Marina Abramović’s inflatable debut will inaugurate New York City’s Balloon Museum.
Conceptual artist Marina Abramović makes her inflatable arrival with SNOWY/WINDY/SPRING ON THE PLANET Z, a multisensory dreamscape commissioned by the Balloon Museum to inaugurate its New York City flagship this summer. The immersive environment—filled with shoulder-high inflatable grass blades drawn from the landscapes of Abramović’s Belgrade childhood, and balloons circulated through forced air to mimic falling snow—marks the legendary performance artist’s first-ever work in the medium. For Abramović, the choice feels natural: “The balloon is, fundamentally, a childhood object,” she explains, “and yet it takes on form, weight, even personality. In this way, it is very close to performance itself.”
Philippe Vergne has been named artistic director and chief curator at The Bass.
Miami Beach’s Bass Museum is reshaping its leadership. Philippe Vergne, former director of both MOCA Los Angeles and the Dia Art Foundation, has been named to the newly created role of Artistic Director and Chief Curator, joining Executive Director Silvia Karman Cubiña. The appointment arrives alongside a major expansion: an additional 2,500 square feet of exhibition space, designed by Los Angeles-based architects Johnston Marklee and backed by a $20.1 million public bond, will extend the Bass into a 2.9-acre campus anchored by its original 1930s façade.
The Floating Art Hotel drops anchor in Monaco Bay.
The 72-meter Floating Art Hotel megayacht, named the world’s first traveling art hotel, drops anchor in Monaco Bay from June 4-8, timed with the Monaco Grand Prix. Its inaugural exhibition, “States of Motion,” brings together over 30 artists, including Shirin Neshat and Tomás Saraceno, across sculpture, installation, photography, and performance, with the yacht’s 350-square-meter sundeck reimagined as an open-air sculpture garden where art and sea air compete for attention.
A landmark Gianni Versace retrospective opens in Paris.
Opening June 5 at the Maillol Museum in Paris’ 7th arrondissement, a landmark Gianni Versace retrospective brings together nearly 450 pieces spanning garments, accessories, sketches, and photographs. Conceived by scenographer Nathalie Crinière, the exhibition traces Versace’s world from his family workshop in Calabria to the runway shows that rewrote fashion history. Among them the legendary Fall/Winter 1991 show where Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell, Christy Turlington, and Cindy Crawford walked to George Michael’s “Freedom!.”
Pace Gallery cuts its roster and reduces its staff.
Pace Gallery is cutting roughly 50 staff and dropping approximately 50 artists, reducing its roster from 135 to around 85, in what CEO Marc Glimcher is framing not as a retreat, but a reckoning. The decision follows years of market contraction that claimed several long-standing galleries in 2025, but Glimcher insists the cuts go deeper than a weaker market — an attempt to break a self-reinforcing cycle of rising costs and commercial overextension that has made the art world, in his words, “too big, too commercial, too impersonal, and too corporate.”
Today’s attractive distractions:
Swarovski in collaboration with Ariana Grande launch a summer fruit-inspired jewelry capsule.
Studio Ghibli releases its latest cooking picture book, with four recipes from Ponyo.
Margaret R. Thompson makes her Turkish debut, transforming a historic Istanbul cistern into a site of renewal.
Formula 1’s Scuderia Ferrari HP announces its first official skincare partner: SkinCeuticals.
