Summary

• Tom Wesselmann's Cooper Square Studio will open to the public for the first time during Armory Week 2026
• Almine Rech is also unveiling a duet exhibition between the late pop artist and Japanese-American Tomokazu Matsuyama
• The exhibition is on view from September 19 through 26, with timed visits for the studio taking place throughout the week

Tom Wesselmann's longtime New York studio will welcome the public for the first time since the artist's death. This Armory Week, fans of the American pop artist will get to experience the Cooper Square space, where many of his works were created during his final era, from 1994 to 2004.

Wesselmann, known for his “Great American Nude” series and larger-than-life commercial still lifes, saw his practice as a pursuit of “super reality,” — a way to elevate ordinary objects through monumental scale and saturated hues.

To ring in the opening, Almine Rech will also unveil Wesselmann x Matsuyama, a special duet exhibition pairing works by the pop pioneer with Tomokazu Matsuyama, a Japanese-American artist with a shared penchant for turning everyday moments into visually surreal and striking compositions.

“If Wesselmann transformed the visual language of postwar America from within its own culture,” a press statement reads, then “Matsuyama works within a visual world in which cultural boundaries are already porous.” Matsuyama's kaleidoscopic pieces riff off ordinary imagery, while also reflecting on the cultural and historical complexities that define his era.

One standout moment pairs Wesselmann's “Still Life #35” (1963), a massive four-canvas grocery haul, with Matsuyama's “We The People” (2025). Here, the Japanese-American artist reimagines Jacques-Louis David's “The Death of Socrates” as a supermarket scene. Lucky Charms boxes and neat stacks of Advil become one with art historical reference and dense patterning, making for scenes that, like Wesselmann, reconsider the role of consumerism within art.

The forthcoming show builds on the duo's first go-around together during Pop Forever, Wesselmann's 2024 retrospective at Fondation Louis Vuitton, building on the cross-generation creative dialogue between two artists that make us reflect on the possibilities of painting.

Presented by the Tom Wesselmann Estate and Almine Rech, Wesselmann x Matsuyama runs from September 19 through 27. Advance registration is required for the limited public opening of the Cooper Square studio, with timed visits taking place across three days during the exhibition run.

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Summary

• Pace Berlin is currently hosting a new group exhibition, Goodbye Sadness, Hello Sadness
• The show features 27 artists whose work explores the emotional terrains of night and nightlife, spanning immersive installations, sculpture, painting, and photography
• A highlight of the show is “Bar Va Bene” (2026), a functioning recreation of Friedrich Kunath’s studio bar in Los Angeles

A bar is the unlikely centerpiece of the ongoing Goodbye Sadness, Hello Sadness. But it is Pace Berlin after all. You can expect the unexpected when it comes to settings and interiors from the mega-gallery’s German outpost, itself housed in an ex-gas 1950s station in Schöneberg.

The gallery is exploring the euphoric and melancholic landscapes of nightlife in its latest group exhibition, running until August 23. Anchored by a replica of “Bar Va Bene”, Friedrich Kunath’s storied studio bar on the ground floor, the showcase steeps visitors in the moods and codes of the after-hours through the works of 27 artists, including David Lynch, Pol Taburet, Robert Nava, Kylie Manning, Elmgreen & Dragset, Alicja Kwade, and more

Goodbye Sadness, Hello Sadness, which shines in neon letters on opposite ends of Kunath’s art bar, takes its name after Bonjour Tristesse, the 1954 novel by the then-18-year-old Françoise Sagan. Famed (and controversial) for its themes of unapologetic desire and hedonism, the book sets the stage for the exhibition’s exploration of abandon and belonging, where night serves as not just a social site, but an affective metaphor for possibility and uncertainty.

Between dusk and dawn contains entire worlds. Several works riff on icons of club life and exclusivity, such as Elmgreen & Dragset’s “But I’m on The Guest List” (2007–15), a “VIP” door leading nowhere, while “Flash” (2025)  by Esben Weile Kjær reimagines the disco ball as a giant shimmering bee. Elsewhere, Lauren Quin debuts a new gestural painting that finds meaning in the haze, while Kylie Manning presents a new work that occupies a similarly dynamic psychological terrain.

Goodbye Sadness, Hello Sadness is now on view in Berlin until August 23. The gallery will be open for extended hours for “Bar Va Bene," which you can check out Thursday through Sunday from 5 PM to 10 PM. Read on for the full list of artists.

Featured artists:

Carolina Aguirre
Jürgen Baldiga
Norbert Bisky
Monica Bonvicini
Albrecht Dürer
Martin Eder
Leon Eisermann
Elmgreen & Dragset
Xie Fan
Gregor Hildebrandt
Okka-Esther Hungerbühler
Max Jahn
Esben Weile Kjaer
Friedrich Kunath
Alicja Kwade
Nadine Lohof
David Lynch
Kylie Manning
Andreas Mühe
Robert Nava
Trevor Paglen
Lauren Quin
Christian Rosa
Jeremy Shaw
Pol Taburet
Tristan Unrau
Sally von Rosen

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Summary

• Acne Studios celebrates one year of its Aoyama flagship with another Apollinaria Broche collaboration
• The moment includes a rooftop and in-store installation of new ceramic characters by the French-Russian artist, alongside a three-piece tee capsule

Acne Studios’ Aoyama flagship is ringing in one year with sweetness, courtesy of Apollinaria Broche. As the Swedish fashion house celebrates its Tokyo flagship's first birthday, it's reuniting with the French-Russian artist for an adorable full-store takeover of installations and wearables.

