5 Standout Shows to See at Small Galleries This August https://ift.tt/aquSwde

First Sun and Green Curtain, 2026
Shawn Huckins
K Contemporary

In this monthly roundup, we spotlight five stellar exhibitions at small and rising galleries.

Alejandro Javaloyas

“Un cuchillo que no corta”

Galeria Reus, Palma, Spain

Through Aug. 31

Tal vez los años luz son todos iguales, 2025
Alejandro Javaloyas
Galeria Reus

La pesanteur et la grâce, 2025
Alejandro Javaloyas
Galeria Reus

Spanish artist Alejandro Javaloyas presents new small and uncanny works based on his own recurring nightmares in this new exhibition, the title of which translates to “the knife that doesn’t cut.” For years, Javaloyas has diligently kept a record of his dreams in a notebook by his bedside. The artist takes these notes and works with artificial intelligence models to create visualizations of his scribblings.

Pulling from hundreds of variations, Javaloyas selects a handful of images, which he then reworks digitally. These pictures are then printed as giclée prints on cotton paper, which the artist then layers with wax-based colored pencil that creates a kind of glaze.

Picturing burning houses, crashed cars, and baby teeth, the works possess an ambiguous blur that gives the fleeting sensation of a dream. In one work, Tal vez los años luz son todos iguales (2025), a snail inches across the nape of the neck, to a surreal and visceral effect. The artist holds a master’s degree in film and the influence of filmmakers such as Andrei Tarkovsky, Chris Marker, and David Lynch is evident in his works’ atmospheric weight.

Shawn Huckins

“Slow Burn”

K Contemporary, Denver

Through Aug. 22

War Cloud and Floral Blue Curtain, 2026
Shawn Huckins
K Contemporary

Wildfire Sunrise Behind Floral Lace Curtain, 2026
Shawn Huckins
K Contemporary

Beyond the elegantly parted drapes, disaster awaits. Artist Shawn Huckins is known for his paintings which reimagine scenes from American art history, from the vast vistas painted by Albert Bierstadt (of the Hudson River School) to the portraits of John Singleton Copley. These works delve into American national mythology and how it is remembered and rewritten.

In his new show on view at Denver's K Contemporary, each painting is formatted like a window, with curtains painted parted to each side. While the curtains, which range from lace to a rich green satin, suggest well-appointed interiors, the world beyond the window is filled with war clouds and wildfires. These apocalyptic scenes are a new addition to Huckins’s precisely painted tableaux.

The artist works from a studio in New Hampshire, and the recent series was partly inspired by the vibrant but hazy sunrises in the area caused by ongoing Canadian wildfire smoke. The hyperreal curtains suggest a kind of psychological distance from the unfolding disasters. The artist highlights the environmental effects of war and greater climate change on such majestic landscapes.

Jordi Clotet Saló

“Primera pedra”

Alzueta Gallery, Barcelona

Through Sep. 2

Accident, 2026
Jordi Clotet Saló
Alzueta Gallery

Jeroglífic, 2026
Jordi Clotet Saló
Alzueta Gallery

In this show, Catalan artist Jordi Clotet Saló presents a new series of oil-on-linen paintings with simplified forms. Painted in a limited palette of oxidized earth tones, these works range from geometric, almost architectural patterns, such as repeating circles broken into quadrants, and childlike depictions of cars and houses.

The exhibition title “Primera pedra” translates as “first stone” and reflects his paradoxical feeling of always being at the beginning, starting from scratch. In Clotet’s case, this feeling is heightened when creating a new work, even as his imagery draws from a sense of nostalgia and memory. Clotet’s interest in origins factors into his material choices as well. The artist's pigments are extracted from a quarry in Zaragoza, Spain, and processed locally, giving these works a raw, natural feeling.

“Ripples of Light”

LA BIBI Gallery, online

Through Oct. 31

Mallorca Shutter, 2025
Paul Riedmüller
LA BIBI GALLERY

Butterfly Sword Warrior, 2024
Fatima de Juan
LA BIBI GALLERY

What does summer feel like? “Ripples of Light,” an online presentation from LA BIBI Gallery, puts a spin on the traditional summer group show. Rather than actual depictions of the season (think beach scenes and bikinis), here, you’ll find works that embrace the sensory intensity of the hottest months.

Across painting, sculpture, and mixed media, the works on view are marked by chromatic saturation, lush gesturalism, and a breezy, waterfront feel. Paul Riedmüller’s Mallorca Shutter (2025), is a trompe l’oeil painting of closed bright green shutters, with stark shadowing under the slots. The painting calls to mind a blazing hot day, when the only respite is blocking out the sunlight. Elsewhere, abstractions evoke the sensations of the season through intensity of color. In Srger’s acrylic, oil stick, and charcoal-on-wood composition BM_4 (2025), for example, a sweeping block of royal blue pigment dotted with bright white squiggles brings to mind a summer sky with crossing clouds.

