Betye Saar, Picasso, BlackStar

Summer and the streets are teeming with beautiful young people. In a shop window, I catch my reflection staring at me with contempt. I need a haircut but have no barber to go to. The last one talked too much about his prostate and made me look like the reincarnation of Saddam Hussein. 

I spot a pretty well-known artist walking towards me. We’ve met and emailed before, but we can’t really be called friends. We exchange side glances and notice each other, but make an unspoken agreement to keep walking anyway. In hindsight, I should've stopped to say hi. But it was a muggy day and it was hard enough to just exist. 

I put on my dark Ray-Bans to avoid any more awkward encounters. Speaking of Ray-Bans, you should read the piece on the recent guerrilla action by the group Everyone Hates Elon. It’s a poster of Jeffrey Epstein wearing Meta’s camera glasses, captioned: “Glasses for people who don’t do consent.”

Driving across Brooklyn, blasting Pink Floyd, I hit the brakes when a flock of geese starts waddling across the bridge over Newtown Creek. They seem to enjoy the attention from charmed drivers filming on their phones. They don't know about the huge poultry slaughterhouse on the other side.  

Neighborhoods around me change from White to Hasidic to Black and Brown. Someone on the radio says the president has completely lost his mind. An expert explains that it takes 17 generations to overcome a major generational trauma. Sorry, mister, but I don’t think I can wait that long.

—Hakim Bishara, editor-in-chief

News

• The Joan Mitchell Foundation announces the recipients of its 2026 Fellowships, one of the most coveted prizes awarded to visual artists in the United States. 
• Russian missile attacks have damaged or destroyed over 4,500 cultural sites, according to a statement from Ukraine’s Ministry of Culture.
• A new mock ad by the activism group Everyone Hates Elon depicts the Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses on a photo of Jeffrey Epstein, overlaid with the statement, “Glasses for people who don’t do consent.”
• A Picasso that vanished from the University of Pittsburgh in 1961 has resurfaced — and the Guggenheim is headed to court to get it back.
• Elvira Dyangani Ose will succeed Koyo Kouoh as the artistic director of Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in Cape Town, South Africa.
• The National Gallery of Art is studying the possible impact of racecar vibrations on artwork ahead of Trump’s “Freedom 250 Grand Prix.”
• A 2,300-year-old papyrus fragment containing parts of Homer’s Odyssey is now on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
• A 17th-century still life that had gathered dust for decades in storage at the National Museum of Norway is set to resurface in a forthcoming exhibition, where it will be publicly attributed to the Flemish painter Clara Peeters for the first time.
• While exploring the warm waters of the Sicilian coast last week, two Italian divers discovered hundreds of clay vessels piled atop an approximately 2,000-year-old Roman shipwreck.
• The San Diego Museum of Art lays off 11 employees, citing “rising operational costs” and funding uncertainties.
• “The Bowery: Devil’s Mile,” opening September 24 at the New Museum, traces 400 years of the iconic strip known as a destination for fun, however raucous or refined.

From Our Critics

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Community

• In Memoriam: This week, we honor Christian Bernard, the founding museum director; Albert “Al” Gury, an artist who shaped PAFA; Hermione Carline, a painter of transience, and others.
• A View From the Easel: Lilit Martirosyan summons the memories embedded in wool and soil while the sounds of opera arias fill her studio.
• Required Reading: Nancy Spero’s pro-choice art, Valentina Di Liscia on “Casa Cueva,” Brooklyn’s smallest museum, Jamaica Kincaid’s eyebrows, Israeli cuisine and Palestinian erasure, and more.

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