Art Problems: Do I Need to Go to Art Fairs?
The article argues that attending art fairs is optional and should be driven by an artist’s specific goals, whether that’s networking, sales, or gathering market intelligence. It stresses the need to strategically select fairs that match an artist’s career stage, noting that high‑ticket events like Frieze may be prohibitive for emerging creators while smaller, artist‑first fairs such as Clio are more accessible. Real value often comes from the information and connections gathered rather than direct sales, as illustrated by spontaneous studio‑visit setups at Expo Chicago. Ultimately, treating fairs as a source of industry insight can act like insurance for future opportunities.
Jeremy Frey: The Generational Impact of a New Artistic Path
Jeremy Frey, a Passamaquoddy weaver from Maine, received a 2025 MacArthur Fellowship for his groundbreaking fusion of traditional Wabanaki basketry with contemporary art. He harvests his own sweetgrass and black ash, inventing flat‑weave techniques that can be run through a...
How to Extract the Story of Appalachia
The Queens Museum’s exhibition "The Great Society" by Swedish artist Fia Backström presents West Virginia as a landscape of perpetual trauma, using inverted photography, quilts, and text that omit local voices. The GRIT collective—artists raised in Appalachia—argues the show extracts...
Required Reading
Beloved painter Mr. Wash is spearheading a Morphosis‑designed arts center in Compton that will house three artist studios, a supply store and a small‑business incubator for formerly incarcerated creators. Across the globe, artist Abed Al Kadiri is running mural workshops for...
One Last Chance to See Dürer's Monumental Print in NYC
Albrecht Dürer’s monumental woodcut, the Triumphal Arch, measures about 13 feet high and is one of the largest prints ever produced. The New York Public Library holds roughly 50 first‑edition impressions and a complete 1799 third‑edition set, which have been on...
In “Discipline,” Larissa Pham Explores Predatory Art-World Mentorship
Larissa Pham’s debut novel *Discipline* (Random House, 2026) uses autofiction to dramatize a former painter’s entanglement with a predatory professor‑mentor. Drawing on Pham’s own experiences of sexual assault by powerful art figures, the book places that trauma at the core...
A Dedicated Ruth Asawa Space Is Coming to San Francisco
A permanent Ruth Asawa exhibition space will open on May 9 at the Minnesota Street Project in San Francisco’s Dogpatch neighborhood. The roughly 1,700‑sq‑ft venue, operated by the family‑run Ruth Asawa Lanier estate, will launch “Ruth Asawa: Untitled,” curated by...
Could Colorado Create the Country's First Artist Corporation?
Colorado legislators are reviewing SB26, a bipartisan bill that would create the nation’s first Artists Corporation (A‑Corp), a specialized limited‑liability entity exclusively for artists. The proposal aims to simplify incorporation, lower formation costs, and eventually grant group health‑insurance access for...
Woman With Her Back to the Viewer in Gallery Photos Speaks Out
In a tongue‑in‑cheek Hyperallergic interview, the anonymous figure known as "Woman With Her Back to the Viewer in All Those Gallery Photos" finally speaks, insisting the camera stay behind her. She describes a grueling daily regimen of 100 deadlifts and...
Tonika Lewis Johnson: Segregation and How to Disrupt It
Tonika Lewis Johnson, a 2025 MacArthur Fellow and Chicago‑based social‑justice artist, will discuss her work on racial segregation in a free online event on April 15. The conversation will spotlight her Folded Map Project, which pairs residents living on opposite...
A Drama of Two Masters
*Turner & Constable: Rivals and Originals* brings the famed rivalry between J.M.W. Turner and John Constable to the screen, using Tate Britain’s recent exhibition as its foundation. The documentary blends sweeping landscape footage with dramatized reenactments, aiming to make 19th‑century...
Juan Uslé’s Childhood Shipwrecks
Juan Uslé’s new retrospective, Ese barco en la montaña, opens at Madrid’s Museo Reina Sofía, featuring roughly 100 paintings, drawings and photographs that span four decades of the Spanish abstract painter’s career. Curator Ángel Calvo Ulloa anchors the show in the...
