LA Louver to Close Gallery Space and Shift Into Private Model
LA Louver, the oldest extant gallery in Los Angeles, will be closing its space in Venice this fall and transitioning to focus on private art dealing and consulting, according to an announcement today, September 16. Alongside this pivot, the gallery…
Shape the Future of Art, Design, and Architecture at Cranbrook Academy of Art
Cranbrook Academy of Art is not just a graduate school — it’s a dynamic community of architects, artists, and designers redefining visual and material culture. Known for decades as the “incubator of mid-century modernism,” Cranbrook has been at the forefront…
Activists Face Hate Crime Charges for Anti-Israel Graffiti
Co-defendants Raunaq Alam and Afsheen Khan at the Tarrant County courthouse last week (photo by and courtesy Stacey Monroe) Texas prosecutors are seeking 10-year prison sentences for activists accused of anti-Zionist graffiti. The three defendants — Raunaq Alam, Afsheen Khan,…
Beverly Semmes’s Feminist Palimpsests
MEDFORD, Mass. — Fabric works bookend Beverly Semmes’s Boulders / Flag / Flip / Kick at the Tufts University Art Galleries. Yet the exhibition’s 45-year span evidences a dramatic range of interests. Performance is one throughline, with objects inspired by costumes…
Painting Was His First Love, But Poetry Got in the Way
SAN FRANCISCO — Few figures are more beloved in San Francisco than Lawrence Ferlinghetti. The late poet, publisher, editor, essayist, critic, and bookseller might be best known to most people for his 1958 poetry collection Coney Island of the Mind,…
Two Artists Withdraw From Smithsonian Symposium
Lingít and Unangax̂ artist Nicholas Galanin and Mexican-American sculptor Margarita Cabrera withdrew from a symposium at the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) today, September 12, alleging that the institution’s decision to make the event private effectively censored participants amid pressure…
A Defiant Gaza Biennale Opens in New York City
Opening of the “New York Pavilion” of the Gaza Biennale at Recess in Brooklyn (all photos Diba Mohtasham/Hyperallergic, unless otherwise noted) The nearly 10-minute docudrama Live Broadcast by Palestinian filmmaker Emad Badwan opens with the voice of a man over…
Art in General, Nonprofit Champion of Early-Career Artists, Is Reopening
For nearly four decades, more than 2,000 artists flocked to the alternative nonprofit Art in General (AiG), whose accessible and diverse programming helped propel the early careers of Pope.L, Cecilia Vicuña, Joan Jonas, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Patty Chang, Sanford Biggers, Kay…
Passports, Prints, and Protest at the NY Art Book Fair
“Art magazine! Very, very interesting, Lakshmi. I see you’re doing very important work,” said consulate agent Sherly Fan. “I personally would love to grant everyone an Extraordinary Talent Visa. However, you’ve got to roll the dice to determine your future.”…
Jeffrey Gibson’s Guardian Animals Grace The Met’s Facade
On an absolutely perfect day — warm but not hot, not a cloud in the bright blue sky — a giant bronze squirrel wearing what can only be described as acorn regalia looks out over an Upper East Side crowd with…
Required Reading
‣ For Dazed, artist and activist Nan Goldin speaks with Mahmoud Khalil about his illegal detention over his support of the Gaza solidarity movement at Columbia University: Nan Goldin: What can we do now? That’s my biggest question. Mahmoud Khalil: To me, the…
Arts Community Rallies Behind Brooklyn Artist Displaced by Blaze
Members of New York City’s art community are fundraising to support performance artist and professor Ayana Evans and her partner after a fire tore through her top-floor Brooklyn apartment on Monday afternoon, September 8. The blaze destroyed nearly everything they…
The Twisted Logic of Documenta’s “Artistic Freedom”
S-21 is the name of a former high school in Phnom Penh that Pol Pot turned into a secret torture center and extermination camp. Between 1975 and 1979, 14,200 people were executed there. For the sake of the regime’s bureaucracy,…
Newly Released Epstein Birthday Drawings Paint a Disturbing Picture
The bipartisan House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform this week released 238 pages from a book of drawings and notes gifted to convicted serial sex offender Jeffrey Epstein by his former girlfriend and accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, for his 50th…
Laura James Paints What America Wants to Forget
“Make work.” Laura James shared this concise yet powerful mantra with me during a visit to her Bronx studio in West Farms. A poster bearing the phrase hangs on her wall — a nod, she explained, to the influence of…
Arewà Basit on Her Amy Sherald Portrait and Alchemizing Trans Joy
In the international queer community, Arewà Basit is known as a dancing, singing don-diva who makes music, performs in drag, and co-leads the Black queer production organization Legacy. These days, she’s also making headlines for being the subject of a…
Independent Art Fair Partners With Sotheby’s, Raising Larger Market Questions
The art world has seen its fair share of eyebrow-raising brand collaborations in recent years. Damien Hirst made a bag for Prada festooned with bejeweled insects. Shepherd Fairey displayed his street art works on digital TVs in a partnership with…
What Does Anselm Kiefer Have to Do With Van Gogh?
