Weekly Newsletter

Trump's Clash of Civilizations

Dalí’s “Nuclear Mysticism,” Jasper Johns's objects of love, a new Guggenheim director, and free art supplies for all.

Hyperallergic

April 11, 2026 — 5 min read

Just a few days ago, the president of the United States threatened to annihilate Iran's "whole civilization." He was bluffing, of course, but some bluffs can leave lasting damage. When the cannons finally go silent, Americans may need to ask themselves: Which civilization should be more worried about its future?

In this edition, Ed Simon contemplates Salvador Dalí’s “Nuclear Mysticism,” John Yau reflects on Jasper Johns's decades-long career, Aruna D’Souza writes a fiery rebuttal to an essay by artist Josh Kline that made some noise in the local New York scene, Staff Reporter Rhea Nayyar interviews the duo behind Hilma’s Ghost, and Materials for the Arts Executive Director Tara Sansone imagines a world of free art supplies for all artists and art educators.

There's more, including a studio visit with Tom Burckhardt in Beer With a Painter, and an Appalachian artist's damning critique of a show at the Queens Museum about the landscapes of her childhood.

Finally, join us this Wednesday (3-4pm ET) for a virtual conversation between photographer Tonika Lewis Johnson and Senior Editor Valentina Di Liscia. Johnson's work on racial segregation in Chicago's South Side won her the 2025 MacArthur “Genius Grant.” In the meantime, have a great weekend.

—Hakim Bishara, editor-in-chief

Salvador Dalí with his work “Christ of St. John of the Cross” (1951) at the Lefevre gallery in London (photo AFP via Getty Images)

Salvador Dalí’s Frustrating Vision of the Divine

Having abandoned the profane for only the sacred, Dalí’s “Nuclear Mysticism” renounced the richness of experience for the aridity of metaphysics. | Ed Simon

Paul Klee: Other Possible Worlds

The first US museum exhibition to focus on the artist’s late work, produced in response to the fascism of the 1930s. On view at the Jewish Museum through July 26, 2026.

Learn more

News

Wifredo Lam, “Portrait of a Boy” (1927) (image courtesy the Hispanic Society Museum and Library)

A rarely seen portrait from Wifredo Lam’s early career has landed in the Hispanic Society Museum and Library’s collection.
The US president’s threats to destroy the Iranian regime have escalated to include the entire population and the millennia of history and culture preceding it.
San Francisco is welcoming a new permanent exhibition space for late modernist sculptor Ruth Asawa this May.
After 12 years at the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum, Melissa Chiu will be joining the Guggenheim Museum as its new director this September.
New research published in American Antiquity posits that the first dice appeared more than 12,000 years ago, much earlier than previously believed.
Catch Albrecht Dürer’s “Triumphal Arch,” one of the largest prints ever produced, at the New York Public Library before it goes into storage this fall.

From Our Critics

Jasper Johns in his studio (c. 1976–80) (© 1991 Hans Namuth Estate; photo Hans Namuth, courtesy Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona)

Jasper Johns Keeps Looking

He has never lost his love for art and artists, while recognizing that nothing stays in time. | John Yau

It’s Gabriele Münter’s World, We’re Just Living in It

It is her home, her landscape, her family and friends, portrayed in these images that feel miles away from her contemporaries’ modernist abstraction. | Natalie Haddad

Theresa Hak Kyung Cha Made Human Again

Learning about Cha was like a secret revelation handed down among Asian American artists and poets. This show helped me appreciate her more clearly. | Alex Paik

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.

Learn more

Opinion

Faith Ringgold, “Tar Beach II” (1990), silk screen on silk with pieced fabric (photo Jasmine Weber/*Hyperallergic*)

Unlike Josh Kline, I Choose New York

His new article taps into deep frustrations about affordability, but I throw my lot in with those making change, rather than moving out. | Aruna D’Souza

What If Every City Provided Artists With Free Supplies?

Materials for the Arts offers free tools for teachers and artists in New York, but what if more cities funded programs like ours? | Tara Sansone

How to Extract the Story of Appalachia

Fia Backström’s Queens Museum exhibition replaces beauty and complexity with a visual and narrative language that reduces the region to a site of suffering. | Paige Phillips

Features

Hilma’s Ghost (left: Dannielle Tegeder, right: Sharmistha Ray) in front of their painting “Cosmic Altar” (2024) (photo by Max Yawney, courtesy Hilma’s Ghost)

Elucidating the Esoteric with Hilma’s Ghost

Through research and collaboration, a feminist art collective reclaims the place of alternative spiritualities in art history. | Rhea Nayyar

The Museum Breathing Life Into New York’s Downtown Performance Scene

The Leslie-Lohman is figuring out how to collect art while connecting with the basic needs of the city’s queer community. | Tavia Nyong’o

Saad Khan Archives the Detritus of Censored Culture

Since 2019, the New York-based archivist has cultivated a digital and physical menagerie of censored mass media spanning South Asia to the Maghreb known as Khajistan. | Naib Mian