Summer is over and the weather is increasingly iffy. So, this is a perfect moment to think of European destinations in terms of art-related experiences. Let’s have a look at the list of the most appealing museum exhibitions as we move toward 2026. Our choices here are meant to curate a list of popular destinations that can be enhanced by temporary, not-to-be-missed opportunities to see outstanding works.
From long-awaited retrospectives to cutting-edge installations, here are some of the top exhibitions to check out across Europe in 2025.
Twenty twenty-five has been a stellar year, with more exceptional exhibitions than we can curate. Twenty twenty-six is shaping up to be just as exciting.
Now through 15 February 2026, Pirelli HangarBicocca in Milan
We think it’s good now and then to delve into contemporary art we don’t quite understand, but that everyone else loves. For decades, Nan Goldin has been the darling of the Manhattan art scene and the social mags such as “Interview,” her tumultuous life translating into edgy photography à la Larry Clark and Diane Arbus. “ArtReview” ranks her as the most influential person in the art world. Bisexual, she immersed herself in the gay scene and drag world in the 1980s and we’re guessing the title for this show alludes to the fact that most of her subjects from those days are, well, no longer with us. Goldin also documented the AIDS/HIV crisis and is still an activist, focusing on Palestine (even though she’s Jewish.)
We digress.
“Nan Goldin: This Will Not End Well” is dedicated to her work as a filmmaker. But her “films” are actually made up of her photos … mega slideshows alongside a new commission, an immersive sound installation, according to the Pirelli Hangar Bicocca website. This is a giant show with six themes ranging from her early work on sexual dependency to photos based on “the ecstasy of drugs.” Not for the faint of heart.
The show – organized by Moderna Museet in collaboration with Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin and Grand Palais Rmn, Paris – is free, but you’ll want to book your viewing time here.
Basel is one of the most underrated cities in Europe, with its dramatic setting on the Rhine and an arts ecosystem that’s second to none. (There are more cellists in Basel than in any other city … look it up.) If you haven’t visited lately, here’s some inspiration – an art exhibition exploring the ethereal topic of ghosts in art. With more than 160 works from the past 250 years, “Ghosts. Visualizing the Supernatural ” is a big show by any measure. And it takes a deep dive into the late 19th century, when ghosts were everywhere in popular culture.
Artist include Eugène Delacroix, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Paul Klee and a slew of artists we never heard of. But come on … an entire exhibition dedicated to ghosts? Spooky … in a good way.
Full price tickets are 30 Swiss francs, but there are discounted tickets for kids, etc. You can get yours here.
Now until 8 February 2026 at the Belvedere in Vienna
Ah, the Good Old Days when the fabulously rich collected art, not yachts. This show is from the collection of Sydney and Jenny Brown, a Swiss couple (sort of), though Sydney was born in Switzerland to British parents. He inherited his family’s fortune from engineering and railways. The couple teamed up to travel the world, buying what were then considered avant-garde works of arts that they kept locked up in their house, Villa Langmatt.
“Jenny readily admitted they didn’t dare put their collection on display, ‘too fearful of questions from our friends and acquaintances,’ ” according to the Christie’s website. (Uhm, there were other delicate questions about how they acquired some works, but that’s a story for another time.)
Anyway, Villa Langmatt – now Museum Langmatt – has sent the Belvedere in Vienna 50 impressionist works while it’s under renovation. There are lots of ticket options, and you can see them here. By the way, the Belvedere is a huge complex with lots of shows including two Baroque palaces (the Upper and Lower Belvedere), the Orangery, and the Palace Stables. Get ready for a hike.
The Louvre has been the center of attention lately for all the wrong reasons. So, you might want to hurry on over to see this extensive exhibition of works by Jacques-Louis David – yet another French painter who revolutionized art – before it disappears out a side window.
David is credited for founding the French School – clear, big, bold and orderly canvasses – during a period of unimaginable tumult during Napoleon’s empire and the French Revolution. Every art student has “Death of Marat” forever burned into their neurons.
The Louvre owns the largest existing collection of the artist’s paintings and drawings, but there will be loaned pieces including “Marat” from the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels.
The exhibition is included in the 22 euro entrance fee, but you should book your visiting times here.
