How Modern-Day Christian Iconoclasts Lost Their Heads
Among the most striking paintings within St. Petersburg’s Hermitage Museum in Russia is Leonardo da Vinci’s “Madonna Litta” from around 1490. Mary, the Mother of God, is in half-profile, her auburn hair wound tightly in the fashion of a Florentine…
Art History Majors Face Highest Unemployment Rates, Report Shows
Art History, Visual and Performing Arts, and Graphic Design majors across the nation are associated with the highest rates of unemployment compared to other areas of undergraduate study, according to data collected by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York…
Artist’s Monument to Women Beheaded at University of Houston
Artist Shahzia Sikander’s monumental sculpture “Witness” (2023) was beheaded in the early hours of Monday morning, July 8, on the grounds of the University of Houston campus. The 18-foot-tall sculpture depicting a female figure in a hoop skirt and jabot…
What’s Up With Those Park Avenue Sculptures of Men Missing Body Parts?
Between 34th Street and 38th Street along Manhattan’s Park Avenue, several cast-bronze figurative sculptures are nested in the leafy malls between crosswalks, looking as bizarrely unconcerned about their missing body parts and hollow stature as they are about their heavy…
Stunning Pale-Blue Frescoes Found in Pompeii
A recently excavated Ancient Roman shrine in Pompeii revealed idyllic blue wall frescoes as well as an ample amount of oyster shells. Located on Block 10 in Regio IX, one of Pompeii’s nine archaeological sectors currently under excavation, the room…
How Can a Small Bohemian Town Help Artists Stay Afloat?
The daring bohemian downtown Manhattan of decades past is long gone — the inimitable traces of Arshile Gorky, Elaine de Kooning, and Jean-Michel Basquiat scrubbed off. In their wake, a pricier and more prosaic world emerged. It’s a tale that…
Unearthing the Land’s Buried Stories at the Venice Biennale
VENICE — In “ROMANTIC IRELAND,” a multi-channel video installation produced by Eimear Walshe for the Irish Pavilion at this year’s Venice Biennale, a figure stands amid the rough walls of a compacted mud building. Roofless and doorless with a turf…
The Revisions That Make Us Human
Revising Reality: How Sequels, Remakes, Retcons, and Rejects Explain the World by Chris Gavaler and Nat Goldberg (image courtesy Bloomsbury) Joan Didion famously declared, “We tell ourselves stories in order to survive.” As euphonious as that statement is, it may…
Abigail Dudley’s Paintings of the Observed and Imagined
Abigail Dudley, “Emmanuel” (2023–24), oil on linen, 32 x 36 inches (all images courtesy Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects) Abigail Dudley is an observational painter who can translate her subject matter into a synthesis of the seen and the imagined…
Seven Art Shows to See in NYC Right Now
Walton Ford, “Zürichsee” (2015), watercolor, gouache, and ink (photo Natalie Haddad/Hyperallergic) New York’s art world is a zoo this summer. Well, not quite, but animals populate some our favorite shows right now. Walton Ford’s “birds and beasts” (in the words…
Six Art-World Cool Kids Take Over Abandoned High School in Upstate NY
CLAVERACK, New York — It is no secret that the art world can be a lonely place. There is something distinctly isolating about competing with your peers for one of the few, underpaid curatorial positions or a spot in a…
Dutch Avant-Garde Painter Jacqueline de Jong Dies at 85
Dutch painter Jacqueline de Jong, celebrated for her contributions to painterly figuration and for her role in Europe’s avant-garde Situationist movement, died on Saturday, June 29 in Amsterdam at the age of 85. The cause was metastatic liver cancer, as…
Norman Kleeblatt’s Very New York Story
American curator Norman Kleeblatt (photo by Nikolai Devera) This article is part of Hyperallergic’s 2024 Pride Month series, featuring interviews with art-world queer and trans elders throughout June. Norman Kleeblatt has been a prominent curator in New York City’s museum scene for…
Ari Moore’s Long Road From Police Officer to Buffalo Trans Icon
Ari Moore is a Buffalo-based artist, teacher, and activist. (all images courtesy the artist) This article is part of Hyperallergic’s 2024 Pride Month series, featuring interviews with art-world queer and trans elders throughout June. Artist, teacher, and activist Ari Moore entered Buffalo’s…
15 Art Shows to See in New York City, Summer 2024
Not everyone can flee the hot mess of summer in New York City — it ain’t all “what pleasure, what joy” down here, as it seems to be Upstate. I kid — I’m probably just salty from the heat ricocheting…
The Gay Abstract Expressionist Largely Lost to History
Although frequently introduced as a student of Mark Rothko and Clyfford Still, abstract expressionist painter Lawrence Calcagno was his own master. He was gay at a time when homosexuality was illegal in the United States, not to mention socially taboo….
6 Art Books to Cure the Summer Reading Slump
If you’re struggling to do anything beyond basking in whichever air-conditioned spaces or cooling centers you can find this summer, let alone picking up a heavy text, know that you are not alone. Our editors and contributors have a short,…
Presidential Debate Memes That Channel Our Never-Ending Screams
Grant Wood’s masterpiece reimagined for the 2024 election season (edit Valentina Di Liscia/Hyperallergic, all social media screenshots by Hyperallergic) President Joe Biden and convicted felon Donald Trump went toe-to-toe last night in a historic presidential debate that somehow managed to be even…
Activists Drop Banners for Gaza at NYC AIDS Memorial
Activists with ACT UP and Jewish Voice for Peace carried out an art-filled action at the AIDS Memorial (photo by Alexa Wilkinson, all images courtesy Jewish Voice for Peace and ACT UP) Ahead of the grand opening of the Stonewall…
With Humor, Bras, and Yapping Dogs, an Artist Explores Self-Image
Upon approaching La MaMa Galleria, I knew I would be in for a treat. The gallery’s front window shows a video of Korean artist Jiwon Rhie being repeatedly slapped in the face by a hand-shaped contraption of her own making….
