Subterms
In Kara Walker’s new show at Sikkema Jenkins & Co., there’s a drawing of former President Barack Obama as Othello, the titular Moorish general of Shakespeare’s 16th-century tragedy, holding the head of his enemy, Iago—who looks a lot like Donald Trump. It’s one of several recent drawings by the artist depicting Obama in allegorical scenes […] More
Anicka Yi has created giant kelp pods filled with animatronic insects, injected live snails with oxytocin, and developed soil whose environment is governed by A.I. Later this year, her unique brand of oddball technology-infused art will receive its largest stage yet. The Korean-American artist has been chosen to create the next Turbine Hall commission at […] More
Consider two paintings. One is (1933), by the early 20th century spiritual-abstractionist painter Agnes Pelton. She is the star of a show that has just arrived at the Whitney Museum, part of a wave of recent interest in experimental art by previously unsung or undersung female artists working in esoteric or occult traditions, a vogue that is […] More
In the winter of 2017, an exhibition of contemporary Iranian art opened at the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto, drawing special attention because it coincided with President Trump’s then-recent travel ban targeting Muslim-majority countries. The show would travel to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston that same year, playing an important role as cultural ambassador during a […] More
The photographer An-My Lê was born in 1960 in Saigon during the height of the Vietnam War. She knew nothing else growing up. “War was a part of life for us…it’s something we take in stride,” she told Art21 in an exclusive interview back in 2007. She and her parents fled Vietnam, eventually landing in the […] More
What does Anish Kapoor have to show for his controversial monopoly on Vantablack, the self-proclaimed “blackest material in the universe”? The world will find out during next year’s Venice Biennale, when Kapoor unveils a series of works made with the technologically-advanced substance at the Galléria dell’Accademia. When London aerospace company Surrey NanoSystems announced that they had invented a “super […] More
“The male body is under the spotlight,” says Alona Pardo, a curator at the Barbican Art Gallery in London who has organized a hit show on masculinity in its many guises and meanings. The exhibition has struck a nerve in the wake of the #MeToo movement. The spectacular downfall of toxic alpha-male film producer Harvey Weinstein, […] More
New York’s latest pop up museum isn’t about ice cream, pizza, or rosé. It’s called Sex Workers’ Pop-Up, and it’s promoting the global campaign to support sex workers’ rights, featuring more than 50 works by 22 artists—17 of whom have backgrounds in sex work. “Sex work is really misunderstood, misrepresented, and stigmatized, so it was important […] More