“In the Luxembourg Gardens,” by John Singer Sargent
Now thru 11 January, 2026 at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris
Okay, this is another of our favorite 19th century American artists along with Childe Hassam. Bonus points: John Singer Sargent was an expat most of his life, living in Paris and London. “Portrait of Madam X” is his best known piece, and this show is in partnership with the Museum of Modern Art, which houses “Madam X.” Sargent was nothing if not prolific, and the 90 paintings in this show highlight the artist’s connection to France. “Sargent. The Paris Years” traces the artist’s career, from his arrival in France in 1874 to his move to London in 1885.
This is really one of the rare blockbuster shows since the 2023 Vermeer exhibition in Amsterdam. So getting a time slot might be tough. Tickets are free for locals and everyone who is an EU citizen. Otherwise, tickets are 16 euros for anyone over 18, and you can get yours here.
While we’re hanging around Paris, there’s yet another must-see exhibition that runs into next year.
It’s fitting that the Kandinsky show is at a concert hall. Wassily Kandinsky, the Russian abstract painter, was inspired by music and color equally, and they blend together in a number of his works, which have titles such as “improvisation” and “composition.”
“Kandinsky. The Music of Colours” brings together about 200 works along with objects from his studio, “all reflecting the fundamental place of music in his daily life, his artistic vocation, and the evolution of his practice toward abstraction,” according to the Philharmonie of Paris website.
Tickets are 15 euros for adults, less for kids and students, and you can get yours here.
Now till 8 February, 2026 at Eye Filmmuseum, Amsterdam
Think “art” stopped with Van Gogh and Picasso? It did not. It just evolved, and the logical next phase is visual and ephemeral rather than oil and canvas – video, movies and fashion. Oscar-winning Australian/Scottish actor Tilda Swinton (“Michael Clayton”) is creating a new exhibition for Eye Filmmuseum, the Netherland’s national film museum. The actor will present eight works created in collaboration with Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar, British fashion photographer Tim Walker, American filmmaker Jim Jarmusch and other artists.
Each artist/filmmaker has created a work dedicated to Swinton. And according to the Eye website, Swinton herself will stage a multi-day performance that “brings a special wardrobe to life: garments from her personal collection, film costumes, red carpet dresses and family heirlooms.”
The exhibition is sponsored by, among others, Chanel and Vogue. The standard museum entrance is 12.50 euros, but we don’t see any mention of an additional fee for this show.
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, Now thru 11 January 2026
Van Gogh had a difficult time getting along with anyone. But for whatever reason, when Van Gogh moved to Arles in Provence, he andpostman Joseph Roulin became buds. Van Gogh painted several portraits of Roulin, his wife, two sons, and a baby daughter.
“This series of portraits shows Van Gogh’s close connection with the Roulin family. They were more than just models to him; with them he found the warmth of a family that he was never able to start.” – Nienke Bakker, curator at the Van Gogh Museum.
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Copenhagen, Now till 11 January, 2026
Is there art in Google’s obsessive cataloging of the world? Canadian artist Jon Rafman thinks so. Rafman’s “9 Eyes” is about as contemporary as contemporary arts gets, built on the billions of image collected across the globe by Google cars. Starting in 2007, Google sent out special cars to map the world, shooting more than 200 billion photos, driving more than 10 million miles across 100 countries. Just after Google’s project began, Rafman decided to start archiving the more interesting images.
“9 Eyes” is the first full-scale presentation of the project in a museum and consists of more than 50 large framed street views installed in scenographic environments designed in collaboration with the artist, according to the Louisiana website. In addition, an archive of 500 individual works and a slideshow from the project are presented, as well as the film “You, the World, and I,” a work made by Rafman specifically for this show.
Foundation Louis Vuitton, Paris, Now thru 2 March, 2026
Full disclosure: Gerhard Richter and Cy Twombly are our favorite living artist. So this huge Richter show is a big deal for us – 270 works from 1962 to 2024. This show takes us through the moody, oblique German artist’s creative phases chronologically including oil paintings, watercolors, drawings, glass and steel sculptures, and overpainted photographs, according the FLV website.
That includes 48 Portraits, a group of photorealistic paintings of famous historical figures created for the 1972 Venice Biennale, and the “October 18, 1977” series addressing the Baader-Meinhof terrorr group.
