting, architecture, light, sound and scent to evoke the ancient funerary towers destroyed...
Aileen Murphy Sleeps on the Ceiling
Aileen Murphy’s third solo exhibition at Deborah Schamoni in Munich uses a deceptively simple table motif to anchor a series of five new paintings dominated by pink and rosé hues. The works blend meticulous animal figuration with abstract gestures, introducing...
Watch: Wallace Chan Returns to the Venice Biennale with ‘Vessels of Other Worlds’
Wallace Chan returns to the 61st Venice Biennale with “Vessels of Other Worlds,” a two‑city exhibition that opens in Venice on May 8, 2026 and moves to Shanghai’s Long Museum West Bund on July 18. The project showcases large‑scale titanium sculptures that explore birth,...
Amanda Carneiro and Raphael Fonseca to Curate 2027 Bienal De São Paulo
Brazilian curators Amanda Carneiro and Raphael Fonseca have been appointed to lead the 2027 Bienal de São Paulo. Carneiro, a MASP curator since 2018, brings a track record of championing under‑represented Brazilian artists. Fonseca, a visual arts programmer at Culturgest and curator‑at‑large at...
Rafał Zajko Is Hatching a Plan
Polish artist Rafał Zajko launches his ambitious installation series *The Egg Egg* at Arsenal Gallery in Białystok, running through 10 May. The exhibition assembles 50 works created over the past decade, organized into nine “acts” that weave brutalist architecture, camp sensibility,...
Liu Ding and Carol Yinghua Lu to Curate 2027 Istanbul Biennial
Liu Ding and Carol Yinghua Lu have been appointed curators of the 19th Istanbul Biennial, scheduled for 18 September to 14 November 2027. Both are veteran Chinese curators—Ding a Beijing‑based artist and professor, Lu a director of Beijing’s Inside‑Out Art...
Sharjah Biennial 2027 Announces Theme and Artists
The Sharjah Art Foundation has revealed the 2027 Sharjah Biennial, titled “What remains, sits restive.” Curated jointly by Angela Harutyunyan and Paula Nascimento, the edition will run from 21 January to 13 June 2027. Harutyunyan’s program features 55 artists exploring the afterlives of...
Jenna Sutela on Representing Finland at the 61st Venice Biennale
Finnish artist Jenna Sutela will represent Finland at the 61st Venice Biennale with her sound‑sculpture installation “Aeolian Suite,” a wind‑driven composition that mixes meteorological data, recorder ensembles and site‑specific elements. The work, staged in Alvar Aalto’s 1956 pavilion in the...
Shigeo Toya, Artist Who Looked to Nature with His Wood Sculptures, 1947–2026
Japanese sculptor Shigeo Toya, famed for his chainsaw‑hewn wood installations, died in 2026. He launched the "Woods" series in 1984, arranging tall timber pieces to evoke forest clusters, and later created the "Twenty Eight Deaths" series of paired blocks with...
Venice Golden Lion Jury Won’t Consider Russian and Israeli Pavilions
The Venice Biennale’s 61st International Art Exhibition will not consider any national pavilion whose leader faces International Criminal Court charges for crimes against humanity. The jury, led by Solange Oliveira Farkas and featuring curators from Yale, Abu Dhabi, Brazil and...
Chang-Ching and Rhett Tsai’s Tricks of the Light
Artists Chang‑Ching Su and Rhett Tsai present a tandem series at Chicago’s Watershed Art & Ecology that interrogates the ecological and geopolitical fallout of green‑light luring used in Chinese squid‑fishing fleets. Su’s *Greenlessness* (2023‑25) records the LEDs on colour film,...
Watch: Khaled Sabsabi and Michael Dagostino in Conversation
Artist Khaled Sabsabi and curator Michael Dagostino discuss their dual project, *conference of one’s self*, presented in both the Australia Pavilion and the International Art Exhibition at the 61st Venice Biennale. The work intertwines Sufi poetry, personal memory of the Lebanese civil...
‘A Guardian and a Thief’ by Megha Majumdar, Reviewed
Megha Majumdar’s second novel, A Guardian and a Thief, imagines a near‑future Kolkata ravaged by climate‑induced drought, food shortages and soaring prices. The story follows Ma, a middle‑class manager planning to escape to Michigan, and Boomba, an economic migrant desperate...