Matzah Is the Medium
Remembering Melvin Edwards, art shows to see in LA and New York, and lessons from Houston’s Project Row Houses.
Happy Passover! As matzah appears on Seder tables across the world this week, artist Emily Drew Miller approaches the flatbread as a printmaking tool. Her collagraph series tenderly explores Jewish heritage and political consciousness in all its fractures and layers. Staff Reporter Isa Farfan has the story.
Today, we also remember the unflinching life and work of sculptor Melvin Edwards, who died on Monday at 88 years old and leaves behind a singular political vocabulary in steel.
Don’t forget to check out our Los Angeles and New York guides to help plan your April in art, plus Senior Editor Valentina Di Liscia’s weekly dispatch on news in the art world this week — including improbable artworks made from beloved, gelatinous PEEPS, just in time for Easter.
—Lakshmi Rivera Amin, associate editor
An Artist Embraces the Metaphorical Cracks of Matzah
“ The fractures in these images reflect how disconnected a lot of Jewish people feel from each other right now,” Emily Drew Miller told Hyperallergic. | Isa Farfan
Summer Marathons in Painting and Drawing at the New York Studio School
Join an immersive, two-week session and transform your studio practice. Online or in-person.
In Memoriam
Melvin Edwards, Who Sculpted a New Vocabulary for Political Art, Dies at 88
His innovative abstractions evoked both the art historical canon and the haunting afterlives of Atlantic slavery. | Cat Dawson
Art Guides
15 Shows to See in New York City This April
Margaret Curtis’s deconstruction of American myth, quotidian objects by Marsden Hartley, and Wendy Red Star’s bead-inspired installation are among our picks. | Hrag Vartanian, Hakim Bishara, Seph Rodney, and Valentina Di Liscia
10 Art Shows to See in Los Angeles This April
David Alekhuogie’s defiant collage, Hannah Tishkoff’s visual poetry, an iconic Angeleno printmaking studio, portraits of Palestinian journalists, and more. | Matt Stromberg
Books
Nine Lessons on My Path From Engagement to Leadership
My career has been defined by a steady effort to collapse silos: between curatorial and educational work, between institutions and communities, between what museums have been and what they might yet become. | Ryan N. Dennis
Vilcek Foundation to Award $200,000 in Grants to Nonprofits Uplifting Immigrant Contributions
The foundation invites grant applications from mission-aligned nonprofit organizations in the arts and sciences by April 30, 2026.
Community
Art Movements: Frieze Partners With ... the Whitney?
Also, the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts director retires, the Speed Museum’s newest residents, and “peep” this art!
Required Reading
This week: Calida Rawles paints Blackness and water, the artists who shaped Fire Island, translating literature during the Tehran blackout, why weather apps suck, and more from around the internet.
Member Comment
Jozanne Rabyor on Lakshmi Rivera Amin's "A View From the Easel":
I also hope Lex Marie gets their degree and more space to work. Personally, I'll treasure their observation that "the ideas themselves do not have to shrink just because the space is smaller." Brilliant, and methinks it applies to making art and so much more!
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Opportunities This Month
Residencies, fellowships, grants, and open calls from Banff Centre, the Vilcek Foundation, and more in our April 2026 list of opportunities for artists, writers, and art workers.
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