A hand-curated list of major international art events for the planning art-tourist — 25 open or upcoming events across 21 cities and 14 countries. 5 are open right now. Each entry has verified dates, venue, ticket info and a link to the full guide. Last updated 2026-09-23.
Manifesta 16 takes over 12 post-war churches across Duisburg, Essen, Gelsenkirchen and Bochum, with a 'Manifesta 16+' satellite programme in Dortmund, Herne, Mülheim an der Ruhr, Marl, Bottrop and Oberhausen. Entry is free throughout, no ticket needed. Closed Mondays.
The 82nd Whitney Biennial — 56 artists, duos and collectives. Curators Marcela Guerrero and Drew Sawyer. Floors close in stages: Floor 5 closed 23 Aug, Floor 1 closed 7 Sep, and Floor 6 — the main biennial galleries — runs through 12 Oct. Free Friday Nights and Free Second Sundays; under-25 always free.
The 16th Gwangju Biennale, 'You Must Change Your Life', at the Gwangju Biennale Exhibition Hall, 111 Biennale-ro. Open 10:00–18:00 daily, closed Mondays — with two exceptions.
The 61st Venice Biennale Arte. Theme: 'In Minor Keys'. Conceived by Koyo Kouoh (1967–2025) and realized by her advisory team posthumously. National Pavilions, Giardini + Arsenale main exhibition.
The 18th Biennale d'art contemporain de Lyon, 'Passer d'un rêve à l'autre / To pass from one dream to another'. A single €25 PASS covers the four paid venues. Several sites are deliberately unconventional — a car park, a métro station — alongside macLYON and the Musée des Confluences.
The Armory Show returns to the Javits Center, 429 11th Avenue. VIP preview Thursday 24 September is invitation only and closes at 19:00. General admission Friday 25th 11:00–18:00, Saturday 26th 11:00–19:00, Sunday 27th 11:00–18:00. Armory After Hours runs Friday 7–9pm. Last entry is always 30 minutes before close.
The first US Duchamp retrospective since 1973 — roughly 300 works across painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, film, printed matter and the readymades — moves from MoMA to Philadelphia, the museum that holds the world's largest Duchamp collection. It then travels to Paris in 2027.
Frieze London 2026 + Frieze Masters in adjacent tents in Regent's Park. ~172 galleries (Frieze London) from 48 countries. Frieze Sculpture trail runs Sep 16 – Nov 1 in the English Gardens, free.
The 14th edition of 1-54 London — the UK's flagship fair dedicated to contemporary African and diasporic art, concurrent with Frieze week and held at Somerset House on the Strand. ~60 galleries across 30+ African nations.
The third Art Basel-branded Paris edition at the freshly renovated Grand Palais. Sectors: Galleries, Emergence, Premise. The Marais gallery week wraps around it. Pompidou closure substitutes programmed at Grand Palais and the Bourse de Commerce.
The year's final Art Basel — Miami Beach Convention Center, with the Latin American gallery axis as its distinctive position. VIP Wed 2 + Thu 3 Dec; public 4–6 Dec. Concurrent: Design Miami, NADA Miami, Untitled Art, Scope, Aqua, Pinta.
Southeast Asia's flagship fair returns to Marina Bay Sands, anchoring Singapore Art Week. VIP preview and vernissage 21 January; public days 22–24 January.
Curated by Angela Harutyunyan and Paula Nascimento with 109 participants across multiple sites in the emirate. Opening week 21–24 January; the run is nearly five months, unusually long for a Gulf biennale.
The second-ever Art Basel Qatar, titled 'between / بين', with Iraqi curator Wassan Al-Khudhairi as artistic director. Staged across Doha Design District and M7. Preview days 26–27 January; public 28–30 January.
The 8th Frieze Los Angeles at the Santa Monica Airport campus, opening the North American fair year.
The premier fine art, antiques and design fair — over 260 dealers from roughly 20 countries, and the strongest old-master and antiquities draw of the year.
Asia's largest international art fair and the anchor of Hong Kong Art Week. Venue and pricing are not yet published for this edition.
A 124-day edition led by co-artistic directors Cosmin Costinaș and Inti Guerrero, centred on Yokohama Museum of Art and timed to coincide with GREEN×EXPO 2027. Closed Thursdays.
Curated by Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu of Amateur Architecture Studio under the theme 'Do Architecture — For the Possibility of Coexistence Facing a Real Reality'. Pre-opening 6–7 May; public from 8 May. Note: 2027 is the Architecture year — the next Art Biennale is not in 2027.
Frieze returns to The Shed at Hudson Yards. Gallery applications for this edition closed 17 September 2026.
The five-yearly 100-day exhibition returns to Kassel. Naomi Beckwith — Deputy Director and Chief Curator at the Guggenheim New York, and the first Black woman to lead documenta — is artistic director, working with Carla Acevedo-Yates, Romi Crawford, Mayra A. Rodríguez Castro and Xiaoyu Weng on 'artistic practices that provide us with tools to think together about possible futures'.
The decennial sculpture exhibition returns for its 6th edition and the 50th anniversary of its 1977 founding, directed by the curatorial collective What, How & for Whom (WHW). Works are sited in public space across the city.
The flagship Art Basel edition at Messe Basel — and in 2027 it falls inside the documenta 16 and Skulptur Projekte Münster window, making June 2027 the densest month in the European art calendar for a decade.
Co-curated by LIU Ding and Carol Yinghua LU, the research-and-curatorial duo who directed the 8th Yokohama Triennale in 2024. Organised by İKSV across multiple venues in the city.
The tenth-anniversary edition, curated by Neville Wakefield and Kaitlin Garcia-Maestas. A structural change this time: the opening shifts to autumn and the run extends through winter and spring, ending 7 May 2028. Free and open to all.
These have closed. Dates are kept for reference; where a next edition is confirmed it is listed above.