A rooftop installation of nine whimsical large-scale works anchors the occasion. Each piece, reminiscent of antique figurines, introduces a new darling character; there's Suisui the three-legged horse; Emru the sleepy white bunny; Daisy cat, “dreaming she is one with the flowers”; and a baby deer named Bimbi, charmingly risen on its hind legs.

A series of miniaturized ceramic companions is also sprinkled throughout the store, softening the sleek interior with moments of wonder and surprise. The House brings out an even sweeter side of the artist, also known for her surreal, sinuous flower sculptures.

This isn't the first time the artist has brought her nostalgic creations to Acne. The new cast of characters evokes Broche's first go-around with the brand, a wondrous collection of ceramics and accessories for its Fall/Winter 2021 collection, and another adorable Lunar New Year collaboration in 2023, all centered around the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed Bun Bun for the year of the rabbit.

The anniversary installation also arrives with an equally whimsical three-piece tee capsule, available exclusively at the Aoyama outpost, comprising fitted short sleeves and a crewneck featuring Bimbi, Suisui, and a hedgehog character.

 

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Summary

• Acclaimed pattern and decoration artist Joyce Kozloff revealed herself to be a Guerrilla Girl in a recent interview
• She helped establish the anonymous feminist art collective in its early days and left in 1991
• The group, still active today, is known for its radical "guerrilla"-style interventions that expose misogyny and racism in the art world

Whether it's in the streets or the halls of the world’s greatest museums, you can always trust the Guerrilla Girls to make a scene. Since 1985, the feminist art collective has been rallying against racism and misogyny in the art industry through surprise exhibitions, takeovers, and general, well, “guerrilla”-style tactics.

The true identities behind the group have long been one of the industry’s biggest mysteries. But 40 years later, founding member Joyce Kozloff has decided to break her silence. The celebrated pattern and decoration artist revealed she was part of the Guerrilla Girls in an interview recently published on Art Journal Open.

“We decided to call ourselves the Guerrilla Girls, wear fishnet hose and short skirts, call out the worst misogynists in the art world, appear publicly in masks, like avengers,” Kozloff said.

Anonymity for the group was always key, and the artist affirmed that it was never about being shielded from backlash: “I argued for anonymity because I didn’t want attention to be on us as individuals,” she said. “I wanted it to remain on the issues.”

During her run in the group, she also created the draft for “The Advantages of Being a Woman Artist” (1988), one of the collective’s most famous works, which came to her during her Kohler Art/Industry Residency, where she watched male colleagues rolled into the program with undergraduate students, “their girlfriends, who also did their housework, cooking and were unpaid studio assistants at the factory.”

Members adopt the names of deceased women artists and writers as pseudonyms, with itsfounding figures going by “Frida Kahlo” and “Käthe Kollwitz.” Other identities include Ana Mendieta and Audre Lorde. Despite decades of speculation, very few members have publicly revealed themselves. Kozloff is one of the rare exceptions, alongside artist Robin Tewes, who confirmed last year that she worked under the alias “Alice Neel.”

Kozloff left the Guerrilla Girls in 1991, but even today, the collective is still at the top of their game, keeping steadfast in their mission to expose discrimination in all corners of the wider art world.

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Summary

• Whitney Museum of American Art will unveil Roy Lichtenstein: Like New this October
• The exhibition features over 130 paintings, sculptures, drawings, films, and installations by the artist, spanning his most iconic paintings to early works

You could argue that Roy Lichtenstein helped lay the groundwork for today's culture of unstable images. His most recognizable works – taken straight from comic books, enlarged, painted over, and Ben Day-dotted – feel like primers to the endless acts of cropping, reposting, and memeing, even, that define contemporary visual culture.

The Pop Art pioneer will be the star of a major survey presented by the Whitney Museum of American Art this fall. Opening in New York on October 11, Like New gathers over 130 works, including painting, drawing, collage, prints, sculpture, and film, from across Lichtenstein’s career, revisiting his enduring practice through a 21st-century lens.

Curated by Meg Onli and artist Alex Da Corte, alongside Nakai Falcón and David Crane, the selection traces his early fascination with perception, consumerism, and commercial culture to some of his most defining works, like “Look Mickey” (1961), “Drowning Girl” (1963), and “Masterpiece” (1962).

Of the highlights we know of so far is the full eight-piece Pop collection, which lets audiences relive Lichtenstein’s landmark 1962 debut at Leo Castelli Gallery in a similarly intimate moment as his studio donation in 2023. Elsewhere, three murals will be recreated, including the 96-foot “Greene Street Mural” (1983), alongside an outdoor “Girl in Window” (1964), realized by co-curator and artist Da Corte.

The exhibition also traces the artist’s influence beyond Pop, pairing his work with contemporaries like Louise Lawler, Richard Pettibone, and Sturtevant to further Like New’s study of appropriation and the fluid afterlife of images.

Lichtenstein had a way with everyday images, and through it, changed the game of high art. Inspired, referential, yet entirely his own, it was him after all, who once said: “All my art is in some way about other art, even if the other art is cartoons.”

Like New opens October 11 at the Whitney, with member previews running October 8 through 10. Head to the museum’s website to secure your tickets today.