“Summer Vibes - 2026”

Daguet-Bresson, Ramatuelle, France

Through Sept. 13

#2631, 2026
Morten Løbner Espersen
Daguet Bresson

Palengrotte, 2026
Superpoly
Daguet Bresson

Paris gallery Daguet-Bresson Gallery returns to the Saint-Tropez peninsula this summer with an exhibition at the Fondugues-Pradugues estate in Ramatuelle. The show, which brings together dozens of ceramic vessels, is full of whimsy and wonder, ranging from kaleidoscopic glazes to animalian tureens. Danish ceramist Morten Løbner Espersen's vases are a standout of the show, as the seemingly simple vessels are transformed by thick layers of glazes. Also delightful are the quirky ceramics of French artist duo Superpoly (Antoine Grulier and Thomas Defour), including functional stoneware plates adorned with big-eyed fish and startled crabs.

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Works by Goya, Caravaggio, and van Gogh appear in new trailer for “The Thomas Crown Affair,” starring Michael B. Jordan. https://ift.tt/0V8fqbP

The trailer for Amazon MGM Studios’s forthcoming remake of The Thomas Crown Affair was released this week—and a few art historical masterpieces make cameos.

Directed by and starring Michael B. Jordan, the film, which is due in theaters March 5, 2027, tells the story of a high-end art thief. About 12 seconds into the trailer, Thomas Crown, played by Jordan, opens a hidden room behind sliding bookshelves to reveal a private stash of stolen paintings on a museum-style storage rack.

ARTnews identified the four visible works, from left to right, as Francisco Goya’s Saturn Devouring His Son (ca. 1820–23), which belongs to the Museo del Prado in Madrid; Henry Ossawa Tanner’s The Banjo Lesson (1893), from the Hampton University Museum; Kerry James Marshall’s Silence Is Golden (1986), from the Studio Museum in Harlem; and Caravaggio’s The Fortune Teller (ca. 1594), from Rome’s Capitoline Museums. Crown is shown holding a fifth canvas to add to the collection, and a little later in the trailer, he is seen attempting to steal a Vincent van Gogh “Sunflower” painting.

The film also stars Adria Arjona as an insurance investigator tasked with catching Crown, and Kenneth Branagh as a rival he targets. Speaking to Variety, Jordan distanced the new film from its predecessors: “I didn’t want a reboot. I wanted a reimagination. The first two films were about rich white guys stealing for fun. That doesn’t land today. Ours is more personal. The stakes are higher. Still got the fashion, romance.”

The original 1968 Thomas Crown Affair, starring American actor Steve McQueen, centered on a bank heist rather than art theft. The 1999 remake, with Pierce Brosnan in the lead, introduced the art-crime premise, with Crown stealing a Claude Monet painting of Venice’s San Giorgio Maggiore from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. As Artnet has reported, the film took liberties with the facts: the Met does not own that Monet, which exists in two versions housed in Wales and Japan, and the climactic “museum” scene was actually filmed at the New York Public Library rather than the Met itself.

Jordan is no stranger to art-adjacent scenes on-screen. In Black Panther (2018), his character, Killmonger, confronts a curator inside a fictionalized British Museum stand-in before stealing a Wakandan artifact from a display case. Film heists involving real or invented artworks have a long pop-culture history. The 1962 James Bond film Dr. No, for instance, featured a reproduction of Goya’s Portrait of the Duke of Wellington—a painting that had, in fact, been stolen from the National Gallery, London, the year before and remained missing until 1965.

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5 Young London Collectors Pushing the Scene Forward https://ift.tt/q0GpeoV

What does it mean to collect art in London today? Perhaps the first problem with the question is the idea that there is a single London art world. Across the city, overlapping scenes operate at vastly different scales: artist-run spaces and young galleries sit alongside blue-chip dealers, auction houses, centuries-old collections, and some of the world’s most influential art schools.

From Mayfair to Deptford, Fitzrovia to Bethnal Green, art is embedded across London, and there are as many ways into its art world as there are ways to participate in it.

For collectors, this vastness creates an unusual proximity to artists and the communities around them. Someone might discover an artist at a graduate show or in a small gallery, follow their work across the city, and support their practice long before institutional or market recognition arrives. Artists, collectors, gallerists, students, curators, and dealers continually move between London’s different art worlds, creating relationships that connect its grassroots scenes to its established institutions and markets.

London, 2011
Gilbert & George
White Cube

This also makes collecting in London amorphous. It can mean buying emerging artists from small galleries, pursuing historic objects through Mayfair dealerships and auction rooms, or simply purchasing a first work to live with at home. While the art market at large still contains its barriers, the sheer breadth of London’s scene offers multiple points of entry, across tastes, generations, communities, and budgets.

Perhaps that plurality is what makes collecting in the Big Smoke so distinctive. There is no single route in, no single taste to follow, and no single definition of a collector. Artsy spoke to five collectors about how they navigate London’s overlapping art worlds, what drives them to buy, and the artists, galleries, and institutions that keep them excited about the city.

