Rhea Anastas

Rhea Anastas, an art historian, critic, and curator, publishes a critical essay challenging the dominance of market-driven values in contemporary visual art. She argues that the art world's focus on auction prices, luxury investment, and professional categorization has obscured the true purpose of artistic practice, which she sees as rooted in experimental culture, Black culture, performance, and film. Anastas condemns the past two decades as marked by dishonesty, particularly regarding how art history and criticism have been built on white-on-Black dispossession and violence. She calls for an end to the commodification of artists' lives and works, advocating instead for attention to non-visible practices, critique, and embodiment.