![\"Jenny](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Reverse-2002-2003-by-Jenny-Saville-Private-Collection-courtesy-Gagosian-\u00a9-Jenny-Saville-1-1024x881-1.webp\")
Jenny Saville, Reverse, 2002-2003. Image courtesy of Gagosian.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\tJenny Saville, Reverse, 2002-2003. Image courtesy of Gagosian.<\/p>\n
Search #cultured on\u00a0See Saw Gallery Guide<\/a> anytime to add CULTURED\u2019s\u00a0picks to your custom map.<\/p>\n Where: Palazzo Nervi-Scattolin Where: Palazzo Grassi Where: Palazzo Grimani Where: Gallerie dell\u2019Accademia Where: Fondazione Prada Where: Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Where: SMAC Venice Where: Fondazione Dries Van Noten Where: L\u2019Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, Palazzo Loredan Where: Palazzo Diedo Where: Museo Fortuny \u201c5 Works<\/a>\u201d by Lydia Ourahmane<\/p>\n Where: Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation Where: Palazzo Cini Where: Ca\u2019 Pesaro Where: Palazzo Tiepolo Passi \u00a0<\/p>\n More of our favorite stories from CULTURED<\/p>\n 14 Books Our Editors Can\u2019t Wait to Read This Summer<\/a><\/p>\n Inside the Closet of a Revered Stylist Who Has Only Worn Prada For Over 30 Years<\/a><\/p>\n Charles Melton Actually Has No Idea Where His Career Goes From Here<\/a><\/p>\n Introducing a Play For Every New Yorker Who\u2019s Had More Bad Dates Than Good<\/a><\/p>\n 7 Commandments for Rookie Collectors, From CULTURED\u2019s Power Art Advisors<\/a><\/p>\n
When: May 9 \u2013 June 7
Why It\u2019s Worth a Look: \u201cIf All Time Is Eternally Present\u201d displays three film works by Tai Shani, Meriem Bennani & Orian Barki, and Kandis Williams<\/a>, with support from Bottega Veneta. From a woman\u2019s travelogue through South Korea to features of animated anthropomorphic lizards, the works are wide-reaching explorations of place, movement, and power.
Know Before You Go: The exhibition is the first in a new cycle of curatorial projects centered around the work of Italian structural engineer Pier Luigi Nervi. By projecting the video works of Shani, Bennani & Barki, and Williams on the fa\u00e7ade of the Palazzo Nervi-Scattolin, the show engages with the fleeting quality of architecture in Venice, both by way of the Biennale\u2019s many pavilions and the city\u2019s slow sink into the sea.<\/p>\n
When: Through January 10, 2027
Why It\u2019s Worth a Look: Michael Armitage has distinguished himself as an unsparing narrator of the present. In over 45 paintings and more than 100 studies, the Kenyan-British painter constructs fierce interrogations of the consequences of war, corruption, migration, and economic stability, especially in equatorial regions.
Know Before You Go: With his oil paintings on barkcloth, Armitage draws upon a deep well of inspiration, including real-life field work, such as his time with a team of journalists covering opponents of the Kenyan government and the violent crackdown that ensued during the 2017 elections.\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"Amoako](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/5X-l1-AQxVsy_1200x1200.jpg\")
Amoako Boafo, Two Faces, 2021\u201325. Image courtesy of the artist.<\/p>\n
When: May 6 \u2013 November 22
Why It\u2019s Worth a Look: Amoako Boafo\u2019s first solo show in Italy draws explicitly upon the Renaissance architecture of the palace it takes place within. The artist\u2019s reimagining of Black figuration is presented alongside a long legacy of Venetian masterworks, opening up the canon of portraiture.
Know Before You Go: The Ghanian artist has been a community-building force in Accra, opening up a gallery and artist residence called dot.ateliers, but Europe is still catching up to his career. He had his first major European museum exhibition in Vienna only in 2024.<\/p>\n
When: May 6 \u2013 October 19
Why It\u2019s Worth a Look: Marina Abramovi\u0107 makes history as the first living female artist to receive a major show at the Gallerie dell\u2019Accademia. On her 80th birthday, Abramovi\u0107 will display her interactive \u201ctransitory objects\u201d: beds of crystal, swinging metronomes, and illuminated plinths, alongside her performance work.