Deborah Bright’s Art Puts the Sex Back in Sexuality
This article is part of Hyperallergic’s 2024 Pride Month series, featuring interviews with art-world queer and trans elders throughout June. When Deborah Bright began work on her Dream Girls series in 1989, only four years after she came out, she wasn’t just…
Required Reading
‣ Kellie B. Gormly writes for Smithsonian Magazine about Edythe Eyde — also brilliantly known as “Lisa Ben” — who founded the first lesbian magazine in the US in 1947, when homosexuality was criminalized under state sodomy laws: Eyde, a 26-year-old…
NYC Cultural Orgs Push for Funding as Budget Deadline Looms
Mayor Eric Adams and City Council are set to publish New York City’s adopted budget for the 2025 fiscal year by July 1, on the heels of a contentious year of spending cuts that have been met with pushback from…
Artist of Fiery King Charles Portrait Debuts Moss-Green Attenborough Painting
Jonathan Yeo, “Sir David Attenborough” (2024), oil on canvas, 51 1/2 x 39 3/5 inches (© Jonathan Yeo studio, 2024; image courtesy the artist) After raising eyebrows for painting the crown red in May, British portrait artist Jonathan Yeo returns…
The Badass Punk Life of Kay Turner
Kay Turner in a performance promotion for the What a Witch performance series (photo collage by Vanessa Haney, all images courtesy the artist) This article is part of Hyperallergic’s 2024 Pride Month series, featuring interviews with art-world queer and trans elders throughout…
The Art History of Addiction and Recovery
Caravaggio, “Young Sick Bacchus” (1593), oil on canvas, 26 x 21 inches (image via Wikimedia Commons) Due to the inherent anonymity of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and a host of other 12-step programs that specialize in different forms of recovery, statistics…
Florida Art Orgs Scrambling After DeSantis Cuts All Culture Grants
Hundreds of visual and performing arts spaces across Florida were shocked to learn that Republican Governor Ron DeSantis vetoed $32 million in allocated funding for the state’s arts and culture budget. DeSantis signed off on the decision on Wednesday, June…
15 Art Shows to See in Upstate New York, Summer 2024
Installation view of Arlene Shechet, “Bea Blue” (2024) (photo by David Schulze, courtesy the artist and Pace Gallery) With the equinox behind us, we are in full swing of a season of abundance and fun. The flourishing art scene in…
All the Beauty and the Tenderness of Nan Goldin
American photographer, artist, and activist Nan Goldin (photo by Max Cramer, courtesy the aritst) This article is part of Hyperallergic’s 2024 Pride Month series, featuring interviews with art-world queer and trans elders throughout June. How audacious was it of me to use…
Five Highlights From Detroit’s Queer Art Biennial
Paula Allen, “Havana, Niurka” (2007) (all photos Natalie Haddad/Hyperallergic) DETROIT — The Mighty Real/Queer Detroit biennial isn’t notable just because of its dedication to LGBTQ+ representation — though that is something to celebrate. It’s also because it’s in Detroit, a…
Marlene McCarty’s Unorthodox Visions in Ballpoint Pen
This article is part of Hyperallergic’s 2024 Pride Month series, featuring interviews with art-world queer and trans elders throughout June. Artist Marlene McCarty, arguably best known for her larger-than-life graphite and pen drawings of teenage girls who murdered their parents, has in…
Artist Chaim Peri Among Four Israeli Hostages Confirmed Dead
Artist and gallerist Chaim Peri is among four Israeli hostages confirmed dead in Hamas captivity, per a notice from the Israeli military earlier in June. Peri, who was 79 years old, was abducted from his home in Kibbutz Nir Oz…
A View From the Easel
Welcome to the 239th installment of A View From the Easel, a series in which artists reflect on their workspace. This week, artists delight in the texture of oil paint, draw on a collection of found objects, and cultivate a…
Maria Prymachenko Cultivated Whimsy as Resistance
WARSAW — Walking into A Tiger came into the Garden: Art of Maria Prymachenko at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw feels like entering a kaleidoscope. Hanging salon-style and on a circular display system designed specifically for the exhibition,…
Alex Katz’s Love Affair With Maine
Philip Guston’s “Sunrise” 1979 and Martha Diamond’s “Central Character” (1983) at the Portland Museum of Art (photos Hrag Vartanian/Hyperallergic) The American figurative painter Alex Katz has maintained a deep connection to Maine since he first ventured out of New York…
Lola Flash Has Got Some Stories to Tell
This article is part of Hyperallergic’s 2024 Pride Month series, featuring interviews with art-world queer and trans elders throughout June. In 1989, photographer Lola Flash sat on the other side of the lens for what would become one of the decade’s most…
Required Reading
‣ For the Cut, Nell McShane Wulfhart narrates the life of Bonnie Erickson, the woman who created Miss Piggy, the Phillie Phanatic, and a number of other larger-than-life, brazenly confident characters. It’s an overdue celebration of an ingenious creator: Her…
A Show Asks How We Can Reclaim Our Bodies
CHATTANOOGA, Tennessee — Entering Hand to Mouth, visitors are greeted by Todd Anthony Johnson’s six-minute performance video, “FIELD HOLLA” (2015). Showing the artist screaming amid a verdant wilderness setting, it is a jarring introduction to the exhibition, and an immediate…
A Summer Solstice Tarotscope for the Art World
“The Star” from the Mixed Signals Tarot deck (all images from the Mixed Signals tarot deck designed by M Eilo; all images courtesy M Eilo) In the northern hemisphere, the summer solstice — June 20 — feels like it’s already…
Weaver Roy Kady Is a Shepherd First
Textile weaver and fiber artist Roy Kady (photo by John Burcham, all images courtesy the artist) This article is part of Hyperallergic’s 2024 Pride Month series, featuring interviews with art-world queer and trans elders throughout June. Diné weaver and fiber artist Roy…
An Artist Contends With Brooklyn’s History of Enslavement
Like many people who grow up in Brooklyn, Adama Delphine Fawundu remembers spending much of her childhood and adolescence in Prospect Park. Yet she never recalled learning about the stories behind the 526-acre green space’s structures and sites, such as…
With a New Home and a New Name, LAXART Returns as “The Brick”
LOS ANGELES — Two years after the nonprofit arts space LAXART closed its former Hollywood location, the organization is unveiling its new home on Western Avenue as well as a brand-new name: The Brick, referencing both the exposed red material…
How a Father-Daughter Duo Changed the Course of Textile Art
On a bright, sunny day in Victorian England, a little curly-haired May Morris gleefully handed a ball of wriggling worms to her father, William. The legendary textile and wallpaper designer smiled: He was both glad to have fresh bait for…
Kehinde Wiley Exhibitions Halted After Sexual Assault Allegations
Editor’s Note: The following story contains mentions of sexual assault and harassment. To reach the National Sexual Assault Hotline, call 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or visit online.rainn.org. Two museums have nixed or postponed their iterations of a traveling exhibition dedicated to American painter…
Islands of Kinship Culminates With a Book Launch and Symposium on Inclusivity in Language
An initiative of the international project Islands of Kinship, Language Matters: Accessible and Inclusive Communication in Art Spaces, a free symposium about accessibility in art institutions focusing particularly on the role of language and communication, will take place at Stroom den…
Su Friedrich’s Life in Moving Images
This article is part of Hyperallergic’s 2024 Pride Month series, featuring interviews with art-world queer and trans elders throughout June. “It’s so hard from this vantage point to really grasp how tiny things were back then,” filmmaker Su Friedrich told me over…
Homes of Brooklyn Museum Leaders Tagged with Protest Graffiti
The residences of four Brooklyn Museum leaders including Director Anne Pasternak were graffitied in red paint early today, June 12, in an autonomous action denouncing the institution’s ties to “shameless complicity in genocide,” according to a statement from an anonymous…
Animal Rights Activists Target New King Charles Portrait
