5 Stunning Art Exhibitions to See on the Mediterranean in Summer 2026 https://ift.tt/CmpcnAZ

There is an ancient saying that the Mediterranean extends as far as the olive tree grows. While the ocean itself spans Europe, Asia, and Africa, there is a shared culture that binds its countries well beyond its coastlines and shrubland; it includes a particular relationship with beauty and slowness.

Nowhere is this sentiment more pronounced than when it comes to art. In most cases, taking in a great exhibition sits easily in the same itinerary as a swim and a long lunch. So follow the olive trees and the scent of salt and dry earth. For a last-minute summer escape, the Mediterranean is hard to beat. And this summer, if you love art, you’re in luck.

From Marseille, France, to the Greek islands, some of the most compelling shows of the year are taking place in Mediterranean destinations. Taken together, this group of shows suggests that art, like most things along the Med, is something to be experienced with your senses and can fit seamlessly into a perfect day.

Here, we share five shows taking place in Mediterranean destinations that are worth booking a trip for.

Barcelona

“Gaudí-Miró-Gomis: Deconstructed”

Casa Batlló

Through Jan. 10, 2027

There is no separating Antoni Gaudí from Barcelona. Most visitors come to the city exactly to see his designs: the eclectic, phantasmagoric architecture which can be enjoyed along with the beaches and fever of a city that places fun and leisure at the forefront.

This summer, the Gaudí–designed Casa Batlló is making the case that the artist’s world was far from isolated.

“Gaudí-Miró-Gomis: Deconstructed,” which runs until January 10, 2027, brings Joan Miró’s sculptures and graphic works into the eclectic, undulating interiors of the house Gaudí built between 1904 and 1906, alongside Joaquim Gomis’s photographs of Miró and his Barcelona circle.

These artists occupied the same city at different times, yet shared several of each other’s sensibilities.

The seed of the show is a single photograph by Gomis: Miró and his circle, on the terrace of Casa Batlló itself. From that image, curators have reconstructed a whole web of influence.

The London-based art and design studio Tomorrow Bureau adds a contemporary layer, with 3D scans, animation, and generative video, that makes visitors look at Miró’s forms as if for the first time, finding Gaudí’s organic geometries hiding inside them.Once in Barcelona, don’t miss the Fundació Joan Miró on the hill above the city: the artist’s meditative world is the perfect counterpoint to Barcelona’s lively movida scene.

Marseille

Adrien Vescovi

“Dormir comme le soleil”

Vieille Charité

Through Jan. 10, 2027

Known for its sea, sun, and mistral, Marseille is often referred to as the Berlin of the Mediterranean. Marseille’s culture is built on the coast, its identity both layered and harmoniously contradictory. Strong Arab and African presences shape its neighborhoods and its food; a queer scene rooted in places like La Plaine gives it its edge. Waves of Parisians and expats who arrived after the pandemic have added a certain polish without quite taming it.

It is the natural home for the “Saison Méditerranée,” a sprawling series of art events running through January 2027; its anchor show is Adrien Vescovi’s “Dormir comme le soleil” at the Vieille Charité museum.

Vescovi has draped the 17th-century stone arcades of the building with monumental dyed textiles, built from old bedsheets and natural pigments. This poetic and delicate operation is reminiscent of Christo and Jeanne-Claude—using textiles to modify our perception of architecture—and of the colored windows of la Cité Radieuse, Le Corbusier’s building in Marseille.

Once you’re in the city, also check out French artist Louisa Babari's “AFRICA” at the MAC, a show exploring the mythologies of North Africa through photographic, visual, and sound art. The MUCEM—dedicated to Mediterranean cultures—is worth visiting.

Chios, Greece

“Letter to an Ailing Father”

DEO Projects

Through Aug. 30

When thinking about Greek islands, most think of Mykonos and Santorini. But art lovers should also consider Chios, less than an hour’s flight from Athens, and known for its black-and-white mastic villages and the tranquil beaches of the pristine Aegean Sea.

DEO Projects, the only contemporary art organization on Chios, has staged “Letter to an Ailing Father” inside the classrooms and corridors of a centuries-old school in the mountains above the village of Volissos, where the medieval stone architecture has barely changed in centuries.

