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The Buffalo Haunts America

Hrag Vartanian on Cannupa Hanska Luger, Artavazd Pelechian’s cinema of connections, and a Ron DeSantis statue melts.

Hyperallergic

October 19, 2026 — 4 min read

In Cannupa Hanska Luger’s latest show at Garth Greenan Gallery, an abstracted bison crafted of ironstone clay and sumi ink sits on a burned and blackened 19th-century American dining table; elsewhere, a stack of the animal’s skulls rests on a surface with vintage axes for table legs. Haunting Luger’s monochromatic sculptures, which Hyperallergic’s Editor-at-Large Hrag Vartanian calls his “strongest work yet,” is the slaughter of the buffalo by European settlers under the violent banner of Westward expansion. “The beauty of the forms seduces you into almost forgetting that destruction, but that visual history is embedded into each element,” writes Vartanian in his review today.

Climate change? What climate change? In Florida, a life-sized statue of right-wing governor Ron DeSantis is melting. Ahead of elections for DeSantis’s successor in November, a climate action group installed the gallium sculpture in front of a crowd of DeSantis supporters in Tallahassee, sending a clear, if rapidly deteriorating, message. Its title? “DENIAL.”

Also, filmmaker and writer Imran Siddiquee on Sompot Chidgasornpongse’s debut feature 9 Temples to Heaven (2026), a contemplative and philosophical film that captures Buddhism’s tensions and contradictions.

—Valentina Di Liscia, senior editor

Cannupa Hanska Luger’s Truth About America

Two years ago, I encountered the infamous 1892 image of two men with a hill of buffalo skulls at the Baltimore Museum of Art. It was covered by a small wall-mounted curtain designed by Yurok artist Stormi Turner, and it gave the image, still shocking after over a century of circulation, the depth of tragedy that it warranted. Part of the Preoccupied: Indigenizing the Museum exhibition, it was a way of acknowledging the care that such a crime demands, in the same way that human remains are shown in museums today, often with warnings, behind doors you must open, or under covers that you must actively remove to see. Turner’s intervention was a way to honor an animal that many Native American groups and communities lived in symbiotic relationship with for millennia. That image came back to me when I walked into Cannupa Hanska Luger’s newest exhibition, American Traditional, at Garth Greenan Gallery in Soho, where the artist sets aside the participatory, ceramics-heavy projects he’s best known for and arrives at something more declarative — a synthesis of wood, ink, and archive that is his strongest work yet. | Hrag Vartanian

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News

A life-sized statue of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis melts soon after the climate advocacy group 350 Action installed it in front of a crowd of DeSantis supporters in Tallahassee.
Two enormous King Ramses II statues are discovered in the village of Behbeit Al-Hagar, a known archaeological site in the Nile Delta.

Cosmo Whyte Returns to the University of Michigan With a Powerful New Exhibition at Stamps Gallery

Stamps School of Art & Design alumnus explores memory, migration, and who shapes history in an exhibition spanning drawing, sculpture, and installation. On view through December 12, 2026.

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From Our Critics

Artavazd Pelechian’s Distant Connections

Through his “distance montage” technique, the Armenian filmmaker’s masterpieces are built around impressions, not stories. | Dan Schindel

Tanya Merrill’s Animal Instinct

After a move upstate and a newborn, Merrill’s new work responds to the world around her. | Gregory Volk

Faith and Its Contradictions in “9 Temples to Heaven”

Director Sompot Chidgasornpongse, who has a knack for patient observation, follows a single family on a quest to find a miracle. | Imran Siddiquee

A Hyperallergic Halloween

Join us on October 28 in Brooklyn, NY, for an evening of spooky cocktails, devilish delights, an art-themed costume contest, and more.

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