This is a continuing exhibition series devoted to leading figures of 20th and 21st-century art – Jean-Michel Basquiat, Joan Mitchell, Mark Rothko, and David Hockney – and the Fondation will dedicate all its galleries to Richter’s works. Which is fine by us.
Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum, Madrid, now till 25 January 2026
Jackson Pollock and Andy Warhol could not have been more different in personality and approach. A hard-living artist from Wyoming, Pollock transformed abstract painting with his drip method. Pittsburgh native Warhol preferred to have crews of beautiful people and dilettantes at his Factory studios working on everything from lithographs of soup cans to films. The connection is Warhol was fascinated with Pollock and owned one of his paintings.
The premise of this show in Madrid is that Pollock “was not always an ‘abstract master,’ nor was Warhol an artist solely occupied with dispassionate depictions of banal themes from popular culture,” according to the website. It would be worth going just to puzzle that out ….
“Warhol, Pollack and other American spaces” includes works by Warhol, Pollock and other 20th century artists who worked with similar themes.
Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona, now thru 29 March, 2026
In Barcelona, most art lovers head straight to the Picasso Museum, and it is amazing. But you don’t want to miss the Fundació Joan Miró, dedicated to native son Miró. This is actually two simultaneous exhibits … one exploring the development of Fundació Joan Miro and creation of the Centre for Contemporary Art Studies in Barcelona, and an exhibition of the works of the artist himself.
Miró had a complicated identity – a Catalan whose family likely was descended from Marranos, Jews who converted to Christianity. A hard-working anti-bohemian without the charisma or public profile of Picasso, he was just as radical, working to upend the idea of what we think of as “painting.” And let’s face it … without Miró, there’s no Cy Twombly or Julian Schnabel.
There’s actually a Miró Art Trail that retraces his life through Barcelona, Madrid and Mallorca.
20 November thru 26 July, 2026 at The Design Museum, London
No matter how you feel about his quirky films, you know it’s a Wes Anderson movie from the first frame simply because of his sense of design, color palette and bizarre sets. “The Grand Hotel Budapest” alone takes you to a place few other filmmakers dare go – the netherworld between film and stage.
Now, London’s Design Museum – in collaboration with la Cinémathèque française – presents the first Wes Anderson retrospective. The show includes more than 600 objects from his films, including original storyboards, polaroids, sketches, paintings, handwritten notebooks, puppets, miniature models and dozens of costumes.
Highlights include a candy-pink model of the Grand Budapest Hotel, the vending machines from Asteroid City, the FENDI fur coat worn by Gwyneth Paltrow as Margot Tenenbaum in The Royal Tenenbaums, the original stop motion puppets used to depict the fantastical sea creatures in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, Mr. Fox wearing his signature corduroy suit and show dog Nutmeg alongside miniature sets. The show will also present a screening of “Bottle Rocket,” Anderson’s first short from 1993.
Tate Britain in London, 27 November to 12 April 2026
In November, Tate Britain will open “Turner and Constable,” a major exhibition that will compare the works of two of Britain’s most famous landscape painters. J.M.W. Turner and John Constable are often seen as polar opposites in British art history – Turner’s dramatic, atmospheric works contrasting with Constable’s more serene and idealized rural scenes. And as you might expect, they were rivals who loathed one another.
Yet, this exhibition aims to demonstrate how both artists explored the natural world in deeply personal ways, each seeking to capture its fleeting beauty and raw power. The show will explore their shared fascination with light, weather, and the effects of the changing British landscape, giving visitors an opportunity to appreciate the similarities and differences in their respective artistic approaches.
Whether you are interested in classic masterpieces, contemporary digital art, or powerful cross-cultural dialogues, Europe’s leading museums are sure to offer something for every taste.
Nina Danilova is an art writer and contemporary art curator. She is about to finish her PhD
in Culture Studies. She grew up in Russia and lived in Germany, Estonia, Italy and
Portugal, where she is currently based. She is passionate about history, languages, food,
and dancing.
Receive the latest news and updates from Dispatches Europe. Get lifestyle & culture, startup & tech, jobs and travel news dispatched to your inbox each week.