Selim Bouafsoun collects with an international eye

For Selim Bouafsoun, collecting is as much about relationships as it is about art. Though his relationship with art began from a young age, it was Alighiero Boetti’s 2012 retrospective at Tate Modern that proved formative, opening up new ways of thinking about time, collaboration, and systems.

Bouafsoun had always wanted to buy art, but initially found the prospect intimidating. Galleries, mentors, and friends eventually gave him the confidence to begin. “Collecting, I’ve come to realise, is never a solitary act,” he told Artsy.

His first acquisition was a painting by Bernhard Buhmann, bought from Dubai gallery Carbon12 in November 2015. Today, his collection spans more than 100 artists, with recent acquisitions including Álvaro Barrington, Monia Ben Hamouda, Sebastián Espejo, and Tomasz Kowalski. One work remains particularly close to him: Hommage à Bonnard (1972) by the late Tunisian painter Hédi Turki.

In London, Bouafsoun gravitates towards galleries willing to take risks, including Sadie Coles HQ, Carlos/Ishikawa, Emalin, and LBF Contemporary. But he sees some of the city’s greatest energy beyond its established art infrastructure, among artists and spaces operating with limited resources and ambitious ideas. He is particularly excited by an emerging generation shaped by international lives and communities. Their internationalism, he said, “isn’t performed; it’s lived.”

Adelle Cohen believes collecting should be for everyone

As a new collector, Adelle Cohen’s path into art began, unusually, with being told not to make any. At school, her art teacher would send her into town to buy supplies for the class rather than letting her participate. Her entry into collecting came years later at British artist Shauna Cribbin’s solo show at the Bomb Factory Art Foundation, where an iridescent screenprint on metal caught her attention. “I instantly fell in love and had to buy it,” Cohen recalled. “That’s how I became a collector.”

Cohen’s London is centered on galleries in the city’s east, including Maureen Paley, Rose Easton, and Herald St, as well as Harlesden High Street in northwest London. She is drawn to programs that she sees as challenging without becoming exclusionary.

That accessibility is central to how Cohen thinks about collecting. Rather than an activity reserved for an established collector class, she believes buying art should be an ordinary way of participating in London’s art scene. “Everyone should be encouraged to buy art,” she said. “We all deserve to own it.”

Her taste isn’t entirely bound by seriousness either. The work she currently covets is by Dutch artist Diederik van Apple: an image of Nicolas Cage in the iconic film Leaving Las Vegas printed onto real dollar bills and submerged in glossy resin. “I shouldn’t love it,” Cohen admitted. “But I do.”

Fabian Kluth collects through curiosity

Fabian Kluth is reluctant to call himself a collector. “I see myself more as a project maker and entrepreneur,” he told Artsy. For him, art is an extension of a broader curiosity about people and what they choose to make.

Kluth’s interest in contemporary art intensified during the COVID-19 lockdowns. While galleries and museums were closed, he was struck by how active the art world remained online. Social media became his way into a community he had previously observed from the outside.

His first acquisition was a work on paper by German artist Rosa Loy. Since then, Kluth has gravitated towards artists with strong ideas who resist bending their practices to expectations. His collection includes Brett Charles Seiler, Pol Taburet, and Konrad Weichs. He is also drawn to women artists from older generations, including Nan Goldin and the late Swiss painter Irène Zurkinden.

In London, Kluth is less interested in the set calendar of fairs and gallery weekends than in accidental discovery. He prefers wandering through the city and entering galleries without a plan, and points to Düsseldorf- and Berlin-based SETAREH’s Mayfair space as a welcome recent addition.

For Kluth, London’s strength lies in its mix of generations and international perspectives. Its art schools are central to that, with Central Saint Martins and the Slade School of Fine Art among the places he looks to for what might come next.

Ultimately, his approach starts with people. “Whenever I meet someone,” Kluth said, “one of the first questions I ask is, ‘What are you currently working on?’”

Daria Borisova backs artists early

For London-based curator and art advisor Daria Borisova, collecting, curating, and community are closely connected. Her work has long centered on emerging artists, and that instinct for discovery carries into her collection: encountering an artist early, for her, is less about predicting the market than supporting a practice as it develops.

One of Borisova’s earliest acquisitions was a painting by the late British artist Sarah Cunningham, whom she remembers for the sensitivity and personality of both her work and their interactions. Today, Borisova is drawn to artists developing distinctive ways of working.

She points to The Artsy Vanguard alum Emily Kraus, who pulls canvases around constructed rooms to spread and smear paint across their surfaces; KV Duong, whose paintings on latex explore Vietnamese diasporic queer experience; and Antonio Társis, who transforms discarded matchboxes, cardboard, and paint tins into art. “These artists aren’t just making beautiful things,” Borisova said. “They’re making arguments.”