This is perhaps the last place you would expect to find work by international stars such as Cindy Sherman and Danh Võ, alongside selections from beloved Mediterranean artists such as Evi Kalogiropoulou and Eleni Odysseos.

Some 14 artists from 11 countries have responded to the figure of the father as authority, as absence, as diminishment. The exhibition includes painting, textiles, sound, video, and new commissions alongside existing works, curated by Akis Kokkinos, a famed Mediterranean curator.

Naples

Maria Lai

“Essere è tessere”

Madre Museum

Through Sep. 21

Sip a quick espresso at a shop counter—that’s how Neapolitans do it—and throw yourself into the narrow streets of Spaccanapoli. The artery divides the city in two and is blessed by a divine afternoon light reminiscent of the images of saints populating the many beautiful churches that line your path.

Deeply pagan yet profoundly Christian, Naples is a city where soccer icons live on the street beside images of the Madonna, where the people hustle and bustle and make the city magical and alive like nowhere else. It is excessive, gorgeous, and unapologetically itself.

Inside this creative chaos, the Madre Museum is an oasis of sorts. White and pristine within, its windows frame the city outside: buildings half-crumbled, beautiful and decadent, a view of Mount Vesuvius on the horizon.

In a city that feels like a web, Maria Lai’s solo exhibition “Essere è tessere” (which translates to “being is weaving”) is particularly fitting. The sweeping retrospective gathers 200 works across six decades of the late artist’s career: sewn books, woven canvases, the threads and fables that made Lai one of postwar Italy’s strangest and most tender visionaries.

Malta

Reggie Burrows Hodges

“Mela”

MICAS

Through Aug. 30

Culturally, Malta is tufo-white and ottanio in its colors. The island is a place of unique pairings; namely, contrasting elements that surprisingly complement each other. Walk the streets of its capital city Valletta, and you’ll catch flashes of London in the colors of the window frames and the ironwork on the balconies, then something closer to Jeddah in the mashrabiya-style screens that shade the facades, then turn a corner and think, for a moment, that you’re in Sicily. That’s what makes Malta captivating .

A place not to miss: MICAS, a museum built into a 17th-century fortification. Its new steel-and- glass roof rises inside the bastions of Floriana while the limestone ramparts look out over Marsamxett Harbor.

What’s inside this summer earns the journey twice over: “Mela,” American artist Reggie Burrows Hodges’s first European solo show. The survey fills all four gallery floors with 30 new paintings made after the artist relocated his studio to Malta for two years, absorbing the island’s coastline, its construction workers, and its quality of light.

The centerpiece is a monumental canvas painted in direct response to Caravaggio’s Beheading of Saint John the Baptist (1608), which hangs across the harbor in St. John’s Co-Cathedral, and is a must-see once there.

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Pakistani artist Misha Japanwala’s designs feature in Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey.” https://ift.tt/1FAL9qD

Pakistani artist and fashion designer Misha Japanwala created two sculptural pieces worn by Lupita Nyong’o in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, marking a prominent film placement for the artist best known for body-cast sculpture.

Nyong’o, who plays both Helen of Troy and her vengeful half-sister Clytemnestra in Nolan’s epic, recommended Japanwala to costume designer Ellen Mirojnick while the pair discussed how to dress the Queen of Sparta (the artist had previous produced a custom breastplate for Nyong’o, which she wore to the 2023 Tony Awards). Japanwala's body castings in bronze and resin often explore scarring, asymmetry, and the human form. In the first work she made for the film, she produced a bronze, asymmetrical neck and shoulder plate for Nyong’o's character.

“To me, it looked like a broken statue,” Mirojnick said of the work in an interview with W magazine, describing how she built the piece into a capelet worn atop a ruched, draped gown. Japanwala told Artsy that for this work she "layered copper and brass metallic coatings to add depth, and then added a brown patina on the surface.”

Another of Japanwala’s works appears in Helen’s final scene, as she bids farewell to Telemachus (Tom Holland). Here, a gold choker by Japanwala is paired with a chainmail-like caftan-gown that Mirojnick sourced in Spain.

“I am so proud of how both of the works turned out and the way they are illuminated in the film,” Japanwala added. “As an artist, it means a lot that Ellen Mirojnick and Sara O’ Donnell, the amazing costume designers, were willing to put in the time and effort to work with an independent artist like me to bring these pieces to life.”

