5 Standout Shows to See at Small Galleries in May 2026 https://ift.tt/gB9lMby

Marz, 2023
Sheida Soleimani
Harlan Levey Projects

Deathly Silence, 2016
Nicolas Vionnet
Al-Tiba9 Gallery

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

K. T. Kobel

“Hand, Body, Object, Sin”

Kutlesa, Goldau, Switzerland

Through May 29

Practice Makes Permanent, 2026
K.T. Kobel
Kutlesa

An Exit Without Leaving, 2026
K.T. Kobel
Kutlesa

Since 2022, British-born, Amsterdam-based painter K. T. Kobel has staged shows from Los Angeles to Milan. This month, the artist mounts his first major Swiss exhibition, filled with cinematic paintings that embrace fragmentation and loose ends. His compositions, which are reminiscent of storyboards, offer disjointed images that the viewer must piece together.

Each of Kobel’s new works features four painted scenes, vertically stacked within a singular wooden frame. An alluring, eerie haze ensconces these three-foot-tall arrangements, created using pigment transfer, acrylic, and encaustic. Their contents blend taboo and tension: Practice Makes Permanent (all works 2026) features a hissing black cat, while the screaming mouth and black latex bodysuit in An Exit Without Leaving suggest both horror and kink. The images recall the Spaghetti Slashers Kobel holds dear, though they are not, in fact, from real films.

The human mind naturally detests ambiguity. Here, however, Kobel reminds us of all the imagination can conjure when given a few mysterious, compelling frames. As the artist himself says, “repetition becomes ritual.”

“Terra Incognita (Unknown Land) – Part II”

Al-Tiba9 Gallery, Barcelona

May 14–July 25

Floating Court Reflections, 2026
ChingKe Lin
Al-Tiba9 Gallery

Hybrid Cluster, 2025
Dongbay
Al-Tiba9 Gallery

Last spring, the chic Al-Tiba9 Gallery, located in Barcelona’s picturesque El Born neighborhood, unveiled “Terra Incognita.” The group show featured five international artists who tested the boundaries between nature and humanity. Its sequel arrives this month, presenting work by a new crop of five artists who explore how humanity situates itself within Earth’s diverse environments.

Swiss photographer Andy Storchenegger will present a three-channel film, Nobody is Okay (2022). This collaboration with Zambian poet Marita Banda explores the psychology of masquerades. Self-proclaimed Chinese “eco-warrior” Dongbay suspends decorated animal pelts and textiles made of recycled Carhartt clothes within metal scaffolding. These spatial experiments bring the artist’s illegal urban art practice into the white cube. Swiss painter and sculptor Nicolas Vionnet—the only participant to feature in both editions of the exhibition—alternately calms and frustrates viewers with canvases that feature melancholy landscapes and a sculpture of an impractical skateboard equipped with crutches. Taiwanese artist Ching-ke Lin’s signature whirls of bamboo render an ancient, natural material futuristic. Meanwhile, Milan-based duo Dan Molin & Milani contribute a motorized fitting room titled Muletto (2022), which transforms an intimate space into something industrial. Together, these works ask: What does it take to make a home?

Sheida Soleimani

“Flyways”

Harlan Levey Projects, Brussels

Through June 27

Iranian-born, American-based photographer and filmmaker Sheida Soleimani integrates activism into her art and life. When she’s not producing political imagery that protests the powers that necessitated her parents’ exile from Iran, the artist cares for injured migratory birds. She’s all too aware that their plight—and gorgeous resilience—parallels her family’s.

Soleimani’s third exhibition in six years with Harlan Levey Projects unites two of her ongoing, interconnected series—both of which figured in her 2025 New York institutional debut, “Panjereh,” at the International Center of Photography. That presentation introduced audiences to Soleimani’s maximalist “Ghostwriter” series of magical realist scenes shot with overwhelming clarity. These works are collaborative: Soleimani’s mother created drawings which appear throughout the compositions, while her father provided graphics and slogans that oppose Iran’s authoritarian leadership—and any ruler, really, who abuses power.

