It Doesn’t Get Better Than This
John Galliano pulls out of a show at The Met, the eternal bond between Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock, and Alex Katz keeps it moving at 99.
Scrolling on Instagram, I stumble upon a clip of a 25-year-old guy from Chicago walking by the water after finishing work at his finance job. He tells us that he’s on his way to his downtown apartment, where his girlfriend and his new puppy are waiting for him, and that later he plans to go get beers and watch college football with his friends. “And I gotta say, I don't think life gets much better than this,” he concludes, brimming with positivity. “It's mid 70s, the sun is out … Is this peak? I think I'm peaking right now.”
What a lovely reminder to be grateful for life’s little things, I thought to myself. Inspired, I share the video with my wife, because I want her to peak, too. She replies, “LOL, is this real?”
The biggest art story of the week is about John Galliano, a fashion designer who was convicted of antisemitic and anti-Asian hate speech in France in 2011, and has once confessed his love for Hitler. This week, he pulled out of an exhibition at The Met’s Costume Institute after public and donor outcry. Until three weeks ago, I had no idea who Galliano was. I guess I’m not a big Vogue reader. If I had a time machine, I’d zap myself back to the day before I found out.
But you take the good with the bad. Next month, I’ll be rounding out my first year as editor-in-chief. I think you'll enjoy what we have planned for this fall. I’m blessed with an excellent team.
Meanwhile, tensions between a hostile barista and me reach a boiling point when a glass bottle falls on the floor and shatters. She’s been giving me the stink eye for weeks while a poster behind her declares, “ICE Is Not Welcome Here.”
Out on the street, I find myself feeling jealous of a concrete mixer truck. It's constantly processing what’s inside, never letting any of it harden. I watch an interview with 99-year-old American painter Alex Katz. “Get outside yourself and move,” he tells the reporter.
On my way home from work, I get hit with a sudden urge to make a detour onto Orient Avenue. A large park reveals itself and I go in for a stroll. I see people jogging or walking their dogs. Others are playing tennis, basketball, or squash. Skaters swing up and down in the air. One guy on a bench is halfway through Anna Karenina; two others are typing on their laptops, but by the looks of them, they must be completing manuscripts. The voices of merry children in the playground rise up to the sky. It's upper 70s; the sun is still out; and I gotta say, I don't think life gets much better than this.
—Hakim Bishara, editor-in-chief
What I Got Wrong About Krasner and Pollock
Earlier this year, the Metropolitan Museum of Art announced its forthcoming exhibition Krasner and Pollock: Past Continuous on Instagram, alongside a photograph of the artists by Hans Namuth. Seething, I looked to the comments for affirmation. I didn’t have to scroll for long. “Give her a solo show!”
Months earlier, I had visited the Pollock-Krasner House in Springs, East Hampton, knowing far more about Jackson Pollock than I did Lee Krasner. I am a painter myself, and I had come to Springs in the wreck of yet another failed relationship … with a painter. I thought I already knew Krasner’s story. I thought her story was partly my own. | Lia Strasser
Read MoreNews
- The British fashion designer John Galliano withdraws his upcoming exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, set to run concurrently with the 2027 Met Gala, after intense criticism of his past racist behavior.
- The National Park Service deinstalls an iconic 24-foot-tall sculpture by late artist Joel Shapiro from the grounds of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
- The British Museum hosts Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel for a VIP viewing of the Bayeux tapestry, drawing concerns among staff.
- Following this week’s news of Yayoi Kusama’s passing, artists, galleries, museums, and fashion houses around the world take to social media to reflect on the seismic loss.
- Thieves make off with a platinum and diamond necklace from the Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna.
- Demolitions at the Rike Park Music Theatre and Exhibition Hall in Tbilisi, Georgia prompt outcry from local community members and the architects.
- A new exhibition in NYC celebrates Snoopy’s enduring influence on art and fashion.
- Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich demands that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu order the dismantling of 40 Palestinian memorials in the Occupied West Bank.
- Art Movements: Mildred Howard wins the Artists’ Legacy Foundation Award, artists receive funding from the Anonymous Was A Woman Environmental Art Grants, Art Gallery of Ontario director steps down, Alex Katz on PBS, and more.
From Our Critics
The Belgian Exhibition That Strives to “Decenter” the West
With two contradictory briefs — to both decenter Europe and show Bruges’s centrality in international networks — an exhibition on the Belgian city is already off to a bumpy start. | Natasha Seaman
Read MoreJennifer Higgie’s Empathetic Elegy for Richard Dadd
In “Bedlam,” the author and art critic does not describe the English painter’s often-sensationalized mental deterioration. Instead, she writes the novel in his voice. | Claudia Ross
Read More“Marina” Dares You to Laugh at Technology
Julio Torres and Martine Gutierrez’s new performance is a grotesque parade of visual delights that defangs our toxic relationship to our screens. | Valentina Di Liscia
Read MoreIn “Whistler,” Ann Patchett Tackles Loss and Art
The beloved author’s new novel tells a story of familial loss and reconnection, beginning with a chance encounter at The Met. But why does it seem to imply that grief and art are at odds? | Lavinia Liang
Read MoreFeatures
Catherine Murphy Has Her Cake and Eats It Too
The painter reconciles modernist conventions like the grid with one-point perspective, creating something fresh and entirely her own. | John Yau
Read MoreThe Missing Colors of Black American Pigment-Making
George Washington Carver is remembered as an innovative agricultural scientist, but his overlooked artistic work places him in a lineage of Black American natural dyeing traditions. | Teju Adisa Farrar
Read MoreThe Artists Paddling 350 Miles Up the Erie Canal
As part of “Mule’s Passage,” artists Z Behl and Kim Moloney are paddling six hours a day and camping for five weeks. | Taliesin Thomas
Read MoreInside the 3,000-Zine Library in a Texas Living Room
Michelle Millette’s Sherwood Forest Zine Library in Austin is part of a growing culture and community surrounding the self-published, easy-to-distribute booklets. | Shahrzad Rasekh
Read MoreHow Fannuh Baskets Connect Liberia to the US Lowcountry
Gullah Geechee basket-weaving is rooted in an oral tradition carried by enslaved people from Liberia’s Windward Coast. | Bilphena Decontee Yahwon
Read MoreGuides
10 Art Shows to See in Upstate New York This September
Legendary gallerist Betty Parsons, the book art stylings of R. B. Kitaj, a celebration of Milton Avery’s family, and more. | Taliesin Thomas
Read More15 Art Shows to See in Los Angeles This Fall
Carmen Lomas Garza’s tender scenes of Chicanx community, Huguette Caland’s life in lines, Indigenous artists on fire and stewardship, photography of trans mutual aid, and more. | Matt Stromberg
Read MoreCommunity
- A View From the Easel: printmaker and self-proclaimed “mountain ultrarunner” Hilary Lorenz transforms paper into boats, books, and weavings in the studio she built herself.
- In Memoriam: we honor Geles Cabrera, a sculptor who explored the body; Helch, a street artist who upset Queen Elizabeth; Jay Maisel, a commercial photographer who shaped the medium, and others.
Opportunities This Month
Residencies, fellowships, grants, and open calls from the Gulf Coast Journal, the Harry Ransom Center, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Vermont Studio Center, and more in our monthly list of opportunities for artists, writers, and art workers.
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