Japanwala, who trained at Parsons School of Design and worked at Elle and the womenswear and accessories brand Proenza Schouler before turning to sculpture full time. She has built a practice around casting bodies—breasts, torsos, stretch marks, scars—as a rejection of conventional beauty standards.

In an interview with Artsy, Japanwala said she hopes her works help people to “meet [their] body where it’s at, to be grateful for it and to understand and appreciate it and allow it to carry [them] through life.”

Represented by Hannah Traore in New York, she staged her first solo show, “Beghairati Ki Nishaani–Traces of Shamelessness” in 2023, followed by “Topographies” at the EXPO Chicago art fair in 2024 and “Sarsabzi” at Traore’s gallery last fall. Her work has also included a viral body cast of Cardi B for the singer’s pregnancy announcement, and she has been profiled in both Indian and American Vogue.

Japanwala’s contribution to The Odyssey is a major moment of recognition for the artist, bringing her interest in the body to one of the major cinematic moments of the year.

“This past week has felt surreal and like a dream!” Japanwala added.“I got to see the film on opening day, and I teared up when Lupita first appeared on screen as Helen of Troy wearing one of the sculptures. Her performance is breathtaking and I am just over the moon that I get to be a tiny part of bringing that character to life.”

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5 Epic Artworks to Explore after Seeing Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” https://ift.tt/rBwhiHF

Greek Myths, 2021
Chris Ofili
Victoria Miro

Prologue to Troy, 1974
Romare Bearden
RoGallery

Originating around 3,000 years ago, The Odyssey remains one of the most influential works of literature ever. This ancient Greek epic poem recounts the story of Odysseus, king of Ithaca, and his perilous 10-year journey home following the Trojan War, encountering man-eating monsters, vengeful gods, and countless temptations. Despite its fantastical nature, the poem has an enduring appeal today, with a highly anticipated film adaptation from Christopher Nolan bringing Homer’s epic back into public conversation.

After all, the epic explores universal human concerns such as displacement, identity, fate, free will, resilience, and the search for home. These themes have made The Odyssey a continual source of inspiration for artists across centuries, as it remains a powerful metaphor for the human search for meaning, purpose, and home. Here are five contemporary artworks that engage with Homer’s enduring epic.

Romare Bearden

“A Black Odyssey,” 1977

Home to Ithaca, from the Odysseus Series, 1979
Romare Bearden
Heritage Auctions

“A Black Odyssey” is one of Romare Bearden’s most ambitious and comprehensive bodies of work. Created in 1977, the series consists of 20 collages inspired by Homer’s epic tale, demonstrating Bearden’s lifelong interest in journeys, migration, and the search for home. Here, Bearden stretched the concept of collage by connecting different histories and experiences, creating what he described as a “global cultural collage.” By reimagining the myth with a cast of entirely Black figures in Benin, with Odysseus as an African hero, Bearden illuminates the connection between the ancient longing for home and the modern African American experience, drawing on his own experience of the Great Migration and the wider legacy of the transatlantic slave trade. Speaking of his series, the artist explained: “It is universal. So if a child in Benin or in Louisiana…sees my paintings of Odysseus, he can understand the myth better.”

Though he remains faithful to the spirit of the story, Bearden takes certain artistic liberties in his interpretation. In Home to Ithaca (1977), geometric buildings line a harbor (presumably Ithaca, Odysseus’s long-sought destination) as a sailboat approaches. In The Odyssey, Homer relays that Odysseus was asleep on his ship’s deck when his vessel sailed into Ithaca’s harbor, whereas Bearden instead depicts him standing proudly atop the ship’s bow, highlighting the endurance and determination that has carried him through his long journey. Rather than presenting the voyage as a heroic conquest, as in the original epic, Bearden’s interpretation focuses on the resilience of the human spirit through adversity, reflecting his belief that “Life is going to triumph somehow.”