The exhibition pairs “Ghostwriter” specimens like Marz (2023) and Safehouse (2024) with additional shots like Misunderstanding (2024) and Exodus (2024), drawn from Soleimani’s more recent “Flyways” series inspired by her avian rescue. Especially exciting is the debut of the artist’s new film, Wave (2025), which unites the distinct series throughout her latest show. Here, the Soleimanis care for insects and deer in a desert landscape, intermittently reciting mantras that honor the resolve of all intrepid species: “We are alive because we refuse to rest.”

Patrick Puckett

“Daze of Our Lives”

Wally Workman Gallery, Austin

May 9–May 31

U.S.A., 2026
Patrick Puckett
Wally Workman Gallery

Watermelon, 2026
Patrick Puckett
Wally Workman Gallery

Mississippi-born and -based painter Patrick Puckett has already had eleven solo shows since 2013 with Wally Workman Gallery, a 46-year-old Austin art stronghold situated in a historic home. With each successive year, Puckett’s self-professed “Hillbilly Baroque” compositions have grown tighter, bolder, more dynamic, and ever-brighter.

“Daze of Our Lives,” Puckett’s twelfth presentation at the gallery, offers yet another body of life-sized portraits depicting blissed-out figures. They’re rendered in Puckett’s signature high-contrast, electric palettes. 7 of the 12 new works are oil paintings on canvas. The rest are mixed media on paper. Motifs repeat, like a ping pong table, echoed by the racket that another figure brandishes, legs splayed, in U.S.A. (all works 2026).

Yet these “Daze of Our Lives” aren’t all fun and games. Puckett immortalizes his recurrent ping pong player in the pensive lulls between volleys. There are many moments of ambrosial seduction here too, from the reclining goddess in Watermelon to the female figure lazing in a lawn chair with a bouquet between her legs in Garden. Indeed, while Puckett’s figures are alluring, they’re never fully idealized. His electric hues underscore their more serious sides, the people they might be after closing the bathroom door to catch their breath during a party.

John Vitale

“TIME ISN'T AFTER US”

Court Tree Collective, New York City

May 2–June 6

Spirit Portal #2, 2026
John Vitale
Court Tree Collective

Spirit portal #3, 2026
John Vitale
Court Tree Collective

“TIME ISN'T AFTER US” seems to take its name from “Once in a Lifetime,” the Talking Heads’ most famous song. It’s a fitting callout, considering critics have already likened Brooklyn-based John Vitale’s gentle geometric abstractions to music, with all its rhythms and rests.

Vitale’s latest paintings present additional contradictions. Black voids underscore pastel forms in compositions that balance groundedness and buoyancy. Vitale’s energetic hand remains palpable in these works of acrylic, house paint, pencils, aerosol, and china markers on raw canvas, despite their easygoing overtones. Adding a touch of bawdy humor are flaccid, phallic forms that accumulate around circular portals—a new visual element in the artist’s work.

After years of teaching himself how to paint (and a short stint at New York’s storied School of the Visual Arts in 2008), Vitale is hitting his stride. “These paintings led me in an interesting direction,” he wrote on Instagram alongside Spirit Guide (2026). “This piece in particular may have cracked something open for me and my practice moving forward.” The work is awfully playful, considering the guru status he’s imbued it with.

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Thomas Hart Benton, Jessie Wlicox Smith announced for shows at Lucas Museum of Narrative Art. https://ift.tt/bVt5j8v

The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, the long-anticipated Los Angeles institution co-founded by filmmaker George Lucas and businesswoman Mellody Hobson, has unveiled the lineup for its inaugural exhibitions. The ambitious survey will feature more than 1,200 works drawn from a founding collection that spans more than 40,000 objects.

Housed in a 300,000-square-foot building designed by Ma Yansong of MAD Architects with Stantec, the museum is dedicated to what Lucas has called “the people’s art: the tradition of telling stories through images, from prehistoric cave paintings to comics and cinema.”

Spread across more than 30 galleries occupying roughly 100,000 square feet, the opening program traces visual storytelling across time periods and geographies. Several exhibitions are organized around enduring myths of love, family, community, and adventure, while others spotlight individual 20th-century figures.

Among the headlining solo presentations are Thomas Hart Benton, with selected works depicting American life; Jessie Willcox Smith, whose classic scenes illustrated fairy tales and other children’s books; and N.C. Wyeth, represented by book illustrations from the 1910s through the 1940s. Norman Rockwell, Maxfield Parrish, and Frank Frazetta will each receive their own dedicated galleries.

