Art Basel Qatar's Complicity
Art Basel's complicity in Qatar's persecution of queer people, the US and Israel bomb another Iranian historic palace, protest against the Venice Biennale, Beer With a Painter, and more.
Nasser Mohamed, the only publicly queer Qatari citizen, strikes at the heart of a fundamental ethical contradiction in our field today: "The art world cannot claim to champion freedom while ignoring the people who are denied it."
Except it often does, including Art Basel Qatar. In a moving opinion piece, Mohamed writes about the dissonance of fleeing a country because it criminalizes queerness while watching artists, dealers, and collectors flock to its capital.
In other stories, artists and political figures lead a protest against Russia's participation in the Venice Biennale, while US-Israel airstrikes damage another precious Iranian cultural heritage site. Check out our list of art books to read this month, plus Associate Editor Lisa Yin Zhang's searing review of Anika Jade Levy’s new novel Flat Earth, which struck her as "navel-gazing, ouroboric, masturbatory." Finally, the latest installation of A Beer With a Painter brings us into the life and process of Hilary Harkness, another artist who knows that the brush is a political tool just as much as a creative one.
—Lakshmi Rivera Amin, associate editor
Don’t Believe What Art Basel Qatar Is Trying to Sell You
I fled Qatar to live freely as a queer person. A country that criminalizes LGBTQ+ existence should not be celebrated as a global hub of creative freedom. | Nasser Mohamed
Elias Sime: FINAL DROP (የመጨረሻዋ ጠብታ) at James Cohan’s 52 Walker Street Gallery
Working with electronic components such as circuit boards, computer keys, and telecommunications wires, Elias Sime creates lyrical abstract compositions that shift seamlessly between evocations of landscape, urban topography, the human form, and expansive fields of radiant color. These works make visible the movement of material goods across the globe while illuminating the fragility of our networked existence.
News
- A sculpture of Trump and Epstein, echoing one of the most famous scenes in Titanic (1997), popped up in front of the US Capitol on Tuesday, March 10.
- Over 6,000 artists, curators, and journalists signed an open letter calling on Venice Biennale leaders to “address the implications” of Russia’s participation in this year’s exhibition.
- Israeli and United States forces have taken aim at the city of Isfahan in Iran, with strikes reportedly damaging several centuries-old palaces and buildings that functioned as cultural and tourism centers.
Books
7 Art Books for Your March Reading List
Read up on the hidden history of occult influences on modernism, French sign painters, the Finnish painter who bucked convention, incarcerated artists, and more. | Natalie Haddad, Hrag Vartanian, Lakshmi Rivera Amin, and Lisa Yin Zhang
Please, No More Disaffected White Girls
Anika Jade Levy’s “Flat Earth” is navel-gazing, ouroboric, masturbatory — a Dimes Square novel for Dimes Square people. | Lisa Yin Zhang
Call for Applications: 2026 Craft Archive Fellowship
The Center for Craft will award up to four $5,000 fellowships to support research on underrepresented craft histories, culminating in an article on Hyperallergic.
Community
Beer With a Painter: Hilary Harkness
If paint doesn’t feel good coming off the brush, you pretty much have nothing,” said the artist, whose canvases depict humanity in all its rollicking riot and contradiction. | Jennifer Samet
From the Archive
Where Funhouse Erotics Meet Art History
Hilary Harkness: Everything For You enfolds us into surreal worlds of gender-bending militaries, feminine revenge, and alternative histories. | Alexis Clements