LONDON — Demonstrating “influence” between artists is a thorny enterprise. Side-by-side comparisons can often reveal how one individual or movement’s technical practice or iconography was taken up and/or further developed by another, furthering art historical progression — yet confirmation bias can…
Art Loves You Back When People Don’t
Obsession often does an artist good. That idea she can’t stop thinking about, that uncompleted project that keeps her up at night — such fixations compel her to create, focus her efforts, and keep her returning to the desk, the…
Art on Paper Leaps Off the Page
As I circled around the dozens of booths along the three wide lanes at Art on Paper on Thursday, September 4, one stood out above the rest. On the bare white walls were Moleskine journals, much like the small ones…
How New Collector Habits Are Shaking Up Art Fair Season
Eduardo Holgado encounters most of his art on Instagram now, perusing posts from galleries and artists before ever setting foot in a fair. But when it comes time to buy, the collector, who is in his early 30s, still needs…
At the Armory Show, First-Time Artists Steal the Spotlight
Calling Alexa Kumiko Hatanaka’s solo presentation at the Armory Show a “booth” feels somehow wrong, like a reduction of the all-encompassing sanctum that she and Toronto gallery Patel Brown assembled for the Manhattan art fair. Suspended gently from wooden rods…
Robert Grosvenor, Who Refused to Be Defined by Genre, Dies at 88
Robert Grosvenor, whose work resisted artistic classification for more than six decades, died in Long Island, New York, on Wednesday, September 3, at the age of 88. His death was announced by Paula Cooper Gallery, which has represented the artist…
Smithsonian Secretary Responds to Trump’s Museum Crackdown
Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch sent a letter to the Trump administration responding to a list of demands the White House presented last month as it attempts to assert control over the institution. Bunch’s direct response to the White House comes…
Curator Targeted by Trump Tapped to Lead Milwaukee Art Museum
Historian and curator Kim Sajet, who recently left her longtime post as director at the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) after President Donald Trump claimed he had fired her, will be the next director of the Milwaukee Art Museum (MAM), the…
Elizabeth Foundation Makes Offer on Iconic Chelsea Artist Building
A view of the 508-534 West 26th Street building complex in West Chelsea, Manhattan (photo Isa Farfan/Hyperallergic) An esteemed nonprofit wants to turn a West Chelsea arts building on the market into an artist residency program while keeping longtime tenants…
At the Edge of Arrival
Raheleh Filsoofi is an itinerant artist, feminist curator, and community advocate. Using clay and sound as her primary expressive mediums, her work revolves around themes of movement, immigration, and social activism. Her art aims to disrupt the borders that exist…
Marian Spore Bush Was Nobody’s “Visionary Artist”
“Who was Marian Spore Bush?” The question begins an essay by Bob Nickas, who curated the exhibition Marian Spore Bush: Life Afterlife, Works c. 1919–1945, currently at Karma. The artist’s first solo exhibition in almost 80 years, it feels extraordinarily…
Apply for a 2026–2027 Fellowship at the Smithsonian American Art Museum
The Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) and its Renwick Gallery invite applications to its premier fellowship program, the oldest and largest in American art. Scholars from any discipline whose research engages the art, craft, and visual culture of the United States…
Decode the Art Fair Lingo With Our Armory Show Bingo Card
Each year, come September, we all pretend the world isn’t burning and put on our best oversized shirt to work our way through the maze of booths that is New York’s Armory Show. For those of you who want to…
The Shocking Allure of Erotic Abstraction
LONDON — Some of the Courtauld’s previous exhibitions have suffered from insufficient curation. Abstract Erotic: Louise Bourgeois, Alice Adams, Eva Hesse, on the other hand, strikes the exact right balance. Drawing on scholar Jo Applin’s research, curator Alexandra Gerstein has taken…
The Artist Whose Fauci Portraits Enraged the White House
In 2019, Hugo Crosthwaite became the first Latino artist to win the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery’s (NPG) prestigious triennial Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition. The Tijuana-born and San Diego-based illustrator received the contest’s grand prize: $25,000 and a portrait commission for…
World’s Largest Van Gogh Collection Faces Uncertain Future
Since 1973, Vincent van Gogh masterpieces including his beloved sunflowers, wistful wheatfields, and self-portraits have been housed in Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum. The institution was established via a historic 1962 agreement between the painter’s nephew and the Dutch government to…
Adrift in Betye Saar’s Crepuscular Dreamscape
SAN MARINO, Calif. — Standing in the gallery of Betye Saar: Drifting Toward Twilight, you are bathed in oceanic, cobalt blue light. The buzz of neon lights drones in the background. It’s hard to say if the temperature has truly dropped,…
Facing $15M Budget Deficit, CalArts Lays Off Workers
A round of layoffs at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) this summer is raising alarms at one of the best-known arts schools in the country as the institution grapples with rising costs. The Santa Clarita-based private arts school…
Facing $15M Budget Deficit, CalArts Lays Off 12 Workers
A round of layoffs at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) this summer is raising alarms at one of the best-known arts schools in the country as the institution grapples with rising costs. The Santa Clarita-based private arts school…
The 2025 NY Art Book Fair Returns to MoMA PS1
Initiated in 2006, the NY Art Book Fair (NYABF) is a celebration and international gathering for artists’ book publishers to distribute their work, connect with broad audiences, and nurture new and longstanding relationships. This year’s fair marks an exciting and…
Smithsonian Latino Gallery Quietly Closes for Nine Months
The Molina Family Latino Gallery at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, which has served as the home of the nascent Latino museum, will stay closed until April 2026. (all images courtesy Felipe Galindo) On Friday morning, August 22,…
Is Jenny Saville the UK’s Greatest Living Painter?
LONDON — Of all the YBAs (Young British Artists) of the 1990s — including upstarts like Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin, mouthing off petulantly to the art establishment with dead livestock and unmade beds — it is Jenny Saville who…
An Insider’s Guide to NYC’s Fall 2025 Art Fairs
It’s about that time of year when the slight crisping of the air signals that the balmy summer is departing, but hasn’t disappeared just yet. Suddenly, the fluorescent lights, lively chatter, and overpriced opening wine flowing onto the New York…
Amy Sherald Speaks Out on Cancelling Her Smithsonian Show
Amy Sherald, the painter most widely known for her portrait of former First Lady Michelle Obama, detailed her decision to withdraw her exhibition from the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery (NPG) amid concerns over censorship at the institution in a new…
A Landmark Raphael Retrospective Is Coming to The Met
Raphael, “The Virgin and Child with Infant Saint John the Baptist in a Landscape (The Alba Madonna)” (1509–11) (image courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington) “How generous and kind Heaven sometimes proves to be,” mused Italian Renaissance artist and historian…
New York Area Show to See Right Now
As the summer winds down and the season of art fairs and openings approaches, you might assume that the entire art world is on vacation right now. Don’t make the mistake of taking your own vacation from art just yet…
Colorado Town Settles With Native Artist Who Brought Free Speech Lawsuit
Húŋkpapȟa Lakȟóta painter Danielle SeeWalker has settled a civil rights lawsuit with the town of Vail, Colorado, more than a year after the municipality cancelled her artist residency over a pro-Palestine artwork. Brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)…
Why Did Eco-Activists Get Years in Prison for Only $588 in Damages?