Themed exhibitions round out the presentations. “Children’s Stories” gathers illustrations by Beatrix Potter, Leo Politi, E.H. Shepard, and Jacob Lawrence. “Comics & Graphic Stories” showcases the museum’s holdings of American and European comics, with works by Mœbius, Marie Severin, Jack Kirby, Alison Bechdel, Jim Lee, Frank Miller, and Rafael Navarro, alongside a complementary survey of manga and anime. A “Murals” exhibition presents large-scale public works by Judith F. Baca, Diego Rivera, and JR, while “Narrative Forms” explores adventure, fantasy, romance, and science fiction through artists including Julie Bell, Boris Vallejo, Ken Kelly, Georges Méliès, John C. Berkey, and Jeffrey Catherine Jones.

A photography gallery brings together documentary images by Robert Capa, Gordon Parks, Alfred Eisenstaedt, and Dorothea Lange. Additional sections are devoted to architecture, cinema—drawing on production designs, props, and costumes from the Lucas Archives—history, “Civic Life,” “Western Stories,” and a suite of “Everyday Life” galleries on themes from childhood and motherhood to play, school, sports, and work. Works by Frida Kahlo, Charles White, Kadir Nelson, and Robert Colescott will also be on view. The museum opens on September 22nd.

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German artist Georg Baselitz dies at 88. https://ift.tt/d4jAeDF

Georg Baselitz, a titan of 20th-century art, has died at 88. Thaddaeus Ropac, one of the galleries that represents the artist, announced his death with an obituary from Baselitz’s family.

The poet Robert Isaf writes in the statement that Baselitz—known for his large-scale, expressionistic canvases—“defined German visual art for a generation, profoundly influencing artists around and after him and the international world of art.” Isaf confirmed in the statement that the artist died “peacefully.”

Baselitz was born Hans-Georg Bruno Kern in Deutschbaselitz, Germany, in 1938. His family lived first under the Nazi regime, then under the East German government. Early on, the artist fought for art-world acceptance. The Art Academy of Dresden rejected him, the Weißensee Academy of Fine and Applied Arts in East Berlin suspended him, his peers accused him of “sociopolitical immaturity,” and the press called his style “pornographic” after he debuted his first solo exhibition, in West Berlin, in 1963.

Baselitz experienced a breakthrough with his “Heroes” series (1965–66). The large-scale oil paintings featured thickly rendered male figures. They were often larger than life, appearing in torn uniforms across ruined landscapes. By the end of the decade, Baselitz had inverted his figures. The motif became his calling card and persisted through the decades. Isaf writes, “What elevates Baselitz to the status of era-defining visionary is not his command of contour, for instance, or shadow, but of relationship—that is to say, the relationship between viewer and viewed.”

Art historians often situate Baselitz’s work alongside that of fellow Germans Gerhard Richter and Anselm Kiefer, who similarly wrestled with their country’s legacies of violence and repression. The artist has also been deemed a Neo-Expressionist for mounting what the New York Times called “a frontal attack on Minimalism and Conceptualism, the dominant ‘cool’ styles of the 1970s.” Isaf situates the artist within the world of Pop, “which most fully among contemporary movements could be said to take up manipulating the dimension of viewer relationship as its core concern.”

Baselitz mounted several high-profile exhibitions over his long career. In 1972, he exhibited in Documenta in Kassel, Germany. He represented Germany at the 1980 Venice Biennale. More recently, the Centre Pompidou opened a major retrospective in Paris in 2021, and White Cube and Gagosian, which also represent the artist, have presented solo shows in the past few years.

Baselitz continued working until his death. On May 6, the Fondazione Giorgio Cini, in Venice, will open “Eroi d’Oro.” The presentation will coincide with the 61st Venice Biennale and feature the artist’s most recent series of paintings, which depict self-portraits and renderings of Elke, the artist’s wife. She survives him, along with his sons, gallerists Daniel Blau and Anton Kern. In the obituary, Isaf writes, “[Baselitz’s] ultimate subject is and will always have been Elke. His final paintings, his portraits of him and her, honest, unflinching, and profoundly human, come to terms with all of what this means. They float suspended, inverted, among golden eternity and the many gilded worlds and lives they’ve lived together.”

