Inside New York’s Rogue Project Spaces

A digital cover story profiles New York City's rogue project spaces—artist-run venues like U-Haul Gallery, Desnivel, Spielzeug, Catbox Contemporary, and 95 Gallon Gallery—that operate in unconventional locations such as trash bins, moving trucks, bodegas, laundromats, buses, and cat towers. The article features interviews with founders including Maria De Victoria (Desnivel), James Sundquist and Jack Chase (U-Haul Gallery), and others, highlighting how these spaces counter the bureaucracy of institutional exhibitions by prioritizing artist freedom, intimacy, and community engagement.

Required Reading

Pakistani-born, Brooklyn-based tailor and community leader Hafeez Raza was honored by Mayor Zohran Mamdani as one of six garment workers photographed by Kara McCurdy, highlighting the real faces behind the fashion industry. Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times's Image Editor-in-Chief Elisa Wouk Almino recounts a peculiar correspondence with artist Sophie Calle, who orchestrated a fake but real exchange using pre-written texts. In other news, Ai Weiwei discusses his new exhibition in Italy, censorship in Europe, and the Venice Biennale in an interview with El País. Additionally, Jacci Gresham, the first professional Black tattoo artist in the United States, reflects on her career since 1976, including tattooing Klan members and innovating with brown paper for Black and Brown clients.

How Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys Built a Best-in-Class Art Collection With a “Collect What You Feel” Philosophy

Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys, the musician power couple, have built a major art collection known as the Dean Collection, now touring as the exhibition "Giants" at the San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art. The show, which debuted at the Brooklyn Museum in 2024, features works by Gordon Parks, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Malick Sidibé, and a new multimedia installation by Mickalene Thomas. In an interview with GQ's Frazier Tharpe, the couple discusses their philosophy of collecting art based on emotional connection rather than investment or social status, and how their passion for art has deepened over their 15-year marriage.

Archie Rand On the Irreducibility of Painting in a Post-Digital Age

Archie Rand, now in his late 70s, recently held his first extensive solo show in years at Jarvis Art in New York, featuring his new body of work titled "Heads." The exhibition reclaims painting's primordial function, emphasizing the connection between brain and hands, imagination and reality. Rand, who emerged from the downtown New York scene in the late 1970s and early '80s, has witnessed the full postwar evolution of American art. His career includes a pivotal synagogue mural commission that led to backlash from the Orthodox community and a break with critic Clement Greenberg, pushing him toward representational forms. He found allies in figures like Philip Guston and John Ashbery, and after his wife's death ten years ago, began reflecting on mortality and childhood influences.

‘It’s a tiny bit of joy!’ How trinket swapping is making the world a happier place, one china sheep at a time

Trinket exchange boxes, where people swap small items like pins, stickers, and ceramic animals, are rapidly spreading across the UK and US. The phenomenon, which began in Philadelphia in autumn 2024, has grown from 800 to nearly 1,500 installations in two months, according to Portland-based artist Rachael Harms Mahlandt, who tracks them on a world map. In Edinburgh, pet-sitter Sam Stevens runs a popular pink box outside Argonaut Books, inspired by a San Francisco exchange, and has seen her follower count jump overnight as locals trade trinkets for fun.

A View From the Easel

New Jersey-based artist Hadieh Afshani is featured in the 334th installment of Hyperallergic's 'A View From the Easel' series, which profiles artists in their workspaces. Afshani describes her studio practice at Mana Contemporary in Jersey City, where she balances her art with caring for her baby, working around his feeding and sleeping rhythms. She emphasizes the importance of natural light, a sink for fluid processes, and the supportive community of fellow artists and mothers.

Art Lovers Movie Club: Elisabeth Brun, ‘Big Tech Blues’, 2025

ArtReview's Art Lovers Movie Club presents Elisabeth Brun's film 'Big Tech Blues' (2025), an auto-documentary that follows a small village in northern Norway as it resists the installation of a SpaceX Starlink 'Gateway' transmission site. The film blends personal essay, documentary footage, and interviews with residents who protest the hub over concerns about noise pollution, radiation, and environmental impact on the rural coastline. Brun contrasts slick Starlink promotional material with slow, intimate scenes of the landscape and community organizing on Facebook, highlighting the irony of using digital tools to fight digital infrastructure.

In plane sight: how the gilded elite live – in pictures

Photographer Will Vogt's second monograph, *Behind the Hedges*, offers an intimate glimpse into the lives of America's gilded elite, featuring images of his own social circle at hunting estates, weddings, exclusive club lunches, and golf weekends. The book, published by Schilt Publishing, includes quotes by Vogt and text by editor Jennifer Garza-Cuen from her essay 'Posture of Privilege,' capturing a world of inherited wealth and tradition.