Two activists from the animal rights and agricultural sustainability group Animal Rising tagged Jonathan Yeo’s portrait of King Charles III with a sticker of Wallace from Wallace and Gromit. (all photos by and courtesy Animal Rising) The first official portrait…
Mineo Mizuno Explores Earth’s Fragile Ecosystem in New Sculpture at The Huntington
Posted inSponsored Exhibition Announcement Crafted from fallen timber the artist gathered in the Sierra Nevada forests, this site-specific work is set in the botanical gardens at the Los Angeles institution. Mineo Mizuno, “Homage to Nature” (2024) (photo by Elon Schoenholz;…
Paul Wong Is Queering Chinatown
Paul Wong in “Parade – Pedestrian Protest” (2021), as part of Pride in Chinatown (all images courtesy Paul Wong) This article is part of Hyperallergic’s 2024 Pride Month series, featuring interviews with art-world queer and trans elders throughout June. Paul Wong seems…
Announcing the 2024 McKnight Visual Artist Fellows
On behalf of the McKnight Foundation, Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD) announces the six recipients of the 2024 McKnight Fellowships for Visual Artists: Rachel Breen, Sophia Chai, Dahn Gim, Alison Hiltner, R. Yun Matea, and Chris Rackley. Designed…
Harmony Hammond’s Ongoing Revolution
Portrait of Harmony Hammond (2019) (photo Clayton Porter, courtesy the artist) This article is part of Hyperallergic’s 2024 Pride Month series, featuring interviews with art-world queer and trans elders throughout June. Everything I know about feminist art I’ve learned from Harmony Hammond,…
A View From the Easel
Welcome to the 237th installment of A View From the Easel, a series in which artists reflect on their workspace. This week, artists let rhythm seep into their paintings, follow in the footsteps of AbEx greats, and approach their work…
Required Reading
‣ Chinatown’s Yu and Me Books is a hub for Asian-American writers, artists, and lovers of literature, and Jordyn Holman writes for the New York Times about the bookstore’s fight to recover after a devastating fire in the fall: After long…
The Unspoken Truths in Jenny Holzer’s Truisms
Gaza looms large over Jenny Holzer’s new exhibition Light Line at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. And yet, the name of the besieged strip isn’t mentioned once. That’s just how Holzer’s art is: truisms without the explicit truth; political…
The Unlikely Story of Brooklyn’s Bishop Gallery
In the old Pfizer factory building at the edge of Bedford-Stuyvesant and Broadway Triangle in Brooklyn, The Bishop Gallery’s first-floor space comfortably bridges the gaps between access, authenticity, and ambition in the art world. Led by Brooklyn residents and long-time…
Artist Breaks Her Sculpture in Protest at San Francisco Jewish Museum
SAN FRANCISCO — Early on Thursday evening, June 6, right before the Contemporary Jewish Museum’s first-ever open call exhibition opened to the public, dozens of anti-Zionist Jewish artists and supporters crowded the plaza in front of the institution in an…
UArts Hit With Class Action Lawsuit Over Alleged Labor Violations
A dozen staffers at the University of the Arts (UArts) have filed a class action lawsuit accusing the Philadelphia arts school of violating federal labor protections after recently announcing that it would be permanently closing within a week. Filed on…
Azerbaijan’s Destruction of Armenian Heritage in Artsakh Continues Unabated
Experts’ fears regarding Azerbaijan’s accelerated destruction of Armenian cultural heritage sites across Artsakh (also known by the Russian name Nagorno-Karabakh) have been realized in the last seven months since the autocratic regime forced more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians from their…
Activists Decry “Show of Force and Violence” at Brooklyn Museum Protest
After a massive pro-Palestine action yielded dozens of arrests at the Brooklyn Museum last Friday, May 31, activists are decrying what they say was a disproportionate police response at the demonstration. Eyewitnesses including both protesters and Hyperallergic reporters noted the…
French Authorities Charge Artist Who Tagged “MeToo” on Courbet
French authorities have charged performance artist Deborah De Robertis over her intervention involving the tagging of Gustave Courbet’s “The Origin of the World” (1866) with the words “MeToo” at the Centre Pompidou-Metz earlier last month. The artist was charged on…
Linda Mussmann Prefers the Hard Work to the Parade
Linda Mussmann (photo by David McIntyre, courtesy Time & Space Limited) This article is part of Hyperallergic’s 2024 Pride Month series, featuring interviews with art-world queer and trans elders throughout June. On a hot midnight in June more than 20 years ago,…
Seeking Out Diversity at Greenpoint Open Studios
Steven Wasterval’s landscape paintings document the graffitied, lived-in corners and crannies of North Brooklyn. (all photos Barbara Calderón/Hyperallergic) I went to Greenpoint Open Studios and I didn’t meet a single Black artist. This past weekend, painters, ceramicists, illustrators, photographers, and…
UArts Students and Staff Rally After Abrupt Closure Announcement
Students and faculty of Philadelphia’s University of the Arts (UArts) rallied outside the school’s Hamilton Hall today, June 3, to protest the institution’s imminent closure. UArts leadership shocked community members last Friday, May 31, when they abruptly announced that the…
Scrimshaw Takes Over the New Bedford Whaling Museum in Summer Exhibitions
The New Bedford Whaling Museum holds the world’s most extensive collection of “scrimshaw,” objects carved by whalers on the byproducts of marine mammals. Scrimshaw is commonly associated with White, male New England makers. The museum aims to challenge this notion…
The Diasporic Imagination of Nishan Kazazian
This article is part of Hyperallergic’s 2024 Pride Month series, featuring interviews with art-world queer and trans elders throughout June. Artist and architect Nishan Kazazian (all photos courtesy the artist) Nishan Kazazian has been part of my life in some form since…
A View From the Easel
Welcome to the 236th installment of A View From the Easel, a series in which artists reflect on their workspace. This week, artists get back to basics with pinhole photography, invite passersby into their studio, and imagine an art world…
Trump Is Guilty and the Memes Are Plenty
“I wish you well,” Gwyneth Paltrow tells convicted felon Donald Trump in a popular online meme (screenshot Hyperallergic) As we gear up for what is surely the most soul-crushing election year in the history of our imperiled democracy, the slow-turning…
Standouts From the 2024 Venice Biennale’s Foreigners Everywhere
VENICE — While biennials have practically metastasized across the globe, the Venice Biennale is the OG — the first ever biennial that launched the whole phenomenon back in 1895. Its success can be seen in the influential biennials that have…
Hundreds Call on Brooklyn Museum to “Divest From Genocide”
At least 20 demonstrators were arrested this afternoon, May 31, during a massive protest against Israel’s war on Gaza at the Brooklyn Museum. Over 500 activists overtook the New York museum, staging a protest in its lobby, waving Palestine flags…
Black Mountain College Prize Awarded to Alison Croney Moses
Alison Croney Moses has been selected as the recipient of the annual BMC Prize, a grant for artists working in the spirit of Black Mountain College. Croney Moses creates wooden objects that reach out to your senses — the smell…
Required Reading
‣ Writer Elisa Wouk Almino, former Hyperallergic senior editor, interviews photographer Catherine Opie for the Los Angeles Times’s Image magazine about her “big-bottom girl chair,” artistic odes to queer love, and the meaning of home: I suppose it’s a common impulse…
The Artists Sifting Through Your City’s Garbage
When New York City-based artist Mierle Laderman Ukeles became the first artist-in-residence at the Department of Sanitation (DSNY), the position was an anomaly. In 1977, the concept of an arts residency at a waste facility was unexplored territory, even for…
Cleveland Museum of Art Returns 2,200-Year-Old Statue to Libya
“Statue of a Man” (200–100 BCE or later), Ptolemaic dynasty, black basalt, 22 13/16 inches tall (image courtesy Cleveland Museum of Art) The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) will transfer ownership of a 2,200-year-old Ptolemaic statue to Libya, as announced…
Five Video Essays to Close Out May 2024
