Jasper Johns Keeps Looking

Jasper Johns’s latest exhibition at Gagosian, 'Between the Clock and the Bed,' serves as a profound meditation on the artist's career-long investigation into the 'things the mind already knows.' By revisiting his signature motifs—including flags, targets, and crosshatch patterns—the show highlights Johns’s rejection of Abstract Expressionist spontaneity in favor of a deliberate, analytical process using encaustic and collage. The works document a transformation where familiar symbols are rendered into a complex visual language that bridges the gap between memory and physical presence.

The Robots Were Never the Problem

The New Museum has reopened with 'New Humans: Memories of the Future,' a massive survey featuring over 150 contributors including Hito Steyerl, Precious Okoyomon, and H.R. Giger. Spanning 13 sections across the museum's new 5,500 square-meter extension, the exhibition traces the intersection of art, technology, and the human body from the early 20th century to the present. It juxtaposes interwar European works, such as Hannah Höch’s photomontages and Bauhaus ballets, with contemporary installations like Simon Denny’s sculpture of an Amazon worker's cage.

Konrad Mägi review – these bland, blobby paintings are expressionism without expression

A new exhibition of early 20th-century Estonian painter Konrad Mägi at Dulwich Picture Gallery has received a scathing critical review. The reviewer finds Mägi's colorful, modernist-influenced landscapes and portraits to be bland, derivative, and devoid of the emotional depth or urgency found in the great modernists or the gallery's own Old Master collection.

Michael Armitage in Venice, monumental and disturbing. What the exhibition at Palazzo Grassi looks like

Michael Armitage is the subject of a major solo retrospective at Palazzo Grassi in Venice, marking his largest exhibition in Europe to date. Organized by the Pinault Collection, the show features monumental paintings that blend African identity, local Kenyan chronicles, and mythological narratives. Armitage’s work is noted for its physical scale and its ability to transform the chaos of human affairs into a syncretic epic, utilizing traditional materials like Lubugo bark cloth to ground his contemporary subjects.

Hydrojustice: A Review

A Non-Aspirational Justice: Review of Hydrojustice

The article is a critical review of Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos's book 'Hydrojustice,' which uses the concept of water as a lens to critique traditional, top-down legal justice and propose a more fluid, collective, and embodied alternative. The review frames this analysis through the recent erasure of a Banksy graffiti piece on the London Courts of Justice, which depicted a judge violently silencing a protester.

The Artist Whose Shimmering Obelisks Are Cropping Up All Over the World

Artist Gisela Colón is currently the subject of a major retrospective at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico (MAC), showcasing her signature "monoliths" and iridescent obelisks. These monumental sculptures, which have appeared in global locations ranging from the Great Pyramids of Giza to the Saudi Arabian desert, utilize advanced aerospace carbon fiber and site-specific minerals to create shifting, phenomenological experiences. The exhibition tracks her evolution from 1996 to the present, highlighting her unique ability to blend high-tech materials with ancient totemic forms.

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Joseph Beuys remains one of the most polarizing figures in 20th-century art, a former Nazi soldier who reinvented himself as a shamanic healer and a founding member of the Green Party. A new monographic study by art historian Daniel Spaulding, 'Joseph Beuys and History', re-evaluates the artist's legacy by confronting his refusal to apologize for his wartime past and his use of ambiguous materials like fat and felt. Spaulding argues that Beuys’s work should be read through the lens of 'bad faith,' where his utopian slogans masked a deep, unresolved engagement with the horrors of the Holocaust.

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The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum has launched a major retrospective of Carol Bove, filling the iconic Frank Lloyd Wright rotunda with approximately 100 works spanning her career. The exhibition showcases Bove’s evolution from her early assemblages of driftwood, peacock feathers, and vintage books to her more recent large-scale, brightly colored steel sculptures. A defining feature of the show is Bove’s inclusion of "para-artworks"—pieces by other artists such as Lionel Ziprin, Agnes Martin, and Arnaldo Pomodoro—integrated into her own installations to highlight the influences and histories that inform her practice.

Zurbarán review – ecstatic visions, primitive surrealism … and the finest loincloths ever painted

The Guardian reviews a major exhibition of 17th-century Spanish painter Francisco de Zurbarán, highlighting his visionary and surrealist qualities. The show features works such as "The Apparition of Saint Peter to Saint Peter Nolasco" (1629), newly attributed paintings including a giant mask, and iconic pieces like "The Crucified Christ" and "Saint Serapion," all drawn from collections including the Prado and the National Gallery, London. The review emphasizes Zurbarán's ability to paint supernatural subjects with naturalistic conviction, his exquisite rendering of fabrics—especially loincloths—and his influence on modern artists like Salvador Dalí.

‘The Secret Agent’ Finds Desire in the Archive

The article reviews the exhibition 'The Secret Agent' at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London, curated by artist and writer Hannah Gregory. The show features works by artists including Louise Lawler, Susan Hiller, and John Stezaker, exploring themes of desire, secrecy, and the archival impulse through photography, film, and installation.