Whitney Museum of American Art
99 Gansevoort St,
New York, NY 10014

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Summary

• American artist Devin Troy Strother has unveiled a new exhibition at Ruttkowski;68 in Cologne, Germany
• Titled B M W (A Black Man's Wish), the show gathers new paintings and mixed-media works that explore narratives of fantasy, ambition, and access, told through the aperture of a bygone status symbol

Ironic and introspective, provocative and deeply personal, Devin Troy Strother’s artworks aren’t so easy to contain. The artist has built a following from pieces that deconstruct the social codes that rule over us, subverting racial stereotypes with critical sincerity, often using humor as the entry point. It’s an approach perfectly embodied by the Paid in Full line that inspired his latest solo exhibition: “BMW stands for Black Man’s Wish, because I wish I had one."

In B M W (A Black Man’s Wish) at Ruttkowski;68 in Cologne, Germany, the Los Angeles-based artist examines how even gold can rust. In a new series of paintings and mixed-media works, he turns to the cultural weight attached to the German automaker, using it as a stand-in for shifting meanings of ambition, fantasy, and success within the collective and personal imaginary.

The title nods to the aspirational culture of 1980s Harlem, where owning such a car was a sign that you’d made it. Fast-forward to now: the show also references the artist’s own ride — a 2012 BMW 328i station wagon. What was, at one point, one of the world’s most recognizable status symbols takes on a newfound mundanity, a domesticity, that suggests that dreams are always up for reconsideration.

Throughout the show, a single vehicle opens up larger conversations around desire, class, race, and the stories we project onto material objects. Alongside his famed fondness for Philip Guston, Strother also cites a handful of other artists in the works’ titles, such as Tal R., Eddie Martinez, Emil Nolde, and Max Ernst, turning to art historical and contemporary greats to carve out his own canon of success.

B M W (A Black Man’s Wish) is now on view in Germany until September 26.

Ruttkowski;68 Cologne
Bismarckstrasse 68,
50672 Cologne,
Germany

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Summary

Okuda San Miguel presents his first major immersive exhibition at W1 Curates in London.Ancestral Futurism reimagines his signature geometric figures, bold colors and hybrid creatures through large-scale digital environments.The free exhibition runs on Oxford Street through August 5.

Okuda San Miguel has transformed W1 Curates on London’s Oxford Street with Ancestral Futurism, his first major immersive exhibition.

The show reimagines key works from the Spanish artist’s career as large-scale digital environments filled with his signature geometric figures, hybrid creatures, bold colors and recurring symbols. Together, they trace the evolution of his practice from graffiti and painting to sculpture, installation and digital art.

At its core, Ancestral Futurism is about coexistence. Okuda’s imagined world brings together different identities, cultures and forms, blending nature and technology, the ancient and the futuristic, and the abstract and figurative.

Presented across W1 Curates’ expansive screens, the exhibition encourages viewers to slow down and spend time with the work rather than consume it like another image in an endless scroll.

Ancestral Futurism is on view at W1 Curates, Oxford Street, through August 5.

W1 Curates
161, 167 Oxford St.
London W1D 2JP
United Kingdom

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Summary

• Argentinian artist Tomás Saraceno unveiled a new exhibition, Ancestral Futures, at Haus der Kunst in Munich, Germany
• Running until February 2027, the showcase explores humanity's entangled relationship with plants, animals, and atmospheres
• Two of the artist's research initiatives, Aerocene and Arachnophilia, alongside a new land art commission created with Indigenous communities in Northern Argentina ground the presentation

Tomás Saraceno invites us to conjure up new ways of living in his new exhibition at Haus der Kunst. For Ancestral Futures, running until February 7, 2027, the Argentine artist transforms the Munich museum into a breathing landscape, alive with art, architecture, science, and Indigenous knowledge.

The artist has spent the last two decades cultivating an interdisciplinary practice that puts the environment first. Through his art, he reconstellates the relationships between humans, plants, animals, and atmospheres — spiders, most notably — proposing ecological models of collective living over systems of extraction.

Two of his long-term research projects, Aerocene and Arachnophilia, anchor the exhibition. Saraceno founded the former initiative in 2015 as community research on fossil fuel-free modes of life and emission-free transportation, which naturally led to sculptures made of air, solar, radiation, and infrared technology.

Arachnophilia, on the other hand, hones in on the extraordinary behaviors of spiders, specifically their elaborate web sculptures, which lay the groundwork for his similarly netted immersive installations, such as “Towards the Sanctuary of Water,” now on view.

The show also marks the debut of a major new co-commission, “El Santuario del Agua (The Sanctuary of Water),” created in close collaboration with the 11 Indigenous communities of Red Atacama, Las Salinas Grandes in Northern Argentina, probing into the social and ecological pressures lithium extraction has on the region.

“Ancestral Futures offers another way of attending to these connections. The exhibition asks what can be sensed when we stop looking at isolated objects and begin paying attention to the connections between them,” curator and museum director Andrea Lissoni penned in a recent essay for the show. “Here, futures happen because they are made together.”

The exhibition is now on view in Munich, Germany, until February 7, 2027. Learn more about Ancestral Futures on Haus der Kunst’s website.