How Tasmania became one of the world’s most exciting art destinations

Helen Ochyra reports on how Tasmania, particularly Hobart, has emerged as a leading global art destination, driven largely by MONA (Museum of Old and New Art). The privately funded museum, founded by art collector David Walsh, recently opened a $100 million AUD wing housing a towering concrete amphitheatre by German artist Anselm Kiefer. Beyond MONA, Hobart hosts the provocative winter festival Dark Mofo, the science-and-culture Beaker Street Festival, and the inaugural Island Readers & Writers Festival, cementing its reputation for cutting-edge arts and culture.

How Frida Kahlo Became This Year's Cultural Obsession

In 2026, Frida Kahlo has become a global cultural obsession, with museums, opera houses, and cinemas worldwide celebrating her legacy. The Metropolitan Opera in New York City will premiere Gabriela Lena Frank's Spanish-sung opera *El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego* on May 14, which imagines Diego Rivera summoning Kahlo back to life three years after her death. Set and costume designer Jon Bausor drew inspiration from the trees, veins, and cracked imagery in Kahlo's paintings.

How Art Libraries Make Art Accessible

Wie Artotheken Kunst zugänglich machen

Artotheken, or art libraries, are public institutions that lend artworks to anyone with a library card, making art accessible beyond the traditional museum or gallery system. In Germany, over 100 such artotheken exist, often housed in public libraries, art associations, or museums. The Amerika-Gedenkbibliothek in Berlin, for example, has a collection of 2,000 works, with around 300 currently on loan to homes, doctors' offices, and law firms. The lending process is informal: borrowers can eat, drink, and even touch the works, and transport by bus or bike is encouraged. A jury selects up to 15 new works annually, and the collection includes major names like Roy Lichtenstein and Niki de Saint Phalle, though most users choose pieces based on personal connection rather than prestige.

Arts and cultural engagement ‘linked to slower pace of biological ageing’

A new study published in the journal *Innovation in Aging* finds that engaging in arts and cultural activities—such as singing, painting, visiting museums or galleries—is linked to a slower pace of biological ageing. Researchers from University College London analyzed blood test and survey data from 3,556 adults in the UK Household Longitudinal Study, using epigenetic clocks to measure biological ageing. Those who participated in arts activities at least weekly showed a 4% slower ageing process, while monthly engagement yielded a 3% slowdown. The effect was comparable to the difference between smokers and those who quit smoking.

‘They tore up everything’: the wolf hunters of Kyrgyzstan – in pictures

Photographer Luke Oppenheimer traveled to the remote Kyrgyz village of Ottuk in 2021 for a short assignment on wolves preying on livestock, but ended up staying for four years. His project, titled 'Ottuk' and published by Aliens in Residence, documents the lives of shepherds who hunt wolves to protect their herds in the Tien Shan mountains, capturing their ancient way of life, harsh winters, and the legends that shape their community.

Khaled Sabsabi: Splintered Worlds

Khaled Sabsabi, a Lebanese Australian artist, explores the intersection of spirituality and perception through video and mixed-media installations rooted in Sufism. His work, such as the 18-minute video *Lefke Morning* (2012–18), captures the Naqshbandi-Haqqani Sufi Order's dawn meditations, using blurred imagery and soundscapes to challenge Islamophobic media tropes and evoke a sense of unity. Sabsabi's practice also draws on hip-hop, which he performed as "Peacefender" in the 1980s, using music to address social issues and support marginalized communities in Western Sydney.

Go big or go home: how The Lost Giants revived the ancient art of goliath-making

The Lost Giants (TLG), an art collective based in Lostwithiel, Cornwall, is reviving the British tradition of making processional giants—large, community-built figures made from wood, cloth, and papier-mâché. Founded three years ago by theatre designer Ruth Webb and her sister-in-law Amy Webb, the group has created giants for events ranging from local lantern parades to a harvest procession at Hauser & Wirth’s Somerset gallery. This New Year’s Eve, environmentalist Lisa Schneidau joined a massive procession of these giants in Lostwithiel, describing it as an extraordinary experience. The collective recently issued a public callout for an environmental group to collaborate on making a new beastie.