Baselitz continued working until his passing. On May 6, the Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venice will open “Eroi d’Oro.” The presentation will coincide with the 61st Venice Biennale and feature the artist’s most recent series of paintings. They depict self-portraits and renderings of Elke, the artist’s wife. She survives him, along with his sons, gallerists Daniel Blau and Anton Kern. In the obituary, Isaf writes: “[Baselitz’s] ultimate subject is and will always have been Elke. His final paintings, his portraits of him and her, honest, unflinching, and profoundly human, come to terms with all of what this means. They float suspended, inverted, among golden eternity and the many gilded worlds and lives they’ve lived together.”

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Banksy statue appears in Central London. https://ift.tt/H71Gnbd

A large statue that mysteriously appeared in central London earlier this week has been confirmed as the work of the street artist Banksy. The piece, which bears the artist’s signature, depicts a suited man carrying a flag that obstructs his face as he walks off a plinth.

It was installed in Banksy’s signature fly-by-night guerrilla style at Waterloo Place in St. James’s, central London, near other statues of figures from British history. The work is near statues of Edward VII and Florence Nightingale, as well as a memorial dedicated to the Crimean War. Also nearby is a gilded statue of Athena on the facade of the Athenaeum Club.

The work was installed in the early hours of Wednesday morning, while a video shared to Banksy’s social media this afternoon confirmed its authenticity after growing speculation. Crowds have gathered to take photos of the statue, and it is unclear how long it will remain in place.

“[Banksy has] pulled off another fantastic coup . . . the positioning is absolutely knockout,” said James Peak, the creator of the BBC podcast series The Banksy Story, in an interview with the BBC. “Here, you’ve got a brilliant comment on a bumptious, chest-puffed-out man in power with the flag completely obscuring his vision, which is why he is about to fall off the plinth. . . . I don’t know how he’s managed to do it.”

Banksy is best known for his graffiti, though he has installed statues elsewhere before, including one titled The Drinker (2004), which he placed in London’s West End in 2004. The piece was a play on The Thinker (1904), by Auguste Rodin, and was removed shortly thereafter.

Other recent public artworks by Banksy in London have included a mural at the Royal Courts of Justice last year and a series of animal artworks around the city in 2024.

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Pulp singer Jarvis Cocker and Kim Sion to curate 2027 Hepworth Wakefield show. https://ift.tt/FjzQHdY

Musician Jarvis Cocker and his wife, the creative consultant Kim Sion, will organize a sprawling group show at The Hepworth Wakefield in the United Kingdom next year. The exhibition, titled “The Hodge Podge,” will bring together a wide range of artworks across era and media, centered on artists who challenges conceptions of what is considered art. This is the Pulp frontman’s first curatorial effort at a major institution.

“The Hodge Podge” will create unlikely dialogues between artists such as Peter Doig, Barbara Hepworth, and Jeremy Deller, in addition to outsider artists and those who have never before shown in the U.K. The curatorial duo will explore a diverse array of themes including alternative spiritualities, psychedelia, fandom, dreams, poetry, and music as they interrogate self-expression as it exists beyond the traditional art world or religious contexts.

The couple have written a manifesto to introduce the show. They write, “The dictionary says: ‘a hodgepodge is a chaotic, disorderly mixture or a random assortment of diverse, unrelated things. It represents a jumble that lacks coherence or order.’ Yeah? Couldn’t that also be the dictionary definition of the word ‘world?’”

Cocker himself was the subject of a 2022 show at London’s The Gallery of Everything titled “Good Pop, Bad Pop - The Exhibition.” It coincided with the release of his eponymous book, a memoir through objects. “Jarvis Cocker has a long-held interest in art, attending St Martin’s College of Art & Design in the early 1990s, and as a Yorkshireman, felt like the ideal person to work with to consider a fresh way of thinking about and experiencing art,” The Hepworth Wakefield’s artistic director, Laura Smith, said in a press statement. “The art that he and Kim have gathered together in ‘The Hodge Podge’ will encourage the feelings of joy, marvel and curiosity that great works of art can inspire and offer our audiences an expanded idea of creativity and community. We are thrilled to be working with Jarvis and Kim on this incredibly exciting exhibition.”

