Diaries of a Primitive Man opens on a bright October afternoon outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where tourists cluster on the steps, vendors serve snacks, and saxophone notes mingle with the fountains and traffic along Fifth Avenue. The scene is busy, and it also sits on land once belonging to the Lenape, a fact noted on Indigenous Peoples’ Day.
Inside, a major exhibition on Abstract Expressionists Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock is drawing heavy crowds. The presentation spotlights their artistic exchange as well as the complexities of their marriage, a partnership that shaped both careers.
In a jostling museum line, a visitor accuses the writer of cutting ahead, invoking “White privilege,” then revises it to “male privilege” after a glance. Later, a half-hour discussion of settler colonialism on Democracy Now fills the background during a crosstown drive, where a Jeep bears a “primitive man” sticker that first unsettles, then reads as blunt honesty. Elsewhere, a public official’s threat to stream an execution by firing squad underscores a harsher political atmosphere.
Across the river at the Brooklyn Museum, a vitrine of Indigenous Kachina dolls, once given to Hopi girls and women in what is now Arizona, prompts questions about makers and provenance. Their present home is within the museum’s Center for Feminist Art. By day’s end, the cumulative noise of imagery, politics, and crowds leaves only a wish to rest, free of ideas and opinions.
—Editor’s note
News
Roy Lichtenstein Has Lost His Luster. John Yau revisits the pop icon at the Whitney Museum’s Roy Lichtenstein: Like New, the first comprehensive survey in more than three decades. With over 130 works, the show promises fresh research into sources behind the artist’s paintings, sculptures, drawings, and prints. Yau sets out expecting surprises and finds early validation in the curators’ digging, while probing what still resonates and what has dimmed with time.
From Our Critics
Critics survey new shows and projects spanning contemporary practice and Indigenous perspectives, with attention to how artists navigate history, materials, and the institutions that frame their work.
Books
John Berger in His Own Bruised Time. Megan O’Grady examines Tom Overton’s biography of the late novelist and critic, completed at Berger’s request only after his death. The result is described as deeply informative and perceptive, occasionally lyrical, tracking the writer’s life and the intellectual commitments that defined his influence.
Finding Vermeer in Unexpected Places. Lauren Moya Ford reviews Ruth Bernard Yeazell’s Vermeer’s Afterlives, tracing the painter’s lingering imprint on artists, filmmakers, poets, and the art market, and charting how a Dutch master continues to surface in cultural memory.
Interviews
Jonathan Nez on Indigenous Perseverance. The former Navajo Nation president, now a congressional candidate in Arizona, discusses upbringing, Diné values in political life, and the role of historical memory. The conversation reflects on community resilience and how cultural frameworks inform policy priorities.
Features
Feature reporting ranges from institution-specific deep dives to technology’s impact on art-making and exhibition. Highlights include a survey of notable screenings at DOC NYC.
13 Art Films to See at DOC NYC. Anna Lee spotlights documentaries on an oversized pencil turned neighborhood hub, the posthumous life of Frida Kahlo through her image, and a portrait of collagist Romare Bearden, among other festival standouts.
Announcements
Funding International Dialogue. The Asian Cultural Council has opened its 2027 Global Grant cycle, inviting artists, arts professionals, scholars, and organizations to apply from October 1 to November 10, 2026, supporting cross-cultural exchange and research.
Across New York, these stories unfold alongside major shows such as At the Met, ‘Krasner and Pollock’ reframes a storied duo, underscoring how museums, festivals, and institutions continue to shape the city’s cultural landscape.