An artist told the incredible story of a Calabrian village that no longer exists. The interview

Un artista ha raccontato l’incredibile storia di un borgo della Calabria che non c’è più. L’intervista

Italian artist Martin Errichiello has created [campanamuta], a six-part audio work broadcast on RAI Radio 3's Zazà program in late 2025 and now available on RaiPlay Sound. The piece tells the story of Eranova, a farming community founded in 1896 near Reggio Calabria that was destroyed by 1980 after the Christian Democratic party planned—but never built—a steel center on its land, now the site of the Port of Gioia Tauro. Errichiello weaves together interviews with former residents and his own original texts, using non-linear narration to explore the village's utopian origins and forced disappearance.

Are the Visitors' Lions at the Venice Biennale an Opportunity for Art Criticism? Let's Seize It?

I Leoni dei Visitatori alla Biennale di Venezia sono un’opportunità per la critica d’arte. Cerchiamo di coglierla?

The article discusses the newly instituted "Leoni dei Visitatori" (Visitors' Lions) at the Venice Biennale, established after the resignation of the International Jury. The author, Alberto Villa, argues that this change shifts significant influence to art media and critics, as visitors will rely on reviews and recommendations from specialized magazines, websites, and social media to decide which pavilions to prioritize. Villa calls on critics to embrace this responsibility with heightened critical rigor, seeing it as an opportunity to revive the mediating role of art criticism.

Art bartering: artists start viral social media trend to fight cost of living crisis

Artists worldwide are using social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok to barter their artwork for goods and services instead of money, in a viral trend responding to the cost of living crisis. Participants trade paintings for items such as handmade clothes, jewelry, tattoos, accommodation, meals, and professional services like video editing or framing, with some simply inviting offers. Artists like Lin Snow, Oli Fowler, and Andrea Mongenie cite economic pressures and anti-capitalist motivations, viewing bartering as a way to build community and bypass financial systems that leave creatives struggling.

Die Welt als Sound – mit Peter Licht

Peter Licht, a German musician, author, and playwright, appears as a guest on the 82nd episode of the "Fantasiemuskel" podcast, where he discusses his view of the world as a sound phenomenon. He reflects on his 2006 song "Lied vom Ende des Kapitalismus," which preceded the 2008 financial crisis, and explores how language, fear, and utopian moments manifest through sound in his work—whether in pop songs, theater pieces, or novels. Licht also describes a recent "problem-solving show" at Schauspiel Köln, where audience members submit problems that are collectively sung, turning singing into an act of resistance and community-building.

Around North America, Community Members Are Stitching Nearly 11,000 Birds

Artist and educator Holly Greenberg launched the multi-year project "Bird Collisions in the Anthropocene" in 2024 after learning about a mass bird collision at Chicago's McCormick Place Lakeside Center in October 2023, where nearly 1,000 birds died in a single night. Using data from the Chicago Field Museum and ornithologist Dave Willard, Greenberg focuses on the 10,863 birds found dead after hitting Chicago buildings in 2023 alone. The project involves community members stitching nearly 11,000 fabric birds to raise awareness and educate the public about preventing window collisions, which kill an estimated one billion birds annually across North America.

Irina Werning Chronicles 18 Years of Photographing ‘Las Pelilargas’ in a New Book

Photographer Irina Werning has spent 18 years traveling across Latin America to document Indigenous women with exceptionally long hair for her series "Las Pelilargas." Her new book, published by GOST Books, features nearly 90 portraits taken between 2006 and 2024, starting with the Kolla community in Argentina. Werning sought subjects by posting signs in remote mountain towns and organizing hair competitions, capturing a tradition rooted in ancestral beliefs that hair connects to life, thoughts, and the land.

Linocuts by Eduardo Robledo Celebrate Mexican Heritage and Community

Eduardo Robledo, a Mexico City-based artist from Xochimilco, creates detailed linocuts that celebrate Mexican heritage, community, and spiritual motifs. His work features traditional symbols like skulls, skeletons, and Sacred Hearts alongside regional animals and cultural references such as Xochimilco's canal boats. Robledo also engages in social activism through printmaking, viewing it as a democratic medium for spreading messages about causes he supports. His prints are available at Hecho a Mano in Santa Fe, and he co-founded Lugar de Huida, a gallery in Mexico City that highlights Mexican printmakers.

Healing through art : Stories of First Nations people who have experienced incarceration

The Torch, a First Peoples-led arts organization in Victoria, Australia, runs a program supporting Indigenous artists who have experienced incarceration. Its annual exhibition, Confined 17, features nearly 500 artworks by 424 First Nations artists at the Glen Eira City Council gallery in Naarm. The organization provides art materials, cultural connection, and economic support, with artists receiving 100% of their income from sales. Participants like Tegan, a Palawa woman, describe improvising with food dye in prison to create watercolor-style works, while CEO Susannah Day and founder Kent Morris emphasize the program's role in reducing reincarceration rates.