For this edition of Hyperallergic’s video essay column, we’re doing something a little different. Rather than the usual list of five recent web videos of note, we’re including one commercially released feature film, as well as a new tool of…
Four Artists’ Pictures of an Unspeakable Past
In this time of multiple global wars, genocides, and force displacements, art has a particularly important role to play in helping us be present with unspeakable violence. What’s less visible is the long-lasting trauma that people and families carry through…
With the Help of Students, Street Artists Transform an LA High School
SAN FERNANDO, Calif. — For the past two weeks, dozens of artists and students have been hard at work covering the campus of the César E. Chávez Learning Academies (CCLA) in a series of new murals. The project is the…
The Indigenous Artists Creating Work in Solidarity With Palestine
Victor Pascual, “Free Palestine” (designed 2023–24), digital artwork, 1080 by 1350 pixels (image courtesy the artist) On October 13, 2023, the Red Nation, an organization dedicated to the liberation of Native peoples from capitalism and colonialism, released a statement calling…
Biennial in Southeast Turkey Faces Backlash on Opening Weekend
MARDIN, Turkey — As attendees mingled on the terrace of a 19th-century stone mansion during the opening of the 6th Mardin Biennial on Friday, May 10, local artist Enver Basravi moved through the crowd, passing out postcard-sized copies of the curatorial…
Calls to Boycott Artforum Resurface Amid Rumored Palestine Edition
A reimagined Artforum cover by Writers Against the War on Gaza (WAWOG) urges contributors to continue boycotting the beleaguered art publication (courtesy WAWOG) The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), a part of the Boycott,…
Hyperallergic’s Quick Guide to the 2024 Venice Biennale Pavilions
This year’s Venice Biennale was particularly strong in terms of national pavilions, as countries negotiated the contemporary moment with decisions to foreground Indigenous and/or racialized voices, swapped with countries that they felt needed a bigger spotlight, or showcased a national…
New York’s Fashion Institute Students Tailor Solutions to World’s Problems
With works by more than 600 students exhibited in about eight spaces throughout campus, the 2024 Graduating Student Exhibition at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) offers a kaleidoscopic look at the creative output of recent grads — and a…
Required Reading
‣ Over 100 writers are calling for board members of the Asian-American literary organization Kundiman to resign, penning an open letter that outlines the suppression of pro-Palestine views within its community. Dan Sheehan has the story for LitHub: The letter goes…
New York Studio School MFAs Get Serious
A sense of gloom permeated the New York Studio School’s annual MFA exhibition. What is the middle ground between losing ourselves in depression and bottling up all our feelings? How can art provide visual catharsis? These are not new questions,…
Peeling Back the Layers of Religious Devotion
The naked body — or parts of it — appear a few times in Devoted: Religion in Asian American Art at EFA Project Space. In Dew Kim’s Till I Know What Love Is series (2023), arrows pierce through silicone nipples….
Renaissance Painting of Virgin and Child Kissing Heads to Auction
Quinten Massys’s “The Madonna of the Cherries” (1520s) before and after restoration (images courtesy Christie’s) A newly restored work by Flemish Northern Renaissance artist Quinten Massys, the celebrated Old Masters painter widely regarded as the father of the Antwerp School,…
Remembering the Rebellious Spirit of Joe Zucker
Late artist Joe Zucker (courtesy David Nolan Gallery) Joe Zucker, who passed away on May 15 at age 83, once told me a story that I have repeated many times, often to students. In the late 1960s, shortly after he…
The Disrupted Realism of the New King Charles Portrait
After Jonathan Yeo’s “Portrait of His Majesty King Charles III” was unveiled at Buckingham Palace on May 14, its bold and unexpected infusion of red paint made the portrait an instant internet meme. Widely shared on social media, the portrait…
Elias Rischmawi Preserves Memory Against Erasure
Elias Rischmawi, “Bonding Ritual, Miami” (2020) (courtesy the artist and Tunnel Projects) MIAMI — In The Poetics of Space, Gaston Bachelard’s 1958 treatise on architecture and memory, the philosopher wrote, “Memories of the outside world will never have the same…
Artist Kehinde Wiley Accused of Sexual Assault
Editor’s Note: The following story contains mentions of sexual assault and harassment. To reach the National Sexual Assault Hotline, call 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or visit online.rainn.org. The American painter Kehinde Wiley, best known for his 2018 portrait of President Barack Obama, has…
New Docuseries Digs Up Pompeii’s Lost Histories
This week, a compelling three-part limited series, Pompeii: The New Dig, premiered on PBS. Originally shot for the BBC, the docuseries follows a group of archaeologists, anthropologists, and volcanologists currently involved in the largest excavation at Pompeii in a generation….
Top Art Patrons Discussed Deploying NYPD Against Columbia Students
Billionaire art collectors and art-world stakeholders discussed ways to get police to disband pro-Palestine student protests at Columbia University, according to chat messages obtained by the Washington Post. The messages were sent in a private WhatsApp group whose members reportedly…
School of Visual Arts Students Hold Moment of Silence for Gaza Children
A group of School of Visual Arts (SVA) students and alumni staged a moving pro-Palestine demonstration last night, May 16, during an exhibition opening at the institution’s Flatiron Gallery in Manhattan. For over 45 minutes, the activists read the names…
Striking Parsons Students Withdraw Artwork From Thesis Exhibition
A group of fine arts students at Parsons School of Design has withdrawn artwork from their BFA thesis exhibition amid an ongoing strike to pressure the New School to divest from companies connected to Israeli military interests. In lieu of…
Hundreds Attend Historic “Counter-Commencement” for Columbia Students at NYC Cathedral
In the middle of her commencement speech, actor and poet Amanda Seales stepped away from the rostrum and turned around with a flourish to show the back of her graduation gown, right below the keffiyeh she was wearing. The words…
Required Reading
‣ This week marked 39 years since the Philadelphia police bombed the MOVE Black liberation group, killing 11 people and destroying dozens of homes. For WHYY, Cory Sharber reports on a memorial held in honor of the victims and their…
Spray-Painting “Me Too” on a Courbet Is Not the Feminism We Need
On May 6, two feminist activists entered Centre Pompidou-Metz in France and spray-painted Gustave Coubert’s 1866 work “The Origin of the World” with the “Me Too” slogan. Artist Deborah De Robertis claimed responsibility for the action, saying her intention was…
How the Black Meme Turns a Trope Into a Trap
In the months preceding its release, Legacy Russell’s Black Meme: A History of the Images that Make Us (2024) generated a considerable amount of literary notoriety. The curator and writer’s second publication details the story of memetic Blackness — the…
After Shift to Indigenous Governance, Forge Project Names New Fellows
Forge Project 2024 fellowship winners (clockwise from top left): Delbert Anderson (Navajo/Diné), Schon Matthew Duncan (United Keetoowah Band of the Cherokee Indians), Donna Hogerhuis (Stockbridge-Munsee), Lindsay McIntyre (Inuit), Mikayla Patton (Oglala Sioux Lakota), and Sterling Anthony Schreiber II (Stockbridge-Munsee) (images…
How the Met Gala Catalyzed a “Celebrity Block Party”
On the night of May 6, between dress adjustments, pearl placements, and camera flashes at the controversial Met Gala, 27 protesters were arrested on the Upper East Side during a pro-Palestine demonstration while Israeli forces seized the Rafah crossing that…
Preserving the Art of Palestinian Taṭrīz 76 Years After the Nakba
Every May 15 for the last 76 years, Palestinians around the world commemorate the Nakba (Arabic for “the catastrophe”), during which 750,000 Palestinians were permanently displaced from their homelands as a result of the establishment of the State of Israel….