Vincent van Gogh says a little soup is fine, as a treat. (edit Hrag Vartanian/Hyperallergic) In October 2022, many members of the public were shocked when two environmental activists threw Andy Warhol’s favorite soup muse at a Vincent van Gogh…
Sandra Poulson’s Haunted House
The Surrealists understood that so much depends on context: What is ordinary lining a glove, for instance, becomes grotesque in a teacup. Angolan artist Sandra Poulson — who studied fashion in Lisbon and London, and lives between the latter, Angola’s…
The Mesmerizing Wonder of Wabanaki Weaving
GREENWICH, Conn. — Jeremy Frey weaves slim strips of wood into mesmerizing patterns and color combinations with extreme precision. In each impeccable vessel, ancestral Wabanaki basketmaking traditions crisscross with the Passamaquoddy artist’s distinctive creative vision, and wood harvested from ash…
Erasure of Rainbow Memorial for Pulse Shooting Victims Raises Alarm in Florida
The Orange Avenue crossing before and after it was paved over (image courtesy Office of Mayor Buddy Dyer) Orlando residents and Florida public officials are decrying the state’s removal of a rainbow crosswalk memorial honoring the victims of the 2016…
Ancient Sculptures Recovered From Sunken City Off Alexandria
Pieces of limestone buildings, marble and granite royal statues, and the remains of a merchant ship are among the relics of an ancient sunken city retrieved by Egyptian authorities off the shores of Alexandria. Dating back more than 2,000 years,…
Kenny Nguyen: The Divine Eye
Kenny Nguyen: The Divine Eye is an evocative, large-scale installation that invites viewers to engage with the rich spiritual and cultural history of Vietnam through the lens of Caodaism. Rooted in the synthesis of Eastern and Western philosophies, Caodaism —…
Trump Targets LGBTQ+ History, Migrants, and More in Chilling Smithsonian Hit List
Rigoberto A. González, “Refugees Crossing the Border Wall into South Texas” (2020) was among the artworks targeted in a statement from the White House on August 21, 2025. (photo courtesy the artist) In the wake of Trump’s Truth Social rant…
A Cézanne Celebration as Sweet as a Bowl of Apples
The south of France is known for its idyllic coastal climate, lush vineyards, and charming villages that date back to Roman times. But for now, the region wants you to think of Paul Cézanne, a Provence native son whose focus…
Did This 19th-Century Painting Inspire Taylor Swift’s New Album Art?
John Everett Millais, “Ophelia” (1851-2) (image via Wikimedia Commons, PDM 1.0) A 19th-century artwork that has inspired artists from Surrealist Salvador Dalí to contemporary painter Ed Ruscha may be the influence behind the cover for Taylor Swift’s forthcoming album, The…
Mitchell Johnson: Twenty Years in Truro (Selected Paintings 1989-2025)
Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill in Massachusetts presents Twenty Years in Truro (Selected Paintings 1989-2025), a solo exhibition of paintings by San Francisco Bay Area artist Mitchell Johnson, on view September 3–14, 2025. This is Johnson’s fifth…
Mickalene Thomas Accused of Harassment and Nonpayment by Ex-Fiancée
Mickalene Thomas’s former fiancée and business partner has accused the contemporary artist of sexual harassment, nonpayment, and workplace retaliation in a lawsuit filed in New York State Supreme Court on August 8. Racquel Chevremont is seeking at least $10 million,…
Art on Paper Celebrates the Power of Paper-Based Art This Fall
Art on Paper, New York City’s celebrated fair dedicated to the creative potential of paper-based art, returns to Pier 36 on Manhattan’s Lower East Side for its eleventh edition during Armory Arts Week on September 4–7, 2025. Known for its…
Dispatches From the Ever-Evolving Santa Fe Indian Market
SANTA FE — Every third weekend in August, New Mexico’s capital becomes a hub of Indigenous creativity for the Santa Fe Indian Market, hosted by the Southwestern Association for Indian Arts (SWAIA). This year, the air felt charged as lightning…
Sub-versive DC Protester Becomes Memeorable
Top: Mural at Dupont Circle North Metro Station in Washington, DC, pays homage to the man who threw a subway at an federal agent (photo courtesy Ian Livinsgton); bottom: Stills from an FBI video of Sean Charles Dunn flinging the…
Agnès Varda’s Photographic Odes to Queer Paris
PARIS — The bowl cut, the cats, the heart-shaped potatoes. The predilection for loopy plots and faces hidden in household objects. Whether posing with angel wings or swallowed by a giant Muppet-like coat, the late artist and filmmaker Agnès Varda…
Further Your Creative Practice and Career With SVA Continuing Education
Ready to take your practice and creativity to new heights? The Division of Continuing Education at the School of Visual Arts (SVACE) has the resources and expertise to help you go to the next level. With a diverse range of…
Required Reading
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40-Year-Old David Wojnarowicz Mural Resurfaces, Only to Be Hidden Again
“Hey, there’s some kind of painting there on that wall!” The Kentucky architect Moseley Putney remembers the precise moment in September 2022 when a carpenter on the job at the Billy Goat mixed-use development in Louisville called him over to…
Trump Wants “American Exceptionalism” at the Smithsonian. Will He Get It?
The Trump administration will begin a “comprehensive internal review” of the Smithsonian Institution, including an examination of exhibitions, curatorial processes, educational materials, and programming related to the 250th anniversary of the United States’ founding. In a letter addressed to Smithsonian…
For $9.5M, Rothko’s Former Home and Studio Could Be Yours
Mark Rothko’s former apartment and studio in Manhattan’s Lenox Hill, where he created the paintings for his renowned Rothko Chapel in Texas, is back on the market. Sotheby’s Realty is asking $9.5 million for the red-brick converted carriage house at…
A Photographic History of Queer Intimacy
LOS ANGELES — A circa 1848 daguerrotype featuring a nude lesbian couple engaging in foreplay meets Matías Sauter Morera’s AI-assisted fictional portrait of what he terms a “pegamacho,” a rural heterosexual Costa Rican man known to have discreet sexual encounters…
A Hiroshima Survivor’s Message for Jerry Saltz
Howard Kakita survived the American atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. (all photos courtesy Howard Kakita) Editor’s Note: This article contains graphic descriptions of the effects of the atomic bomb. I was angered and dismayed by Jerry Saltz’s…
Visitors Can’t Keep Their Hands Off This Eggplant Artwork
Museum visitors in Singapore have reportedly had difficulty keeping their hands off a wall installation consisting of dozens of mounted eggplants. The artwork, “Still Life” (1992/2025) by Suzann Victor, is part of the ongoing exhibition Singapore Stories: Pathways and Detours in…
Court Sides With Peter Doig in Bizarre Authorship Lawsuit
A federal judge in Illinois sided with Scottish artist Peter Doig last month in an outlandish decades-long legal dispute over a desert landscape the painter denies creating. On July 29, the court upheld an earlier ruling that a Chicago art…
A Photographer Brings New York City’s Water System to the Surface
New York City is defined in many ways by its iconic infrastructure, from our parks to the soaring towers of the Brooklyn and Verrazzano-Narrows Bridges, and even the controversial roadways of Robert Moses, which displaced many communities of color, leaving…
“Alligator Alcatraz” Construction Halted, But Native Heritage Remains at Risk
A federal judge halted further construction on the notoriously dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” detention center yesterday, August 7, in response to a lawsuit citing the prison’s risks to environmental diversity and Native American heritage. In addition to threatening endangered species like…
As ADAA’s Art Show Changes Course, a Nonprofit Is Left in Limbo
For more than three decades, the Art Dealers Association of America’s (ADAA) annual Art Show in New York City served as the biggest source of unrestricted revenue for the Henry Street Settlement, the Lower Manhattan social services nonprofit. Last month,…
10 Art Shows to See in Los Angeles This August
This month’s exhibitions bring a transformative twist to the everyday, imbuing mundane items with psychological, political, and personal depth. At Regen Projects, Kevin Beasley embeds clothing and other objects into luminous and vibrant resin panels, while at Parker Gallery, Zachary…
Thai Art Center Censors Exhibition After “Pressure” From China
A Bangkok exhibition exploring state violence and resistance, which included artists from Tibet and Hong Kong, was altered under pressure by officials at the Chinese Embassy in Thailand. In an email sent to the artists reviewed by Hyperallergic, the curators…
Kasmin and Clearing Galleries Announce Closures
The wave of gallery closures that has roiled the art world in recent months continues this week with the back-to-back announcements of the shuttering of Kasmin and Clearing galleries. Manhattan’s Kasmin Gallery, which represented and exhibited artists including Joel Shapiro,…
Required Reading
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A Moving Encounter With the Art of Bernard Williams
CHICAGO — Nearly every summer in Chicago and its surrounding suburbs, some genuinely dumb public art is trotted out for the entertainment of visitors and residents alike. Sometimes it’s life-size fiberglass cows, other times giant butterflies. The most dreadful ones…
Kour Pour Reclaims the Geometry of Abstraction
Kour Pour, “Twice Removed” (2025), acrylic, block ink, and esphand on shaped canvases (all images courtesy Kour Pour Studio, unless otherwise noted) LOS ANGELES — For artist Kour Pour, challenging the Euro-American art historical canon has been a decade-long pursuit….