Paul Chan

La Baigneur 7 (Teenyelemachus), 2018

Contemporary multimedia artist Paul Chan was struck by the Greek word polytropos which appears in The Odyssey’s opening line. It’s used to describe Odysseus, and translates as “infinitely cunning” adaptable, or resourceful. In his essay “Odysseus as Artist” (2017), Chan argues that these qualities are essential not only to Odysseus but also to the role of the artist in contemporary society. This idea became the foundation for Chan’s 2018 exhibition “Odysseus and the Bathers” at the Museum of Cycladic Art, Athens, where he explored how creativity can find new paths when traditional methods become limiting.

Inspired by Odysseus’s ability to “cheat his own fate,” Chan developed kinetic nylon sculptures. In one, an inflatable, human-like figure stands bent forward at the waist, weighed down by a brightly colored towel hanging from its clasped arms. Electrical cords plugged into casual shoes snake across the floor in various directions, creating a disparate but connected network. As air fills the figure, it jerks and strains until it finally becomes fully upright; then, the ridges on its back disturb the airflow, causing the figure to collapse. Animated by air from specifically modified industrial fans, the artist governs the figures’ movements by directing airflow to the internal structure of the bodies, reflecting how individuals are at the mercy of external forces.

The work’s title, La Baigneur 7 (Teenyelemachus) (2018), playfully alludes to Telemachus, the son of Odysseus and Penelope, a play on words referencing his neons’ glitchy movements. This repeated cycle of the figure continuously attempting—and failing—to remain standing represents Telemachus’s rising up in the face of challenges owing to the absence of his father.

Chris Ofili

Kiss (Odysseus & Calypso), 2019

Chris Ofili was inspired by The Odyssey after hearing the opening of Emily Wilson’s 2017 translation read aloud by his friend, the curator Okwui Enwezor, in 2018. The phrase “a complicated man” struck a chord, leading him to see Odysseus as a restless and adventurous figure. Its vivid descriptions inspired Ofili to create a series of paintings and drawings based on the poem for his “Dangerous Liaisons” exhibition at David Zwirner in 2019.

Ofili’s series reinterprets the ancient epic through a contemporary and Caribbean lens: Calypso, for instance, is reimagined as a mermaid, influenced in part by the music of Trinidad, where he has lived since 2005. In Kiss (Odysseus & Calypso) (2019), the pair are shown in a sensual underwater embrace. Odysseus is depicted with dark skin and coiled hair, while Calypso appears as a luminous figure, a nod to Homer’s descriptions of “lustrous Calypso” and the “nymph with lovely braids.” Layered with watercolor, charcoal, oil pastel, graphite, and the artist’s signature gold leaf, the work shimmers with kaleidoscopic richness. The vibrant colors and swirling arabesque forms envelop the figures, creating a lush, otherworldly realm that evokes the allure of the myth.

Ellen Gallagher

Ecstatic Draught of Fishes, 2020

Ellen Gallagher became particularly interested in The Odyssey in the 1990s. She was drawn to the concept of nostos—the Greek word for “homecoming” or “return”—which first appears in the epic and gave rise to the English word nostalgia. The complexity of the idea resonated with the artist; it is not simply about returning home, but also about the journey.

This idea resonates with Gallagher’s own practice, inspired by the Afrofuturist myth of Drexciya—an imagined underwater civilization descended from enslaved Africans thrown overboard during the transatlantic slave trade. Gallagher’s multilayered mixed-media painting Ecstatic Draught of Fishes (2020) (also the title of a 2021 exhibition at Hauser & Wirth) connects to The Odyssey through its exploration of displacement and the search for home.

Gallagher creates a submerged world populated by silver-gray figures, reminiscent of sculptures by the Central African Fang culture. In small clusters, the figures drift along braided, root-like strands that weave horizontally across the composition against a shimmering, mottled surface made up of layers of collaged penmanship paper, paint, and metallic palladium leaf. By reimagining the Atlantic Ocean, Gallagher transforms the epic journey of The Odyssey into a Black Atlantic narrative. Exploring what it means to navigate identity, memory, and belonging across time and space, she offers an alternative mythology encompassing both survival and homecoming.