Bakpak Durden Traces a Birthmark’s Lineage
DETROIT — Above a little snarl where Detroit’s major freeways meet in the middle of the city, a towering mural rises into view. Painted by Smug, the artwork depicts city native painter and muralist Bakpak Durden in a larger-than-life calling…
Burning Man Removes Pro-Palestine Watermelon Artwork From Website
Burning Man has removed a pro-Palestine artwork from its website days after a Change.org petition called to take it down. The petition’s authors said the work’s title, “From the River to the Sea,” constituted “language that advocates for the annihilation…
Thomas Carlyle, a Chronically Constipated Racist
George Frederic Watts’s 1868 portrait of Thomas Carlyle at London’s National Portrait Gallery (all photos Michael Glover/Hyperallergic) LONDON — “It’s too long by far!” I’m telling my barber. It’s a chilly late Monday morning, and I’m down at Q for…
Meet the Women Preserving the Legacies of Their Artist-Relatives
Louise Nevelson on the cover of the May 1979 issue of ArtNews with an annotated note to her granddaughter (image courtesy the Louise Nevelson Foundation) There are more artists whose legacies are worth preserving than bandwidth for art professionals to…
A Tribute to Art and Motherhood
María Magdalena Campos-Pons, “Replenishing” (2001), composition of seven Polaroid Polacolor Pro photographs, 88 1/2 x 66 inches (image courtesy the artist) Mother’s Day, traditionally celebrated on the second Sunday in May in the United States, can evoke a vast range of feelings, from…
Remembering Indie Rock Icon Steve Albini
I think most people have a memory of the first time they encountered something that seemed grown up and cool. If you were a kid in the suburbs of Detroit in the ’90s it took some digging. Culture wasn’t readily…
Something for Every Palate at the European Fine Art Fair
The European Fine Art Fair, best known as TEFAF, is all about decadence. Its ninth New York edition, running through Tuesday, May 14, features 89 galleries showing everything from furniture, jewelry, and antiquities to contemporary art. It makes for a…
When Will the Independent Art Fair Grow Up?
The Independent is 15. Hip, chic, and so boutique, the Manhattan art fair doesn’t want to grow up. It wants to stay lean and taut, focusing on mid-size galleries and new talent. It prefers jeans and leather jackets over three-piece…
RISD Gaza Solidarity Encampment Dissolves After Expulsion Threats
This afternoon, May 9, 21 undergraduate students affiliated with the Rhode Island School of Design’s (RISD) Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter elected to vacate their “de-occupation” of a campus building before 2:30pm after RISD President Crystal Williams issued…
Art Students and Faculty Rally for Palestine at Cooper Union
At least 100 demonstrators from student groups at New York City art schools gathered in Manhattan’s Cooper Square this afternoon, waving Palestinian flags and carrying banners calling for the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art’s (CU) divestment…
Tracing the 500-Year History of the English Dictionary
Clarence Major, Dictionary of Afro-American Slang (1970), The Queen’s Vernacular: A Gay Lexicon, San Francisco: Straight Arrow Books (1972), and Cheris Kramarae and Paula Treichler with Ann Russo, A Feminist Dictionary (1985) (all images courtesy the Grolier Club unless otherwise…
Providence College Cancels Exhibition Over “Anti-Catholic” Artwork
The work “Prayers to Nana Buruku altar” (2017) was flagged by Providence College administrators for containing imagery offensive to the Catholic faith. (photo by and courtesy Shey Rivera Ríos) A group exhibition at the Reilly Gallery at Providence College (PC)…
When “Made in China” Becomes a Poem
I first found out about the New York City-based artist collective Shanzhai Lyric a few years ago, after asking a passerby in Dimes Square about his “GHANEL COCO” shirt. He had purchased the $10 garment on Canal Street after attending…
Ecological Crisis Echoes Through the Church of San Lorenzo
VENICE — Tongan artist Latai Taumoepeau’s installation “Deep Communion sung in minor (ArchipelaGO, THIS IS NOT A DRILL)” features a collection of rowing machines designed to practice the motions of a Venetian gondolier. Surrounded by scaffolded raked seating, the machines…
The Hyperallergic Art Crossword: May 2024
Political cartoons abound, long-lost sculptures resurface, and strange monarchical monuments crop up in this month’s puzzle. Related Natan Last’s essays, poetry, and crossword puzzles appear in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Narrative, Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere. He…
Pro-Palestine Protesters Arrested Outside the Met Gala
As celebrities posed for the cameras on the Met Gala red carpet, hundreds of pro-Palestine protesters marched across Manhattan’s Upper East Side tonight, May 6, during the annual fundraiser for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute. A heavy police presence…
ArtCenter MFAs Find New Beginnings in Past Technology
GLENDALE, Calif. — By the time a product arrives in the public sphere, it often bears little trace of what it once was: A cow becomes a pricey steak, cloth and thread morph into designer trousers. This glossy transformation masks…
Half a Century of American Culture Through the Lens of James Hamilton
In his nonfiction features, director D.W. Young explores New York City through hyper-niche perspectives. 2019’s The Booksellers delved into the city’s rare art book scene, linking this community of literary passion to the broader cultural milieu through figures like Fran…
14 Art Books to Read Summer 2024
From an occult Renaissance manuscript to the history of eyeliner, we’ve got you covered for books to read this summer. Whether you’ll be lounging on a beach or praying for the arrival of fall, this is a season for slowing…
In NYC, Two New Alternative Art Shows Combat “Fair Fatigue”
Remember when Frieze New York was new? It feels like eons ago. Back in 2012, the import of London’s latest concept for a market moment shook up the sleepy Armory Show and smaller outfits that have since pivoted a zillion…
In Surprise Action, Activists Decry Whitney Museum Funders’ Ties to Israeli Military
Pro-Palestine activists staged a demonstration during the Whitney’s “Free Friday Night” event on Friday, May 3. (all photos Rhea Nayyar/Hyperallergic unless otherwise noted) The fifth floor of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City became the site…
Hundreds Protest After Police Arrest Students at NYU and New School