Her collection also reflects an appetite for discovering artists early. George Rouy, Eva Helene Pade, Joseph Yaeger, Flora Yukhnovich, and Jadé Fadojutimi are among the artists she encountered before their wider recognition.

For Borisova, this process of discovery is central to London’s appeal. Hayward Gallery and the Barbican Centre are favorite institutional haunts, but she sees the city’s real strength in the community around them: collectors, artists, and galleries invested in one another. “The energy starts here,” she said. “We find them first.”

Linton Wang looks to the past for inspiration

While many young collectors look for the next emerging artist, Linton Wang is more likely to be found pursuing an object several centuries old. His collecting began as a teenager with fountain pens, particularly examples from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Their precious-metal decoration led him towards silver and decorative arts. Studies in history of art, followed by a master’s at the Courtauld Institute, expanded his interests across European art and material culture, with a particular focus on the Age of Enlightenment.

For Wang, materiality is non-negotiable. Beauty of form, technical excellence, and fine materials take precedence over concept alone. He is fascinated by objects that have survived for centuries and the lives they have accumulated along the way. “Given one’s own brief existence, to imagine the lives of such works is itself an exercise of the mind,” he said. “Old works have the remarkable ability to grant access to people and ages that had long ceased to exist.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, his favorite London institution is the Wallace Collection, whose French Régence and Louis XV holdings align closely with his own tastes. “I have told myself that should I die without an heir, all my earthly possessions will go to that august institution,” he said.

Wang also sees London’s historic art market as very much alive. He values the city’s auction houses for their breadth and accessibility, while its network of specialist dealers maintains a depth of expertise even as traditional dealerships become more private.

One of his favorite acquisitions captures the thrill of that market. Wang first encountered an English Chinoiserie silver tea caddy from 1758 at an American auction in 2015, but lost it to another bidder. When it resurfaced a decade later, he bought it.

The unknown collector who owned it in between had kept it in pristine condition. The two have never met, but for Wang, their connection through the object reflects the “unspoken camaraderie surrounding a thing of beauty” that makes collecting so compelling.

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Kiaf SEOUL 2026 announces 175 exhibitors for its 25th edition. https://ift.tt/x6E9gGD

Kiaf SEOUL 2026, Korea’s largest contemporary art fair, has announced 175 exhibitors from 18 countries. Korea’s largest international art fair will return to COEX in Seoul from September 2–6, the same dates and location as Frieze Seoul. Organized by the Galleries Association of Korea, the fair marks its 25th anniversary and, for the first time, has appointed an external creative director: acclaimed designer Kuho Jung, known for his work across fashion, performance, and exhibition design. Jung who will lead the fair’s branding, spatial design, and special exhibition curation.

The fair is a central pillar of Seoul Art Week, which connects exhibitions and programs across the city through major institutions including Leeum Museum of Art, Art Sonje Center and Space K. The week also includes district-based evening programs in the city’s gallery districts of Samcheong, Hannam, and Cheongdam.

Kiaf SEOUL’s exhibitor list spans established and emerging galleries from Korea and internationally, including first-time participants Nino Mier Gallery and JD Malat Gallery. Returning exhibitors include Korean stalwarts such as Kukje Gallery, Gana Art, and Arario Gallery as well as major international names including Whitestone Gallery and Opera Gallery.

The fair will present a mix of historically significant and contemporary works. Korean modern art is well represented, with pieces from Lee Ufan’s “Wind” series, for example, shown across multiple galleries. Other Korean art highlights include mixed-media works by Dansaekhwa artist Seobo Park at Wellside Gallery, Nam June Paik’s Internet Dweller wol.five.ydpb (1994) at CMay Gallery, and abstract works by Seund Ja Rhee at Galerie Vazieux. Other major 20th century works on view include a 1982 tempera by Marc Chagall at Art of the World Gallery, Sol LeWitt’s Irregular Grid (1999) at Obscura Gallery, as well as works by Keith Haring at SH Gallery and David Hockney at Gallery Pici.

Kiaf PLUS, the fair’s section for emerging and experimental practices, features eight Korean galleries alongside 11 international participants from Bangkok, Tokyo, New York, Moscow, Taipei, Madrid and Osaka. Kiaf HIGHLIGHTS, an initiative launched in 2023 to support participating artists, returns in an expanded format with dedicated in-booth exhibition spaces, with the aim of offering visitors a more focused viewing experience. Ten artists will be shown at the fair following a jury process led by a panel of art professionals.

This year’s edition is themed “Coexistence,” which explores the “evolving relationship between humanity and technology.” Two special exhibitions at the fair expand this. One is entitled “HUMAL”—a portmanteau of “human” and “animal”—and brings together seven interdisciplinary artists examining instinct and embodied perception in an era of artificial intelligence. A second, titled “Invisible,” extends those themes into augmented reality, with AR artworks accessible via QR codes throughout the fair exhibition space.

