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