Haus der Kunst
Prinzregentenstraße 1,
80538 München-Altstadt-Lehel,
Germany

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Summary

• Cristiano Ronaldo, artist Vhils, and Al Nassr just released a mystery box art print series, titled “Knight of Najd”
• Each individual box contains one hand-signed print depicting one of 100 defining moments from the footballer’s career, distributed at random

Cristiano Ronaldo is closing out his record-breaking World Cup run with an art drop. The footballer came together with Portuguese artist Vhils and Saudi Pro team Al Nassr once again for a 100-piece “Knight of Najd” print release, offering fans a chance to take home a piece of his career history.

A mystery box edition makes up the trio’s second go-around. Priced at €199 EUR, each individual box includes a hand-signed 20 x 20 cm print by Vhils depicting one of 100 defining moments from Ronaldo’s career, and while every print stands alone as a finished artwork, together the full set forms a larger portrait.

And you can score more. Collectors will be asked to answer how Ronaldo inspires them. Entries will be judged by a panel comprising members from Vhilstudio and Al Nassr. A total of 150 participants will receive an original artwork from the Vhils x CR7 series, while 10 winners will receive a shirt signed by Ronaldo, and another 100 will take home an Al Nassr x Ronaldo No. 7 jersey.

The release builds on the first “Knight of Najd” collaboration earlier this year, when Vhils unveiled a monumental portrait of Ronaldo carved into the concrete walls of Al Nassr’s House of Nassr and finished with gold inlays.

Going back even further, it’s a complete full-circle moment for the artist who featured Ronaldo as the subject of one of his earliest video projects over 15 years ago.

For collectors looking to purchase the “Knight of Najd” mystery box, the edition is available as single prints, alongside bundles of three, 10, and the full 100, all hand-signed by Vhils. The complete set arrives framed with a guaranteed original artwork, and the first five sets come with a shirt signed by Ronaldo himself. Check out the official site for more information.

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Summary

• Cuban-American artist Ana Mendieta gets the spotlight in a new major retrospective at Tate Modern
• On through January 2027, the exhibition spans sculpture, performance, photography, film, drawing, and installation, painting a full, tender picture of an artist of a generation
• Rarely seen works, newly remastered films, and her iconic Silueta series are also on view

Tate Modern in London honors the visionary legacy of Cuban-American artist Ana Mendieta with a new landmark retrospective. Running through January 2027, the exhibition cements Mendieta's place as a 20th-century great, tenderly and wholly spotlighting her pioneering practice that resculpted the relationship between body, land, and identity.

Born in Havana, Cuba, in 1948, Mendieta was exiled to the United States at just 12-years-old. Raised in Iowa, she studied archaeology and art and developed a multidisciplinary practice that sought to re-establish a bridge to her home country.

Working across sculpture, performance, photography, film and installation, she became best known for her radical "earth-body" works. In contrast to the monumental gestures favored by many of her, namely male, contemporaries, her interventions with the landscape were more intimate, subtler, embedding traces of human form directly into nature.

Her best-known series, Silueta, also central to the Tate retrospective, began in 1973, when, across the Americas and Europe, she burned, molded, and carved ephemeral forms into natural environments, imprinting herself onto the land, while tackling themes of displacement, renewal, belonging, and spiritual reconnection

The retrospective also features "Ñañigo Burial" (1976), a live Silueta made from black ritual candles, and her first indoor earth-body work, alongside a selection of early films by the artist, several newly remastered, such as "Anima, Silueta de Cohetes (Firework Piece)" 1976, "Bird Run" 1974, "Ochún" 1981, and "Parachute" (1973). Delicate leaf drawings and selections from her Amategram painting series will also be on view.

While Mendieta has been the subject of several major shows in recent years, the Tate's presentation stands out for resisting the tendency to frame her legacy through her tragic death in 1985, whose story and alleged perpetrator, Carl Andre, often overshadow her own achievements. Instead, the show centers on the full breadth of her remarkable practice, restoring focus to the ideas and innovations that made her one of the artists of a generation.

"To me, the work has existed in different levels," she once said. "It’s existed in the level of being in nature…and eventually being eroded away."

Ana Mendieta is now on view in London until January 17, 2027. Check out the museum's website for more information on how to visit.

Tate Modern
Bankside,
London SE1 9TG,
United Kingdom

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Summary

The inaugural 2026 Collection launches July 28 exclusively on Contemporary100.com.Each 10-card pack includes nine Base Cards, one Foil Card and a chance to pull a one-of-one Artist-Signed Card.The lineup features Daniel Arsham, Felipe Pantone, Hebru Brantley, Vhils, Stickymonger, Josh Sperling and more.

Contemporary100 is bringing the thrill of trading cards to the art world with the launch of Contemporary [Trading Cards], a new collectible platform featuring 100 contemporary artists from around the globe.

Launching exclusively through Contemporary100.com on July 28, the inaugural 2026 Collection reimagines the traditional trading card as an accessible way to discover and collect contemporary art. Each randomized pack contains 10 cards, including nine Base Cards, one Foil Card and the possibility of pulling a one-of-one card signed by the featured artist.

The first collection brings together artists working across painting, sculpture, photography, installation, digital art, performance and public art. Daniel Arsham, Felipe Pantone, Hebru Brantley, Tyrrell Winston, Joshua Vides, Stickymonger, Vhils, Josh Sperling, Gina Beavers, Ludovic Nkoth, Johnson Tsang, Brooke DiDonato and Joseph Lee are among the artists included in the lineup.

