Embracing Friction in the Art World

A little Brooklyn exhibition space rejects optimization culture, the Pentagon bans press photographers, and guess who's headed to Perrotin?

On Franklin Street in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint neighborhood, one non-commercial gallery fosters “a small, stubbornly human space for friction,” writes Associate Editor Lisa Yin Zhang. Friction — the ubiquitous buzzword that captures the simultaneous delight and discomfort of doing things the slow way — is at the heart of artists Pap Souleye Fall and Char Jeré’s current show at Subtitled NYC. It also reflects the overall spirit of this little exhibition space and of a burgeoning movement to reject our culture of optimization in favor of a bumpier, more intimate, less alienating experience.

In the news, pride will not be the capital sin that sends Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to hell, but it's the vice we take the most pleasure in ridiculing him for. The former Fox News host has reportedly banned press photographers from the Pentagon over what he perceived as “unflattering” images of him taken during briefings of the US-Israel war on Iran. Writer Sarah Rose Sharp has a few choice words for the “secretary of war” below. News flash, Pete: Evil people are just ugly.

—Valentina Di Liscia, senior editor


Installation view of work by Pap Souleye Fall at Subtitled NYC (photo by Lisa Yin Zhang/Hyperallergic)

The non-commercial Greenpoint-based space Subtitled NYC models the tentative ways we make do in everyday life. | Lisa Yin Zhang


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Anki King: Then and Now on View at The Lace Mill in Kingston, New York

This exhibition by Norwegian artist Anki King features over a decade of drawings and paintings and a substantial presentation of her ceramic sculptures. The collection forms an immersive and psychologically resonant exploration of the human condition. Then and Now is supported by the Norwegian Consulate General and is on view through March 29.

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News

Musician, producer. and activist Brian Eno at the 32nd National March for Palestine in London on October 11, 2025 (photo Mark Kerrison/In Pictures via Getty Images)

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The Museum at FIT Presents “Art X Fashion”

This exhibition explores the entangled and shifting relationship between fine art and fashion, tracing parallel aesthetics from 18th-century Rococo to postmodernism.

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Community

Alma Allen (photo by Ana Hop, courtesy American Arts Conservancy)

Alma Allen gets mega-gallery representation, Marina Abramović forays into balloon art, and more industry news.

Required Reading

This week: women’s strike in Argentina, graffiti dialogues in Brooklyn, UK museums hold human remains from former colonies, mini Tudor paintings, mapping The Met, and more links from around the web.

A View From the Easel

This week, Zoë Elena Moldenhauer invents their own alphabet while LUSMERLIN investigates the collapse of the universe.

Want to take part? Check out our submission guidelines.


Member Comment

Antonio C. Cuyler on Nasser Mohamed's "Don’t Believe What Art Basel Qatar Is Trying to Sell You":

Thank you for sharing what happens when cultural policy, cultural diplomacy, cultural tourism, and marginalized identities collide in an oppressive regime. As a non-citizen bystander witnessing the injustice it can be difficult to know what role one can and should play in these situations. I appreciate the invitation to consider.

From the Archive

You Can’t Finish This Brian Eno Doc in a Single Lifetime
Still from Eno (2024), directed by Gary Hustwit

You Can’t Finish This Brian Eno Doc in a Single Lifetime

An algorithm organizes a unique ordering of scenes for each screening, meaning there are millions of versions of the film. | Dan Schindel