Deeply intertwined, fear and courage have traveled together across the centuries through artwork. Art shows believers the rewards and punishments of the afterlife, reminds us of the brevity of life, and leads us by example through the vicissitudes of heroines such as Joan of Arc.
May 2026 Art News
The 61st Venice Biennale, which opened May 9 and will run through November 22, was shadowed even before its five-person jury resigned nine days before the opening in protest of the participation of countries currently under investigation by the International Criminal Court for human rights abuses.
It is one of the most indelible images of modern warfare: Five Vietnamese children run toward the camera, their faces contorted by pain and fear. Dark clouds of smoke hover in the background, as soldiers and combat photographers walk down the highway. The central figure is a 9-year-old girl, her naked, scrawny body burned by the napalm dropped by South Vietnamese forces that mistook the inhabitants of the village of Trang Bang for Vietcong.
Resin art has experienced a burst in popularity within the last few years, but what exactly is this miracle material, and is there a catch? Resin by itself is a viscous, flammable substance that can be either organic or synthetic. Most artists prefer epoxy resin, a synthetic type patented in the early 1930s.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s recently announced deal to merge with cosmetic billionaire Ronald Lauder’s Neue Galerie reflects a quietly growing trend among museums as limited funding and specialized collections press new priorities on leadership.
In the late 1970s, Herbert Zapp, an executive board member of Deutsche Bank, then headquartered in Düsseldorf, West Germany, fell in with the maverick artist and teacher Josef Beuys. Beuys was in the midst of creating his seminal installation “Das Kapital: 1970-1977” for the 1980 Venice Biennale, articulating his belief that art, as an expression of human creativity, is the true capital.
As the nation approaches the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the Autry Museum of the American West is shifting the lens westward. In Life, Liberty, and Los Angeles, opening May 30, the museum reframes the founding ideals, not as settled history, but as questions still being argued over in Los Angeles.
There's no doubt that the statues by Baroque sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini were markedly sensual, which might seem paradoxical in the era of the Counter-Reformation and for an artist whose main patrons were part of the ecclesiastical aristocracy.
The Corning Museum of Glass will open its new exhibition Tough Stuff: Women in the American Glass Studio on May 16, 2026, as a major initiative of the Museum’s year-long celebration of its 75th anniversary. Tough Stuff is the first survey exhibition of work by women artists working in glass during the breakthrough decades of
“Fridamania” is reaching new heights as museums, opera houses, and cinemas across continents celebrate the enduring legacy of Frida Kahlo in 2026. This collective reckoning with her highly curated self-image and body of work comes at a time when many are searching for personal meaning and unity in an age of simultaneous hyper-connectedness and geopolitical division.