New York City Shows We Love Right Now
If we need anything from art at this dire time, it’s faith and fun. The shows below encourage flights into the imagination or nurture hope for the future. Artist Tove Jansson and her Moomins creations are nothing if not beacons…
Haunted by the Gray
Amy Sherald, “As American as Apple Pie” (2020) in Amy Sherald: American Sublime at the Whitney Museum of American Art (photo Hyperallergic) Once, when I was involved in a romance that was slowly coming to a close, I described to…
Who Are Museums Really For? And Can We Change Our Minds?
The cinematic journey in Binnigula’sa’ (Ancient Zapotec People) (2024) begins in the Mexican countryside. Modern civilization — signified by concrete, metal, and powerlines — peeks through the green landscape to reveal a more rigid world of roads, chain-link fences, and…
The Hyperallergic Art Crossword: Public Art Edition
Public art has no single form — it’s that mural you pass on your daily commute, the sculpture gracing your favorite local park, a statue installed near a busy intersection. Test your knowledge of public art gems from around the…
Hande Sever Tells a Story of War and Art
LOS ANGELES — “The art department is one excellent example of how the arts of peace become the arts of war,” says the narrator of a United States Army film production over documentary footage of male figures drawing before it…
Jillian Conrad Redefines the Limits of Drawing
HOUSTON — To say that I’m drawn to Jillian Conrad’s art might sound like an all-too-easy pun in a review of a show that explores drawing, but the sentiment holds. Since the early aughts, I’ve been following the psychic line…
Opportunities for Artists, Writers, and Art Workers in August 2025
Hyperallergic’s monthly Opportunities Listings provide a resource to artists and creatives looking for funding and community support to further their work. Subscribe to receive this list of opportunities in your inbox each month. Sign up here! If you find this…
Homeland Security’s Genocidal Aesthetics
The Department of Homeland Security posted John Gast’s 1872 painting “American Progress” (screenshot Hyperallergic, via X) Prussian painter John Gast’s 1872 composition “American Progress,” now held by the Autry Museum of the American West in Los Angeles, isn’t very good….
Smithsonian Removes Trump Impeachment Reference
The Smithsonian Institution has removed a label from the National Museum of American History exhibition The American Presidency that referenced Donald Trump’s two impeachments. The news of the removal was first reported this week by the Washington Post and confirmed…
Required Reading
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Raymond Saunders, Who Made the Color Black His Own, Dies at 90
Portrait of American artist Raymond Saunders (1970s) (photo by Anthony Barboza/Getty Images) Raymond Saunders, whose collage-based paintings and installation works grappled with the complexities of lived experience, racial identity, and broader sociopolitical structures, died on July 19 in Oakland, California….
Man Dies in Whitney Museum Fall
A 34-year-old man died after a fall from the Whitney Museum of American Art in Manhattan on Wednesday, July 30. Police responded to a 911 call at around 5:26pm, the New York Police Department (NYPD) told Hyperallergic. Upon arrival at 99…
How My Museum’s Celebration of America’s 250th Birthday Got Complicated
A visitor leaves a “birthday wish” for the United States’ 250th Anniversary at the New York Historical (photo courtesy the museum) I work at the New York Historical, a national history museum in New York City, and am tasked with…
Twenty Years of Life in Chinatown
Picture this: You are a set of clothes hangers strung out on a rooftop clothesline, placed there by a family trying to extend their supply of square footage and fresh air in their small apartment (“Drying Laundry,” 2004). You are…
New York City and Upstate Shows to See Right Now
Sometimes it seems like the art world has a short attention span, skipping from one trend to the next, so it’s satisfying to find exhibitions that hold onto histories and memories. In different ways, the shows below all maintain a…
The Poetic Optimism of Latina Lesbian Activism
MONTEREY PARK, Calif. — “EN CADA BESO UNA REVOLUCIÓN.” “LESBIANAS. UNIDAS. ¡FELICES!” Such battle cries embody the poetic optimism of Latina lesbian activism across borders at the Vincent Price Art Museum’s On the Side of Angels. Captured by posters for marches…
A Glimpse Inside the Dizzying Psyche of Daniel Johnston
A drawing by Daniel Johnston (image courtesy Daniel Johnston Trust, all others Maya Pontone/Hyperallergic) I was in my second year of college when I first heard about the alternative folk artist Daniel Johnston. It was the fall of 2017, two…
How Helen Chadwick Took the Piss Out of Art
Helen Chadwick, latex costume used in “Domestic Sanitation” (1976) (© Estate of Helen Chadwick) It is perhaps a testament to the enduring power of the titular British artist’s oeuvre that, even at a substantial 272 pages, Helen Chadwick: Life Pleasures…
BlackStar Festival Returns With 92 Films From Around the World
Still from Louis Massiah and Monica Henriquez’s TCB – The Toni Cade Bambara School of Organizing (2025), which will kick off this year’s BlackStar Film Festival in Philadelphia (all images courtesy BlackStar Film Festival) A prolific storyteller, transformative educator, and…
Required Reading
Subscribe to our newsletter Success! Your account was created and you’re signed in.Please visit My Account to verify and manage your account. An account was already registered with this email. Please check your inbox for an authentication link. We rely…
10 Bay Area Art Shows for the Dog Days of Summer
I spent a few weeks abroad this summer, and it was a relief to be away from the United States and its deluge of bad news — but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss San Francisco and…
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco Lays Off 12 Workers
The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF), the umbrella institution overseeing the de Young and Legion of Honor museums in the city, laid off 12 workers, citing a 20% drop in museum visitors since the pandemic and “increased operational…
A Hollywood Hills Gallery-Home Is Reborn as an Artist’s Residency
LOS ANGELES — In 1933, German-Jewish artist, art collector, and art dealer Galka Scheyer commissioned architect Richard Neutra to build her a house in the Hollywood Hills. Scheyer had moved to the United States in 1924 with the goal of…
Refik Anadol’s Soulless AI Tribute to Leo Messi