Know Before You Go: In 1983, Abramovi\u0107 created a modern Piet\u00e0 with her then-partner and creative collaborator Ulay. Now, 43 years later, that work will be contrasted against Titian\u2019s final unfinished masterwork, a Piet\u00e0 created in 1576.<\/p>\n![\"Arthur](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Helter-Skelter_keyvisual_sito_72dpi-960x640-1.jpg\")
Left: Arthur Jafa, Mickey Mouse was a Scorpio (Detail Shot), 2017. Photography by Ian Watts.TV. Image courtesy of the artist \/ Midnight Robber. Right: Richard Prince, Graduation, 2008. Image courtesy of Gagosian and the artist.
\n\u201cHelter Skelter<\/a>\u201d by Arthur Jafa and Richard Prince<\/p>\n
When: May 9 \u2013 November 23
Why It\u2019s Worth a Look: Exhibition curator Nancy Spector writes that both Arthur Jafa and Prichard Prince are \u201cimage scavengers.\u201d At face value, Jafa, an artist with a mission to interrogate and venerate Black American aesthetics, and Prince, a white man born a decade earlier plumbing the depths of the American psyche, don\u2019t seem aligned. But the two share a distinct sensibility, which Spector puts on full display at the Fondazione Prada.
Know Before You Go: Across mediums, both artists reckon with the American project by appropriating, recontextualizing, inverting, and referencing pop cultural ephemera\u2014from movies to pulp novels to social media posts. This show, comprised of 50-plus works including photography, video, installation, sculpture, and painting, unfolds across two floors of the Venetian palazzo, bringing two towering figures into conversation with each other at last.<\/p>\n
When: May 7
Why It\u2019s Worth a Look: On May 7, the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo will open its third location on a small island in the North Venice lagoon. The island, which has been abandoned for decades, once belonged to a 11th century monastery before it was taken over by the Fondazione a few years ago.
Know Before You Go: To celebrate, the Fondazione is launching a series of events in conjunction with the Venice Biennale including a solo show by Matt Copson<\/a> and curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist<\/a>, a series of photographs by Giovanna Silva and Antonio Fortugno, and a series of new outdoor site-specific installations by Goshka Macuga, Pamela Rosenkranz, Claire Fontaine, Thomas Sch\u00fctte, Hugh Hayden, and Mario Garc\u00eda Torres.<\/p>\n![\"Mappa](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/mappa_square_crop-1800x.jpg\")
Alighiero Boetti, Mappa, 1979. Image courtesy of Alighiero Boetti 2026 DACS.<\/p>\n
When: May 7 \u2013 November 22
Why It\u2019s Worth a Look: This career-spanning show turns its eye to one of the most influential artists of Italy\u2019s post-war period. A defining member of the Arte Povera movement, Alighiero Boetti eventually left behind sculpture for conceptual art and weaving, done in collaboration with great Afghan craftsmen.
Know Before You Go: Boetti had a longstanding obsession with notions of systems, process, and duality. He even went as far as to sign his name as Alighiero e Boetti, meaning Alighiero and Boetti, two selves in one. This fascination was most famously encompassed in his embroidered maps, but the exhibition highlights how duality seeped into everything he created, from a room full of self-portraits to his \u201cArazzi,\u201d colorfully embroidered word puzzles.<\/p>\n
When: Through October 26
Why It\u2019s Worth a Look: Fashion auteur Dries Van Noten<\/a> has finally unveiled his crafts-focused foundation with a vast multimedia show uniting fashion, jewelry, design, art, photography, and ceramics.
Know Before You Go: The show\u2019s co-curator Geert Bruloot also organized MoMu\u2019s buzzy new exhibition about the Antwerp Six, the beloved cohort of iconoclastic Belgian designers that Van Noten belongs to.<\/p>\n![\"Sanya](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/0-1.jpg\")
Sanya Kantarovsky, Boy with Cigarette. Image courtesy of Pierre Le Hors.
\n\u201cBasic Failure<\/a>\u201d by Sanya Kantarovsky<\/p>\n
When: May 6 \u2013 November 22
Why It\u2019s Worth a Look: The Moscow-born, Upstate New York-based artist\u2019s paintings dwell in a state of ambivalence: brushstrokes are sometimes thick, almost impasto, while others are thin, almost worn through. His subject matter, too, often involves figures caught endlessly desiring forbidden things.
Know Before You Go: Though Sanya Kantarovsky<\/a> is often thought of as a painter, his work spans sculpture, video, and ceramics as well, which will also be on display at the Palazzo Loredan. (You can read the show\u2019s notes by CULTURED columnist Jamieson Webster here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n
When: May 4 \u2013 November 22
Why It\u2019s Worth a Look: A blockbuster trio of curators\u2014Mat Dryhurst, Holly Herndon, and Hans Ulrich Obrist\u2014inaugurate the headquarters of Berggruen Arts & Culture with a vast new group show and program centered around what they have coined \u201cProtocol Art.\u201d At its heart, Protocol Art is an aesthetic that engages with the invisible architecture of cultural production in the digital era\u2014namely, algorithms and A.I. models.
