Art News of the Week

The Stories, Artists, And Moments Making Waves This Week

There is always something happening in the art world. A new sculpture appears in one of London’s most recognizable public spaces. A major museum begins building a new home for its modern and contemporary collection. An exhibition opens a conversation about the women who helped shape the visual language of hip-hop. And somewhere between all of that, an artist whose work began in the Amazon finds herself at the center of an international film festival.

This week, we are looking at five art news that caught our attention, with a special focus on women artists, women-led creative stories, and opportunities worth knowing about. Here is what is happening in the art world right now.

1. Tschabalala Self Brings Lady in Blue to Trafalgar Square

If you happen to walk through Trafalgar Square over the next two years, you might notice a very different kind of figure standing above the crowds.

On September 10, New York-based artist Tschabalala Self unveiled Lady in Blue, her new bronze sculpture on London’s famous Fourth Plinth. The work is the 16th commission for the Fourth Plinth, a platform that has become one of the city’s most visible spaces for contemporary public art.

And this woman is hard to miss. Lady in Blue depicts a Black woman in a bright blue dress and platform shoes, caught in the middle of a confident stride. The sculpture draws on Self’s interest in the female figure, combining the visual language of her paintings, collages, textiles, and sculptural work with the scale and permanence of a public monument.

But what makes the work particularly interesting is who she represents. Rather than depicting a named historical figure, Self has described the sculpture as an everywoman, giving an ordinary contemporary woman the kind of monumental presence traditionally reserved for kings, generals, politicians, and other historical figures.

The choice feels especially fitting for Trafalgar Square, a place filled with monuments to people from the past. Suddenly, there is a woman who looks as though she has simply stepped into the square from everyday city life.

The sculpture will remain on the Fourth Plinth until 2028, before moving permanently to a private foundation in Fornebu, Norway, where it will be publicly accessible. For now, though, Lady in Blue has London as her stage.

2. Submissions Are Open for The Things We Feel Virtual Exhibition

Things We Feel: Our New Open Call Is Now Open for Submissions

What happens when artists turn their attention inward?

Women in Arts Network is inviting artists to explore exactly that with its new international virtual exhibition, The Things We Feel.

Submissions are now open for the exhibition, which asks artists to think about the emotions, memories, inner states, and experiences that influence the way they see, feel, and create. The open call is for women and non-binary artists aged 18 and above, with artists from around the world invited to participate.

And because the exhibition is virtual, the work can reach an audience far beyond the walls of a single gallery. That makes the theme especially interesting. Feelings are something every artist understands, but everyone expresses them differently. A memory might become a painting. A difficult experience might become photography. Joy might appear through color, movement, texture, or something much quieter.

There is no one way for a feeling to become art. If you have a work that explores something you have felt, carried, remembered, questioned, or experienced, this could be an opportunity worth looking at.

Submission deadline: October 5, 2026.

3. Frida Escobedo’s New Met Wing Begins to Take Shape

A historic museum is entering a new chapter, and a woman architect is at the center of it.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art officially broke ground on its new Oscar L. Tang and H.M. Agnes Hsu-Tang Wing for Modern and Contemporary Art on September 15. The wing is being designed by Mexican architect Frida Escobedo, who is the first woman to design a wing for The Met.

The project is significant in size as well as in ambition. The new 126,000-square-foot wing will expand the museum’s modern and contemporary galleries by nearly 50 percent, adding around 69,500 square feet of exhibition space. It is currently scheduled to open in 2030.

Escobedo’s design also looks beyond simply creating more rooms for art. The project is intended to improve accessibility, reduce energy consumption, and create stronger connections between the museum’s architecture, its collections, and the surrounding city.

At the groundbreaking ceremony, Escobedo reflected on the idea of beginnings, connecting the English phrase “groundbreaking” with the Spanish expression la primera piedra, or “the first stone.” And perhaps that is a lovely way to think about museums too. They may look permanent from the outside, but the way we experience art inside them is always changing. For The Met, that change now has a very visible beginning.

4. Black Women Who Shaped Hip-Hop Fashion Get Their Own Exhibition

Hip-hop has always been about more than music.

Its clothes, hairstyles, nails, jewellery, sneakers, accessories, and overall visual language have become part of global popular culture. Now, a new exhibition at Seattle’s Museum of Pop Culture is turning the spotlight toward the Black women who helped create that visual world.

Styled by the Streets: Black Women in Hip-Hop Fashion opens to the public on September 19 and will remain on view through September 19, 2027.

The exhibition looks at the contributions of artists and creative figures including Lil’ Kim, Cardi B, and Doja Cat, while also highlighting the people working behind the scenes, from stylists and hairstylists to nail artists and grillz makers.

That behind-the-scenes focus is what makes the exhibition particularly interesting.

Fashion in music can sometimes be treated as decoration, something that happens around the “real” work. But for hip-hop, style has long been part of the storytelling. The clothes, hair, nails, jewellery, and beauty choices can become just as recognizable as the music itself.

The exhibition brings these creative practices into a museum setting, creating space for the people whose work helped shape what audiences saw on stage, in music videos, and eventually everywhere else.

And it is a reminder that art history does not only happen inside galleries.

Sometimes it happens backstage, in a salon chair, at a nail table, in a clothing studio, or on the street.

5. Sara Flores’ Journey From the Amazon to the Art World Comes to the Screen

Some artist stories take us somewhere completely different.

The Hummingbird Paints Fragrant Songs, a new documentary about Peruvian Shipibo-Conibo artist Sara Flores, recently premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival.

The film had its world premiere on September 12 and will have another TIFF screening on September 19. Flores is known for her intricate kené designs, a traditional Shipibo-Conibo visual language made up of complex geometric patterns. She began signing her work in the 1970s, and her practice has since travelled far beyond her community in the Peruvian Amazon.

In recent years, Flores has exhibited internationally, collaborated with Dior on a limited artist’s edition of the Lady Dior bag, and become the artist representing Peru at the 2026 Venice Biennale. But the documentary is interested in more than the international art world.

It follows Flores back to the Amazon, where her artistic practice remains closely connected to her community, her family, and the natural environment around her. The film also shows her working alongside her daughters and granddaughters, revealing how the tradition continues through generations.

There is something especially beautiful about seeing both sides of her story. On one side, there are museums, fashion houses, international exhibitions, and film festivals. On the other, there is the Amazon, family, natural dyes, handmade processes, and a visual tradition passed down through generations.

The film brings those worlds together without separating Flores from the place and people that shaped her work. And perhaps that is one of the most interesting things about following an artist’s journey: sometimes the further their work travels, the more important it becomes to understand where it came from.

Until Next Week…

From a monumental blue figure in Trafalgar Square to a new museum wing, a celebration of Black women’s influence on hip-hop fashion, and an artist carrying a centuries-old visual tradition onto the international stage, this week has given us plenty to look at.

And for artists looking for somewhere to share their own stories, The Things We Feel remains open for submissions until October 5.

The art world is always moving, changing, opening new doors, and giving us new things to look at. We’ll be back next week with more artists, exhibitions, opportunities, and stories worth knowing.