The Art World Is a Joke
April Fools’ round-ups, Aruna D’Souza on the abstract painter who’s everywhere this year, art books to read this spring, and more.
Happy April! Hope you got a kick out of our April Fools’ issue. If that wasn't enough for you, Staff Writer Rhea Nayyar rounded up the best jokes in the art world this year — check it out and let us know who you think did it best. (For the record, I still think it’s us.) And in other ways to celebrate this month, we’ve also put together a list of 10 recommended books coming out in April.
Kamrooz Aram is everywhere this year, from Mumbai Art Week to the Whitney Biennial, and critic Aruna D’Souza is grateful. She pens a beautiful meditation on his work, reading his abstract paintings as not simply a denunciation of Western modernism nor a reassertion of Islamic visual motifs, but something else entirely — something gestural, exuberant, riotous, and incomparably his own.
Also in this issue, Aaron Boehmer deconstructs the intimate gaze of Palestinian-American artist Dean Majd, who captures joys, griefs, and rites of passage.
—Lisa Yin Zhang, associate editor
Kamrooz Aram Breaks Down the Grid
Rather than deconstruct Western modernism or reinsert Islamic visual idioms, the artist loosens the grip of the grid. | Aruna D’Souza
Meet the First Cohort of Haystack’s Artist Grant Initiative
Eight artists pushing boundaries in design and materials find support through mentorship and an unrestricted grant award.
News
- In addition to our own fresh and feral stock of jokes, we wanted to show some love to a few other examples of April Fools shenanigans across the arts and humanities.
- A new bipartisan bill introduced in Colorado could help enshrine intellectual property rights and expand healthcare access for cultural workers.
Tonika Lewis Johnson: Segregation and How to Disrupt It
Join us on April 15 for a conversation with social justice artist and recent MacArthur “Genius Grant” winner Tonika Lewis Johnson and Hyperallergic Senior Editor Valentina Di Liscia.
From Our Critics
A Palestinian-American Photographer’s Intimate Gaze
Dean Majd captured images of his inner circle for a decade, deconstructing performances of masculinity in the process. | Aaron Boehmer
What We’re Reading
10 Art Books for Your Spring Reading List
Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s first catalog in 25 years, Molly Crabapple chronicles the Jewish Bund, a photographer captures a Black Southern waterway, and more. | Lisa Yin Zhang, Lakshmi Rivera Amin, Hakim Bishara, Hrag Vartanian, Sophia Stewart, Nageen Shaikh
In Memoriam
Remembering Glen Baxter, Pat Steir, Melvin Edwards
This week, we honor an absurdist cartoonist, a trailblazing feminist artist, and a sculptor who probed the history of violence in the US.
Member Comment
Lowery Sims on Isa Farfan’s “Curator’s Shoes Steal the Show at MoMA Reception”:
From the Archive
Archaeologists Discover World’s Oldest Break-Up Letter at Neo-Babylonian Site
A tablet discovered this year, suggests that Neo-Babylonians may have been the first to start writing break up letters. | Hrag Vartanian
