Smithsonian’s African LGBTQ+ exhibition, art and the Iran crisis, Louise Nevelson at the Pompidou Metz

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C. this week opens Here: Pride and Belonging in African Art, a new exhibition focusing on LGBTQ+ artists from across Africa and its diaspora. Ben Luke talks to its co-curator, Kevin Dumouchelle, about the exhibition and forthcoming book. We explore the cultural effects of the protests in Iran that began at the end of last year, and the brutal crackdown that followed, with Sarvy Garenpayeh, one of The Art Newspaper’s reporters on the Middle East. Sarvy has attempted to contact art workers after the Iranian government cut off the internet two weeks ago. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Louise Nevelson’s Moon Garden Plus One (1958), a landmark installation first staged in New York that is being reprised, at least in part, in a new survey of the American sculptor’s work at the Centre Pompidou-Metz in Metz, France. We speak to the curator of the exhibition, Anne Horvath.

Here: Pride and Belonging in African Art, National Museum of African Art, Washington, D.C., 23 January–23 August. The related book, published by Smithsonian Books, will be available later this year.

The London gallery Ab-Anbar, which was founded in Tehran in 2014, has announced that it has extended its solo exhibition of the Iranian artist Amin Bagheri’s work until 22 February. The gallery has been hosting what it describes as “moments of togetherness for its London community: a space to gather, talk, and be together”, in solidarity with the people of Iran.

Louise Nevelson: Mrs. N’s Palace, Centre Pompidou-Metz, Metz, France, 24 January-31 August

To buy The Art Newspaper’s guidebook The Year Ahead 2026, an authoritative look at the year’s unmissable art exhibitions, museum openings and significant art events, visit theartnewspapershop.com. £14.99 or the equivalent in your currency.

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