The show will take place as part of Yorkshire Sculpture International 2027, which partners with The Hepworth Wakefield as well as Henry Moore Institute, Leeds Art Gallery, and Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Previous collaborations at The Hepworth Wakefield include shows with fashion designer Jonathan Anderson and ceramicist Magdalene Odundo.

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5 Venice Locals Share Their Best Places to Eat, Drink, and Shop https://ift.tt/RT802jh

Every two years, the Venice Biennale engulfs the floating city, rushing over every winding calle and flagstoned piazza like a forceful high tide. Originating in the historical Giardini gardens and grandeur of the Arsenale, the international art fair now radiates throughout the city, with pavilions popping up all over town, together with collateral events, and independent projects: Spring is when Venice truly comes alive. For 2026, the event kicks off on May 9 and will run through November 22.

For a city of famously labyrinthine alleyways, getting a table, a good drink, and a locally sourced souvenir might feel like going against the current at the best of times. To help you navigate the rising tourist tides of the city, Artsy spoke to some of the city’s local art world figures. They’re all in deep preparations for the 2026 Venice Biennale, but nonetheless offered some welcome tips on exploring the city (answers have been edited for length and clarity).

Gražina Subelytė

Curator, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection

Subelytė first came to live in Venice as an intern back in September 2007. Over the last decade she’s made the city her home, climbing the ranks at the storied Peggy Guggenheim Collection, where she now makes her mark as a curator. Her latest exhibition, “Peggy Guggenheim in London: The Making of a Collector,” co-curated with Simon Grant, opened on April 25th.

What are your main tips for someone visiting Venice for the first time during the Biennale?

Pace yourself and accept that you won’t see everything. Start with the Giardini and Arsenale, then branch out to smaller collateral shows that offer a different rhythm. Leave time to just walk and enjoy the city.

Where’s your go-to for an aperitivo?

Cantine del Vino già Schiavi is perfect for a quick stop. A drink, a few cicchetti, and you’re set. Palazzo Experimental for something a bit more refined, but still relaxed.

Where are we going for dinner?

La Zucca, Antica Locanda Montin, Antiche Carampane, or Anice Stellato.

Where are your favorite places to browse on a lazy weekend?

I like to go to Peter’s Tea House in the San Marco area to stock up on Genmaicha tea (never quite enough!), and then usually end up at the Rialto Market. I also enjoy passing through galleries along the way and in nearby areas, such as Victoria Miro, Giorgio Mastinu, or A plus A. Also, I’ll pop into Chiarastella Cattana’s atelier for beautifully crafted textiles. Then, in San Polo, I enjoy browsing small independent makers and artisan shops, like Kooch.

Give us your Venetian classic, underrated gem, and new kid on the block.

Classic: Scuola Grande di San Rocco. And I wouldn’t say it is underrated, but certainly a true gem: Fondazione Querini Stampalia, with the ground floor redesign by Carlo Scarpa, a masterpiece in its own right. New kid on the block: Fondazione Dries Van Noten. Another one to watch is Isola di Sant’Andrea, a former military island in the lagoon that’s quietly becoming a new cultural venture, now shaped by Microclima into a future site for experimental and artist-led programming.

Marta Barina

Founder and director of Mare Karina

After leaving Italy at 19 and working in London for galleries (like David Zwirner) and artists (Oscar Murillo), Barina founded Mare Karina in 2020 as a hybrid artist studio, gallery, and agency. When she decided to return to Italy with her partner after the pandemic, the two put down roots in Venice, where her gallery in Castello has already established itself as a thriving contemporary hub.

What are your main tips for someone visiting Venice for the first time during the Biennale?

Soak up the energy of the city, don’t just follow the official program. Visit local artists’ studios.

Where’s your go-to for an aperitivo?

All’Arco near Rialto, Ozio in Santa Maria Formosa, La Sete in Cannaregio, Ai Do Leoni in Piazza San Marco.

If you had to get someone a gift from Venice, what would you get them, and where would you buy it?

A vintage piece from Sangueblu, or a book from Bruno.

Give us your Venetian classic, and new kid on the block.

