Take a Musical Trip Through Sixties Surrealism

Linda Lomahaftewa, “Untitled Woman’s Faces” (c. 1960s), oil on canvas (photo Lisa Yin Zhang/Hyperallergic) “’White Rabbit?’ That’s such an obvious Jefferson Airplane choice! I would have picked ‘Two Heads.’” Those were my first thoughts when I...

Alison Saar’s Artistic Revolution 

Alison Saar has been making art her whole life. “I say it was kind of like my first language,” she tells Hyperallergic. Raised by artists Richard and Betye Saar, she and her sisters “were always making and drawing things, probably even before we were speaking much...

Fire Tears Through Iconic Artist Building in Brooklyn 

One of Brooklyn’s most iconic artist studio buildings is in a precarious state after a five-alarm fire ravaged the 155-year-old warehouse in Red Hook late Wednesday night into Thursday morning. Smoke filled the third floor of 481 Van Brunt Street at 11:35pm on...

When Artists Are Too Old to Be “Emerging” 

About a decade ago, I was at a fundraising event when the director of a Brooklyn residency encouraged me to apply for a Van Lier studio fellowship. I had just recommitted to my practice and was hungry for momentum. I went home, pulled together the application, and hit...

Five New York City Art Shows to See Right Now

Welcome to the fall art season! And what a great one it’s shaping up to be. There’s so much to choose from that it’s hard to decide what to see first — but The Met’s newly opened Man Ray exhibition should be near the top of anyone’s list. Julia Curl offers her take on...

The Past and Future of Boucher’s Four Seasons

When François Boucher created a series of paintings known as The Four Seasons in 1755, agriculture in France was highly seasonal, just as it had been for millennia — since humans started cultivating crops, in fact. In good years, autumn would have seen a bounty of...

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.” The...

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 (literally) beady eyes.  It’s just one of the four...

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, every man, woman, and child was...

10 New York City Art Shows to Wind Down Your Summer

Next weekend, museums and galleries across the city emerge from their summer slumber to premiere their fall offerings. That doesn’t mean you should wait to see art. We’ve compiled a list of 10 current exhibitions that continue into the fall and winter months. Some are...

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 “controversial”...

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...