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Sculptor Tony Cragg to be awarded the 2026 European Culture Prize. https://ift.tt/19zStIo

Sir Tony Cragg will receive the prestigious European Culture Prize 2026, the European Cultural Forum announced. eThe award will be presented on September 4th at the Royal Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.

Born in Liverpool in 1949, Cragg has lived and worked in Wuppertal, Germany, since the late 1970s. In 2008, he founded the Waldfrieden Sculpture Park there, which has since grown into one of Europe’s leading sculpture parks and helped establish the city as a destination for contemporary sculpture. “Tony Cragg is one of the most significant sculptors of our time,” said Reiner Schränkler, chairman of the board of the European Cultural Forum. “His works uniquely combine science, nature, materials research and artistic vision. He has had a lasting impact on international sculpture and has inspired generations of artists.”

The European Culture Prize, known as TAURUS, was created in 2012 by Dresden artist and European Cultural Forum board member Sven Schubert. The prize rotates annually across categories including music, fine arts, performing arts, environmental protection, and politics. Previous winners have included Gerhard Richter in 2018 and Vivienne Westwood and Neo Rauch in 2019, as well as cellist Sol Gabetta in 2022 and tenor Rolando Villazón in 2024.

Felix Krämer, director general and artistic director of the Kunstpalast Düsseldorf, will present Cragg with the award in Amsterdam. Krämer worked with the artist on the 2024 exhibition “Tony Cragg: Please Touch!,” which invited visitors to physically interact with the sculptures on view.

This year’s gala, themed “Great Voices–Great Names,” will also honor fashion designer Iris van Herpen, actress Famke Janssen, and violinist Nicola Benedetti, among others, with a concert program built around the honorees’ own performances.

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An Art Lover’s Guide to Lisbon https://ift.tt/q7ovuD9

In barely a decade, Lisbon has become one of Europe’s most-watched art scenes. The 2011–2014 financial crisis and international bailout left deep bruises across Portuguese society, forcing the city’s cultural milieu to invent new ways of getting by.

What followed still caught everyone off guard: An influx of foreign capital—and of the foreigners who bought it—transformed the Portuguese capital, revitalizing its cultural landscape and turning what has long been one of Europe’s most-overlooked art scenes into a fixture of collectors’ itineraries.

The change came with costs. “The abundance of cheap spaces that used to exist was great for building a community. Now the problem is you don’t even find that kind of place on the outskirts anymore,” Horácio Frutuoso, artist and Lisbon resident, told Artsy.

Today, the city is home to some of Europe’s most-watched galleries, a renewed set of institutions under new leadership, and an independent scene finding its footing amid rapid change.

The key neighborhoods for art lovers in Lisbon

Estrela

Most of the city’s incumbent galleries sit west of Baixa, the historic center, concentrated in or around Campo de Ourique, a comfortably bourgeois district that’s become an anchor of the commercial scene. Galeria São Mamede, founded in 1965, is among the city’s oldest commercial galleries and remains a fixture of the Portuguese scene.

Long-established gallerists Cristina Guerra (founded 2001) and Miguel Nabinho (opened 2003) also hold most of the Portuguese scene’s safest bets. Pedro Cera, another Campo de Ourique mainstay credited with real growth in recent years, marked its 25th anniversary by opening a Madrid space and increasingly works with internationally recognised artists. Newer arrivals broker a conversation between local and international markets: Consonni Radziszewski—the new name for Galeria Madragoa, following its 2026 merger with the Warsaw gallery Dawid Radziszewski—now represents artists across spaces in Lisbon, Warsaw, and Milan.

Jahn und Jahn, near Jardim da Estrela, opened its first outpost outside Munich here in 2022 and has helped validate Lisbon's scene for foreign collectors, curators, and artists. Just over the border in Rato, Belard has quickly built a reputation for rigorous, no-frills contemporary shows since opening in 2022.

Alvalade

The tranquil north-central neighborhood was recently jolted by the announced closure of Galeria Vera Cortês, set for 19 December after 23 years in business. But the area still holds solid stalwarts: Quadrado Azul, Balcony, and the Coruchéus complex — a Lisbon City Council-run cluster of 50 artist studios dating to 1971.

Nearby is Quadrum gallery tucked into a recess within one of the neighborhood’s residential blocks and Appleton, an independent exhibition space. “We were quite isolated in the Alvalade neighborhood when we opened, and now we’re surrounded. All of this happened in the last 15 years. All these galleries and independent spaces have given the neighborhood strength and made it much more interesting,” Vera Appleton, founder of Appleton, told Artsy.

Marvila

Further east along the Tagus, Marvila is frequently described as a neighborhood with potential: fewer spaces than Estrela or Alvalade, but well suited to contemporary art thanks to its warehouses and rooms with real scale.

dialogue has been singled out as the emerging gallery to watch, praised for establishing itself firmly and running a strong international programme since its first shows around 2023. Francisco Fino, settled since 2017 in a former olive-oil-and-wine warehouse after six itinerant years, has built a roster that has earned steady praise for its work with contemporary artists.