Refik Anadol set himself up for failure. For his latest work, the artist best known for his shapeshifting AI installation at the Museum of Modern Art set out to immortalize a moment of sports legend: Lionel Messi’s 2009 towering header…
Andres Serrano Proposes Trump Altar for the Venice Biennale
New York City-born artist and provocateur Andres Serrano wants the United States Pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale to showcase his apparently uncritical display of more than a thousand Trump memorabilia items, including a flattering, warm-hued portrait of the president…
Chance Encounters at Upstate Art Weekend 2025
The month of July brings Upstate Art Weekend (UAW), an annual summer cornucopia of art in the region. Launched in 2020 with 23 organizations, UAW has expanded to include more than 155 participants located across the map, from Nyack in…
Trump Withdraws US From UNESCO, Again
President Trump has withdrawn the United States from the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) for the second time in the government’s latest blow to global cultural heritage preservation. In a brief statement posted to the Department of…
Chicago Nonprofit Celebrates a Decade of Serving Unhoused Artists
CHICAGO — Do people need art? I know I always have, as something to enjoy, discuss, learn from, be puzzled by, and sometimes create. Obviously, I need food, shelter, and clothing first, but beyond that, art has given me a…
Why Does Elon Musk Have Such a Straight View of Antiquity?
A day after Independence Day in the United States, the world’s richest man announced on X that he would form a new political party called the America Party. A follow-up from Elon Musk revealed that he intended to break up…
How “Coldplaygate” Became the Meme of the Summer
Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” reimagined for the moment (via @memequeen and @esixus on Instagram, all screenshots Hyperallgic) As we all vie for a distraction from the world’s woes, an alleged affair exposed via the Jumbotron at a Coldplay concert has…
Visa Denials Create Hurdles for Artist Residencies
Every year, two dozen artists from around the world travel to the United States to participate in a month-long summer residency at the nonprofit arts center Art Omi. The highly competitive program is held at the organization’s 120-acre campus in…
“The First Homosexuals” Is a Defiant Celebration of LGBTQ+ Life
CHICAGO — The history of art, stated curator Jonathan D. Katz, “is both the world’s largest archive of the history of sexuality and its least tapped.” This may be a good place to begin to unpack the immense, important, ambitious,…
The Renaissance, But Make It “Game of Thrones”
A documentary can sometimes tell a viewer more about the time it was made than the one it recounts. This holds especially true for films about the Renaissance, which has been so meticulously covered that new revelations are farther and…
Trump Gifted Epstein a Lewd Drawing on His Birthday, Report Says
A crude sketch of a naked woman allegedly hand-drawn by President Donald Trump was in a salacious 50th birthday album gifted to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, according to a Wall Street Journal report published yesterday, July 17. Trump has denied…
Artists and the Alchemy of Color
Hyperallergic Members are invited to join us on August 12, 2025, for a virtual conversation with two renowned artists about the materiality of paint: Rina Banerjee and Ellie Irons. The speakers will delve into the particularities of working with different…
An Absurd Take on Masahisa Fukase’s Darkness
Few of Japan’s great photographers had a career as bold and multifaceted as Masahisa Fukase. Though largely defined by his black and white magnum opus Ravens (1986), a book of photographs in which the photographer casts himself as the grim…
Ruth Asawa Showed Us the Way to an Artistic Life
SAN FRANCISCO — Ruth Asawa’s infant son, Paul, lies on a blanket in a tender ink drawing entitled “Untitled (FF.1234, Paul Lanier on a Blanket)” (c. 1962–63). Paul takes up just a small portion of the overall composition, his clothing…
Stripper Collective’s Life Drawing Merges Sex Work and Art
Sketch from the East London Stripper Collective’s life drawing session in May by artist Jean-David Solon (image courtesy the artist) LONDON and BRIGHTON, England — Almost two decades ago, Stacey Clare began stripping to make ends meet. An environmental arts…
Four New York City Art Shows to See Right Now
Julia Margaret Cameron, “Call, I Follow, I Follow, Let Me Die!” (1867), carbon print (© The Royal Photographic Society Collection at the V&A) One word that kept coming to mind as I thought about the shows below is “visionary.” Whether…
The Brilliance and Privilege of Jane Austen and Julia Margaret Cameron
Julia Margaret Cameron and Jane Austen are both luminaries of the 19th century who explored the inner lives of women in their respective fields, photography and fiction. The legacies of these two trailblazing British women converge with the Morgan Library…
Ancient Egyptian Coffin Paintings Suggest Awareness of Milky Way
The sky has been a source of inspiration for artists since time immemorial. But our collective understanding of just how far into the past artistic representations of this expanse may reach — and how faithfully they reflect actual cosmology —…
The Woman Behind the Iconic Glass House
The history of photography has made it clear that the camera is a subjective tool. The glass lens frames the story differently depending on who is doing the looking, and how. So what are we to make of the images…
Required Reading
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Shamim M. Momin Is the Bronx Museum’s New Director
Shamim M. Momin will begin her tenure as director and chief curator of the Bronx Museum. (photo by Sue de Beer, courtesy Bronx Museum) Shamim M. Momin, cofounder of the public art nonprofit Los Angeles Nomadic Division (LAND), will lead…
Buffalo Museum Cancels Event After Backlash Against Texas Flood Cartoon
The Buffalo News published a cartoon about the Texas floods that sparked outrage from some audiences. (screenshot Maya Pontone/Hyperallergic via @adamzyglis on Instagram) An event that spotlighted the work of a Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist at the Buffalo History Museum was…
Annie Leibovitz Shoots Fifty Shades of Anne Hathaway
One of the best parts about aging, as an artist and a woman, is finding untapped confidence and reaching the absolute heights of your technical abilities and means of expression. Unless you are photographer Annie Leibovitz, whose recent Vogue cover…
What Were Federal Agents Doing at a Puerto Rican Museum in Chicago?