Hundreds of students, faculty members, and New York University (NYU) community members marched outside of the university’s Elmer Holmes Bobst Library at around 12:30pm this afternoon, May 3, after the school called police to sweep the second Gaza solidarity encampment…
Students Stage Sit-In for Gaza at NYC’s School of Visual Arts
A student paints outside the School of Visual Arts (SVA) on May 2, 2024. (all photos Maya Pontone/Hyperallergic unless otherwise noted) Student activists staged an ongoing sit-in at the School of Visual Arts (SVA) today, May 2, refusing to leave…
Giving Space to Black Women at 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair
The brightly colored, angular abstractions of South African artist Esther Mahlangu, inspired by the Ndebele visual tradition, captivated me as soon as I walked into the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair in New York. At age 88, Mahlangu serves as…
A March Across Manhattan’s Student Encampments
Hours before mass arrests at Columbia University and City College of New York (CCNY) late last night, April 30, a march organized by the Palestinian-led activist group Within Our Lifetime (WOL) made stops at New York University (NYU), the New…
8 Art Shows to See in New York City, May 2024
Maybe it’s something in the springtime air — all the new growth and wild nature — but fantastical landscapes and creatures seem abundant in galleries this month. While Sanam Khatibi’s uncanny scenes feel like memento mori transplanted to a land…
The Cuban Artists Who Turned Havana’s May Day Parade Into a Protest
This year, Cuba will not celebrate May Day with a parade in Havana’s Plaza of the Revolution. It is only the second time since 1959 that the event has been canceled, this time due to fuel shortages. The mass mobilization…
Students Rename Columbia Building in Honor of 6-Year-Old Killed in Gaza
Dozens of students took over Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall earlier this morning, April 30, renaming the building “Hind’s Hall” in honor of six-year-old Hind Rajab, who was killed alongside her family by Israeli forces in Gaza. Echoing the 1985 student…
10 Exhibitions to See in Upstate New York, May 2024
Marcelle Reinecke, “Detour” (2024), acrylic and flashe on panel, 20 x 16 inches (image courtesy the Ruffed Grouse Gallery) In his celebrated “Sonnet 18” (1609), Shakespeare writes that “rough winds do shake the darling buds of May.” So, too, does…
Israel Strike on Gaza Church Was a War Crime, Says Human Rights Group
The Chicago-based human rights organization Justice For All has filed a submission with the International Criminal Court (ICC) arguing that the Israeli military’s partial destruction of the Saint Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church in Gaza City last October constitutes a war…
A Venice Show Centers Disability Justice
VENICE — The 60th Venice Biennale’s theme of “Foreigners Everywhere” includes a number of communities historically overlooked in art, like folks from queer, indigenous, and immigrant backgrounds. While disability does appear in specific works of art, it’s not a major presence….
Faith Ringgold Paved the Way
Faith Ringgold, “Picnic on the Grass Alone: The American Collection #12” (1997), acrylic on canvas with painted and pieced fabric (all photos Jasmine Weber/Hyperallergic) Faith Ringgold paved the way. For Black women artists, writers, and activists, her legacy exemplifies the possibilities…
At Age 78, Actor John Lithgow Goes Back to Art School
LOS ANGELES — John Lithgow has an illustrious acting career going back five decades, with memorable roles on stage, screen, and TV — yet he recently decided to go back to school to broaden his arts education. His journey is…
Palestine Solidarity Shines at the New York Art Book Fair
At a high-traffic corner of the New York Art Book Fair (NYABF), I found myself blinking at an arrangement of potato-shaped stress balls bearing the logo of Berkeley’s Apogee Press. “One of them is a real potato,” artist Asha Schechter…
NYC’s Longest-Running Photo Fair Is Back, and Packs a Punch
After a stint in a soulless Midtown Manhattan space last year, the world’s longest-running photo fair returns this weekend with a 77-exhibitor lineup at the much less insipid Park Avenue Armory. From overlooked Polaroids to glossy celebrity portraits to manipulated…
Hundreds Take to City College in Art-Filled Gaza Solidarity Encampment
The Gaza solidarity encampment at the City College of New York on Friday, April 26, 2024 (photo Hrag Vartanian/Hyperallergic) As of 9am yesterday, April 25, some 300 City College of New York (CCNY) community members have taken over the campus…
See Photos From the Historic March for Public Education in Argentina
A protester holds up a print of artist Pilar Veiga’s viral illustration in support of public education at the march on Tuesday, April 23. (all photos © Nahuel Ignacio Sánchez Painequir) Hundreds of thousands of people flooded the streets in…
Art Takes Center Stage at Growing Student Protests for Palestine
On Tuesday morning, April 23, less than a week after more than 100 Columbia University students were suspended and arrested for protesting on university grounds, 11 members of the arts faculty sent their students a letter. “We, the undersigned Visual…
Snapshots of Everyday Palestinian Life Before the Nakba
The release of the English translation of the 2016 photo book Against Erasure: A Photographic Memory of Palestine Before the Nakba, with a new foreword by activist and writer Mohammed El-Kurd, coincides with an era in which more images of…
Story of Disgraced Art Dealer Who Swindled Millions Gets HBO Series
Inigo Philbrick (photo by Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images) The Sony-owned production company Bad Wolf has secured the rights to a forthcoming memoir documenting the rise and fall of disgraced American art dealer Inigo Philbrick, who was released from prison earlier…
Caravaggio Made Darkness Visible
Caravaggio, “Death of the Virgin” (c. 1601–06), oil on canvas, 12 1/10 x 8 feet, held at the Louvre Museum (image via Wikimedia Commons) When the water-logged, bloated corpse of the drowned Maddalena Antognetti, a sex worker who used the…
Bomb Shelter Posters in Venice Evoke the Reality of War in Ukraine
VENICE — Beyond the Giardini’s national pavilions and the central exhibition at the Venice Biennale, visual culture abounds throughout the streets and walls of the city, which is covered in layers of history, graffiti, and inscriptions that go back centuries….