The museums and institutions to know in Lisbon

Musical chairs at the top of Lisbon’s major museums mean curatorial change has arrived at most of the capital’s key institutions. These reshuffles coincide with major renovations and new arrivals.

Calouste Gulbenkian Museum: One of the city’s most beloved institutions reopened in 2026 after 18 months of restoration, timed to coincide with the Gulbenkian Foundation's 70th anniversary. The museum holds the private art collection of oil magnate Calouste Gulbenkian, packed with Egyptian, Greek, and Armenian antiquities and many works from European medieval and Renaissance masters. An unmissable staple is the René Lalique jewelry collection: around 150 Art Nouveau pieces commissioned by Gulbenkian himself and made specifically for him.

Centro de Arte Moderna (CAM): Custodian of the largest and most complete collection of modern and contemporary Portuguese art—some 11,700 works by more than 1,300 artists—CAM, part of the Gulbenkian museum complex, inaugurated its Kengo Kuma–designed expansion in 2024, joined by a new 7,515-square-meter garden that gave the city a fresh green counterpart to the Foundation’s original grounds. A recent leadership reshuffle sees Portuguese curator Sergio Mah replacing outgoing director Benjamin Weil; the local expectation is that newer voices will follow.

Museum of Contemporary Art and Architecture Centre (MAC/CCB): The leading museum for contemporary art and architecture in Portugal. Unburdened by the once-imposing specter of the collector Joe Berardo—whose sprawling collection is now in the hands of the Portuguese state—MAC/CCB is enjoying a renaissance of sorts. Under artistic director Nuria Enguita, the museum is freer to engage in a more ambitious conversation with Portugal’s recent past and the urgent themes of today.

Museu de Arte Contemporânea Armando Martins (MACAM): A private museum attached to a hotel, opened in March 2025 in the restored eighteenth-century Palácio Condes da Ribeira Grande between Alcântara and Belém. Around 200 works from collector Armando Martins’s holdings are on view across some 20,000 square feet. The building’s tiled contemporary extension nods to Portugal’s ceramic tradition. Its programme has helped demystify private collections, and it prides itself on having opened them to public view. Works by the likes of Paula Rego, Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso, and Marina Abramović are among the highlights. Nearby in Alcântara, Ainori Contemporary Art is worth a detour for its emerging-artist programme.

Museu do Chiado (MNAC): The country’s first contemporary art museum. Curator Filipa Oliveira, appointed in early 2025, has spoken publicly of wanting Lisbon to fall back in love with the museum. Oliveira has centered her curatorial approach on fostering intergenerational dialogue between Portuguese canon, drawing on the Museum’s extensive collection and contemporary Portuguese art. Works by prominent Portuguese names such as de Souza-Cardoso, Columbano Bordalo Pinheiro, and José de Almada Negreiros are on view.

One independent space worth seeking out:

messieurs-dames, in the newly hip neighborhood of Penha de França. Founded in 2023, the project space has been singled out for stimulating exhibitions “made by artists for artists,” while keeping a discreet digital profile. Shows here often find dialogues between historical and contemporary art practices, with previous shows featuring artists such as Ana Jotta, Bruno Cidra, and António Palolo.

“One part that interests me is this historical and archival side. Projects that were abandoned, that were never shown or never had the conditions to be shown,” founder Eva Mendes told Artsy. A few minutes away in Arroios, Kolibri (formerly Casa Oxente) has built a name for itself with emerging, material-driven work.

Where the art world in Lisbon eats, drinks, and shops

The places where Lisbon’s art world actually gathers are less concentrated than in most European cities, spread between Bairro Alto, Campolide, and the outer neighborhoods. Click the Google Maps entries to save them to your itinerary.

For drinks

For drinks

The bar at Galeria Zé dos Bois (ZDB), a nonprofit art center founded in 1994 and a doyen of Bairro Alto, retains its capacity to draw a distinct crowd to a neighborhood under heavy pressure from overcrowding. Cosmos, running since 2020 in a building owned by the 96-year-old sports club Campolide Atlético Clube, is a magnet for everything creative in the city —and one of the few consensus picks among the local milieu. Initially a temporary project during the pandemic years, Casa Capitão will open a permanent space in September; an interdisciplinary venue in the neighborhood of Beato that is also an unmissable hangout.

For dinner

Near Belém’s museum cluster, and a stone’s throw from contemporary art museum MAAT, restaurant Canalha —with its open kitchen, fresh produce on display, and Iberian culinary influences—has become a local institution since opening in 2023. The tiny neo-tasca (tavern) O Velho Eurico, in Alfama, took on the singular project of reviving the tradition of the classic tasca in a modern setting (the Alfama area is also home to Perve Galeria, one of the city’s oldest spaces devoted to Global South contemporary art). Reservations are recommended; expect long waiting-lists but delicious, unassuming takes on Portuguese dishes. And Galeto, open since 1966, remains a comfort spot for Lisbon dwellers—1960s counter, traditional service, and night-owl-friendly hours.