Alma Allen’s US Pavilion Is One of the Emptiest Shows at the Venice Biennale

Alma Allen represents the United States at the 2026 Venice Biennale with a subdued, apolitical exhibition inside the US Pavilion. The show features roughly 25 sculptures—mostly in bronze, wood, and stone—many titled "Not Yet Titled," and deliberately avoids overt political messaging. This marks a stark departure from the previous two US pavilions, curated by Simone Leigh (2022) and Jeffrey Gibson (2024), which directly confronted colonialism and empire. The Trump administration’s call for proposals explicitly asked for work that "reflects and promotes American values," and Allen’s presentation has been criticized as safe, unremarkable, and lacking the incisive edge of contemporary American art.

Locating Luigi Ghirri

Fashion photographer Alessio Bolzoni and film director Luca Guadagnino have collaborated on 'Felicità', a new book and exhibition at Thomas Dane Gallery featuring 45 previously unseen color photographs by the late Italian master Luigi Ghirri. The project is divided into two portfolios: the first focuses on intimate, abstract details of found objects and surfaces in Modena, while the second expands into larger vistas and populated spaces across Italy during the 1980s.

Nat Faulkner: The Stuff of Photography

Artist Nat Faulkner has opened a new exhibition at Camden Art Centre featuring works that explore the physical and chemical foundations of photography. The show includes large-scale photographic pieces like 'Aqua Fortis' and sculptural works such as 'Aperture (Iodine)', which uses iodine solution in skylight panels to bathe the space in amber light, alongside silver-plated 'Analogue' reliefs created through electroplating.

Craig Jun Li: Scrapping the Camera

Artist Craig Jun Li's solo exhibition features collagist wall-works and installations that deconstruct photographic technology. Works like the 2025 silicone sheets incorporate altered dye-transfer prints, Polaroids, and actual camera parts like SX-70 film cartridge springs, redirecting focus from pictorial representation to the mechanical apparatus of image-making.

Leah Ki Yi Zheng’s Personal I Ching

Artist Leah Ke Yi Zheng's exhibition "Change, I Ching (64 Paintings)" at the Renaissance Society in Chicago presents a series of oil and acrylic paintings on silk, each depicting one of the 64 hexagrams from the ancient Chinese divination text, the I Ching. The artist physically altered the gallery's architecture to control light and create a specific viewing rhythm, synthesizing materials and techniques from Chinese ink painting traditions with Western geometric abstraction and oil painting.

A Blockbuster Take on Ovid’s “Metamorphosis”

The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has opened a major exhibition titled 'Metamorphoses,' inspired by Ovid's poem. The show brings together Renaissance masterpieces, antiquities, and contemporary works, grouping them by the myths they depict to explore themes of transformation, desire, and gender through striking visual juxtapositions.

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The 2026 Whitney Biennial, curated by Marcela Guerrero and Drew Sawyer, moves beyond the traditional geographic borders of the United States to explore 'the greater United States.' Drawing inspiration from historian Daniel Immerwahr, the exhibition features artists from occupied territories, military outposts, and nations impacted by American intervention, including Okinawa, Chile, and Palestine. The show shifts the focus from identity politics to the material reality of infrastructure, examining how global systems of finance, energy, and empire operate and often fail.

These Ghosts. Clémentine Bruno  by Michela Ceruti

Clémentine Bruno’s artistic practice explores the tension between presence and absence, treating the canvas as a site of temporal layers rather than a flat surface for representation. Her work emphasizes the preparatory stages of painting—the laying of gesso and the construction of supports—allowing images to emerge reluctantly through processes of sanding, veiling, and partial erasure. Recent exhibitions, such as "Educational Complex" at Tonus and "Vision of Fading" at Mendes Wood DM, highlight her interest in how institutional structures and memory maps dictate what is retained and what is forgotten.

Anne Hardy’s Hollow Humanoids

British artist Anne Hardy presents a suite of floor-based installations and assemblage sculptures titled "Interloper" at Visual. The exhibition features a series of "Beings"—twisted, life-size humanoid entities constructed from rusted wire, crushed cans, soil, and the artist’s own cast body parts and clothing. These figures, often posed in yoga-like positions or meditative stances, appear as hollow, faceless outlines that blend a sense of vitality with physical disintegration.

Veronica Ryan review – the seeds are sensational but the detritus is distracting

A major retrospective of Turner Prize-winning artist Veronica Ryan has opened, showcasing her career-long exploration of organic forms and repurposed materials. The exhibition features new works made from plastic bottles, bandages, and avocado trays, alongside earlier sculptures in bronze and lead that reference seed pods and fruit.

Ruminations on Rashid Johnson’s “A Poem for Deep Thinkers”

The article is a reflective review of Rashid Johnson's exhibition "A Poem for Deep Thinkers" at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. The author describes standing before Johnson's work "Falling Man" (2016), a piece incorporating broken mirrors, burned wood, and personal objects like a copy of Harry Haywood's "Black Bolshevik" and shea butter, which prompts meditations on visibility, identity, and Frantz Fanon's "Black Skin, White Masks." The review also examines Johnson's large-scale installation "Antoine's Organ" (2016/2026), which fills a gallery typically reserved for Ellsworth Kelly's minimalist canvases, transforming the space with scaffolding, plants, books, and video monitors.