Venetian classic: ice cream from Gelateria Nico. New kid on the block: the new center of artist studios STUDIO VENEZIA.

Camilla Glorioso

Photographer and co-founder of Versatile, a Venetian work club

Born and raised in neighboring Padua, Italy, Glorioso originally hopped over to study Visual Arts and Theater at IUAV University in Venice. After graduating, she moved to London for a master’s degree in photography. Drawn back to the lagoon, she now lives and works full-time in Venice as a photographer, and in 2024 she set up the first co-working space for creatives in the floating city.

What are your main tips for someone visiting Venice for the first time during the Biennale?

Try to carve out some time to be in a very quiet place in front of the water at night. Counterintuitive, I know.

Where’s your go-to for an aperitivo?

Ozio or Estro Pane e Vino in summer, Bea Vita in winter. I also recently shot at Anice Stellato and discovered they have a merenda or light afternoon snack, and I can’t wait to go and try a mid-afternoon toast with a glass of wine in the sun. Is there anything more dreamy?

Where are we going for dinner?

I live in Santi Apostoli, so you’ll usually see me ping-pong between [Osteria Giorgione da] Masa, Bepi [Antico 54 da Loris], and [Osteria ai] Promessi Sposi for a speedy polpetta as a staple comfort food.

Any other top food or drink recommendations? Where’s somewhere you’d never miss?

Not somewhere but someone! I tend to look out for Prometheus_Open Food’s guest shifts and events [run by my partner Lorenzo Barbasetti di Prun]. At home he never makes me the same fun dishes, and I finally get to eat all the crazy things he ferments and concocts in various jars.

If you had to get someone a gift from Venice, what would you get them, and where would you buy it?

I would get them two rings: one, a silver talisman by Suri Studio, and the other a glass, colorful one by Huang Xiaozhe Studio. For me they both capture different shades of the spirit of the lagoon.

Where are your favorite places to browse on a lazy weekend?

Salice near San Salvador for womenswear, Venice MART for menswear, Maranteghe near home for vintage pearls, Marco Polo and Bruno for books.

What’s Venice’s new kid on the block?

Well, my own kid, Versatile! We are opening our second location, Versatile Carminati, steps away from the first one, and this time we’ll have a big terrazzo on the canal, a lounge, and even more room for flexible work and to host fun things for all the creatives in town.

Giacomo Gandola

Photographer and art consultant

“A little bohémien, a little James Dean,” Gandola is a true creative multihyphenate. A talented photographer who broadcasts his life in Venice to almost 50,000 followers on Instagram, capturing the city’s day-to-day, he also works as an art consultant and gallery assistant at the Venice gallery space of Lorcan O’Neill.

What are your main tips for someone visiting Venice for the first time during the Biennale?

Slow down, even when everything around you is accelerating. Choose a direction, not a checklist. And most importantly: allow the city to interrupt your plans. The best moments will never be on your schedule.

Where’s your go-to for an aperitivo?

One of my favorite spots is the garden of Hotel Flora. It’s a small, almost secret corner where time slows down; the perfect place to step away from the intensity of the week, have a proper conversation, and enjoy a great Bloody Mary in one of the most unexpected gardens the city has to offer. The welcome by the Romanelli family is always impeccable. Gioele Romanelli is one of those rare hosts who truly lives the city, someone you can speak with about what’s happening in Venice, new ideas, new projects.

Where are we going for dinner?

Dinner, for me, is about atmosphere as much as food. I’d take you to Do Farai, a historic Venetian spot I fell in love with from the very beginning (my friend took me the evening I moved to Venice). It recently reopened under a new artistic direction led by an exceptional host, Guillaume Pinaut, and has found renewed energy. It’s unmistakably Venetian, yet with a contemporary pulse.

If you had to get someone a gift from Venice, what would you get them, and where would you buy it?

I would choose a book. Lately, I haven’t missed a single publication by Wetlands, a small independent publisher whose work I find consistently thoughtful and beautifully crafted.

Where are your favorite places to browse on a lazy weekend?

The lagoon, beyond the more familiar islands like Burano or Murano, towards quieter, less-travelled places like Sant’Erasmo, Torcello, Mazzorbo. A simple table set in nature, lunch with friends, the sun overhead, a good bottle of wine. Time stretches differently out there.