For lunch

A few meters from Museu do Chiado/MNAC, in the heart of the Chiado neighborhood, Viennese café Kaffeehaus has been a stalwart of consistency in Lisbon’s center since 2008, keeping the same Austrian classicsf—Sachertorte, Schnitzel​, sausages—on its menu. Midway between Belém and Marvila, on the riverfront, right by Santa Apolónia train station, lies Casanova, another Lisbon classic with an unbeatable view, extensive outside seating, and an unbeatable thin-crust truffle pizza.

For browsing

Tucked beneath the 25 de Abril Bridge, the art center LX Factory keeps its status intact as a Lisbon favorite 18 years after its opening, still bustling with galleries, cafés, restaurants, and shops. Among Lisbon bookshops, local favorites are Livraria da Travessa, a branch of the namesake bookshop in Rio de Janeiro, and Good Company, an independent bookshop with lots worth reading in the English language. Also much worth visiting is STET​, a bookshop and cultural association ​in the Arroios neighborhood, specializing in photography books, artist’s books, and author editions, both Portuguese and international​, with the odd piece from local designers also for sale.

Where to stay

An inevitable recommendation: MACAM Hotel, a 5-star, 64-room property in Lisbon. It’s the hospitality wing of this museum-and-hotel hybrid, allowing guests to enjoy the Armando Martins contemporary art collection up close.

Top tips for art lovers visiting Lisbon

• When to go: Summer is busier than it used to be, but the who’s who of Lisbon’s art world still tends to reserve July and August for holidays. Book a flight for April through June, when the scene is at full tilt.
• How to navigate: Lisbon’s known for being a hilly city, but it’s very walkable in the flat areas by the river (Baixa, Belém, Marvila)​. Chiado, despite feeling central, actually sits on a hill above Baixa, not by the Tagus, and is better reached by metro or tram. The compact layout of Portugal’s capital makes reaching other areas, such as Alvalade, easier by metro or bus. Venturing into the steep Estrela neighborhood is best done with the help of trams 28E and 25E​. Uber is cheap, plentiful, and often the easiest way to get around the city.
• What locals know: Galleries typically open Tuesday through Saturday. Openings, by convention, are usually held in the evening on weekdays, though scheduling—and the ambience of the openings themselves—tends to be fairly informal. Many start as early as late afternoon, often between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m., or sometimes on Saturday afternoons.

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How to Craft the Perfect Home Gallery Wall https://ift.tt/9Ju7ipQ

Gallery Wall #4-Drawing, 2018
Ji Eun Kim
Gallery SoSo

Few tasks are as simultaneously exciting and daunting for a collector as hanging a home gallery wall, especially for the first time.

Gallery walls, also known as salon walls, are a popular way of hanging groups of artworks. Rather than centering a single painting on a wall, gallery walls hang several works in a clustered arrangement ranging from a handful of works to well over a dozen. But where to start?

You’ve done the fun part and found and purchased a few artworks you love. You may have even had them framed. Now, you find yourself staring down a blank wall and wondering where on earth to begin. At the back of your mind, there may be a nagging sense that there is a right way to do this.

First, take a deep breath and know you’re not alone. The fact is, crafting the perfect gallery wall is not a one-size-fits-all affair, which is part of what makes it an art in itself.

“There are no absolute rules when it comes to hanging art,” said Hirofumi Miyauchi, dealer at Andecian Gallery. “Trying to achieve perfection in the absence of rules can feel overwhelming precisely because of that absolute freedom.”

Still, interior designers, dealers, and artists all agree that there are some genuinely useful tips and tricks to crafting the gallery wall of your dreams. The biggest hurdle might be learning how to trust your own eye.

If hanging a gallery wall has been on your agenda, don’t shy away. We’ve consulted the experts and put together a step-by-step guide to demystifying the process, setting you—and your art—up for success.

Few tasks are as simultaneously exciting and daunting for a collector as hanging a home gallery wall, especially for the first time.

Gallery walls, also known as salon walls, are a popular way of hanging groups of artworks. Rather than centering a single painting on a wall, gallery walls hang several works in a clustered arrangement ranging from a handful of works to well over a dozen.

But where to start?

You’ve done the fun part and found and purchased a few artworks you love. You may have even had them framed. Now, you find yourself staring down a blank wall and wondering where on earth to begin. At the back of your mind, there may be a nagging sense that there is a right way to do this.

First, take a deep breath and know you’re not alone. The fact is, crafting the perfect gallery wall is not a one-size-fits-all affair, which is part of what makes it an art in itself.

“There are no absolute rules when it comes to hanging art,” said Hirofumi Miyauchi, dealer at Andecian Gallery. “Trying to achieve perfection in the absence of rules can feel overwhelming precisely because of that absolute freedom.”

