Art
When Scandinavia Was a Hotbed of Black American Culture
Nordic Utopia? African Americans in the 20th Century zeroes in on a far less charted corner of Black history than that of expats to Paris: the artists who ventured north.
Debra Brehmer
Art
Petah Coyne’s Maximalist Art Lays Bare Women’s Oppression
Coyne’s work sits between abundance and suffocation, uses seductive materials to serve uncomfortable truths about the barriers that face women.
Art
The Fury and Failings of a Nicole Eisenman Survey
En masse, Eisenman's paintings feel weighty and overwrought, as if too many ideas had become tangled and sucked up all the air, like a one-way conversation.
Art
The Productive Messiness of Expo Chicago 2024
The art felt as if it was trying to find the language to merge emotion with content, to harness the energies of the search within the courage of experimentation.
Art
A Displaced Artist Finds Freedom in Flight
Petrit Halilaj works from memories of his time in a refugee camp during the Kosovo War, when the sight of birds and thought of migration gave him hope.
Art
50 Paintings Invites Viewers to Think Like an Artist
With its hands-off approach, the Milwaukee Art Museum's survey is a reprieve — an intimate place to wallow in mark-making.
Art
Remedios Varo in a Sphere of Her Own
Varo's paintings beckon us to plunge into their vaporous worlds while challenging us to decode intricate scenarios.
Art
What Today's Museums Can Learn From Van Gogh
Van Gogh and his cohorts were actively searching for new means to translate modern culture. Why aren’t we taking risks?
Books
Against an Art World That Excludes Mothers
Hettie Judah’s important book examines the current climate of discrimination against parents who are also artists.
Art
Anatomy of a Disputed Emancipation Monument
The Chazen Museum of Art in Wisconsin didn’t quite know what to do with a controversial emancipation statue of Abraham Lincoln in its collection until Sanford Biggers stepped in with an idea.
Art
For William Kentridge, Art and Life Animate One Another
In an exhibition that consists of mostly small-scale black and white works on paper, viewer engagement almost magically awakens the sleepy room.
Art
The Joyous Kitsch and Lingering Simmer of Nick Cave's Art
With explosions of color and materiality, Cave has his own enigmatic ways to funnel the funk through histories of adversity.