At a cafe called Anti Cafe, The Cathedral of Joy begins with small urban vignettes. A man fills neat stacks of envelopes with handwritten notes to friends. Another rider in the subway renders the Manhattan grid in precise Sharpie lines on cardboard, returning to the same bench day after day. A smiling group with sidewalk grabbers tidies a block that hardly needs it. A flock of birds briefly sketches a rude gesture against the sky. At a pierogi counter, not one worker is Polish. Global Wealth Clothing caters to those with little. A church named for joy sits in a bleak spot. A place branded The Community stands empty. On a gleaming new building, a sign declares a rat infestation and a rent strike. The city’s contradictions keep humming.
—Hakim Bishara, editor-in-chief
PS: On September 30 in New York, join a conversation with resident artists at the International Studio & Curatorial Program, with refreshments.
Alfredo Jaar Is Still Trying to Change the World
In 1987, as Cold War politics dominated headlines, Chilean artist Alfredo Jaar brought a 42-second LED intervention into Times Square that would resonate for decades. His piece, A Logo for America, flashed the words “This Is Not America” over a U.S. map, then paired the Stars and Stripes with the line “This Is Not America’s Flag,” before the letter R in “America” transformed into a dancing outline of the entire hemisphere. New Yorkers watched, puzzled and provoked, amid ads for pasta sauce and a Mexican restaurant. The work quickly entered the canon of contemporary political art.
News
- Unionized staff at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and the American Folk Art Museum voted to authorize a strike if contract talks do not yield acceptable terms.
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art formally broke ground on its new Tang Wing for modern and contemporary art, designed by Frida Escobedo.
- The School of Visual Arts will end its graduate Photography, Video, and Related Media program as the institution confronts a growing deficit.
- The Brooklyn Public Library launched its first lending program for craft supplies.
- Pro-Palestine demonstrators objected to Igor Tulchinsky’s support for the British Museum’s new Bayeux Tapestry exhibition after reports linked him to funding a community center in an illegal Israeli settlement in the Occupied West Bank.
- An inflatable, cavatappi-like artwork inspired by Bulgari’s serpent motif appeared on the High Line and will remain on view during New York Fashion Week.
- Donald Trump proposed replacing José de Rivera’s 1967 sculpture Infinity outside the National Museum of American History with a statue of George Washington.
- A Florida family purchased more than 200 alleged fake Andy Warhol works, according to a lawsuit that describes a far-reaching network of sellers, authenticators, dealers, and distributors.
From Our Critics
The Many Islands of “America”
An exhibition focusing on art from Cuba, Guam, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and their diasporas addresses histories of colonization, enslavement, migration, and more.
Features
Highlights include archival looks at late 20th-century art and reflections on how artists reframed public space and identity through image and text.
Guides
15 Fall Art -Ennials, From St. Louis to Dakar
Plan a season of travel with a photography survey of New York at night, an Indigenous-led festival honoring the Mississippi River, the inaugural Bienal de Yucatán, and other biennials and triennials across the globe.
10 Art Shows to See in Chicago This Fall
From Jill Mulleady’s uncanny interiors to Kate Hefferan’s quiet alchemy, exhibitions explore printed matter’s role in prisons, a photographic homage to Emmett Till, and more.
10 Art Shows to See in DC This Fall
Discover Carlotta Corpron’s experiments with light, Ahn Chang-Hong’s portraits of Korean history, Black women reimagining Shakespeare, and three mid-century New York painters working by the sea.
Opinion
Standing in the Shadow of No Towers
Post-9/11 struggles for immigrant rights shaped a generation of South Asian art and activism, grappling with the vastness of state power and the limits of cultural response.
Memes
Art Movements surveys the peaks and valleys of a new 100-person list, praising Amy Sherald while noting uneven choices, plus leadership news at Artadia and a reminder of Johnny Depp’s controversies. A View From the Easel visits printmaker and photographer Oswaldo García, who folds, binds, and watches risographs roll while dancing to cumbias. In Memoriam honors Cat Frazier, a designer who helped define the internet’s visual language, painter Susan Michod of Pattern and Decoration, photography scholar Joel Snyder, and others.
The School of Visual Arts will end its graduate Photography, Video, and Related Media program as the institution confronts a growing deficit.