Remembering Sliman Mansour
The influential Palestinian painter dies at 79, the National Museum of the American Latino is still looking for a home, and the new horse mural that’ll put a smile on your face.
Sliman Mansour, a major figure in Palestinian art, died yesterday at age 79. Drawing from the bleeding wound of the Nakba and the fight for liberation, his work is a defiant response to those who wish Palestine was just a distant memory. Mansour painted the pride and dignity of his people. There is no anger in his canvases. No call for revenge. Just a people who deserve to live on their land. I know for a fact that he wished none of these paintings had to be made in the first place.
—Hakim Bishara, editor-in-chief
How AIDS Activists Turned Graphic Design Into a Weapon
In the mid-1980s, as the AIDS crisis simmered hotter and hotter in the apartments and bathhouses of New York, a band of frightened, fed-up young men took to copy shops around town. They were watching friends, partners, and lovers waste away with a mysterious virus, blamefully dubbed the “Gay Plague” by some. These kids knew what they were doing when they took jobs at Kinko’s. Clandestinely running the printers after hours — a so-far-indifferent corporate America owed the public more than the cost of a couple print-outs, they reasoned — they produced graphically stark, zanily colored flyers, posters, and stickers. In other words, a PR toolkit. Then, they wheat-pasted New York with abandon, demanding action. | Amy Levine-Kennedy
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Meet with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago at Admissions Events Across the US and Online
Learn more about the graduate degrees offered at SAIC and get all of your questions answered.
News
- Sliman Mansour, a renowned Palestinian painter who chronicled over six decades of his country’s fight for liberation, dies at age 79.
- Amid Trump's threats to defund the National Museum of the American Latino, the Smithsonian board will reportedly vote on housing the fledgling institution in the recently reopened Arts & Industries Building — a move that would allow it to bypass Congressional approval.
- Mayor Zohran Mamdani announces more than $8.4 million in grants toward nonprofit and small business initiatives, including public art commissions and arts programming.
- The Detroit Institute of the Arts unveils a new public mural featuring a horse named Champagne.
From Our Critics
Maria Martins Was More Than Just Duchamp’s Lover
A new book by leading Duchamp scholar Francis M. Naumann chronicles the artist’s affair with the Brazilian sculptor, but frequently reduces her influence and career to sexual allure. | Lauren Moya Ford
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Grounded in Grain, Washed in the Water
Black Southern traditions are not relics to be preserved behind glass, but dynamic systems of knowledge that continue to evolve.
From the Archive
The Story of Surrealism Isn’t Whole Without Gala Dalí
In Surreal, Michèle Gerber Klein asks us to confront the unjust eclipse of Gala’s legacy by that of her husband, Salvador, whose career she brought to fruition.
Read MoreGulf Coast Journal — Toni Beauchamp Prize in Critical Art Writing
Gulf Coast invites entries for the 2026 Toni Beauchamp Prize in Critical Art Writing. Win $3,000 for first place or $1,000 as a runner-up. This year’s judge is critic Andrew Berardini.
Deadline: August 31, 2026 | gulfcoastmag.org
See more in this month’s list of opportunities for artists, writers, and art workers!
