Public art

Roberto Lugo brings monumental tribute to Puerto Rican culture to Manhattan park

The artist’s new large-scale sculptures in Madison Square Park pay homage to the island’s diaspora and its most beloved figures

US Commission of Fine Arts approves Trump’s Washington, DC arch despite public opposition

While the public comments about the proposal were said to be 99.5% unfavourable, the commission signed off on the proposed arch with its golden statuary

Final proposals for Billie Holiday monument in New York City revealed

One of the six shortlisted designs, by artists including Tavares Strachan and Thomas J Price, will be chosen this summer and erected at the Jamaica Performing Arts Center in Queens

Iván Argote brings roving public art project to Chicago streets

The artist behind New York's beloved pigeon monument will create a mobile project celebrating Latine dignity

Public art blossoms around New York

From the High Line to Brooklyn Bridge Park, artists are thinking big across the five boroughs

New Museum unveils Sarah Lucas's bawdy Bowery commission

The British artist's playful riff on a reclining nude will hold court at Bowery and Prince Street for two years

Fire erupts at San Francisco's Vaillancourt Fountain during its dismantling

The controversial San Francisco landmark has met its end after a contentious fight to save it failed

Pedro Reyes’s new Lacma commission sparks criticism in Mexico

Mexican cultural figures say the Olmec-inspired sculpture reprises a work that was previously rejected in Mexico City

Diaryblog

‘She had a fresh, informed eye’: mural depicting late Venice Biennale curator Koyo Kouoh displayed in lagoon city

Derrick Adams’ piece features “beams of gold signifying the brilliance and reach” of the curator’s influence

Towering homage to Bamiyan Buddhas rises over Manhattan’s High Line

For the fifth High Line Plinth commission, the Vietnamese American artist Tuan Andrew Nguyen has created a 27ft-tall version of the 6th-century Buddhas that were destroyed by the Taliban in 2001

Pittsburgh’s new $31m Arts Landing combines public art with civic engagement

The project was completed just in time for the NFL draft and the Carnegie International

Antony Gormley sculpture quietly removed and sold off by UK council

The Reform-run council sold the public work back to the artist for an undisclosed sum

From the World Cup and the Olympics to two new museums: upcoming cultural attractions in Los Angeles

As well as the renovated and expanded Los Angeles County Museum of Art, here are some of the art and culture projects to look forward to

In partnership with Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Olafur Eliasson stages public wake for the Great Salt Lake in Utah

A recent ten-day “symphony of disappearing sounds” brought attention to the fragility of the Western Hemisphere’s largest saltwater lake

The artist who blocked an Ice projectile with her drawing board during protests

Izzy Brourman had been documenting anti-Ice protests in Minneapolis when she became part of the story

Artist Michelangelo Pistoletto sends message of ‘preventive peace’ on digital billboards around the world

New public art project entitled "Three Mirrors"—commissioned by digital art platform Circa—will be shown in nine cities

Paul Pfeiffer will be inaugural artist-in-residence at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center arena

The arena’s parent company also announced a suite of forthcoming artistic additions to its campus by Sarah Sze, Kambui Olujimi and others

Charity Art UK digitises nearly 7,000 murals across country

The project, launched in 2024, was completed with the help of around 90 “public art volunteers”

Christopher Columbus statue installed on White House grounds

A replica of a monument toppled during protests in 2020 has been erected near the Eisenhower Executive Office Building as Donald Trump frames the explorer as a national hero

Hirshhorn Museum’s revamped sculpture garden will feature new acquisitions by Mark Grotjahn, Lauren Halsey and more

The Smithsonian’s Modern and contemporary art museum in Washington, DC revealed eight recent acquisitions that will be displayed in the garden when it reopens this autumn

Who owns the seas? Shahzia Sikander's new animation on world trade beamed onto M+ museum facade

The Pakistani-American artist uses cartography to show the entwined histories of China, South Asia and Britain

New public art biennial to take over Dallas’s urban greenbelt park

The open-air exhibition KTX Biennial, curated by SculptureCenter’s Jovanna Venegas, will bring works by international contemporary artists to the city’s busy 3.5-mile pedestrian and cycling corridor

Tomás Saraceno and Indigenous communities build art complex in Argentine salt flats

The monumental outdoor environment, “El Santuario del Agua” (The Water Sanctuary), is located in one of the world’s largest lithium reserves

Student design competition for permanent George Floyd memorial in Minneapolis opens

The competition, open to students in Minnesota, is the first step in selecting a permanent memorial to the man whose 2020 murder set of a global reckoning with police brutality and institutional racism

Rome introduces Trevi Fountain tourist fee

Visitors to Rome will now pay to access the famous fountain and five other historic monuments

Trump eyes site near National Mall for ‘Garden of American Heroes’

The location, although not yet official, would legally require the project to undergo a rigorous review process and receive congressional approval

Hurvin Anderson and Caroline Walker to show new works on London Underground

The works form part of the 2026 Art on the Underground programme, which turns London into a vast public art gallery

Public art installation marks anniversary of New Orleans terrorist attack

Featuring more than 800 flags commemorating the 15 victims, the temporary installation “Second Line in the Sky” offers locals and visitors alike a space to reflect and heal

Theaster Gates to create giant frieze for Obama Presidential Center

The artist will celebrate Black Chicago using photo archives from Jet and Ebony magazines

Following controversy, all names will be left off Canadian monument to ‘victims of communism’

More than half the names originally planned to be inscribed on the Ottawa monument have been linked to Nazis