Art News. Vasari Codex

rate_review review schedule May 4, 2026 visibility 35 link 19 artists

The Met’s Costume Institute Needs an Art History Lesson

The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute spring exhibition, "Costume Art," pairs fashion with artworks from the Met's collection, including ancient Greek statues and Andy Warhol screenprints, alongside garments by designers from Charles James to CFGNY. Curator Andrew Bolton aims to suggest that fashion can expand understanding of art, but the show's juxtapositions often feel vague and sloppy, with only occasional resonant pairings like a Jean Paul Gaultier shirt and Joe Brainard drawing linked by queer artist lineage.

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rate_review review schedule May 1, 2026 visibility 33 link 6 artists

Diedrick Brackens’s Tapestries Beckon the Light of Freedom

Diedrick Brackens presents his first solo exhibition in the Bay Area, "gather tender night," at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. Guest-curated by Eungie Joo, the show features 15 tapestries from 2020 onward and three new works from 2026, including the immersive installation "clearing (2026)." Brackens, a Black queer artist and CCA professor, uses hand-dyed cotton and acrylic yarn to weave narratives of personal memory, myth, and the natural world, drawing from West African weaving, California fiber art, European tapestry, and Gee's Bend quilting. His approach, influenced by the "sloppy craft" ethos of his mentor Josh Faught, embraces unfinished edges and visible process as acts of refusal against polished traditions.

newspaper Hyperallergic open_in_new Read original

rate_review review schedule May 18, 2026 visibility 11 link 3 artists, 2 galleries

Martin Wong’s Brick Monument to Popeye

Hyperallergic reviews Martin Wong's posthumous exhibition "Popeye" at PPOW gallery, featuring six motorized plywood panels that reimagine the cartoon character Popeye as curving brickwork. The show includes smaller works like "Sacred Shroud of Pepe Turcel" (1989–90) and paintings of vintage cartoon characters Mutt and Jeff, Little Lulu and Tubby, all rendered in Wong's signature brick style. The review highlights Wong's queer, magpie sensibility and his ability to cross boundaries between high and low culture.

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rate_review review schedule May 26, 2026 visibility 1 link 2 artists, 1 gallery

Lionel Wendt: The Politics of the Male Nude

ArtReview publishes an essay by Qingyuan Deng analyzing the first US solo exhibition of Lionel Wendt's photographs at American Art Catalogues in Manhattan's West Village. The show presents Wendt's haunting gelatin silver prints of male nudes, still lifes, and solarized images, positioning him as a canonical figure of South Asian modernism. Deng argues that while the exhibition correctly identifies homoerotic desire in Wendt's work, it over-relies on queer theory's framework of opacity and fails to fully address the political radicality of Wendt's practice under British colonial rule in Ceylon, where homosexuality was criminalized under the 1883 Penal Code.

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rate_review review schedule Apr 27, 2026 visibility 40 link 23 artists

The Many Forms of Marcel Duchamp

The New Yorker's Hilton Als reviews "Marcel Duchamp," a major retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, running through August 22, 2026. Curated by Matthew Affron, Michelle Kuo, and Ann Temkin, it is the first North American retrospective of Duchamp's work since 1973, organized in collaboration with the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The exhibition spans MoMA's entire sixth floor, showcasing Duchamp's shape-shifting practice—from iconic works like "Nude Descending a Staircase (No. 2)" (1912) and "Bicycle Wheel" (1951) to his readymades and conceptual pieces—emphasizing his rejection of commodification and embrace of intellectual freedom, play, and queer sensibilities.

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rate_review review schedule May 11, 2026 visibility 4 link 1 artist

‘The Bed Trick’ by Izabella Scott, Reviewed

Izabella Scott's book *The Bed Trick* examines a British rape case in which Gayle Newland was convicted for pretending to be a man named Kai during a two-year relationship with a woman identified as Miss X. Drawing on court transcripts, Scott explores the legal concept of 'fraud vitiates consent' and traces the historical bed-trick trope from medieval folktales to *The Rocky Horror Picture Show*, questioning how much deception invalidates sexual consent.

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rate_review review schedule May 25, 2026 visibility 1 link 3 artists

Performance Cuts Through the Noise at the Venice Biennale

Florentina Holzinger and Miet Warlop have transformed the Austrian and Belgian pavilions at the 2026 Venice Biennale into immersive, performance-driven spectacles. Holzinger's "SEA WORLD VENICE" floods the Austrian pavilion with water and urine, featuring jet-skiing, suspended performers, and participatory toilets, while Warlop's "IT NEVER SSST" turns the Belgian pavilion into a chaotic arena of tile-throwing, chanting, and dancing. Both works demand sustained attention amid a fraught Biennale marked by the death of artistic director Koyo Kouoh, canceled pavilions, boycotts, and a jury resignation.

newspaper Hyperallergic open_in_new Read original

rate_review review schedule May 7, 2026 visibility 16 link 3 artists, 1 gallery

"Dispossessions in the Americas" Confronts the Colonialism That Invades All Territory

The article reviews "Dispossessions in the Americas," a group exhibition at Wrightwood 659 in Chicago curated by Jonathan D. Katz and Eduardo Carrera. Featuring works from 1960 to 2025, the show examines colonial legacies in the Americas, focusing on the forced dispossession of land, culture, and language from indigenous, Afro-descendant, queer, and trans communities. The review critically questions how a polished, architecturally prestigious venue can coherently display art about socially voiceless communities without falling into voyeurism or fetishization of pain.

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