SUPERFLEX

Super Kello, 2026

Named after the Finnish word for bell, Super Kello (2026) is a bell-shaped stone sculpture by the Copenhagen-based group SUPERFLEX. Located in the harbor of Kello in Haukipudas, Finland, the pink marble structure faces out to sea like a lighthouse, forging a connection between the human community on land and the marine life below the water. Denmark is one of the flattest countries in the world, and SUPERFLEX’s work acknowledges the rising sea levels of a rapidly changing climate. Indeed, in an interview the group noted that any permanent public art commission may no longer be designed for humans, but for fish. With this in mind, the sculpture is made from modular building blocks known as “fish cubes” developed in collaboration with KWY studio, which maximize the surface area of a cube, creating habitable spaces for marine life.

The artwork also invites viewers to reflect on different experiences of time. The work will broadcast Pentti Saarikoski’s Finnish translation of The Odyssey, read by local fisherwoman Elina Halonen, who will read one word per hour over the course of 10 years. By stretching the duration of the artwork over a decade, it invites visitors to slow down and experience time differently while referencing long-term, difficult-to-comprehend processes such as climate change. Just as Odysseus spent years journeying across the sea, the drawn-out, meditative narration also mirrors the duration of Odysseus’s 10-year voyage home.

Browse more artworks that channel the epic poem in “Visions of the Odyssey”

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The Armory Show announces around 230 exhibitors for its 2026 edition. https://ift.tt/EJBCgNz

The Armory Show has revealed the first details of its 2026 edition. The fair will return to New York’s Javits Center from September 24th to 27th, bringing together around 230 galleries from more than 30 countries.

This year's edition will place an emphasis on artists and galleries from the Caribbean and its diasporas through two curator-led presentations. Meanwhile, the fair’s Solo and Presents sections have also grown by more than 20 percent. ,.

“The Armory Show has always reflected New York's openness: to artists, galleries and ideas from across the Americas and the wider world," Kyla McMillan, director of the fair, said in a statement. "This year, that comes through in the breadth of the gallery list, the expansion of Presents and Solo, and the work of our curators, whose sections trace histories of movement, exchange and cultural connection through the Caribbean."

This year's curated sections take the Caribbean Sea and its surrounding regions as their point of departure. The Platform section, organized this year by SculptureCenter curator Jovanna Venegas, will feature large-scale installations exploring themes of resilience, reconstruction, and technological forms from across the Caribbean. Notable artist projects in the section will include Bony Ramirez, Curtis Talwst Santiago, Lucia Hierro, Rafael Domenech, María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Hew Locke, and Margarita Cabrera. Meanwhile, Focus, curated by María Elena Ortiz of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, will spotlight artists working across the Caribbean and its diasporas through solo and dual-artist presentations featuring, among others, Gio Swaby, Kachelle Knowles, Renée Cox, and Lizania Cruz.

The fair's expanded Solo section will include around 25 single-artist presentations, including Ayako Rokkaku, Betsabeé Romero, José Bechara, and Henry Glavin. The Presents section, devoted to younger galleries, will feature approximately 55 exhibitors, including first-time participants such as Circle Art Gallery, Galerie Noah Klink, Rajiv Menon Contemporary, and Yiwei Gallery, alongside returning exhibitors including Hannah Traore, Hesse Flatow, The Pit, and Reservoir.

El Museo del Barrio has also been selected as the recipient of this year's Armory Spotlight, an initiative that provides a complimentary booth to a New York cultural institution. The museum will present work by the textile artist Lulu Varona, who will invite visitors to participate in the creation of one of her works during the fair.

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How Artwork Pricing Works—and How to Know if You’re Getting a Good Deal https://ift.tt/Ym3Jvf1

$ (4), 1982
Andy Warhol
Avant Gallery

The art market is notoriously opaque, especially when it comes to pricing.

Unlike most luxury goods, art does not have fixed pricing formulas or regulatory bodies that determine value. Instead, prices are shaped by a mix of factors like supply and demand, an artist’s reputation, exhibition history, and negotiations between collectors, galleries, and auction houses.

Add to that the fact that prices are often not displayed publicly in galleries, at art fairs, or even online, and it’s easy to see why first-time buyers can feel bamboozled or even intimidated. Yet while art pricing can seem mysterious, it is not impossible to understand. With the right research and a willingness to ask questions, collectors can develop a much clearer sense of whether a price is fair.

“Feeling confident about a price ultimately comes down to research,” independent art advisor Arianne Piper told Artsy. “Naturally, the depth of the research should reflect the value of the artwork you are considering.”

