The article reviews national pavilions at a major international art exhibition, focusing on the US, British, and German presentations. Andrew Durbin critiques the US pavilion as vacuous and lacking meaning, while praising the British and German installations as incisive and moving. The review highlights a contrast between superficial spectacle and deeply engaging, historically resonant works.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Department of Drawings and Prints has installed a new rotation in the Robert Wood Johnson, Jr. Gallery titled "Allegory and Abstraction." The exhibition features up to 100 works on paper, including Henri Matisse's 1947 series "Jazz," Louise Bourgeois's "He Disappeared into Complete Silence" (1947), and watercolors by J.M.W. Turner and Thomas Girtin marking the 250th anniversary of their births. The show explores how artists embed complex meanings through symbols (allegory) or through line, color, and pattern (abstraction).
Maintenance Work: Practices of Care, an exhibition opening at The Good Rice Gallery, brings together artists working across installation, performance, video, and sculpture. Curated by Berenice Berlan and Sowon Kim, the show features works from 18 artists including Abeer Al-Tamimi, Flavia Carolina D’Alessandro, and Jieyi Chen, exploring maintenance not as a finished act but as an ongoing process shaped by care, repetition, and attention. The exhibition runs from 21st to 24th May 2026, with a private view on 21st May.