Fighting the Western perception of Iran as a hostile war zone, Mohammed Afkhami began collecting artworks by Iranian artists to highlight the country’s rich cultural production.

Ksenia M. Soboleva
Ksenia M. Soboleva is a New York-based writer and art historian specializing in queer art and culture, with a particular focus on lesbian visibility. She received her PhD from the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU.
The Punk Marie Antoinette of the 1970s New York Art Scene
In Colette Lumière’s world, the theatricality of Versailles meets the punk ethos of the Sex Pistols.
The Queer Feminist Agenda of Wilder Alison’s Abstract Wool Paintings
Since 2014, Alison has been visually dissecting Monique Wittig’s novel The Lesbian Body, which theorizes the split subjectivity women experience in language, an inherently patriarchal structure.
Betsy Damon’s Pioneering Ecofeminist Practice
Curated by Monika Fabijanska, Betsy Damon — Passages: Rites and Rituals pulls Damon’s performance practice out from oblivion.
Pamela Council Looks to Black Vernacular Culture to Expose Social Inequality
Council often uses humor as a political tool to expose systems of power and inequality in a society in which even death carries a high price tag.
A Tribute to Artists Lost to AIDS Left Me With Mixed Feelings
I have to credit David Zwirner for attempting to include the queer community, but I can’t help but feel conflicted about the whole initiative.
Hugh Steers Melds Queerness and the Devotional
Working amid the AIDS crisis, Hugh Steers’s paintings exude a graceful, figurative style that went under-recognized during his brief lifetime.
Gen Zers in Russia Are Using TikTok as a Catchy Tool of Political Resistance
In Russia, high schoolers have massively taken to TikTok to express their support of Alexei Navalny, the resolute opposition leader most feared by the Kremlin.
The Delightfully Debased Art of Nicole Eisenman and Keith Boadwee
Contrary to the laconic distance experienced among Eisenman’s works, Boadwee’s radiates a frenetic energy that stimulates the senses.
The Visceral Intimacy of Amy Sillman’s Drawings
Messy and tender, like a summer fling, Sillman’s drawings embody both the sense of decay and unyielding hunger for life that marks our current times.
Nina Katchadourian’s Tribute to Political “Roads Not Taken”
An intriguing meditation on the flawed two-party system, the power of Katchadourian’s Monument to the Unelected lies in its ability to confront us with alternative histories.
Documenting These Last Few Years In Order to Survive Them
Morgan Bassichis’s The Odd Years is a visual, poetic diary that is perhaps best read as an endurance piece.