Opaque, 2022
Francisco Baccaro
Kolibri Gallery

Why art pricing feels opaque

One of the most frustrating aspects of buying art is how difficult it can be to find clear pricing information. Unlike most consumer goods, artworks rarely have standardized prices. This lack of transparency has long been a feature of the art market rather than a flaw.

Private negotiations, relationship-based sales, and limited access to pricing data have historically given dealers and sellers flexibility in how works are valued and sold. As a result, if art pricing feels confusing, it’s not because you’re missing something obvious. The information is not always public.

“Historically, the market developed through personal relationships rather than open price discovery,” Johann König, founder of KÖNIG GALERIE in Berlin, told Artsy. “Even today, many galleries are reluctant to discuss prices publicly. People are much more comfortable acquiring works when they understand how a market functions over time. More transparency generally creates more confidence.”

Frieze, 2014
Sarah McKenzie
David B. Smith Gallery

What factors actually drive an artwork’s price?

Artwork prices are shaped by a combination of market forces and qualities specific to the object itself. For living artists, exhibition history, institutional recognition, and gallery representation are often key indicators of demand and career momentum.

On the primary market, where an artwork is sold for the first time, prices are typically set according to the artist’s track record, medium, scale, and career stage. On the secondary market, where works are resold through auction houses, dealers, or private sales, auction results play a vital role because they provide public evidence of what collectors have been willing to pay.

“Various factors are used to determine pricing for artists, starting with significant shows—both commercial and institutional—critical articles in art publications, and acquisitions by museums or important private collections,” Alice Amati, founder of the eponymous London gallery, told Artsy. “Production costs also have to be factored in, as some works are very expensive for an artist or gallery to produce.”

Li Yuan Library III, 2014
Candida Höfer
Matthew Liu Fine Arts

The characteristics of the artwork itself also matter. Larger works often command higher prices than smaller ones. Paintings generally cost more than works on paper. Condition can materially affect value. For prints and multiples, edition size is key: The smaller the edition, the greater the scarcity and, often, the higher the price.

Provenance (the ownership history of a work) can also influence value, particularly if it has belonged in notable collections or appeared in important exhibitions. Ultimately, no single factor determines price. Value is the result of multiple factors working together.

Trilafen, 2013
Alpin Arda Bağcık
Zilberman Gallery

How to do basic artwork price research

Despite the perception that the art world runs on insider knowledge, you don’t need special access to begin assessing whether an artwork is reasonably priced.

Start by checking auction results online to see whether the artist has a secondary-market history. If you’re considering a primary-market work, compare it with similar pieces by the same artist, paying attention to size, medium, date, and edition size.

You should also ask a gallery or dealer for the price. A simple “Could you share the price and any available information about the work?” is enough. “Price on request” usually means the gallery prefers to discuss pricing directly rather than publish it online; it does not necessarily mean the price is secret or out of reach.

Apollonian and Dionysian, 2026
Eve Yifan Jiang
NORITO

“A good gallery should be able to explain why a work costs what it costs, how the artist’s career has developed, what the secondary market looks like, and what risks and opportunities exist,” said König.

When the price is probably right—and when to push back

There is no universal formula for pricing art, but there are signs that a valuation is grounded in reality. If a price aligns with comparable works, reflects the artist’s career stage, and can be explained by factors such as medium, scale, rarity, or provenance, it is probably worth taking seriously.

If a price seems disconnected from the artist’s track record or similar works in the market, however, it is reasonable to ask questions. Reputable galleries and dealers expect collectors to do their research. Asking about pricing, comparable works, or the reasoning behind a valuation is not rude; it is part of making an informed purchase.

Friends, 2026
Genieve Figgis
Almine Rech

“From our perspective as a gallery, a price inquiry should be the threshold of a meaningful conversation,” said Soyeon Jung and Pon Chanarat, co-founders of London gallery NORITO. “We are always highly responsive to digital inquiries regarding our price list.”

