Weekly Newsletter

Between Worlds

Arthur Jaffa at the New Museum, Teresa Margolles at MoMA PS1, the story of an unsung Black architect, and our art tarotscope for the fall.

Hakim Bishara

October 3, 2026 — 6 min read

I wake up with the sparrows at 6am, shower and get dressed at maximum speed, check a few emails, gulp a quick espresso, and by 7:15am, I’m ready to drive my son René to kindergarten.

As I turn on the car, ready to conquer the day, I hear him sigh from his booster seat in the back and ask, “What’s the point of all this?”

The previous morning we’d discussed death. I did a poor job explaining why his grandpa (my father) is no longer around and where he might be right now.

At the ISCP (International Studio & Curatorial Program) in Brooklyn, where we have a lovely event for Hyperallergic members, staff greets us with drinks and fortune cookies. I eat four of those cookies because I’m not pleased with any of the fortunes. I stop after one that reads: “Who gives should never remember. Who receives must never forget.”

In the pouring rain, I hide in a Gen Z spot in Bushwick that’s playing an entire Michael Jackson album. A man speaking into a laptop screen is explaining to someone else how the first thing Islam did in the 7th century was abolish slavery in the Arabian Peninsula. Days later, the Milwaukee Art Museum returns two jars to the descendants of Dave the Potter, a Black American artist who was enslaved for most of his life in the 19th century.

On my way to a screening of the Edward Said documentary Between Worlds at the New York Film Festival, a guy on the subway wearing a T-shirt that spells out the word “coexistence” with symbols from all the big religions pisses me off because he’s standing in my way.

During the movie, I cry and cry and cry.

I find a Carl Jung book on the sidewalk, consider taking it for a moment, then toss it away. A man wearing a leather jacket over a bunny costume stares at me like I’m the strange one. I look away and see a sparrow eating from the trash.

Up on Berry Street, I pause in front of the new Hermès store because I see a shiny pair of shoes branded with my initial in the window display.

I stay there for a while, images flashing in my head as I gaze at my reflection in the window. I see Jerusalem, Haifa, and Nazareth. I see New York, and I see René's face.

—Hakim Bishara, editor-in-chief

Arthur Jafa, King of Pop

His eclectic references and intuitive grasp of memes and virality set him apart as an artist taking assemblage and collage to new heights. | Stephanie Wambugu

Visual artists Christine Sun Kim, Rodney McMillian, Vincent Valdez, and Chip Thomas are among the 20 recipients of this year’s MacArthur Fellowship.
Unionized staff at the Whitney Museum of American Art are preparing to strike starting Monday, October 5 ahead of the preview week for late Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein’s retrospective.
Minnesotan activists unfurl a 24-foot-long “Stolen Neighbors” quilt representing the individuals disappeared by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Kehinde Wiley has asked to buy back his painting “Young Artists After Siamesas 1960” (2015) after the State Department removed it from the United States Embassy in the Dominican Republic last month.
The art and activism initiative Fall of Freedom is anchoring its second year with hundreds of events across the United States this weekend.
Two of Alice Neel’s satirical courtroom drawings, which depict one of the highly publicized trials of the McCarthy era, go to auction.
Art Movements: Cyra Levenson will lead the Yaddo Artist Residency, Ann Temkins steps down at MoMA, Rose B. Simpson wins the Santa Fe Mayor’s award, Roy Lichtenstein x Alex Da Corte, and more.