Federal agents paid an unexpected visit to the National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture (NMPRAC) in Chicago earlier this week in what the museum has described as a “targeted” attempt to intimidate staff and visitors ahead of a…
The Pliable Philosophy of Brazilian Geometric Art
SÃO PAULO — Geometric abstraction occupies such a prominent place in the history of Brazilian modern and contemporary art that I was surprised to hear that the São Paulo Museum of Art (MASP) originally collected figuration more heavily. Now, however,…
Penn Museum Workers Vote to Authorize Strike
On the heels of a historic municipal work stoppage that left Philadelphia’s streets drowning in mounting garbage piles, unionized staff at the Penn Museum are inching toward a strike to obtain higher wages from the University of Pennsylvania, the largest…
Moki Cherry, the Swedish Designer Who Blurred Art and Life
Swedish artist and designer Moki Cherry had a boundless art practice that extended out to the literal walls of her daily existence. This fall, a retrospective at the Fabric Workshop and Museum (FWM) in Philadelphia will explore the breadth and…
New App Turns Mobile Boarding Passes Into JD Vance Memes
It’s been nearly a month since 21-year-old Mads Mikkelsen was denied entry into the United States after border agents discovered a bloated JD Vance meme and a photo of a pipe on his cell phone. Though Mikkelsen is back at…
When Art Meets Nature
For the first time, the Taoyuan Museum of Fine Arts and the National Gallery Singapore have come together to present When Art Meets Nature, a children’s art exhibition open from July 2 to November 9, 2025, at the Taoyuan Children’s…
The Hyperallergic Art Crossword: July 2025
Answer: They’re in this month’s crossword! Dig into our July art puzzle with more clues on the French term that gave Fauvism its name, Ai Weiwei’s infamous photo series, the Central Park Fountain designed by a queer 19th-century sculptor, and…
Massive Ashamed Statue of Liberty Mural Emerges in France
A mural depicting the Statue of Liberty covering her face in shame appeared on a building in Northern France over Independence Day weekend and quickly garnered millions of views on social media. “The Statue of Liberty’s Silent Protest,” by Dutch…
10 Art Shows to See in Upstate New York July 2025
As another Independence Day comes and goes, and our nation is increasingly compromised, we lean ever further into our collective dedication to art and the creative courage it delivers throughout the season. This July, the bounty of exhibitions in Upstate…
Shu Lea Cheang’s Art of Hacking
Installation view of Shu Lea Cheang, “Home Delivery” (2025) (all photos Ela Bittencourt/Hyperallergic) MUNICH — When I first saw Shu Lea Cheang’s work at the Munich International Film Festival two years ago, she buoyantly advised her audience to sneak out to…
10 Shows to See in Los Angeles July 2025
A refusal to adhere to distinct categories, a breakdown of hierarchies, and an embrace of hybridity are a few common threads among this month’s exhibitions. At Karma, Mungo Thomson plumbs the depths of mundane visual culture to create entrancing stop-motion…
Five Art Books for Your July 2025 Reading List
Take a moment to recall the last time you heard the sound of the ocean. Maybe it’s been years, or perhaps you’re listening to its roar right now. Wherever this summer brings you, I hope you’ll find something meditative in…
Required Reading
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An Artist’s Fourth of July Muppets Parody
To our friends of the human persuasion: Ten years ago the Muppets made a show called The Great Moments in American History. We really do wish that we could make a sequel. But we’re too worried about the direction this…
What Can History Museums Offer in the Trump Era?
“May we wake up from the nightmare that is our current leadership by voting for leaders who care about the people and fulfill our potential as a great country.” — Shelly, Washington, DC “Happy Birthday, America! We’re back baby!!! GOD…
A View From the Easel
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Khaled Sabsabi Reinstated as Australia’s Venice Biennale Artist
Artist Khaled Sabsabi (left) and curator Michael Dagostino (right) (photo by Anna Kucera for Creative Australia) Artist Khaled Sabsabi and curator Michael Dagostino will represent Australia at the 2026 Venice Biennale after Creative Australia, the selection body for the country’s…
Trump Seeks to Defund Institute of American Indian Arts
The Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA), the only four-year school devoted to contemporary Indigenous arts, could lose all of its federal funding beginning October 1 if President Trump’s proposed federal budget is passed. Trump’s Fiscal Year 2026 budget proposal…
A Mother and Daughter’s Lifelong Art Collaboration
AUSTIN — Nora Naranjo Morse and Eliza Naranjo Morse: Lifelong at the Blanton Museum of Art is part of In Creative Harmony: Three Artistic Partnerships, a larger project at the museum that looks at the relationships between three artist pairs:…
Opportunities in July 2025
Hyperallergic’s monthly Opportunities Listings provide a resource to artists and creatives looking for funding and community support to further their work. Subscribe to receive this list of opportunities in your inbox each month. Sign up here! If you find this…
Tracing Queer History Through NYC’s Public Parks
This article is part of Hyperallergic’s 2025 Pride Month series, spotlighting moments from New York’s LGBTQ+ art history throughout June. Whether serving as sites of protest, celebration, communal mourning, or remembrance, public parks have always played a vital role in the history…
Joe Overstreet’s Activism Through Abstraction
HOUSTON — On April 5, 1968, the day after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, Joe Overstreet began a new painting. The piece that would become “Justice, Faith, Hope, and Peace” (1968) takes its title from King’s impassioned words, which…
Behind a Flight Attendant’s Painted-On Smile
On my second visit to Hello Goodbye at Dimin, ceramicist Michelle Im’s first solo exhibition in New York, her terracotta flight attendants were much smaller than I remembered. Perhaps it was the press release’s reference to the Xi’an terracotta soldiers…
Required Reading
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Lisa Yuskavage’s Genre-Defying Works on Paper Presented at the Morgan Library & Museum
Lisa Yuskavage: Drawings is the first career-spanning museum exhibition dedicated to the drawings of the acclaimed contemporary artist. On view through January 4, 2026, this show at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York City highlights more than three…
Tourist Denied US Entry After ICE Found JD Vance Meme on His Phone
Mads Mikkelsen, a 21-year-old from Norway, was denied entry to the United States earlier this month after immigration officers uncovered a popular meme featuring a chubby, bald Vice President JD Vance on his phone. In an interview, Mikkelsen told Hyperallergic…
Anna Wintour to Remain Met Gala Chair
After nearly four decades of reigning with an iron fist, Anna Wintour is stepping down from her fiery throne as editor-in-chief of American Vogue. According to an announcement yesterday, June 26, by the magazine, the British-American fashion media executive will…
The $90,000 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans
