2026 is poised to be a landmark year for the art world, marked by a range of developments spanning storytelling, fashion, AI-driven creativity, and contemporary art. These are the top museum openings and exhibitions to mark on your calendar for 2026.
The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art
Los Angeles’ new museum is a private institution founded by George Lucas and Mellody Hobson. The museum has spent the last several years curating works from N.C. Wyeth, Robert Colescott, Norman Rockwell, and more for its grand opening.
The collection, which includes over 40,000 works, highlights forms of narrative art that were often overlooked historically, such as comic books and children’s illustrations. The opening is currently scheduled for September 2026, after a series of delays and departures from high-ranking staff. And, for all the sci-fi nerds out there, the museum will include an emporium of Star Wars artifacts.
Lucas called the museum “a temple to the people’s art” at the 2025 San Diego Comic-Con.
Renaissance to Runway: The Enduring Italian Houses
This cross-curatorial show explores how art and fashion have shaped each other across centuries. Debuting at the Cleveland Museum of Art, the exhibition spans the Renaissance era through the 1900s. Approximately 80 ensembles and garments will be on display alongside 40 pieces of fine jewelry, each element paired with corresponding art-historical examples from the museum’s collections.
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Dataland
According to the museum’s website, Refik Anadol’s Dataland, which will open in downtown Los Angeles in Spring 2026, will be “The world’s first Museum of AI Arts and digital ecosystem dedicated to data visualization and AI-based creativity.” Though many of the details of this collection remain a mystery, it will house tech-forward artists through a residency program.
One of its five galleries will feature a signature Anadol Infinity Room, beguiling immersive spaces of mirrors and projectors that he has been creating since 2014. This one was trained on half a million scent molecules and has “an olfactory dimension,” making it one of many “perspective-altering experiences,” Dataland stated.
According to the museum, the facility “operates at the intersection of human imagination and the creative potential of machines.”
Two Frida Kahlo Shows
After breaking the record for most expensive artwork sold at auction by a female artist in November 2025, surrealist painter Frida Kahlo is being honored with two big U.S. exhibitions this year. The bigger of the two, “Frida: The Making of an Icon,” opens on January 19 at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston in Texas. This exhibition will disentangle a number of myths about Kahlo’s persona that remain pervasive. The exhibition moves to the Tate Modern in London in June.
MoMA is also hosting a Frida Kahlo exhibition titled “Frida and Diego: The Last Dream”. This show, which takes place in March, will examine Kahlo’s marriage to the painter Diego Rivera. A small show will also open alongside a new opera about the two artists debuting at the Metropolitan Opera in May.