“Trading cards exist between image, object and memory, carrying stories that extend beyond their surface."— Daniel Arsham

“Trading cards exist between image, object and memory, carrying stories that extend beyond their surface,” Daniel Arsham said in a statement. “Bringing contemporary artists into this format opens up collecting in a broader way, giving artists a chance to create something attainable and exciting for their fans.”

Although artists have previously experimented with trading cards through individual projects and limited collaborations, Contemporary [Trading Cards] positions itself as the first platform to unite 100 artists within a single collectible ecosystem. Each card is designed to function as both a collectible object and an introduction to the artist’s work, offering an alternative to acquiring original pieces that are often limited by price and availability.

“We’ve spent years helping tens of millions of people discover contemporary art online,” Contemporary100 founder Coby Katz added. “We’re bringing that same sense of discovery into the real world, making contemporary art more accessible by giving fans a new way to discover artists, support the ones they love and build their own collection.”

Future collections will introduce additional artworks, chase cards, limited editions, collaborations and community activations. Contemporary [Trading Cards] launches July 28, with single packs priced at $49.99 USD, three packs at $129.99 USD and ten packs at $399.99 USD.

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Summary

KAWS has officially revealed a brand-new sculptural collectible figure titled "FELLOWS"The monochrome piece introduces a bent-forward posture featuring the character holding its own headSignature details like X-marked eyes and oversized limbs are accented by a solitary splash of color

KAWS has officially revealed its latest sculptural masterpiece with the introduction of the KAWS "FELLOWS" Figure Collection. This upcoming release continues the artist's legendary line of highly sought-after vinyl collectibles.

Diverging from some of the artist's more vibrant character-based releases, the new "FELLOWS" silhouette leans heavily into a darker, more minimal aesthetic. The entire figure is presented in a sleek, monochromatic all-black finish, showcasing a unique and subdued posture where the character is bent forward while holding its own head and standing on its own severed limb.

Despite the more understated direction, the piece proudly carries the signature visual language that has defined Brian Donnelly’s global art career. Recognizable design cues are present throughout the figure, including the iconic X-marked eyes, oversized hands, and exaggerated feet. The intricate, textured sculptural surfaces are sharply contrasted by a single colorful detail: a bright red circular accent placed directly at the top of the piece.

The KAWS "FELLOWS" figure is slated to drop soon, with specific release details and pricing expected to follow soon via KAWS' official distribution channels.

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Summary

Mori Art Museum hosts Mariko Mori's retrospective 'All That Shines' from October 31, 2026 to March 28, 2027.The retrospective explores Mori’s concept of “Oneness” through art, science and spirituality, featuring works from her three decades of her career.

The Mori Art Museum in Tokyo has announced Mariko Mori: All That Shines, a major retrospective tracing over three decades of the visionary artist's career. Opening on October 31, 2026, and running through March 28, 2027, the showcase marks Mori's first major institutional retrospective in Japan since her 2002 Pure Land exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo.

The show explores the artist’s expansive conceptual evolution, charting her shift from mid-1990s societal critiques toward expansive metaphysical inquiries that fuse technological futurism with ancient philosophies of consciousness. All That Shines>>features roughly forty works that showcase Mori's multi-disciplinary innovations across computer-imaging photography, video, drawing, sculpture, and large-scale interactive environments. Visitors will encounter historic, performance-based video works like "Miko No Inori"(1996) alongside iconic installations such as "Wave UFO" (1999–2002), celebrated as the first artwork to integrate a functional brainwave bio-feedback interface inside a fiberglass vision dome.

The exhibition will also spotlight her complex, science-driven works like "Tom Na H-iu" (2006) — an interactive sculptural installation that connects directly with astrophysical data to translate real-time neutrino emissions from supernova explosions into flashing pulses of light. These are presented alongside photographic documentation of monumental, site-specific outdoor structures like "Primal Rhythm: Sun Pillar" (2011) and "Ring: One with Nature" (2016), which align directly with the celestial geometry of the winter solstice sun.

Mori Art Museum
53/F Roppongi Hills Mori Tower
Roppongi, 6 Chome−10−1,Minato City
106-6150 Tokyo, Japan

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Summary

Carsten Höller:'s 'Two' opens at UCCA Beijing, marking his first major solo show in China.On view till January 31, 2027, the curation splits the space into parallel color and monochromatic environments.Visitors interact with robotic roaming beds, slow-moving carousels and ingestible installations.

The UCCA Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing is hosting Carsten Höller's Two, a major site-specific exhibition that transforms the museum's signature 1,877-square-meter Great Hall into an interactive environment. Curated by Philip Tinari alongside UCCA Assistant Curator Jiashu Zou, the showcase acts as what Höller calls a "Laboratory of Doubt," utilizing an architectural framework that deliberately splits the factory-influenced Great Hall into two mirror-image, parallel environments — one rendered entirely in vivid color and the other in black-and-white.

Upon arrival, visitors are randomly assigned an entrance that permanently alters their initial physical route through the twin spaces. The layout features landmark installations specifically modified for UCCA Beijing, including "Tilted Carousel (Two Whites)" and "Tilted Carousel (Five Colours)" — two fully functional, 6.3-meter-high amusement park rides clad in flashing light bulbs that complete slow, counter-rotational movements over a two-minute cycle, suspending and trapping their riders until a full spin finishes.