The most important thing for new collectors to remember is that asking questions does not signal inexperience. In fact, it is one of the best ways to become a more informed buyer. Art pricing may never be entirely transparent, but the more research you do and the more conversations you have, the easier it becomes to understand how value is created and whether a price feels justified.“Follow an artist’s career, see how they are developing their practice over time, speak to other collectors in your network and develop trusting relationships with galleries so that you feel they can openly discuss this matter,” Amati advised.

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Pat Oleszko wins Whitney Museum’s 2026 Bucksbaum Award. https://ift.tt/E6IWuf3

Artist Pat Oleszko has been awarded the Whitney Museum of American Art’s 2026 Bucksbaum Award, a $100,000 prize recognizing an artist in the Whitney Biennial whose work demonstrates exceptional talent and the potential to make a lasting impact on American art.

Oleszko was selected from the 56 intergenerational artists and collectives featured in this year’s biennial. The award, established in 2000 by the late collector and Whitney trustee Melva Bucksbaum, is presented during each Biennial and has previously honored artists including Mark Bradford, Zoe Leonard, Pope.L, Ralph Lemon, and Nikita Gale.

For more than five decades, Oleszko has cultivated a singular interdisciplinary practice that merges sculpture, performance, costume, installation, film, and public participation. Combining slapstick humor with pointed social critique, her elaborate handmade inflatables, costumes, and sculptural environments address subjects ranging from feminism and labor to environmental crisis, consumer culture, and political spectacle.

Her presentation in Whitney Biennial 2026 encapsulates the breadth of that practice. The installation pairs Blow Hard (1995), a monumental inflatable clown head originally commissioned for the World Trade Center Plaza, with Footsi (1979), a black-and-white film in which a pair of fingers dressed in doll-sized socks and shoes wander across the artist’s body and through the streets of New York. Together, the works blur the boundaries between sculpture and performance, comedy and critique, and audience and participant.

“Pat Oleszko is a singular force in American art, who has delighted, inspired, and challenged her audiences for half a century,” Whitney director Scott Rothkopf said in a statement. “By honoring Oleszko with the Bucksbaum Award, we continue the Whitney’s longstanding commitment to recognizing artists whose work expands the field, animates the present, and opens new ways of seeing the world around us.”

Whitney Biennial co-curators Marcela Guerrero and Drew Sawyer said the jury was unanimous in its decision, praising Oleszko’s originality and enduring influence. “Throughout the Biennial, it became clear that Oleszko’s work resonated not only with audiences but with many of the participating artists, who recognized in her practice a remarkable model of artistic freedom and invention,” they said in a joint statement.

Born in Detroit in 1947 and based in New York, Oleszko emerged in the early 1970s with exuberant performances that defied disciplinary boundaries. Though long regarded as an influential figure in performance art, her work has received renewed institutional attention in recent years. Earlier this year, SculptureCenter presented “Fool Disclosure,” the artist’s first major New York institutional exhibition in decades, while Artsy recently highlighted Oleszko among the artists having breakout moments in 2026 as museums and galleries reassess her contributions to contemporary art.

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British Artist Sonia Boyce Makes Art of the Unexpected https://ift.tt/QbLVUak

Sonia Boyce knows something will happen when she brings strangers into the same room, but she never knows quite what.

“The not knowing is an essential ingredient of improvisation,” said Boyce, during a video call from her London studio. “You don’t quite know where it’s going to go, but it's going to go somewhere.”

For over four decades, the British Caribbean artist has organized unscripted collaborations where she brings together musicians, artists, community groups, and activists—and then steps back, allowing spontaneous moments to unfold with tenderness, awkwardness, humor, and unexpected beauty. This process has resulted in critically acclaimed works such as Feeling Her Way (2022), which brought together the improvised vocal performances of four Black women musicians and won the Golden Lion for Best National Participation at the Venice Biennale in 2022. It marked a major moment of recognition for the artist, who was included in the 2020 Artsy Vanguard. Next spring, Tate Britain will open the first major survey of her four-decade career.

Last month, she opened “Demonstrate” at the Queens Museum, her first solo museum exhibition in the United States. The exhibition opened concurrently with Boyce’s Times Square installation Transform (2026), a commission for the Midnight Moment program that was itself drawn from footage filmed at the Queens Museum. At the Queens Museum, Boyce transformed two days of unscripted performances and community workshops held at the museum in 2025 into an installation of 14 films, photographs, wallpaper, and sound. Sculptural furnishings and layered sound become a vibrant landscape of overlapping voices, songs, and testimonies, culminating in a seven-channel video of participants processing through the museum together.