Provincia Cosmica. A Foggia per scoprire la fotografia sociologica di Maria Palmieri

Maria Palmieri (Foggia, 1986) is a photographer who uses her camera as a tool for observation, understanding, and social improvement. After studying law, she turned to visual arts, blending reportage with vernacular photography to uncover truth amid the 'noisy horror' of contemporary life. In an interview with Artribune, she discusses her sociological approach to photography, her return to her hometown of Foggia, and her ongoing documentation of the region's fragilities, including the largest migrant ghetto in Europe.

Creating Variety in Contemporary Rome: The Story of the Conventicola degli Ultramoderni on Sky Arte

Fare varietà nella Roma contemporanea: la storia della Conventicola degli Ultramoderni su Sky Arte

On Sunday, May 3, Sky Arte will premiere the documentary "Ultramoderni," which chronicles the rise of the Conventicola degli Ultramoderni, a unique artistic collective in Rome. Founded by Sior Mirkaccio and Madame de Freitas, who met in 2011, the group operates from a small hidden venue in the San Lorenzo district, blending music, cabaret, burlesque, and contemporary variety shows with a retro-futuristic aesthetic. The documentary, filmed in their Roman space, features interviews with the duo and excerpts from their performances, tracing how they built a diverse community of enthusiasts around their reinvention of past traditions.

The first of May starts a new issue of Pax. Previews of the newsletter on cultural tourism (subscribe)

Il primo maggio parte una nuova uscita di Pax. Le anticipazioni della newsletter sul turismo culturale (abbonatevi)

The article previews the upcoming May 1st issue of Pax, a newsletter by Artribune focused on cultural tourism. It highlights a feature on Italy's colorful villages, explaining how bright colors historically aided sailors and fishermen, and how white facades served hygienic purposes. The issue also covers off-the-beaten-path destinations like Bolsena, which recently opened a contemporary art space in Palazzo Cozza Caposavi, and explores slow tourism practices such as barefooting, discussed with its founder Andrea Bianchi. Additional content includes a roundup of cultural initiatives from Berlin to Naples, Budapest's Citadella reopening, and the Sussex forest's Winnie-the-Pooh centenary.

Literature Today: The Crisis of the Novel as a Symptom of Social Change

La letteratura oggi: la crisi del romanzo come sintomo di un cambiamento sociale

The article examines the perceived crisis of the novel as a literary form, tracing its historical rise alongside the bourgeoisie in the 17th and 18th centuries. It argues the novel functioned as a mirror for a coherent social class with shared values, serving as a device for collective representation. The form's foundational premise of a recognizable community began to fracture in the 20th century, particularly after World War II, as societies atomized and grand ideological narratives collapsed.

In the Studio with Jevon Brown

Artist Jevon Brown, a Miamian of Bahamian, Jamaican, and Black Southern descent, discusses his multidisciplinary practice in an interview conducted in his Miami Beach apartment and studio. Brown works across textiles, silkscreen printing, fashion, and photography to explore cultural identity, belonging, queerness, and history. He describes how memories of Miami sunsets, family members like his uncle (a sneakerhead and hat collector), and ancestral references inform his creative process. Key works discussed include the "HAIREtage" series (2025), which uses materials like burlap and raffia to connect contemporary streetwear culture with African and Caribbean spirituality, and his inclusion in the exhibition "Material, Material World" at David Castillo Gallery.

Mirei Monticelli’s Hand-Woven Banana Leaf Lamps Swell Between Material and Movement

Milan-based Filipina designer Mirei Monticelli creates biomorphic lighting fixtures from hand-woven Banaca fabric, made from Abacá fiber sourced from the Philippines. Her studio collaborates with a community of weavers in the Bicol province, developing the material through a long-term relationship. The lamps, which blend sculpture and utility, were recently featured in an installation titled 'Pleasure Garden' at Milan Design Week. Monticelli’s process incorporates techniques from garment construction, learned from her mother, a fashion designer.

Rachel Mentzer Transforms Discarded Cartons into Dusky Collagraphs

Ohio-based artist Rachel Mentzer creates collagraph prints using discarded cartons as printing plates, carving them with images of birds, trees, and energy infrastructure. Her process involves carving the cardboard, sealing it with polyurethane, inking it, and transferring the image via an etching press, often incorporating chine collé for color. Her work was recently shown at the Manhattan Graphics Center, and she will participate in the Suzanne Wilson Artist-in-Residence Program at Glen Arbor Arts Center this summer.