Gabrielle Goliath’s “Elegy” at La Chiesa di Sant’Antonin in Venice. Photo Luca Meneghel/Courtesy the Artist The South Africa Pavilion in the Giardini will sit empty for the entirety of this year’s Venice Biennale, the result of a decision by culture minister Gayton McKenzie to cancel a planned pavilion by artist Gabrielle Goliath for being “highly …
Barry X Ball, Pope Saint John Paul II 2012–2024. Francesco Allegretto. When Carmelo Grasso, director and curator at the Abbey of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice, saw New York–based artist Barry X Ball’s sculpture Pope Saint John Paul II (2012–24), he knew he wanted to mount a show at the sublime church where he works. …
Dana Awartani’s Saudi Arabia Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. Courtesy the artist and the Visual Arts Commission, Commissioner of the National Pavilion of Saudi Arabia When you enter the Saudi Arabia Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, the first thing you’re struck by is the scale of the project: tens of thousands of clay bricks slotted …
Trevor Paglen, Voyager, 2026. Photo Trevor Paglen/©Trevor Paglen/Courtesy the artist, Jessica Silverman Gallery, San Francisco, and Pace Gallery, New York Every two years, Venice is activated with more art than is possible to see in a week. While much attention this year will be on “In Minor Keys,” the central show curated by the late …
10 Shows Around Venice Not to Miss During the Biennale Read More »
Natasha Tontey, The Phantom Combatants and the Metabolism of Disobedient Organs (still), 2026. Commissioned by LAS Art Foundation and Amos Rex; ©2026 Natasha Tontey/Courtesy the artist Fresh off her first institutional exhibition, artist Natasha Toney is set to unveil an ambitious immersive installation during the Venice Biennale at the Ateneo Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed …
Nalini Malani. Photo Luke Walker Entering the cavernous Magazzini del Sale in Venice, viewers encounter Nalini Malani’s animations, which are projected directly onto the uneven brick walls of the former salt warehouse. Her images flicker, dissolve, and reappear as they are cast across architecture shaped by centuries of trade. The installation feels both contemporary and …
Newsmakers: Nalini Malani Lets the Walls Speak with a New Installation in Venice Read More »
Nancy Burson’s 1983 work “Big Brother,” in which she composited the faces of Hitler, Mussolini, Mao, Stalin, and Ruhollah Khomeini. Courtesy the artist and Heft Gallery At first glance, Nancy Burson’s “Quantum Entanglement” paintings appear simply as white dots washing over black canvases in clusters and waves. Some dots resemble pairs of eyes; others appear …
Ronald Bladen, Three Elements, 1965. Installation view in “Primary Structures,” at the Jewish Museum, New York, April 27–June 12, 1966 The Jewish Museum, New York/Art Resource, New York. Artwork copyright © 2026 The Estate of Ronald Bladen, LLC/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. On April 28, 1966, The New York Times ran a review of …
Sacha Stone, Alexander Calder with Cirque Calder (1926–31), 1929 Artwork copyright © 2026 Calder Foundation, New York/ADAGP, Paris. Photograph courtesy of Calder Foundation, New York/Art Resource, New York. Few artists have altered the course of modern sculpture as profoundly as Alexander Calder (1898–1976). From the late 1920s onward, he worked both in the United States …
An Alexander Calder Retrospective in Paris Underscores His Inventiveness Read More »
Amedeo Modigliani, Reclining Nude, 1917 Private collection. Digital image: HIP/Art Resource, New York. For as long as people have made art, they have depicted something they know intimately: the nude human form. One of the oldest surviving works of art—the Paleolithic Venus of Willendorf, which dates to between 24,000 and 22,000 B.C.—is a limestone figurine of …
