ALFREDO JAAR | Group Show | Whose America? | National Academy of Design

The Fondation Carmignac presents the exhibition Vertigo, evoking the dizzying sensations of the Mediterranean sun, the mistral wind, the spray of the sea, and the deep, telluric forces of the earth. Inspired by the island of Porquerolles, the show explores the relationship between natural phenomena and post-1950 abstract art, capturing moments of disorientation, floating, and wonder. Organized into six sections—water, cosmogony, air, infinity, land, and abyss—the exhibition brings together around fifty works from museums, private collections, and the Carmignac Collection, alongside pieces created specifically for the show. Highlights include the vibrant colors of Yves Klein, James Turrell, and Jesús Rafael Soto, cosmic visions by Olafur Eliasson, Anna-Eva Bergman, and Hans Hartung, immersive environments by Helen Frankenthaler, Gerhard Richter, Frank Bowling, and Flora Moscovici, optical experiments by Ann Veronica Janssens and Carlos Cruz-Diez, and the infinite skies of Otto Piene and Caroline Corbasson.

• Villa Carmignac, Porquerolles Island
• Piste de la Courtade Île de Porquerolles, 83400 Hyères, Francia
• 26 aprile – 2 novembre 2025

In many ways, the shadow stands at the beginning of art history. According to Pliny the Elder, the first image was created when the daughter of the potter Butades traced her lover’s shadow. In Plato’s allegory of the cave, shadow images represent illusion, contrasted with the light of knowledge. For centuries, shadows carried ambiguous or even sinister meanings until Romanticism linked them to the psyche—most famously in Chamisso’s tale of Peter Schlemihl, where losing one’s shadow is akin to losing one’s soul. Though shadows appeared in painting earlier, they became central only in the 19th century with the invention of photography and film. Featuring around 40 international artists, this exhibition is the first in a German museum to explore the shadow’s emancipation as an image-producing and media-reflective theme in contemporary art. It surveys shadow worlds from the existential to the political, highlighting the shadow as a meeting point of presence and absence. Both attached to the body and distanced from it, the shadow functions as trace, index, and projection surface. It emerges as a metaphor for the crisis of the subject and a key indicator of realities that lie beyond the visible.

• Kunstmuseum Bonn Museumsmeile
• Helmut-Kohl-Allee 2 53113 Bonn
• 3 luglio – 2 novembre 2025

The National Academy of Design is pleased to present Whose America?, an exhibition that examines the United States’ relationship to the history of “America” in all its plural forms. Drawing on the Academy’s diverse community of National Academicians—artists whose experiences span diasporas across the Americas—the exhibition unpacks the regional, political, and social forces that have shaped the nation’s cultural landscape. As the opening event of the Academy’s year-long bicentennial, Whose America? reflects both on the institution’s founding role in U.S. arts and its commitment to critically revisiting its past. Structured around fundamental questions—Who is America? Who does it belong to? Who writes its history?—the exhibition challenges the assumption that “America” is synonymous with the United States. Instead, it foregrounds the plurality of voices from across North, Central, and South America and the Caribbean, grounded in Indigenous histories that long predate the nation’s formation. Works by artists from Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and beyond come together to expand the narrative.

• National Academy of Design,
• 519 W 26th St, 2nd Fl, New York, NY 10001
• 15 ottobre 2025 – 9 gennaio 2026

On the occasion of Milano Cortina 2026, the Mart presents a major exhibition exploring the relationship between art and sport. More than 350 works and archival materials trace how the athletic body has been represented from antiquity to today, between myth, performance, and challenge. Organized into eight thematic sections, the exhibition brings together masterpieces, photographs, documents, costumes, and iconic objects—from the bicycles of Bartali, Coppi, Nencini, and Moser to costumes worn by Carla Fracci and Ferruccio Soleri. The show explores sport as a cultural and symbolic phenomenon, poised between records and limits, tension and beauty.Part of the Cultural Olympiad of Milano Cortina 2026, it is included in Combinazioni_caratteri sportivi, a project promoted by the Autonomous Province of Trento.

• Mart Rovereto
• Corso Bettini 43 38068 Rovereto (TN)
• 1 novembre 2025 – 22 marzo 2026

The 14th Taipei Biennial, curated by Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath, brings together 54 artists from 35 cities, featuring 33 new commissions and site-specific installations. This edition highlights young and mid-career voices, with nearly half of participants born after 1984, and including Tobias Zielony. Whispers on the Horizon explores yearning—a force that bridges past, present, and future, reflecting personal and collective memory, migration, loss, and desire. The exhibition draws inspiration from Taiwanese literature and cinema, engaging objects like a puppet, a diary, and a bicycle as silent markers of memory, while also dialoguing with historical artworks from the Taipei Fine Arts Museum and artifacts from the National Palace Museum. Through these works, the Biennial examines how longing moves across time, culture, and geography, lingering between memory and imagination. It is not about answers, but about the spaces in-between—where yearning whispers.

• Taipei Fine Arts Museum
• 181, Zhong Shan N. Road, Sec. 3, Taipei 10461, Taiwan
• 1 novembre 2025 – 29 marzo 2026

Taking place from November 6, 2025, to February 15, 2026, the 24th Paiz Art Biennial, curated by Eugenio Viola, embraces The World Tree as a universal symbol of connection—bridging cultures, histories, and human experiences across time and space. Inspired by ancestral cosmogonies, the Biennial explores how art can foster empathy, inclusion, and dialogue in an increasingly divided world. This edition presents new commissions by international artists from all five continents, including renowned Italian artist Gian Maria Tosatti, alongside voices from diverse generations, genders, and indigenous and ancestral communities. The Biennial engages deeply with the history, architecture, and identity of the spaces that host it, transforming them into active participants in its narrative. Through installations, performances, and site-specific works, it examines how art inhabits both public and private realms—reflecting global challenges such as conflict, inequality, and environmental change. By invoking The World Tree, the Biennial reaffirms its commitment to art as a bridge between worlds—uniting people, cultures, and ideas while inspiring collective reflection and transformation.

• Guatemala City & Antigua Guatemala
• 6 novembre 2025 – 15 febbraio 2026