Review: Alex Da Corte’s colorful, pop-inspired art show in Fort Worth

Alex Da Corte's exhibition "The Whale" at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth is the first museum show to focus on his relationship to painting, though it defies traditional definitions. The show features a variety of works including "puffy paintings," "slatwall paintings," and "reverse glass paintings," alongside a video where Da Corte portrays Marcel Duchamp. Curated by Alison Hearst, the exhibition also integrates some of Da Corte's works into the museum's permanent collection galleries, a first for the institution.

Exhibition Review & Studio Visit Feature: Don Porcaro and his “Lost Stories” at Westwood Gallery

Don Porcaro (American, b. 1950) presented his second solo exhibition at Westwood Gallery in New York, titled "Lost Stories," featuring two series of stone sculptures: towering polylithic pillars from the Lost Stories series and mysterious artifact-like objects from the Art or Fact series. Curated by gallery co-founder James Cavello, the show highlights Porcaro's lifelong practice of sourcing stones from diverse geographies and reconfiguring them into stacked, architecturally inspired forms that evoke prehistoric megaliths, ancient columns, and funerary urns.

What We Loved (And Didn’t) in “Greater New York”

The article presents a critical review of the 2026 "Greater New York" exhibition at MoMA PS1, a massive survey featuring over 150 works by more than 50 artists. The Hyperallergic editorial team highlights specific artists and works they loved, disliked, or found puzzling, offering a curated list of around 20 standout pieces. The review includes detailed commentary on individual works by artists like Dean Millien, the collective Red Canary Song, and Kameron Neal, capturing the diverse and often contentious reactions the show provokes.

Theresa Hak Kyung Cha Made Human Again

The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) is hosting "Theresa Hak Kyung Cha: Multiple Offerings," a comprehensive exhibition that draws from the artist’s complete archives. The show highlights Cha’s multidisciplinary practice, spanning film experiments, performance documentation, and her signature linguistic explorations. By pairing finished artworks with archival materials and personal ephemera, the exhibition reveals a playful, puckish side of the artist that is often obscured by the tragic circumstances of her death and the heavy themes of exile and dislocation in her work.

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The article reviews an exhibition of Sam Gilliam's work at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) in Dublin, focusing on 23 works from the 1990s that highlight his use of sewing and stitching. Gilliam, a relentless experimenter who died in 2022, is known for moving from hard-edged stripe paintings to draped, unstretched canvases that blurred painting and sculpture. This show reveals a lesser-known aspect of his practice: patchwork-like assemblages of painted and printed canvas pieces held together by visible machine stitching, often incorporating photographic imagery of botanical forms. The works originated from a 1993 residency in Ballinglen, County Mayo, where Gilliam shipped pre-painted canvases from Washington, D.C., and had a seamstress sew them together.

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Pierre Huyghe has unveiled his most ambitious project to date in Berlin, a major exhibition titled 'Liminals' staged at the cavernous Halle am Berghain. Commissioned by the LAS Art Foundation as part of its 'Sensing Quantum' program, the installation features a massive 50-minute film projected in a former electrical station, accompanied by a droning, atmospheric soundscape. The work continues Huyghe’s exploration of AI-driven systems and 'unworlding,' attempting to create a space that transcends human subjectivity through bio-technological environments.

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Two new art critics join the fold at Cultured, with Johanna Fateman reviewing Sanya Kantarovsky's first New York solo show since 2019, "Scarecrow," at Michael Werner Gallery's two Upper East Side locations. The exhibition features paintings, monotypes, and a glazed stoneware vase centered on Hera, a whippet belonging to artists Mark Dion and Dana Sherwood, alongside works like *Stage (Watteau)* that engage with historical painting. Mary Simpson covers Rosemarie Trockel's acerbic conceptualism, and Jeanette Bisschops reviews a posthumous exhibition of Chloe Dzubilo's intimate and irate drawings, "The Prince George Drawings," at Participant Inc., curated by Alex Fleming and Nia Nottage.

New biography offers well-crafted story of Louise Bourgeois’s rich life

Marie-Laure Bernadac’s new biography, 'Knife-Woman: The Life of Louise Bourgeois', provides a comprehensive look at the French-American artist’s prolific career and traumatic upbringing. The book explores how Bourgeois transformed childhood wounds—specifically her father’s infidelity and psychological cruelty—into a radical body of work spanning sculpture, installation, and textiles. From her early encouragement by Fernand Léger to her late-career fame with the 'Maman' spider sculptures, the biography traces her evolution from a painter to a boundary-defying sculptor who utilized materials ranging from latex to marble.

Shaped By Histories: “Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle: A Want for Nothing” at the DePaul Art Museum

The article reviews the exhibition "Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle: A Want for Nothing" at the DePaul Art Museum, which presents the artist's multimedia works that explore themes of history, migration, and identity. Manglano-Ovalle's pieces, including video installations and sculptures, engage with personal and collective narratives, drawing on archival materials and contemporary issues.