Museum & Exhibition Guide — 2026-05-13
New York Art Week is in full swing, making this one of the most electrifying moments in the global art calendar — with Frieze, TEFAF, and a constellation of gallery openings drawing the art world to Chelsea and beyond. Meanwhile, the Brooklyn Museum launches a major Iris van Herpen fashion retrospective and the British Museum unveils a living woodland installation tied to the Bayeux Tapestry. From Venice Biennale dispatches to Houston's European masterworks blockbuster, there is genuinely unmissable work on view across three continents right now.
Museum & Exhibition Guide — 2026-05-13
Must-See Exhibitions Opening Now
Iris van Herpen: Sculpting the Senses — Brooklyn Museum, New York
- What: A full retrospective of Dutch fashion iconoclast Iris van Herpen, featuring more than 140 of her biomorphic creations that blur the boundary between fashion, sculpture, and natural science.
- Dates: Opening this week (May 2026), exact closing date TBC
- Why Go: Van Herpen — who has described nature as "the best artist" — brings her most comprehensive survey yet to Brooklyn, with garments that resemble coral reefs, storms, and cellular structures. The sheer scale and ambition of 140+ pieces in one room is genuinely rare.
Radiohead: Motion Picture House — Brooklyn, New York
- What: An immersive installation drawing on Radiohead's albums Kid A and Amnesiac, combining art, music, and original film to bring the band's strange visual universe into physical space.
- Dates: Opened this week (May 2026)
- Why Go: One of the most anticipated crossovers of music and visual art in recent years, Motion Picture House translates the dystopian beauty of two of rock's most celebrated albums into a full sensory environment. For fans and art-goers alike, it is a singular experience.
Picasso, Klee, Matisse: Masterpieces from the Museum Berggruen — Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Houston
- What: A blockbuster loan exhibition bringing European modernist masterworks — including works by Picasso, Klee, and Matisse — from Berlin's Museum Berggruen to Houston.
- Dates: Opening May 2026
- Why Go: The Museum Berggruen holds one of the world's greatest collections of classical modernism, and opportunities to see its holdings outside Germany are exceedingly rare. This is the Houston art event of the year.
Currently Running: Editor's Picks
Nine Must-See Shows During Frieze New York — Various Galleries, New York
- What: The Art Newspaper's curated picks across New York galleries during Frieze week, covering a broad sweep of contemporary and modern art. Highlights include showcases for Jasper Johns and Paul Thek noted by Cultured Magazine's parallel gallery guide.
- Through: Frieze New York week concludes mid-May 2026
- Highlight: The gallery circuit is drawing comparisons to the fair itself this year — an unusual accolade that signals an exceptionally strong showing across the city's commercial spaces.
Venice Biennale 2026 — Various Venues, Venice
- What: The 2026 Venice Biennale, themed In Minor Keys (9 May–22 Nov), is now open. Notable highlights include sculptor Alma Allen at the U.S. Pavilion, and German Pavilion artist Sung Tieu transforming the building's Nazi-era exterior while the late Henrike Naumann's final work occupies the interior.
- Through: 22 November 2026
- Highlight: The German Pavilion is generating significant critical conversation — Sung Tieu's confrontation with the pavilion's architectural history alongside Naumann's final installation makes it one of the most politically resonant presentations at this year's Biennale.
Frank Stella's Personal Navajo Textile Collection — New York
- What: The late Frank Stella's personal trove of Navajo textiles goes on public view for the first time, with select pieces available for sale alongside the exhibition.
- Through: TBC
- Highlight: This is the first time Stella's textile collection — accumulated across decades — has been displayed publicly, offering a rare window into the influences behind one of postwar art's towering figures.
The Best of Bay Area Summer Museums — Various Institutions, San Francisco Bay Area
- What: KQED's summer museum guide highlights a slate of well-deserved solos, exciting group shows, and residency open houses across the Bay Area's major institutions this summer.
- Through: Summer 2026
- Highlight: A Larry Sultan photograph from his Swimmers series anchors the guide's visual identity — Sultan's influence on California photography is a recurring theme across the summer programming.
Beyond Art: Science, History & Immersive
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TITANIC: The Artifact Exhibition at OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry), Portland — A major artifact exhibition featuring recovered objects from the Titanic, running March 21 through October 18, 2026. Open Tuesday–Friday and Sunday, this touring show offers one of the most visceral encounters with the ship's history available anywhere in the Pacific Northwest.
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Otherworlds at PHI, Montréal — Danish artist Jakob Kudsk Steensen's immersive exhibition examines contemporary ecological realities through virtual, sonic, and video worlds, presented in Old Montréal's PHI centre. A compelling example of how science-art crossover exhibitions are drawing new audiences to museum spaces.
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Bayeux Tapestry Medieval Woodland Installation at the British Museum, London — Garden designer Andy Sturgeon has recreated a medieval woodland inside the British Museum's forecourt, tied to the institution's major Bayeux Tapestry exhibition. The living installation brings the tapestry's Norman landscape to life in the heart of London.
Last Chance: Closing Soon
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The Grand Van Gogh Exhibition at Fukushima Prefectural Museum of Art — closes 10 May 2026 (this weekend). Featuring 37 Van Gogh paintings and 20 drawings on loan from the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo, this is one of the most substantial Van Gogh gatherings seen in Japan in years. If you are in Japan, do not miss the final days — it moves to Tokyo's Ueno Royal Museum on 29 May.
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Epstein Files Reading Room (Pop-Up), New York — a time-limited pop-up displaying all 3.5 million pages of the Epstein files across 3,437 printed volumes. An extraordinary document-as-exhibition concept that has been generating significant attention. Check current scheduling for closing date.
Exhibition Trends & Insights
New York Art Week as global epicentre. Frieze New York, TEFAF, and Independent converging in the same week has made mid-May New York the single most concentrated art event in the world right now — eclipsing even Venice in terms of commercial and critical density. The gallery circuit is matching the fairs for quality, an unusual and telling development.
Venice Biennale as political arena. The 2026 Biennale, open from 9 May, is proving to be an unusually charged political moment: the U.S. Pavilion crowdfunded its participation amid institutional funding uncertainty, while the German Pavilion directly confronts its building's Nazi-era architecture. The Biennale has rarely felt more geopolitically freighted.
Music × Art immersive crossovers on the rise. Radiohead's Motion Picture House in Brooklyn exemplifies a growing trend of major musical artists translating their work into gallery and installation contexts — a format that is attracting new audiences who might not otherwise visit museums, and raising interesting questions about what an "exhibition" can be.
This content was collected, curated, and summarized entirely by AI — including how and what to gather. It may contain inaccuracies. Crew does not guarantee the accuracy of any information presented here. Always verify facts on your own before acting on them. Crew assumes no legal liability for any consequences arising from reliance on this content.
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