The parallel rooms also house contrasting temporal instruments: the standard-time neon configuration "Sexagesimal Clock" faces off against "Decimal Clock, " a functional time-piece operating on a historic, 10-hour French Revolutionary system. Additionally, the central section introduces the interactive marble sculpture "Dice," which allows guests to physically climb into its hollow interior, and "Pill Clock,: which drops ingestible pills containing an undisclosed substance onto the floor at three-second intervals. Carsten Höller's Two is now on view at UCCA Beijing through January 31, 2027.

UCCA Beijing
4 Jiuxianqiao Rd, Chaoyang,
Beijing, China, 100102

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Summary

• Artist Olaolu Slawn, better known as Slawn, has opened a massive pop-up exhibition in Chelsea, Manhattan
• Running through July 19, the showcase features new 15" x 15" paintings, wooden sculptures, and collaborative pieces by the Nigerian artist
• You can also cop the Nigeria "X2" '26 collection inside the gallery as part of the mini Slawn x Nike store

Saatchi Yates just opened, yet another Slawn-sized takeover, this time in Chelsea, Manhattan, just in time for the World Cup finale. The art world enfant terrible is making himself at home in New York for Slawn on W18th Street, his new pop-up show with the London gallery, Nike, and Team Nigeria, bringing new football-inspired pieces to the heart of where it's all going down.

His largest show to date, the exhibition centers on several 15"x15" paintings, one of which was featured on the Super Eagles' 2026 third kit. The centerpiece artwork depicts a maze of Slawn’s signature cartoonish characters, layered in chaotic, green geometry. Another towering piece nearby echoes the kit artwork in deep grayscale, while, in others, bright fields of color are overlaid with busy graffiti-style faces.

The adjoining galleries lean more into the figure-forward style we've seen from the artist as of late, such as a Big Bird vs. Batman square-off. In wooden sculptures punctuating the space, the artist conjures ideas like unity, competition, and defeat, themes key to the beautiful game.

Slawn's collaborators and friends also showed out. Designer Asspizza brought in a massive flag made out of scraps from the painter's canvases. Performance artist Thelonious Stokes also made a surprise appearance with a live performance mid-opening. The bridge to the pitch lives on in a display of the recent Slawn-designed football and Nike R10 boots for Ronaldinho.

Throughout the weekend, Saatchi Yates is also hosting a mini Nike x Slawn store inside the gallery, stocked with accessories and apparel from the Nigeria "X2" '26 collection. Stickers and an exclusive Nike football magazine is also up for grabs.

Head to 456 W. 18th Street this weekend to catch the show before it closes.

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Summary

The 'Summerlove Sensation' group exhibition opens at Perrotin Los Angeles, featuring 15 artists exploring intimacy, desire and fantasy.Highlights include Pilar Zeta’s "Telepathic Kiss Portal" and Isabelle Albuquerque’s floral interspecies sculpture.The show opens on July 18 and runs through to August 28, 2026, at Perrotin LA's gallery space.

Perrotin Los Angeles presents Summerlove Sensation, a vibrant group exhibition kicking off this weekend at its Pico Boulevard gallery space. Borrowing its title from the 1974 pop hit by the Bay City Rollers, the group show captures a dizzying, lighthearted affair with love itself. The exhibition brings together 15 contemporary artists to explore themes of youthful romance, lust, and longing through a distinctly Southern Californian lens. By weaving together paintings, sculptures, and interactive installations, the curation acts as a warm, sensory celebration of intimacy and carefree desire.

Katherina Olschbaur’s "Of the Muses" (2025) and Gregor Hildebrandt’s "And Again, Rain Falls Gently On Flowers" (2024) revisit the tradition of pin‑up imagery with painterly and romantic undertones. Jean‑Michel Othoniel’s "Cancer" (2024) offers a suggestive astrological reading rendered in glass, while Isabelle Albuquerque’s "to be the wood, to be the water, to be with you" (2025) stages an interspecies, floral affair that blurs the boundaries between human and nature. Perhaps the most interactive highlight is Pilar Zeta’s "Telepathic Kiss Portal "(2026), a functional sculpture that invites visitors to experience intimacy as a form of signal transmission, combining pink marble and stainless steel spheres in a surreal “kissing booth.”

Other participating artists bring diverse cultural and stylistic perspectives to the exhibition, from Aya Takano’s Superflat‑inspired mythic imagery to Honor Titus’s witty portrait "Zsa Zsa" (2026), which revisits Hollywood gossip through painterly speculation. Works by Alex Anderson, Mustafa Ali Clayton, Susumu Kamijo, Rae Klein, Koak, Asuka Anastacia Ogawa, Andrew J. Park and GaHee Park further enrich the show with explorations of identity, memory, and desire.

The Summerlove Sensation group exhibition will officially unveil on July 18 and will remain on view at Perrotin Los Angeles until August 28, 2026.

Perrotin Los Angeles
5036 W Pico Blvd, Los Angeles,
CA 90019, United States

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Summary

Slawn transformed 10 Ronaldinho x Ravenna jerseys into one-of-one artworks.The capsule also includes two customized pairs of Nike R10 boots.The pieces will be auctioned through MatchWornShirt, with proceeds supporting Street Soccer USA.

Slawn has transformed a series of Ronaldinho jerseys and Nike R10 boots into one-of-one artworks for the latest chapter of the Ronaldinho x Ravenna by Cipriani project.