Mohamed Mire

Photographer and co-curator of the Somali Pavilion

Though he lives between Venice and Stockholm, Mire finds himself drawn back to Venice frequently. Though he’s now technically no longer a resident, the ties he made when he did live full-time in the city are so strong they keep bringing him back. This year, he’s co-curating the Somali Pavilion, the first time the nation will be participating in the Venice Art Biennale.

What are your main tips for someone visiting Venice for the first time during the Biennale?

Go against the current. Get lost. Allow yourself to stumble upon something unexpected, a small show, a hidden space, a conversation. Those discoveries are often the ones that stay with you the longest.

Where are we going for dinner?

A true classic during the Biennale opening: Vini da Arturo. You sit down, and soon you’ll find yourself talking with Hani and Ernesto, the historic hosts, about who has been there, who is coming next, and everything in between. A bit of Biennale gossip is inevitable, and in a city like Venice, it’s part of the experience.

Any other top food or drink recommendations? Where’s somewhere you’d never miss?

Absolutely, Bepi Antico 54. Anything with artichokes, don’t think twice. Build a meal around small antipasti, letting the table fill gradually.

If you had to get someone a gift from Venice, what would you get them, and where would you buy it?

A copy of Fondamenta degli Incurabili by Joseph Brodsky.

Where are your favorite places to browse on a lazy weekend?

A trip to Pellestrina, a quick lunch at Da Nane or Ristorante da Celeste, and then back onto the water, drifting, watching the sunset, letting the lagoon set the pace.

Give us your Venetian classic and a new kid on the block.

Classic: Don’t look for monuments, look for pozzi, or the Venetian wells. They’re scattered across the city, in courtyards, palaces, and hidden corners. Each one hints at a different layer of Venice’s history. New kid on the block: Do Farai [recently reopened under new management]. It’s quickly becoming a point of convergence, where locals gather and bring their international guests.

A wild card recommendation?

Follow the water. At some point, leave behind appointments, maps, and expectations, and just move through the lagoon. That’s often when Venice becomes most clear.

See all these tips, as well as all the 2026 Venice Biennale locations, in Artsy’s Google Map.

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Renée Levi to transform London’s Hayward Gallery with Audemars Piguet commission this fall. https://ift.tt/3KRQc06

Painter Renée Levi will unveil a new large-scale work on the façade of London’s Hayward Gallery this fall. The two-panel painting has been co-commissioned by the Hayward Gallery and Audemars Piguet Contemporary, the watch brand’s dedicated art programme. The installation will mark the programme’s first painting commission and is Levi’s first large-scale commission in the U.K. It will be on view from September 23rd through November 15th.

“Drawing is an immediate, bodily act in situ within a site that determines material, scale, and action,” said the artist in a press statement. “Scale is body-based: reach, arm movement, spatial extension. Tools emerge from the situation and define mark-making. Rules arise within the act and exclude correction, overpainting, and composition. There is no return. The work is made in a single continuous passage. Drawing is action. Action produces the image. What becomes visible is time.”

Untitled, 2004
Renée Levi
Galerie Knoell, Basel

stanbul-born and Berlin-based, Levi’s practice spans painting, drawing, installation, and site-specific interventions. Her work investigates the immediacy of paint application, using bold colors and large gestures that are applied with aerosol or cleaning rags. Her installations examine painting as a practice that at once conceals, reveals, filters, and reshapes the surface on which it is applied. The resulting image is not one that is predetermined, but rather one that unfolds through exploration. Last year, the artist mounted "LA ELLE," at the Palais de Tokyo, an installation featuring mural paintings and window drawings.

Her site-responsive work for the Hayward façade takes cues from the gallery’s Brutalist architecture, taking its characteristic protrusions and windows as a starting point. It will be realized using an industrial mesh support to adapt to the outdoor environment.

“Activating the Hayward Gallery’s iconic architecture, Renée Levi’s new work expands the possibilities of painting,” shared Audemars Piguet Contemporary curator Audrey Teichmann in a press statement. “Levi approaches the Hayward Gallery not as a backdrop, but as a surface to engage, responding to its rhythm, materiality, and scale.”

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