This week, pop singer Lorde both shocked and captivated commentators and fans with a photograph of her vulva, seen through clear, unzipped plastic pants, inside her new record, Virgin. The photo was taken by artist Talia Chetrit, whose own self-portraits bear some resemblance to Lorde’s record insert. While it may have caused a little hysteria, it’s being lauded by many as an expression of feminist empowerment. Lorde wasn’t the only woman making a strong statement. On June 28, the 33rd annual New York City Dyke March brought hundreds of demonstrators into the streets to protest fascism — accompanied by a 20-foot papier-mâché dinosaur called Sapphasaura. If you ask me, we need more Sapphasauras out there, stomping out fascism and listening to Lorde. In the United States, the holiday weekend means there’s time to go to the beach and to see art. In New York, Hyperallergic’s Associate Editor Lisa Yin Zhang took a look at the magic in the everyday in her review of work by Renée Stout, while I considered the spiritual modernism of Mestre Didi, and critic AX Mina explored the theme of transformation in the art of Young Joon Kwak. Meanwhile, Ela Bittencourt’s review of a Shu Lea Cheang survey in Munich is a reminder of the artist’s prescience and importance. If you’re on the West Coast, make sure to check out our list of Los Angeles shows to see in July, and wherever you are, you can turn to our July list of art books for your summer reading. — Natalie Haddad, Reviews Editor | |
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| Institutions across the United States are collecting birthday wishes for the nation’s 250th anniversary. They paint a picture of a divided but desperately hopeful country. | Valentina Di Liscia
The Muppets have always encouraged us to express our feelings, right? Well, this song expresses our feelings about the terrible things happening right now. | Coco Fusco |
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PRIDE IN NYC | | You can usually find me underground for my Subway Hands project. I ascended to document the NYC Pride and Queer Liberation marches — a study in contrasts. | Hannah La Follette Ryan
In an organized response to ongoing violence, the 33rd annual event adopted an explicitly anti-war, anti-Trump, and anti-Zionist tone. | Isa Farfan
The green spaces that served as a refuge for historically oppressed LGBTQ+ groups are at the center of contemporary campaigns to memorialize the movement. | Maya Pontone
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FROM OUR CRITICS | | A fundamental part of Overstreet’s mission was to break free of the flat, rectangular picture plane and the Eurocentric view of painting that dominated American art. | Lauren Moya Ford
The Brazilian artist and Candomblé priest established an international art practice that foregrounded diasporic African perspectives. | Natalie Haddad
Michelle Im’s disconcerting ceramic figures subvert ornamentalized representations of East Asian femininity. | Li-Ming Hu |
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| | Nora Naranjo Morse’s colorful sculptures watch over the events and characters in her daughter Eliza’s paintings from their own unique perspectives. | Nancy Zastudil
Cheang is concerned with the ways technology enables commodification and control, from communication to nourishment to sex. | Ela Bittencourt
The magic of Stout’s artworks does not feel contingent on a viewer’s comprehension — it feels auratic, as if emitting an electrical current of meaning. | Lisa Yin Zhang |
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MORE ON HYPERALLERGIC | | I know what lasting trauma these violations cause as someone whose parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents were unjustly incarcerated by the US government during World War II. | Sharon Mizota
Freshly installed at the new LACMA building ahead of the museum’s spring reopening, the massive artwork resembling an abstract spider offers a link to the past. | Matt Stromberg
Mungo Thomson examines the mundane, Esiri Erheriene-Essi reflects on Black life, Llyn Foulkes satirizes Americana, and more. | Matt Stromberg
A new translation of a beloved Argentine comic, artists over 50 tell their stories, diasporic Puerto Rican art history, and more to enjoy by the seaside (or your A/C). | Lakshmi Rivera Amin, Valentina Di Liscia, Natalie Haddad, Nancy Zastudil, and Alicia Grullón
This week: Coney Island’s mermaid parade, medical museums rethink their collections, nthropologists and curvy statues, a baby yak named Burrito, and more. | Lakshmi Rivera Amin
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| Residencies, fellowships, grants, and open calls from the Erie Canal Museum, the Paul & Daisy Soros Foundation, and more in our monthly list of opportunities for artists, writers, and art workers.
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