Created at the British-Nigerian artist’s London studio, the SLAWN Limited Edition Capsule features 10 jerseys designed by creative director Giorgio Mallone and individually reworked with Slawn’s recognizable painted figures and expressive markings. Each shirt is unique and co-signed by Slawn and Ronaldinho.

The capsule also includes two customized pairs of Nike R10 boots. One pair was created specifically for Ronaldinho’s return to the pitch, turning the football icon’s signature footwear into a collectible artwork.

“Football is one of the most universal forms of contemporary culture,” Slawn said. “It’s a language that belongs to everyone and can live anywhere, in a stadium just as in a gallery, on the street just as in a museum.”

The collaboration forms part of Ronaldinho x Ravenna by Cipriani, a wider cultural initiative connected to Italian football club Ravenna FC. Led by club president Ignazio Cipriani, the project seeks to position football as a meeting point for sport, art, design, heritage and hospitality.

One of the jerseys will be displayed at Casa Cipriani New York during the week leading up to the World Cup final. Presented through a physical and digital installation, the display will allow visitors to scan a QR code, explore the making of the capsule and access its auction.

The jerseys and boots will later be auctioned in partnership with MatchWornShirt. A portion of the proceeds will support Street Soccer USA, an organization that builds soccer spaces and provides youth programs in underserved communities.

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If we’re talking most memorable rooms in New York, Mickalene Thomas’ rhinestone vault takes the crown. Thousands of crystals in just about every color make up the towering shelves in the back corner of her studio, a converted two-storey mechanic’s garage. Just a few steps beyond, her latest collection is mounted in the main room. The sun hangs high over Brooklyn. What a fitting backdrop to welcome in her next chapter.

Hot off the Paris stop of her global All About Love tour, the Jersey-born, New York-based artist, it seems, is already looking ahead. By now, the works have touched down and gone up in Detroit for her ongoing show at The Shepherd, presented by the beloved Library Street Collective. But if you ask her, Beneath the Moonlight was a long time coming.

An international art star, Thomas is rewriting the rules of Black portraiture. Her opulent multimedia portraits of Black women in luxuriant interiors — maximalist collages of photography, screenprinting, painting, glitter, and rhinestones — have earned her acclaim within the contemporary art vanguard, and now she's turning elsewhere. With the new show comes a new cast of subjects, with Thomas shifting her gaze towards Black masculinity for the very first time in an exhibition.

“Men do think they're beautiful,” she shared. “We've given them the safe space, in a myriad of ways, to do that unapologetically. It's okay to show your sensitive side. But that’s not always afforded to some Black men within their own communities.”

"Men do think they're beautiful... It's okay to show your sensitive side."

Thomas isn’t leaving behind the ideas or lens long explored in her practice so much as deepening them. She’s still committed to vulnerability, sensuality, agency, and acceptance, simply reconstellating them through different figures. As with her femmes, she’s putting fire beneath historical images depicting Black masculinity, rewiring these canonical motifs into visions of possibility.

The show, curated by Dexter Wemberly, sees Thomas’ 2024 editorial commission for Another Man undergo her signature collage treatment. In the original photos, her subjects lay it all bare, dialing down stoicism in favor of something more open, more tender, christened by the same ardent attention she’s so well known for.

The finished canvases are rooted in strength as embodied rather than expected. Her figures don’t rehearse familiar narratives of resilience or burden, but exist on their own terms in states of grace. Even the show’s title, Beneath the Moonlight, evokes a sense of being – who we are when the rest of the world falls quiet.

“In some ways, softness is perceived as a weakness. But for me, I want to present softness as a strength,” she illuminates, gesturing toward “In Blue: The Odalisque.” The pearl earring. The languid Manet-like lay. The red scarf, “a reminder of warriorship,” still contends with societal norms.

"In some ways, softness is perceived as a weakness. But for me, I want to present softness as a strength."

“When you take the Black body out of the context of how it’s stereotypically known, and put it up against historical ideologies, the narrative shifts.” Out with the Old Guard and in with the new. Fantasy, here, is reengineered into tools for unapologetic self-image. “It’s not just seen as some element of erotism, but as them owning their own prowess.”

The process behind each work is cinematic. In the best films, she explains, the storytelling is all in the editing, taking contradicting frames and making them into one. Richly patterned compositions pull from her library of references, as various eras, images, and styles happily collapse into sites of belonging, memory, and leisure. Even visual juxtapositions can be orchestrated into a symphony when done carefully.

Thomas stops in front of another piece, “In Blue: The Thinker,” on the opposite wall. The figure, channelling Rodin’s iconic sculpture, appears otherworldly, the back of his body cloaked in deep lapis paint. “He’s blossoming and contemplating the next move,” she muses. The work emerged from reflections on the bodies among the transatlantic. “What was that like for them to harbor this strength, harbor this tradition of protection of their people, and to be stripped of that?”

The story of transformation, told throughout the show, is also one of transcendence. Working with non-binary and trans models, too, gives acceptance that much more texture and depth, all of which radiate from the seven-foot-long canvas, “I’m Here,” the largest work in the show. Inspired by the luminous stained glass windows at the Shepherd, a Romanesque-style ex-church, three picks from the new “Au Revoir” series are featured alongside the portraits, echoing ongoing themes of rebirth and sacredness.

"The male body was not something I wanted to shy away from. It was more about when the right time is for me to do it, on my terms."