Turner and Constable Hit the Screen
A two‑hour feature film documents Tate Britain’s Turner & Constable exhibition, pairing high‑resolution close‑ups of the 19th‑century landscapes with contemporary footage of the artists’ native locales. The film is scored by composer Asa Bennett, whose original music underscores the visual...
Art Movements: A Canceled Biennale Show Finds a New Home
Gabrielle Goliath’s performance project *Elegy*, mourning Gaza victims, will be presented at the 61st Venice Biennale in the historic Chiesa di Sant’Antonin after her South African Pavilion proposal was rejected. The artist’s team hailed the church venue as a significant...
New School Faculty React to Plans to Lay Off 15% of Workforce
The New School announced plans to lay off 15% of its full‑time faculty and staff by mid‑June, citing a projected $48 million deficit tied to a roughly 20% decline in student enrollment since 2021. Earlier voluntary buyouts in December and early...
NYU Steinhardt Presents 2026 MFA Thesis Exhibitions
NYU Steinhardt’s Department of Art and Art Professions, together with 80WSE Gallery, will host the 2026 MFA Thesis Exhibitions in Greenwich Village. The show is split into two parts—‘Hoodwinked’ (April 1‑18) and ‘Eggshells’ (May 6‑23)—featuring ten second‑year MFA candidates. Opening receptions on...
The Whitney Biennial Is for the Faint-Hearted
The 2026 Whitney Biennial opened without a unifying theme, opting for vague moods rather than a direct political stance. While the roster is more internationally diverse than ever, the show largely sidesteps the nation’s current crises, offering only subdued, contemplative...
Haroutiun Galentz: The Form of Colour
A new Skira monograph, *Haroutiun Galentz: The Form of Colour* (2025), offers the first English-language study of the Armenian‑born modernist. Edited by Vartan Karapetian and Marie Tomb, it assembles paintings, documents, and correspondence from the Janibekyan Collection, the National Gallery...
Brian Eno and 200+ Artists Urge British Museum to “Stop Erasing Palestine”
Over 200 artists, including Brian Eno, have sent an open letter to the British Museum demanding it stop "erasing Palestine" after the museum altered wall texts in its Middle East galleries, replacing terms like "Palestinian descent" with "Canaanite descent". The petition...
Awards Season and the Management of Cultural Power
Award season has evolved from a series of discrete events into a continuous spectacle that prioritizes visibility over material support. While legacy programs like Creative Capital and the MacArthur Fellowship provide long‑term resources, newer prize formats tied to fairs and...
Merging Craft Practices and New Media at the Museum of Craft and Design
The Museum of Craft and Design in San Francisco is hosting "Video Craft," an exhibition that runs through August 16, 2026, exploring the overlap between video, film, and early moving‑image technologies and traditional craft media such as ceramics, textiles, and...
Please, No More Disaffected White Girls
Anika Jade Levy’s debut novel Flat Earth (2025), released by Catapult, satirizes the disaffected white‑girl archetype that dominates contemporary art‑world narratives. The book’s clipped, emotion‑less prose mirrors the numbness of modern digital culture, weaving references to QAnon, fertility anxieties, and...
“Jeffrey Epstein Walk of Shame” Pops Up in DC
On March 1, a guerrilla art installation dubbed the “Jeffrey Epstein Walk of Shame” appeared in Washington’s Farragut Square. The project places waterproof stickers resembling Hollywood Walk of Fame stars on the sidewalks, each bearing the name of a high‑profile...
Required Reading
The Thursday "Required Reading" roundup spotlights a spectrum of art‑driven projects that blur the line between exhibition, activism and commerce. Maryam Eskandari’s MAK Center reading room repositions books as spatial infrastructure, while Kimberly Dawn Robertson’s bead‑bombs use slow, labor‑intensive craft...