From Mediterranean legacies to emerging art fair landscapes, here is your roundup of international art and culture news for Spring 2025
Venice and the Ottomans: A Mediterranean Power Exchange in Nashville
Frist Art Museum | Nashville, TN | May 31 – September 1, 2025
www.fristartmuseum.org | Instagram: @fristartmuseum
The Frist Art Museum presents Venice and the Ottoman Empire, a sweeping exhibition that spans four centuries of rivalry, diplomacy, and aesthetic exchange. Organized with the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia and The Museum Box, this show features over 150 objects from Venetian and Ottoman artisans. Highlights include textiles, shipwreck artifacts, portraits, and spice trade relics. Visitors can also enjoy multisensory installations such as scent devices and a chef-led video, bringing culinary history to life. This timely exploration of cultural entanglement underscores how two superpowers shaped the artistic and economic map of the Mediterranean.
Picasso in Paris: A Lost Dove Inspires a New Musical
54 Below | New York, NY | April 14, 2025
www.54below.org | Instagram: @54below
In a one-night-only Broadway concert, Picasso in Paris debuts at 54 Below, inspired by the wartime masterpiece The Lost Dove. Broadway stars bring Picasso’s defiant Paris years to life through music blending jazz, classical, and resistance-era motifs. The narrative centers on art’s power to oppose tyranny, anchored by the rediscovered piece painted on a WWII-era French banknote. With creative direction by Sir Kenneth Hawkins and music by Paul Cozby and Ray Andrews, the evening offers a poignant intersection of art history and musical theatre.
Between Distance and Desire: African Diasporic Visions at the Soloviev Foundation
Soloviev Foundation Gallery | New York, NY | Opens May 1, 2025
www.solovievfoundation.org
Curated by Tumelo Mosaka, Between Distance and Desire opens at the Soloviev Foundation Gallery with a provocative mix of traditional African objects and contemporary works by Edson Chagas, vanessa german, and others. Exploring themes from urbanization to gender, the show critiques colonial legacies while creating a visual conversation across time. Display strategies such as uncrated artifacts challenge conventional museum norms, inviting viewers to see African art as dynamic and current.
Gideon Appah Paints Poetic Equilibrium in Paris
Gallery 1957 | Paris, France | June 11–22, 2025
www.gallery1957.com | Instagram: @gallery1957
In his first major exhibition in Paris, Ghanaian painter Gideon Appah presents Beyond the Shadows, a dreamlike series of large-format works depicting imagined beachscapes and quiet athleticism. Hosted by Gallery 1957 during Paris Fashion Week Homme, the show aligns nostalgia, balance, and light with formal innovation. Appah’s figures float between myth and memory, echoing themes in his concurrent presentation at the Pinault Collection. The works are a meditation on identity and equilibrium in both form and feeling.
Art Basel and UBS: State of the Global Art Market 2025
www.artbasel.com | Instagram: @artbasel
The 2025 Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report offers a revealing look at art commerce. Despite a 12% drop in global sales to $57.5 billion, lower-priced transactions increased by 3%, showing vitality in accessible segments. The report notes a shift toward diverse collector bases, growth in private sales, and increased visibility for female artists. While high-end auctions declined, optimism remains, particularly among small and mid-sized galleries. With major fairs like Art Basel Hong Kong continuing to draw new audiences, the market’s resilience is notable despite economic and political uncertainty.
Untitled Art Announces 2025 Miami Beach and Houston Editions
Untitled Art | Miami Beach, FL & Houston, TX
www.untitledartfairs.com | Instagram: @untitledartfair
Untitled Art returns to Miami Beach December 3–7 and launches in Houston this September. Miami Beach welcomes new guest curators including Petra Cortright, Allison Glenn, and Jonny Tanna, who will lead key sectors like Artist Spotlight and Special Projects. A new podcast series launched with its March VIP Weekend in Houston, reflecting Untitled’s commitment to year-round programming. With a growing focus on digital culture, outsider art, and climate-themed installations, Untitled is shaping the future of fair formats.
A Season of Cross-Cultural Inquiry
This spring, international art and culture news highlights a world in dialogue. From Mediterranean diplomacy to diasporic reinterpretation, artists and curators ask us to reconsider legacy, access, and innovation. Whether through Parisian canvases, African assemblage, or the data behind global transactions, the arts remain both mirror and lens. As we head toward summer, these stories lay the groundwork for evolving conversations across borders and mediums.
