Seeing by Hand
June Leaf, the late American artist known for her tactile, hand‑driven creations, is the focus of the traveling retrospective "Shooting from the Heart," which presents over 150 works spanning 75 years. The show arranges her paintings, sculptures, drawings, and kinetic metal pieces thematically, reflecting her belief that all media are interconnected. Leaf’s practice—where carving becomes painting and motion fuels drawing—centers on feeling objects with her fingers, a philosophy echoed in works like *Figures Coming Out of Hand and Head*. Upcoming Steidl releases and a documentary by Jem Cohen aim to deepen public access to her legacy.
Manet and Morisot: Game On
The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and the Cleveland Museum of Art have opened “Manet and Morisot,” an exhibition that juxtaposes Édouard Manet’s iconic *Balcony* with Berthe Morisot’s *The Artist’s Sister at a Window*. The show revisits a 1870 episode...
Inflatable Life
Paul Chan’s latest show at Greene Naftali revives his signature “Breathers”—inflatable nylon figures powered by hidden fans. The exhibition, now approaching twenty pieces, includes standout works like the five‑member “Tokener Ecstasis” ring and the surreal “Too Spirituale! (after Leibniz).” Chan’s sculptures blend the eye‑catching...
Drawn to the Void
The National Gallery’s "Drawn to the Void" exhibition, curated by Christine Riding and Lucy Bamford, reunites ten of Joseph Wright of Derby’s late‑1760s canvases, including the striking "Two Boys Fighting Over a Bladder." The show highlights Wright’s pioneering use of...
Visions of Depravity
Ceija Stojka, a Romani survivor of Auschwitz, Ravensbrück and Bergen‑Belsen, is the focus of a new show at New York’s Drawing Center. The exhibition showcases the small, expression‑laden canvases she began creating in her mid‑fifties to record the horrors of...
Art for Our Age of Chaos
The Whitney Biennial 2026 and the New Museum’s “New Humans: Memories of the Future” open in Manhattan, showcasing works by more than 50 and 100 artists respectively. Both shows juxtapose room‑filling installations with tiny, whisper‑like pieces, a curatorial tactic meant to...
A Clearing of the Ground
Small liberal‑arts colleges are in crisis, with 89 closures or mergers since 2020 and a quarter of private institutions at risk. Hampshire College, the last high‑profile experiment in progressive, no‑grade education, announced on April 14 it could not enroll enough students...
After the Mystics
Lauren Kane, managing editor of The New York Review, discusses how medieval religious art—especially the Cloisters’ “Spectrum of Desire” exhibit—reveals a surprisingly erotic and transgressive side to the Middle Ages. Her academic background in religion at Yale Divinity School sparked a...
The Hardy Men
In 2022 Jonathan Keeperman, a former UC‑Irvine lecturer and right‑wing provocateur, launched Passage Press to build a reactionary cultural apparatus that counters the left’s dominance in arts and media. The boutique publisher quickly gained notoriety, hosting a “Coronation Ball” attended...
Everything but The…
Art Newsletter No. 42 reviews the illustrations featured in the New York Review’s April 9 and April 26 issues, highlighting the cover painting “Orange Squeeze” by Rachel Domm and a series of bespoke artworks commissioned for individual essays. The newsletter explains the editorial choice...
A Widening Gulf
Adam Hanieh’s essay highlights how the UAE’s wealth from oil has been transformed into a sprawling petrochemical, plastics and fertilizer empire that underpins global food and industrial supply chains. Dubai’s Jebel Ali port and its financial hub link Asia, Africa and...
A Workingman’s Surrealist
American sculptor H.C. Westermann, whose career was sparked by witnessing the 1945 USS Franklin disaster, built a lifelong obsession with a “death ship” motif that fuses wartime trauma with pulp‑era imagery. The Art Institute of Chicago’s “Anchor Clanker” exhibition, presented by...
The Emirates on the Tightrope
On March 22, President Donald Trump warned he would strike Iranian power plants if the Strait of Hormuz remained closed, prompting Iran to threaten retaliation against UAE utilities. The UAE’s foreign minister rejected the intimidation, while senior officials advocated a UN‑backed...
Namwali Serpell on Toni Morrison, Criticism, and Narrative Empathy
Namwali Serpell, Harvard professor and novelist, released *On Morrison*, a collection of essays dissecting Toni Morrison’s five landmark novels. In a *Private Life* podcast interview, she and host Jarrett Earnest explore Morrison’s literary techniques, public‑intellectual role, and lasting cultural impact....
Novels of the Future
Aaron Matz’s review of Dan Sperrin’s *State of Ridicule* argues that literary political satire has faded because modern governance is too intricate and mass culture overwhelms traditional mockery. He notes that television and streaming now host the most incisive satire,...