Scratching Beneath the Surface of Identity-Based Group Shows
Bruce Yonemoto, “Untitled, 1” (2023) in the exhibition Scratching at the Moon” at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (courtesy the artist and O-Town House, Los Angeles) From the title of Sharon Mizota’s article “Asian-American Art Is Plagued by Generational…
Glimpse Into Jeffrey Gibson’s Historic US Pavilion at the Venice Biennale
“Birds flying high, you know how I feel …” The opening line of the song “Feeling Good,” popularized in the mid-1960s by Nina Simone as an anthem of Black joy and resilience in the wake of the signing of the…
There Is No Such Thing as “High” or “Low” at the NYU MFA Show
Spyglass, part one of New York University’s (NYU) annual MFA thesis exhibition, opens with a work that showcases its own making. Robin Gammons’s “Foldings” (2024) feel like old memories, often revisited, occasionally rewritten. Laser prints and newsprints, largely of landscapes…
Guggenheim Museum Workers Rally for Fair Contract in Lunch Break Action
Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5” blared outside the Guggenheim Museum in New York City today, April 19, as around 20 art handlers and facilities workers used their lunch break to rally for a second union contract. Negotiations are entering their…
A Black Bean Grows Quietly in Washington Square Park
Soaking in the din of skateboards, stoners, shrieks, and street performers, a black turtle bean gradually germinates in the palm of Jemila MacEwan’s hand in Manhattan’s Washington Square Park. Beginning April 12 and ending on the 21st, MacEwan’s performance, “Seed…
Israeli Chutzpah at the Venice Biennale
VENICE — I arrived at the Venice Biennale preview on Tuesday morning, April 16, a bit later than many of the art world’s modern-day Medicis and their professional-managerial class. It’s my first time in years at the Biennale, as I…
Required Reading
‣ Edward Thomas offers an analysis of the Civil War in Sudan for the Middle East Research and Information Project, tracing the region’s sociopolitical and cultural climates back to the Colonial Era. He refuses a simplified answer to the country’s…
A Spanish Artist’s Dreamy Homages to Her Homeland
VALLADOLID, Spain — The story of Spanish art in the 20th century has long been dominated by male artists working in abstraction. But a new wave of museum exhibitions in the country is shedding light on previously overlooked artists and…
Taylor Swift “Pop-Up Library” Has Fans Divided Online
Swifties are swarming The Grove in Los Angeles in a days-long hunt for clues about Taylor Swift’s 11th studio album The Tortured Poets Department (2024). In advance of the album’s April 19 release, the singer-songwriter collaborated with Spotify on a…
Activists Say “No to the Genocide Pavilion” in Biennale Protest Against Israel
VENICE — A group of over 100 artists, art workers, and activists protested outside the Israeli and United States pavilions at the 60th Venice Biennale this morning, April 17, as a second intervention simultaneously took place on the Rialto bridge,…
Five NYC Shows to Round Out April 2024
This month we’re featuring a poet who paints, a painter who tapes, a legendary feminist, and two sculptors who have protested colonial powers in the United States and Canada. While the summer weather alone might not warrant a trek to…
Hettie Anderson Was Anything But a Passive Muse
Her face has gazed over midtown Manhattan traffic, hordes of tourists, and guests coming and going from the famed Plaza Hotel for over a century. In Saint-Gaudens’s “William Tecumseh Sherman” (1903) in Manhattan’s Grand Army Plaza, she is winged Victory, striding…
The Contrived Rivalry Between Two Pioneering French Women Artists
Editor’s Note: The following text has been excerpted with permission and adapted from Portrait of a Woman: Art, Rivalry, and Revolution in the Life of Adélaïde Labille-Guiard by Bridget Quinn, published by Chronicle Books on April 16 and available online and…
Before Lockets, There Were Hidden Renaissance Portraits
It’s difficult to imagine a time when images of our faces were not only rare and expensive, but treated almost as sacred objects. But in 15th- and 16th-century Europe, portraits were often obscured behind curtains, affixed to folding diptychs, and…
Faith Ringgold, Larger-Than-Life Artist and Storyteller, Dies at 93
Faith Ringgold, a larger-than-life visual artist, quilter, storyteller, and activist, has passed away at age 93. Her death was confirmed by her family and ACA Galleries, which has represented her since 1995. She died in her home in Englewood, New…
The Horrors of Being a Middle Age Woman in a Capitalist Society
Much as one might visit a prospective apartment at various hours of the day to gauge the quality of light, I staked out Shana Moulton’s solo exhibition Meta/Physical Therapy at the Museum of Modern Art in New York to understand…
Lex Brown’s Mythical Characters Confront Earthly Problems
TULSA, Okla. — What would you do if you thought it was your last day? Philadelphia-based artist Lex Brown asks this question time and time again in her hour-long science-fiction musical Carnelian (2023), a film following three mythical characters —Necyria,…
A Palestinian Poet’s Fragmented Grief
A sketch by Almallah in Border Wisdom (2023) (all images © Ahmad Almallah, 2024; courtesy Winter Editions) In his second book of poems, Palestinian scholar Ahmad Almallah seeks a language that captures the afterlives of the mother tongue. The 2023…
Stop Calling the 2024 Whitney Biennial “Safe”
I keep hearing people call the Whitney Biennial “safe.” It’s usually art-world people and critics, who tend to say it every two years, as if the museum has ever intentionally sought controversy or embraced radical politics. That’s never been the…
Incredibly Preserved Frescoes of Trojan War Figures Unearthed in Pompeii
Archaeologists in Pompeii have uncovered exceptionally preserved frescoes depicting legendary subjects of the Trojan War myth in a banquet hall on a known residential and commercial block in the ancient city. One painting depicts the god Apollo, equipped with his…
How Do I Become a Qualified Piano Transcriber?
Become a Qualified Piano Transcriber Piano transcription is the process of translating a music composition originally written for a different musical instrument into a written format that can be read and played by pianists. This can include either the notation…
Required Reading
‣ Elsa Delmas and the investigative team at Le Monde visualized the physical impact of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, detailing the schools, hospitals, and places of worship that have been destroyed through photos, videos, and statistical maps. The results are…
Rose B. Simpson’s Soaring Metal Sentinels Watch Over Madison Square Park
Santa Clara Pueblo artist Rose B. Simpson’s first New York City solo public artwork has arrived in Manhattan. Seven 18-foot-tall figures surround a bronze female form in Seed, on view in Madison Square Park through September 22. The installation’s weathered steel…
NYC’s Largest Trivia Event Returns to the Queens Museum
Big Apple brainiacs can test their knowledge of New York history and geography this week at one of the city’s largest trivia events. After a four-year hiatus, the Panorama Challenge is returning for its 13th edition at the Queens Museum…
Machines Cannot Replace Human Boredom
IRVINE, California — Inside the Beall Center for Art + Technology, a trio of office chairs huddle together, as if holding a meeting. Their gathering is short; after a few seconds, the chairs break apart, roving past stacks of blank,…
Stan VanDerBeek’s Virtual Windows on the World
In 1969, sending art over the telephone seemed far-fetched. It required extensive back and forth coordination, specialized engineers, and a great deal of time. Once all the necessary equipment was in place, an 8-by-10-inch image took six minutes to come…
Dinh Q. Lê, Who Tended the Wounds of Post-War Vietnam, Dies at 56
Dinh Q. Lê, a multi-media artist whose work challenged global perceptions as well as internal censorship and exploitation in southern Vietnam, passed away of a stroke on April 6 in Ho Chi Minh City at 56 years old, according to…
The Most Breathtaking Photographs of the 2024 Solar Eclipse
Millions looked skyward today, April 8, as the moon eclipsed the sun from Mexico’s Pacific Coast to Canada’s eastern shore. Those who traveled to the around 115-mile-wide path of totality experienced between three and five minutes of darkness, but viewers…
A Romp Through the History of Beauty
LONDON — The Wellcome Collection is an unusual place. I mean that sincerely as a compliment. It’s a rare example of a scientific institution doing something genuinely bold and creative with its colonial history. There’s a degree of playfulness to…
The Internationalism of the Harlem Renaissance
Archibald J. Motley, “The Liar” (1936) (all photos Zoë Hopkins/Hyperallergic) In the galleries of The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I stood just feet away from a room filled with large and magnificent paintings…
Gaza’s Last Contemporary Art Space Decimated by Israel
Only meters from Al-Shifa Hospital, the Shababeek for Contemporary Art building and other surrounding buildings were leveled during the Israeli military incursion on the medical complex. (all images courtesy Shareef Sarhan) The last of two contemporary arts spaces in the…
Required Reading
‣ Setting the record straight on overwhelmingly White male architectural history, writer Prinita Thevarajah delves into the work of three women of color who left an indelible mark on the field for Architectural Digest: Despite its sensitive, community-oriented approach, De Silva’s…
Must Asian Americans Always Be Seen in Relation to One Another?