Still, interior designers, dealers, and artists all agree that there are some genuinely useful tips and tricks to crafting the gallery wall of your dreams. The biggest hurdle might be learning how to trust your own eye.

If hanging a gallery wall has been on your agenda, don’t shy away. We’ve consulted the experts and put together a step-by-step guide to demystifying the process, setting you—and your art—up for success.

Start with the wall, not the art

Window Watcher 1,2,3 (Triptych), 2020
Robert Pokorny
aous

Choosing the wall you want to display art on before picking the art itself might seem like putting the cart before the horse, but trust the process. The wall is your canvas, and you can work backwards from there.

When selecting a wall, you’ll want to consider the dimensions, how light moves across it through the day, and what furniture sits below it. These constraints can become useful guideposts for selecting the right works.

But this is an art, not a science, so don’t get too bogged down in specifics.

“There isn’t really a strict rule for the ideal wall, except perhaps to favor the walls your eye is naturally drawn to when you enter a room,” said Sandra Benhamou, a Paris-based art collector and furniture and interior designer. Benhamou is not one to shy away from surprising spaces either. She encourages collectors to think about “hanging a work in an unexpected place, giving a forgotten corner or passageway a new purpose.” Her one suggestion, however, is to avoid walls that face direct sun throughout the day, which could bleach paper works and photographs over time.

Some sunlight, however, should be embraced, not eschewed. Gallerists and artists Nicky and Rob Carter, who run the London gallery space RNat5A, say “changing daylight is absolute magic” for art. In their dining room, they note that the shifting sun transforms the mood throughout the day.

How to choose artworks that belong together

"The Room of Ideas", The Architect’s Room, Geometric Abstraction, Pop and Contemporary Pop, 2025
Neo Bauhaus
GF | Gallery Fedoroff

When hanging a gallery wall, it can be wise to unlearn the impulse to make things match. Too much sameness can feel forced and stale. Instead, invite the possibility for unexpected discovery between seemingly dissimilar works.

“Don’t be afraid to place pieces together that may seem unrelated, whether in style, value, or historical importance,” said Benhamou. “A modest work can become incredibly noble when it finds its rightful place, and a masterpiece doesn’t need to be surrounded by other masterpieces or occupy the center of the wall to shine.”

Others put it more bluntly. “Never match your art to your soft furnishings,” said Rob and Nicky Carter. “Works go together simply because you chose them,” they add.

Mohamed Benhadj, gallery director and curator at Al-Tiba9 gallery in Barcelona, encourages collectors to find relationships between works that are intellectual rather than visual. “A strong gallery wall is usually connected by the idea that relates each piece to another,” he said. That shouldn’t be confined to mediums, either, he adds: “Don’t be afraid to combine painting, photography, and prints.”

Miyauchi, meanwhile, suggests mixing several arrangements until something clicks visually. “Hanging multiple paintings could be compared to a chord in music,” he said. “An unexpected combination might beautifully come together.” He encourages collectors not to over-intellectualize the process to start. “It is more than enough to look at books or the internet and simply imitate what somehow catches your fancy,” he added.

Thinking about scale, spacing, and arrangement

Gathering, 2026
Allison Gildersleeve
Upsilon Gallery

When placing works together in a group, the frames don’t need to match each other. But they should suit each individual artwork.

“I don’t believe a frame should ever be separated from the artwork it belongs to,” Benhamou said. “It should reflect the work’s format, medium, and period.” The Carters agree. “Frame the artwork, not the room.”

Benhadj, who mixes finishes within his own collection—for example, thin natural wood on a set of drawings, a minimalist black frame on a large print, and an ornate gilt frame on a modern oil painting—recommends anchoring variety with one dominant style so the wall gains character without becoming too visually noisy. “I enjoy seeing different frame styles when there is a clear intention behind the selection,” he added.

How to know when to stop

Aura of an Interior, 2023
Degard
Visionary British Museum

Knowing when a gallery wall is complete is both subjective and essential. Benhamou tells collectors not to rush to conclusions. “The most beautiful arrangements evolve over time, just like the collection itself,” she said. The Carters offer a simpler test: “You stop when it stops making you smile.” A gallery wall, experts agree, is never truly permanent. Pieces can move, rotate, and rest until their moment comes back around.

Miyauchi even encourages collectors to rotate artworks over time. “I recommend changing your paintings on special days, such as the summer and winter solstices, birthdays, or Christmas,” he said. “You change them just like you would open a window to let fresh air into a room. The paintings you take down can rest until the timing is right for them again.”

All the experts believe that one key to crafting the perfect gallery wall is leaving it open to the possibilities of the future.

As Benhadj puts it, “what connects well on a particular wall today might connect even better with works that become part of their collection in the next 5 or 10 years.” A gallery wall that feels slightly too today, she said, can be an invitation to discover what’s next.

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