It was church, after all, that inspired the rhinestones in the first place. Thomas often cites matriarchs as the inspiration behind her leading ladies, and watching her grandmother get dressed in her Sunday best to go on stage and lead the congregation choir initially instilled love and curiosity for how we perform. As a child, “seeing those rituals of how we adorn ourselves,” she reflects, “those moments were just so ceremonious.” If clothing is a way of staking a place in this world, so too, in the case of Beneath the Moonlight, is the lack thereof: authoring when, how, and by whom you’re desired.

Back in the studio, the question still hangs heavy: why now? “The male body was not something I wanted to shy away from,” she puts plainly. “It was more about when the right time is for me to do it, on my terms.”

For two decades, Thomas waited for the work to find her. There’s always noise about the next new thing, and the market’s appetite for “question-answer” progress, but she held off for the opening she needed, to see it through her own lens. “It needs to come out of the experience, from being in the moment. And you don’t always know when you’re in it. My work always has to make sense to the process. It has to come out of becoming.” And if this marks a new chapter, it’s one without a final page. The rest, as Thomas sees it, is already somewhere in the making.

Beneath the Moonlight is now on view at The Shepherd until August 23.

Studio portraits by Lila Barth. All images courtesy of the Artist and Library Street Collective.

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Summary

NANZUKA celebrates Ultraman’s 60th anniversary with “SHUWATCH with U” at PARCO MUSEUM TOKYO.The exhibition features new paintings and sculptures inspired by the iconic Japanese hero from artists including Stickymonger, Jean Jullien and Roby Dwi Antono.Exclusive merchandise is available at the venue, with the exhibition running through August 3.

NANZUKA is celebrating the 60th anniversary of Ultraman with SHUWATCH with U, a special exhibition at PARCO MUSEUM TOKYO.

On view through August 3, the exhibition pays tribute to the landmark Japanese television series created in 1966 by Tsuburaya Productions under Eiji Tsuburaya, widely known as the “God of Tokusatsu.” Paintings, sculptures and three-dimensional works offer new interpretations of the iconic hero by artists including Stickymonger, Jean Jullien, Pex Pitakpong, Roby Dwi Antono and more.

For many of the participating artists, Ultraman represents more than a childhood character, serving as an early source of imagination and creative expression.

"This work is a small altar to my childhood memories of Ultraman. I saw him not merely as a hero I watched, but as the light that quietly sculpted my imagination," said Roby Dwi Antono.

“Our yearning for Ultraman does not end as a mere memory,” added Ryunosuke Okazaki. “The physical gestures that entered my body through childhood play are still repeated within my creative process today. I want to treat that repetition not as simple nostalgia, but as a continuous duration of prayer.”

A curated selection of exclusive merchandise has also been released to commemorate the exhibition. “SHUWATCH with U” is on view through August 3. Visit NANZUKA’s website for more information.

PARCO MUSEUM TOKYO
Shibuya PARCO 4F
15-1 Udagawacho, Shibuya
Tokyo 150-0042, Japan

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NidSummary

• High Line Art has opened public comments on 62 commission proposals for its 2029 and 2030 Plinth program
• The resulting feedback will assist the curatorial committee in choosing the final contender shortlist
• The artist pool features many notable contemporary artists, such as Nina Chanel Abney, Kevin Beasley, Kathleen Ryan, Anicka Yi, and more

A stroll down the High Line, the above-ground trail in lower Manhattan, will take you past some stunning city views, lush gardens, and exceptional contemporary art. The park has held down a robust slate of commissions in recent years, plotting massive works by the likes of Katherine Bernhardt, Tyler Mitchell, Sasha Gordon, and Derek Fordjour against the West Side's towering backdrop.

Of its must-sees is the Spur, the park's newest easternmost section, also home to the monumental Plinth, and, once again, High Line Art is asking the public to weigh in on its future presentations. The public art program has unveiled 62 artist proposals for large-scale commissions that will take over the elevated park in 2029 and 2030.

Located along the Spur, overlooking 10th Avenue at West 30th Street, the Plinth has grown to be one of New York's many iconic stages for public art since 2019. The bridge-top park has played host to several city-favorite sculptures, like Iván Argote’s giant pigeon, "Dinosaur" (2024), and Simone Leigh's inaugural "Brick House" (2019).

Currently up through fall 2027 is Tuan Andrew Nguyen’s "The Light That Shines Through the Universe" (2026), a 27-foot-tall sandstone sculpture of a Bamiyan Buddha, emulating two now-destroyed statues carved in the cliffs of Afghanistan over two millennia ago. Nguyen's successor has already been chosen, and the winning project will be under wraps until it's officially unveiled later next year.

Nestled between the Spur gardens, thousands of perennials, trees, and shrubs, the Plinth commissions offer artists a rather unique platform to inspire audiences, embedding themselves in the surrounding concrete vistas with ambitious scope and scale.

Community feedback helps the curatorial committee narrow the pool of proposals into a final shortlist. Hailing from 37 countries, the 2029 and 2030 contenders feature a number of leading contemporary names, including Nina Chanel Abney, Jonathan Lyndon Chase, Ali Cherri, Kathleen Ryan, Anicka Yi, Dawn Ng, Laure Prouvost, Wendy Red Star, Kei Imazu, Es Devlin, and Kevin Beasley.

Renders of all 62 proposals are now up for consideration online. Head to the High Line's website to learn more about each project.

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