For Black people, watching the Nottoway plantation go up in flames felt like witnessing a lie collapse under the weight of truth.
Opinion
Posted inOpinion
The Fabricated Crisis of Art Criticism
The genre is more alive than ever, so why are many eager to pronounce it dead?
Posted inOpinion
Manufacturing “Black Fatigue” in the Art World
Behind the declining demand for Black portraiture, and the backlash against Thomas J Price’s Times Square sculpture, lurks a strategic campaign of erasure.
Posted inOpinion
Who’s Afraid of Successful Black Artists?
This spring, New York’s museums feature four Black artists in major solo exhibitions. Some in the media are not happy about it.
Posted inOpinion
The “Pope Trump” Meme Is More Dangerous Than You Think
With humor and AI, the meme appeals to the growing constituency of devout MAGA Catholics.
Posted inOpinion
A Sobering Photograph Captures Detained Migrants’ Cry for Help
The aerial image of 34 men spelling out a distress signal from a Texas detention center stands in defiance of a government that wants to crowd our field of vision.
Posted inOpinion
The Case for a Faculty Union at the School of Visual Arts
The overwhelming majority of the Manhattan school’s faculty members are unprotected adjuncts.
Posted inOpinion
Dalit History Month Is Not a Token
Especially for artists, this month is a tactical intervention. A crack in the Brahminical fabric of Indian memory. It’s not a request for inclusion; it’s a declaration of rupture.
Posted inOpinion
Pope Francis’s Aesthetics of Humility
He chose a simple white cassock over velvet robes, disseminated photos of him kneeling before inmates and refugees, and believed in art as an intrinsic human right.
Posted inOpinion
The Neoliberal Roots of Trump’s Anti-DEI Crusade
The conservative quest for art that reflects “traditional American values” dates back to the early 1980s.
Posted inOpinion
JD Vance Memes Bloat the Internet but Miss the Point
If we’re serious about the “resistance,” we’re gonna have to do a little better than early 2000s-caliber fat-shaming.
Posted inOpinion
The Ecological Turn in Art Is Here to Stay
In 2018, art institutions began exhibiting shows on ecology and climate change. As with every turn, it risked being taken as just another intellectual trend.