“It’s often a little bit chaotic,” Boyce said of her methodology. “I don’t direct the performers; I don’t direct the crew. I just say, ‘Capture what you think is interesting.’” Only afterward does Boyce return to the footage, distilling these encounters into the layered multimedia installations for which she has become known.

In the early 1980s, Boyce rose to prominence as part of Britain’s Black Arts Movement and became known for her figurative pastel drawings and photographic collages. By the early 1990s, however, the artist felt the need to move beyond self-representation, opening her practice to collaboration and improvisation. The shift fundamentally changed her work, allowing her to embrace unexpected moments of imagination.

“With all of my projects, and…definitely since the ’90s, I will convene a performance to take place with the hope that the audience gets involved in the work in one way or another,” said Boyce. “There are often moments of awkwardness and people not quite knowing what they’re supposed to do. But then something happens….Something clicks and people get on board and they run with it. That’s part of what I’m interested in: how a group manages to negotiate a way to get along together.”

At the Queens Museum, Boyce captured processions and performances over the course of two days in October 2025. These ranged from the building of a Día de los Muertos ofrenda or offering to a processional performance by the Resistance Revival Chorus.

In some ways, the Queens Museum surprised Boyce. The artist has a long friendship with the museum’s outgoing director, Sally Tallant. Visiting the museum several times, she was struck by the way the institution was already an active meeting place for a variety of communities, from children’s workshops to LGBTQ+ groups.

Several years ago, while touring the institution’s storage spaces, Boyce came across the remnants of an earlier education project, which the museum called the “Empanada Spaceship.” The sculpture had been conceived and built by local children before being paraded through Corona Park. The discovery crystallized Boyce’s approach to creating in the museum, seeing the space not only as a place for exhibiting art, but a place of community imagination.

“I just love this idea that there could be this museum that was hosting lots of different communities, but they’re being brought together through the act of making,” she said. “Most of the people that were there during the days of filming already knew the Queens Museum….I wanted to find out why they come to the Queens Museum and what that making means to them.”

As the exhibition title, “Demonstrate,” hints at, Boyce is interested in both the act of showing or demonstrating and the act of political protest. Queens is recognized by researchers and linguists as the most ethnically and linguistically diverse urban area in the world, with nearly half of its residents born outside the United States. Boyce knows that, in the current political climate, the work inevitably takes on additional resonance.

“I’m trying to walk a tightrope, you could say, between the wider social, political context and the vibrancy of what happens in Queens in general…So in a way, it’s impossible to ignore the politics,” she said.

In many ways, “Demonstrate” brings together both playful and processional aspects of the Empanada Spaceship. Boyce had the chance to tap into an almost childlike creativity with the participants, as groups of strangers navigated through performances and crowded spaces.

“There’s an element of playfulness that kind of creeps in,” she said. “I’m really very interested in playfulness. And I do think as adults, we don’t take it seriously enough.”

Boyce worked with the Resistance Revival Chorus, a group of women and non-binary singers known for participating in political demonstrations, to create a procession through the museum, incorporating different community groups and ending at the Queens Museum’s iconic Panorama of the City of New York (1964).

In the exhibition, Boyce transforms these performances into an immersive environment that visitors can walk through—what she calls a “journey through space.” The wallpaper, a motif in Boyce’s work for decades, is a key part of that, transforming images from the day into repeating patterns.

“I’m constantly thinking about the encounter of the work,” said Boyce. “The wallpapers are both a way of containing the space, but also…it hopefully encourages audiences to sit, to stand, to move between backwards and forwards.”

The final video shows the procession through the museum across multiple monitors, allowing visitors to experience the collective energy of the museum community. Ultimately, Boyce hopes audiences become participants themselves, “processioning” through the exhibition alongside those on screen. “We make our own world, also in a wider political sense. We are all active in our world. Joy can be an act of resistance.”

Ultimately, Boyce believes those ideas need not be in conflict. “People coming together and imagining in really creative ways, I hope, is demonstrated in the work,” she said.

from Artsy News https://ift.tt/ye8wWqv