The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans supports immigrants and the children of immigrants in the US pursuing graduate studies — including MFAs and other full-time degrees — with up to $90,000 in funding. Each year, 30 outstanding…
Rosalind Fox Solomon, Photographer of Lived Experience, Dies at 95
Photographer Rosalind Fox Solomon, who tirelessly trained her lens on the social inequalities, painful struggles, and human resilience to which she bore witness around the world, died early Monday morning, June 30, at the age of 95. The news of…
Wayne Thiebaud’s Art Is More Than a Piece of Cake
SAN FRANCISCO — There’s nothing nicer than going into a major museum show like Wayne Thiebaud: Art Comes from Art at the Legion of Honor filled with wariness around its (obvious?) premise and leaving not just convinced, but charmed. To…
The Brief and Illustrious Life of the Telegraph
Before the telephone rendered it obsolete, the optical telegraph was somewhat of a national fixation in 19th-century France. Petrified by the unknown, Parisians smashed an early version in 1792. Politicians were suspicious of what the author calls “mechanical monsters, secretive…
Stunning Photos of the Cosmos From the World’s Largest Digital Camera
Millions of iridescent stars, far-off remote galaxies, and swarms of hurtling asteroids are just a few of the cosmic phenomena captured in the first images taken by the world’s largest digital camera. The Vera Rubin Observatory, a new United States-funded…
This Is the Story of My Resignation From the Queens Museum
I don’t tell this story often, and have never told it in such detail publicly before. However, given our current moment of crisis in the United States, only a few months into the second Trump administration, it seems an important…
Barbara T. Smith’s Experiments in Xerox
LOS ANGELES — Barbara T. Smith presses her face up to the glass. The tip of her nose is squashed and skewed, exaggerating the size of her nostril. Her full smile shows off two rows of slightly imperfect teeth. Wisps…
Four New York City Art Shows to See Right Now
Artist’s voices aren’t always easy to listen to. Sometimes it’s because they’re speaking to uncomfortable realities that shape our societies and lives. In other cases, the art may be part of that uncomfortable reality, reflecting rather than critiquing harmful perspectives….
Visitor Tears Hole in 17th-Century Painting at Uffizi Galleries
It seems that every summer, a handful of tourists visiting Italy wreak havoc on archaeological sites and fine art exhibitions nationwide. This Saturday, June 21, a visitor to the Uffizi Galleries in Florence tore a hole in a 17th-century portrait…
San Francisco Art Book Fair Returns With More Programming Than Ever
For the third year in a row, Minnesota Street Project Foundation presents the San Francisco Art Book Fair (SFABF), taking place July 10–13, 2025, in the city’s Dogpatch neighborhood. One of the most anticipated free, large-scale annual Bay Area arts…
Ringling Museum Will Stay Under Florida State University, for Now
The sculptures outside the Ringling Museum in Sarasota, Florida, breathe a sigh of relief as DeSantis’s proposal to transfer the museum is dropped. (edit Valentina Di Liscia/Hyperallergic, photo via Getty Images) Sarasota’s John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art will…
Curtis Yarvin’s Venice Biennale Proposal Proves the Far-Right Can’t Do Art
To liberally paraphrase Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem “Locksley Hall,” in the summer, a young artist’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of the forthcoming 2026 Venice Biennale. With the application for proposals for the United States Pavilion (focused on “American Values”)…
Alice Austen’s Pioneering Lesbian Gaze
Alice Austen, “Trude & I masked, short skirts” (August 6, 1891); Collection of Historic Richmond Town, Alice Austen Photograph Collection (all images courtesy Historic Richmond Town, unless otherwise noted) Clear Comfort, the home where photographer Alice Austen grew up and…
30 NYC Monuments of Black Americans You Should Know
Elizabeth Catlett, “Invisible Man: A Memorial to Ralph Ellison” (2003) (all photos by David Jacobs, courtesy David Felsen) In Upper Manhattan, amid the vibrant green foliage of Riverside Park, the whiz of rushing cars from the West Side highway, and…
For Glenn Ligon, Language Is Material
The Brant Foundation’s Glenn Ligon isn’t a deep dive into the artist’s career, but it is a concise overview that does something rare: it gives the art space to connect with the viewer. The show’s eight works, all drawn from…
Museum of the American Latino Could Vanish Under Trump
The National Museum of the American Latino (NMAL) and the Anacostia Community Museum in Washington, DC, are on the chopping block as the Trump administration targets the Smithsonian Institution. President Trump’s Fiscal Year 2026 budget proposal does not include funding…
Rain Couldn’t Dampen the Spirit of Brooklyn Pride
You can’t spell “rainbow” without “rain.” Despite less-than-ideal weather, Brooklyn Pride Day kicked off without a hitch this past Saturday, June 14, with its annual celebration convening local queer community members and allies for family-friendly festivities in a 14-block stretch…
Louvre Museum Shutters as “Exhausted” Staff Go on Strike
Thousands of visitors to the Louvre Museum in Paris were stuck in hours-long lines outside the institution today, June 16, when the museum shuttered for part of the day due to an unplanned staff strike. The spontaneous work stoppage, which…
Preserving the Age-Old Art of Malaysian Shadow Puppetry
KELANTAN, MALAYSIA — A puppet with flowing hair and a sharp-toothed grin came soaring into view as background singers shrieked, cackled, and whooped. Illya Sumanto spread her arms wide, making the beautiful ghost Pontianak glide across the screen, surfing on…
Ali Banisadr Paints a World in Calamity
KATONAH, New York — In calamity and in commotion — that’s where I begin when I visit Ali Banisadr: The Alchemist at the Katonah Museum. The show includes paintings that are almost 7 by 10 feet and much smaller ones,…
The Des Moines Art Center Presents Firelei Báez
Firelei Báez at the Des Moines Art Center in Iowa features more than 30 works showcasing nearly two decades of the artist’s paintings, drawings, and multimedia installations that transport viewers through time and space, creating opportunities for wonder, reflection, and…
National Portrait Gallery Director Quits After Trump “Firing”
Kim Sajet, who has led the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery (NPG) for over a decade, has resigned from her director position, weeks after President Donald Trump claimed he fired her for being a “highly partisan person” and a “strong supporter…
Indian Craft Shop Closure Leaves Complicated Legacy
WASHINGTON, DC — The Indian Craft Shop, which has presented the handmade arts and crafts of federally recognized American Indians since 1938, closed on June 6. Located just blocks from the White House, it has had a historic presence in…
LA Artists and Orgs Stand in Solidarity With Anti-ICE Protesters
Protesters with signs designed by artist Patrick Martinez in downtown LA on June 8, 2025 (photo courtesy Patrick Martinez) LOS ANGELES — In response to the ICE raids and subsequent protests that began last week in Los Angeles, several arts organizations…