LOS ANGELES — Michelle Lopez’s “Correctional Lighting” (2024) is one of two massive sculptures that greet the viewer as they enter Scratching at the Moon at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (ICA LA), an intergenerational exhibition of 13…
With Less Glitter, Arcmanoro Niles’s Illusory Spaces Gleam
There was a time when I was quite excited to see Arcmanoro Niles’s paintings that utilized glitter to render the hair on the heads and faces of Black figures. Both in his work and that of other artists such as…
NYC’s School of Visual Arts Gets Its Very Own Street
A new street sign commemorating New York’s School of Visual Arts (SVA) was added to East 23rd Street between Second and Third Avenues last week, the location of the art college’s headquarters since 1960. “SVA Way,” the culmination of a…
This Phone App Lets You Capture a Solar Eclipse
If you’ve ever tried to photograph a solar eclipse, you know it’s tricky. (edit Rhea Nayyar/Hyperallergic, eclipse photo via Wikimedia Commons) I’d hazard a guess that few of us are heliophysicists, but we’ve nevertheless been invited to become citizen scientists…
How the Andy Warhol Museum Lost Its Way
Art museums are ostensibly public spaces, but generally, they function in a private manner, like corporations, at least until the directors and their staff are safely retired. That’s my experience as an outsider. When Thomas Hoving, who was director of…
Warhol “Mao” Screenprint Mysteriously Missing From California School
A signed Andy Warhol screenprint of Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong is mysteriously missing from a California collection. The 1972 artwork was last seen in a secure vault located in Orange Coast College’s (OCC) Frank M. Doyle Arts Pavilion before…
10 Shows to See in Los Angeles, April 2024
This month’s selections of art to see in and around Los Angeles examine the human condition through a range of lenses, from the corporeal to the psychological. Clayton Schiff’s oddball protagonists find echoes in the complicated characters of Maurice Sendak’s…
10 Exhibitions to See in Upstate New York, April 2024
In “Northern April” (1928), the great American poet, playwright, and feminist Edna St. Vincent Millay writes: “O April, full of blood, full of breath, have pity upon us!” Millay’s dramatic reference to the capricious month of April endures as we…
Upper East Side Galleries Celebrate Historic Members of the National Association of Women Artists
After jointly presenting a show of 1913 Armory Show exhibition artists this past fall, Lincoln Glenn and Graham Shay 1857 return this spring with a collaborative exhibition to recognize the contributions of some of the thousands of women artists who…
Required Reading
‣ The weird sales practices of Birkin bags are the stuff of legend and nightmares, so it’s interesting that there’s a class-action suit against Hermès over those same sales practices. For the Business of Fashion, Robert Williams has the story: Counsel…
Matthias Grünewald’s Gruesome Good Friday
Nits and fleas bedeviled the viscous skin of the 14th-century German Dominican mystic Henry Suso, who, slick with puss and piss, filth and shit, hadn’t bathed for a quarter century. In his sleep, he wore a leather glove covered in…
Sam Dienst Weaves the Everyday Into Rich Tapestries
Sam Dienst, “Freeze” (2023), hand-woven tapestry with embellishments (yarn, beads, felt, paint, and thread), 40 x 38 inches Sam Dienst, “Freeze” (2023), hand-woven tapestry with embellishments (yarn, beads, felt, paint, and thread), 40 x 38 inches Sam Dienst, “Freeze” (2023),…
Why We Still Need the Godzilla Network
Two museums bookend Godzilla: Asian American Arts Network, a 2021 archival anthology edited by Howie Chen about the eponymous and influential activist network from New York City. The first museum is a fantasy, a vision of an institution with equity…
Artist Richard Serra, Who Warped Space With Steel, Dies at 85
Artist Richard Serra, whose monumental inhabitable sculptures warp our sense of space and time, died at his home in Long Island in New York on Tuesday, March 26. He was 85 years old and the cause was pneumonia, his lawyer…
British Museum Sues Former Curator Over Alleged Thefts
The British Museum is suing its former Senior Curator Peter Higgs over serious theft allegations. The London museum was granted access to the terminated employee’s eBay and PayPal records today, March 26, after presenting detailed allegations pointing to years of…
Meta’s New “Political Content” Limits Sow Concern Among Artists
A new feature raises concerns about content moderation and being silenced on Meta’s various platforms. (meme by Hyperallergic) Technology conglomerate Meta quietly rolled out a new feature on Instagram and Threads last week that automatically limits general “political content” from…
MoMA Apologizes for Barring Visitors From Entering With Keffiyeh
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York has apologized for preventing two visitors from entering the institution with a Palestinian keffiyeh earlier this month. In a statement to Hyperallergic, a museum spokesperson said that security staffers had mistakenly…
How Beatrix Potter Hopped Into Our Hearts
Mrs. Rabbit pours tea for Peter Rabbit while her other children watch. (1902–1907) (© Victoria and Albert Museum; image courtesy Frederick Warne & Co. Ltd.) The famed children’s author and illustrator Beatrix Potter lived exactly as one might expect. She…
Activists Unfurl Massive Quilt for Gaza on Met Museum Steps
On a sunny but cold Sunday afternoon, hundreds of pro-Palestine activists unfurled a massive quilt on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, calling for an end to Israel’s hostilities in Gaza. The action, which began…
Met Museum Hires Sotheby’s Staffer to Lead Provenance Research
After a nearly year-long and highly publicized search, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City has appointed its inaugural head of Provenance Research. Lucian Simmons, who has worked at Sotheby’s since 1995, will leave his position as the…
New Yorkers Aren’t Thrilled About the New Museum’s Expansion
This week, the New Museum in New York City announced its temporary closure through early 2025 for a site expansion that has been in the works since 2008. The project will encompass the since-razed property adjacent to its current SANAA-designed…
Raising Funds to Help a Family of 10 Exit Gaza
Thousands of Palestinian families are looking to evacuate into Egypt as the Israeli military has forced over a million civilians to the edge of the Gaza Strip and vowed to center its impending attacks on the city of Rafah. Various…
Can We Find Our Way to Indigenous Joy?
New Red Order: Jackson Polys (Tlingit), Adam and Zack Khalil (Ojibwe) with Riley Hooker, The World’s Unfair series (2023), posters on paper; placard posters: 24 x 36, inches; subway sheet: 45 x 59 inches (photo Brian Johnson/Hyperallergic) New Red Order: Jackson…