Know Before You Go: The expansive show stretches across all three floors. The ground floor will feature a major new collaborative commission by Dryhurst and Herndon, in partnership with SUB (it will also be home for a series of time-based art performances.) The first floor will be home to site-specific installations from the likes of Lynn Hershman Leeson<\/a>, Joshua Citarella, Philippe Parreno, and Ayoung Kim, while the second floor will screen video works. The exhibition also coincides with the release of a publication expounding upon the theory of Protocol Art.<\/p>\n![\"Erwin](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/5a9b95f51a9801ae05958fdbf55aaa5e.jpeg\")
Erwin Wurm, Dreamer, One Arm, 2024. Image courtesy of the artist.<\/p>\n
When: May 6 \u2013 November 22
Why It\u2019s Worth a Look: The Austrian sculptor will be exhibiting his pillowy sculptures for the first time in Italy this May. By appending sculptured legs, arms, and hands to chairs, sweaters, buckets, and fruit, Erwin Wurm playfully interrogates the sculptural qualities of the human form, mundane and changeable.
Know Before You Go: Humor is at the heart of Wurm\u2019s project. His puffy, bloated \u201cFat Car\u201d series has shown around the globe while his \u201cOne-Minute Sculpture\u201d series provided the inspiration for the Red Hot Chili Peppers music video for \u201cCan\u2019t Stop.\u201d<\/p>\n
When: May 5 \u2013 November 22
Why It\u2019s Worth a Look: The Algiers and Barcelona-based artist finally unveils the work she has been producing as a resident at the Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation since January of this year. The muse for the series? The island of Poveglia and its air of myth and mystery.
Know Before You Go: Lydia Ourahmane participated in the Venice Biennale back in 2024, presenting a sculpture made from a pair of vintage doors excised from the artist\u2019s Algiers apartment. Her conceptual work probes the many interlocking histories that animate spaces, domestic and otherwise.<\/p>\n![\"David](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/DS_1213_a_300dpi-scaled.jpg\")
David Salle, Workplace, 2025-2026. Courtesy of the artist.<\/p>\n
When: May 6 \u2013 September 27
Why It\u2019s Worth a Look: In the heart of a home museum, David Salle<\/a> continues his provocative engagement with a custom A.I. model, driving painting trained on the artist\u2019s own early-\u201990s series \u201cTapestry Paintings.\u201d (Those \u201990s paintings were themselves based on 18th-century Russian tapestries, which were themselves based on 16th and 17th-century Italian tapestries. Salle\u2019s use of A.I. probes questions of authorship stretching back centuries.)
Know Before You Go: Salle\u2019s use of A.I. in previous work has not been without controversy. Leadership at Spr\u00fcth Magers eventually removed one of Salle\u2019s paintings from his show \u201cMy Frankenstein\u201d when the artist Kelly Reemsten flagged undeniable similarities between it and her own painting, Impact, 2021.<\/p>\n
When: Through November 22
Why It\u2019s Worth a Look: Like Lucien Freud before her, Jenny Saville is preoccupied with all the folds, puckers, and dimples of human flesh. But while Freud\u2019s work depicted the body as he appraised it from his easel, Saville\u2019s work\u2014from the radical corpulence of her early-\u201990s paintings to the smeary innocence of her recent work\u2014shows what it is like to inhabit a female body.
Know Before You Go: This is the first major exhibition of the 55-year-old artist\u2019s work in Venice. The show, which spans her entire career, will also feature a previously unseen cycle of work dedicated to the city of Venice itself.<\/p>\n![\"Untitled](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/68e817ab3d5710885de3b81c_interiors-hero-image.jpg\")
Matthew Wong, Untitled, 2016. Image courtesy of the Matthew Wong Foundation.
\n\u201cInteriors<\/a>\u201d by Matthew Wong<\/p>\n
When: May 6 \u2013 November 1
Why It\u2019s Worth a Look: This exhibition at the Palazzo Tiepolo Passi shows 35 little-seen paintings from Wong made from 2015 through with the artist\u2019s untimely death in 2019. The show is what it says on the label: strange, haunting snapshots of home, often rendered in a rhapsodic blue.
Know Before You Go: Wong began as a photography student, but he took to painting quickly, assimilating the emotive techniques of Van Gogh and Seurat into his own preoccupations with isolation and landscape. Figures hesitate in doorways or peer awkwardly out of windows, trapped in a twilight between one state and the next.<\/p>\n