Nadya Tolokonnikova Builds a Prison of Her Own
LOS ANGELES — Police State, a 10-day durational performance by activist, artist, and Pussy Riot creator Nadya Tolokonnikova, transforms the cavernous warehouse of the Geffen Contemporary at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles into a site of carceral confinement and…
A Visual Archive of Diasporican Liberation
As a conceptual artist myself, I instinctively approached Nuyorican and Diasporican Visual Art: A Critical Anthology (2025) with an eagerness to explore the visual storytelling within. I wanted to know: What is represented here? Is this anthology mostly painting and…
Brooklyn’s Grand Army Plaza Arch Reopens After $8.9M Restoration
After nearly two years of extensive restoration, the soaring Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Memorial Arch at Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn, New York, has reopened to the public. The completion of the nearly $8.9 million project was celebrated last week in…
Defining Photos From LA’s Historic Anti-ICE Protests
Flaming self-driving Waymo cars, “Death 2 ICE” spray-painted across the entrance of a boarded T-Mobile store, highway overpasses dotted with anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) graffiti, swaths of police cars lined up. These are some of the scenes captured by…
The Dark Side of Education
In Gordon Parks’s photograph “Radio Technicians’ Class, Daytona Beach, Florida” (1943), two rows of students gaze obediently at their professor, whose back is to the viewer. Headphones on and books open, the class is engaged, even enraptured. The work is…
Jim Shaw Peels Back American Pop Culture’s Facade
Jim Shaw, “Large Study for ‘Origin of the Species’” (2016), pencil on paper (all photos Zach Reich/Hyperallergic) Jim Shaw seems to thrive on esoteric references and unlikely juxtapositions. In the 1990s, he began his ongoing Dream Drawings series and his…
A View From the Easel
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Required Reading
Subscribe to our newsletter Success! Your account was created and you’re signed in.Please visit My Account to verify and manage your account. An account was already registered with this email. Please check your inbox for an authentication link. We rely…
San Francisco Art Institute Becomes Free Experimental Studio Program
Two years ago, the once-lofty San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) filed for bankruptcy amid mounting debts, a failed merger with the University of San Francisco, and the decision to close its doors after matriculating the final class of 2022. The…
A Trump-Musk Feud That’s Ripe for the Meme-ing
One of many Mean Girl references dominating the Musk-Trump feud feed (via X, all screenshots Isa Farfan/Hyperallergic) Elonald. Elump. Trelon. Trusk. Mump. Whatever combined moniker you gave Elon Musk and Donald Trump as they worked in tandem to diminish any…
Art Dealer Daniel Lelong Dies at 92
Daniel Lelong in 2009 at Galerie Lelong in Paris (all images courtesy Galerie Lelong) Daniel Lelong, co-founder of Galerie Lelong in Paris and New York, died on Wednesday, June 4, at the age of 92. The news of his death…
Apocalypse Art Has Never Been More Relevant
William Blake, “The Whore of Babylon” (1809) (all photos Daniel Larkin/Hyperallergic) PARIS — Amid collective failures to stop genocide and fascism in 2025, the Book of Revelation’s scenes of vivid combat between good and evil hit home. How satisfying to…
Artist Covers Transphobic Billboard With Giant Dachshund Drawing
Weeks after the United Kingdom’s Supreme Court ruled that a woman can only be defined on the basis of biological sex, one artist has taken a stand against a transphobic billboard with the power of a really large Dachshund named…
Asian Diasporic Artists Ask How We Create Our Self-Images
PASADENA — One fascinating thing about parenting is seeing how your children combine your mannerisms with their exposure to the larger community in their own developing personalities. My five-year-old daughter loves mimicking the dance choreography of Blackpink and is growing…
Trump’s New Portrait Is as Perverse as His Second Term
Because apparently a gold-framed mugshot, chorus of New York Post covers, and raised-fist propagandist painting weren’t enough, another portrait of President Donald Trump has entered the West Wing. The White House revealed the new addition yesterday, June 2, in an…
Alan Michelson’s Answer to the “Vanishing Indian” Myth
As a child, Alan Michelson often rode the T past sculptor Cyrus Edward Dallin’s “Appeal to the Great Spirit” (1908) outside the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA). He was riveted by the statue’s grand horse and the powerful yet…
Four New York City Shows to See Right Now
The exhibitions this week show us how we shape ourselves in history’s image, and the other way around. Lotus L. Kang’s assemblages at 52 Walker draw from diasporic memory, yet her draped film sculptures form an ongoing document of the…
The Hyperallergic Art Crossword: June 2025
Kick off Pride month with clues on Marsha P. Johnson’s biographer, Greek amphora nymphs, Victorian lesbian photography, a painter who was also Frida Kahlo’s rumored lover, an iconic Eero Sarinen structure, and more. Natan Last’s essays, poetry, and crossword puzzles…
Tony Tasset Exposes the World’s Frayed Canvas
CHICAGO — Tony Tasset is the master of making things that are so bad they’re good. Over the course of the artist’s long career, this has included a 30-foot-tall replica of his own eyeball, a cross assembled from Diet Coke…
8 Art Books to Read This Pride Month
“He taught me how to see, and how to trust what I saw. Painters have often taught writers how to see. And once you’ve had that experience, you see differently.” That’s writer James Baldwin reflecting in an 1984 interview on…
A New Banksy Mural Is a Beacon of “Nope”
Famed anonymous street artist Banksy has broken his six-month silence this morning, claiming credit via an Instagram post for a new black and white mural on a textured wall at yet another undisclosed location. In his signature fashion of responding…
How to Get a Read on Rashid Johnson
Once, when I was in my 20s and too much feeling the weight of being a Black man in the United States — someone onto whom most people I encountered would project their assumptions — I had the idea to…
Joiri Minaya Upends the Allure of Exoticization
PHILADELPHIA — In a bucolic corner of the Schuylkill River in southwest Philadelphia sits the oldest continuously operating botanical garden in North America. Bartram’s Garden, named after its founder, botanist John Bartram (1699–1777), is the site of many continental firsts, including…
Trump Says He Fired National Portrait Gallery Director Over DEI Support
Kim Sajet attends the American Portrait Gala at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery on November 17, 2019, in Washington, DC. (photo by Shannon Finney/Getty Images) President Donald Trump said on his social media platform Truth Social that he has terminated…
Tamara Lanier on Her Historic Victory Against Harvard University
This week, Harvard University agreed to relinquish 15 daguerreotypes thought to be among the earliest photographs of enslaved people in the United States as part of a landmark settlement with Tamara Lanier, who sued the school in 2019. Lanier had…
Required Reading
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