Artists Threaten to Sue Venice Biennale
Plus, Trump’s threats to arts education and why artist Saif Azzuz should be on your radar.
Saif Azzuz, the Bay Area-based Yurok artist of Libyan descent whose genre-defying works distill ancestral wisdom and local traditions, seems to be everywhere. The resonance of his assemblages, sculpture, paintings, and installations might have something to do with their ability to reflect on contemporary urgencies — climate, capitalism — with a rare thoughtfulness. On the heels of Azzuz’s new outdoor commission at Storm King Art Center, reporter Max Blue profiles the artist who wants to point us to “the interconnectedness of all things.”
In the news, the tumult continues at the Venice Biennale, where artists now say leadership failed to honor their request to withdraw from this year’s awards. You’ll remember a group of pavilion and exhibition artists removed themselves from awards consideration in solidarity with the jury, which resigned en masse against the backdrop of opposition to Israel and Russia’s inclusion. Read Staff Writer Rhea Nayyar’s update, and the Biennale’s latest response.
—Valentina Di Liscia, senior editor
The Sun Is Shining on Saif Azzuz
Bay Area-based artist Saif Azzuz has been exhibiting around the world, from his first solo museum show at the Blaffer Art Museum at the University of Houston last year to his first solo gallery show in West Asia earlier this year. Across galleries, museums, and outdoor sculpture, he connects Indigenous land practices in California, the Hudson Valley, and beyond.
He's showing no signs of slowing down. | Max Blue
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Announcing the 2026 McKnight Visual Artist Fellows
Designed to support mid-career Minnesota artists, the fellowship provides each recipient with a $25,000 stipend, professional development, a residency, and more.
News
- Over 100 participants have threatened legal action against the Venice Biennale Foundation, alleging that Biennale leadership has not honored their official withdrawal from the new “Visitor Lion” awards last month.
- Approximately 44% of fine and studio arts Master’s degree programs in the United States could lose the ability to matriculate students who rely on federal loans to pay for their tuition, according to new guidelines proposed by the Trump administration.
Focus on Philadelphia
Radical Reclamation at the First-Ever ArtPhilly Festival
As President Trump threatens to turn the 250th anniversary of the United States’s founding into a MAGA rally, a brand-new arts festival in Philadelphia offers alternative plans. What Now: 2026, the inaugural edition of ArtPhilly’s planned biennial, features more than 30 original artistic commissions taking place across the city where the Declaration of Independence was signed.
Hyperallergic joined the artists and organizers for the festival’s opening week, finding little nationalism and a lot of radical reclamation. Read on for three highlights of the program. | Greta Rainbow
Read MoreBook Excerpt
Edward Hopper’s Distinctly American Solitude
American bombast is, more than anything, a mask, which Hopper understood well. | Ed Simon
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Remembering Alan Saret, Julio Le Parc, and Hilde Lynn Helphenstein
This week, we honor a postminimalist sculptor, a Pop Art legend, and the satirist behind “Jerry Gogosian.”
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Butch Murphy on “Celia Paul Transcends Her Own Mythology”
From the Archive
Ron Norsworthy’s Revolution of Queer Black Male Self-Love
Norsworthy and I sat down to discuss his recent works, which wield the Ancient Greek myth of Narcissus to examine the power of beauty, who defines it, and how we can reclaim it. | Damien Davis
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