Seventy-two hours! That’s all the time left until Election Day in the United States. Understandably, millions are feeling nervous. This week, six artist-activists share their dilemmas and concerns about this unusual election. It’s a good read. For much-needed distraction, we tried to make the best of Halloween this week. We've got stories on a new paranormal and spirituality museum in Wales, and a gripping explainer by scholar Ed Simon on memento moris. But who needs Halloween when Maurizio Cattelan’s duct-taped banana is about to be auctioned for $1 million at Sotheby’s? Read excellent reviews of Hew Locke, Phyllida Barlow, a show of Ukrainian women artists, a catalog of John Craxton’s cat paintings, and much more. Good luck out there! — Hakim Bishara, Senior Editor | |
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| | | Memento moris remind us that death is inevitable, nothing afterward is assured, and what we do in that crack of light between oblivions is our responsibility. | Ed Simon |
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SPONSORED | | | | With over 50 speakers and 15 sessions, Artlogic’s free online conference connects those who create, sell, and buy art so they can learn and grow together. Learn more |
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WHAT'S HAPPENING | | | Six artists open up about voting in the US election as immigrants’ rights, reproductive freedoms, and funding for the Israeli military are among this year’s top issues. A neo-Nazi tiki torch “monument” mysteriously emerged at Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC, just days after a sculpture of a turd on Nancy Pelosi’s desk appeared in the National Mall. London’s Vagina Museum renamed three of their galleries to honor Anarcha, Betsey, and Lucy, three Black enslaved women subjected to experimental surgeries by disgraced physician J. Marion Sims. After a four-year renovation, New York’s Frick Collection, which houses 1,800 European artworks, will welcome visitors again this spring. Maurizio Cattelan’s infamous banana artwork is estimated to sell for upwards of $1 million at auction. The Rowtons’ Museum in Wales, a new paranormal museum founded by Laura and Erik Rowton of the Paranormal Scholar YouTube channel, opened on Halloween.
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IN & OUTSIDE NYC | | | | Hyperrealism and small-scale painting dominate at the Art Dealers Association of America’s annual fair. | Rhea Nayyar
Matthew Lusk’s suspended sculptural odyssey, the fetish-meets-fun of a doll exhibition, the macabre oddities of ORT Projects, and so much more. | Taliesin Thomas
The Manhattan gallery’s move may be Tribeca’s most anticipated opening of the year and could mark an inflection point for the neighborhood. | Aaron Short |
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SPONSORED | | | | The New York-based, globally linked graduate program for curators at the School of Visual Arts is accepting applications for Fall 2025. Learn more |
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FROM OUR CRITICS | | | | The late British artist certainly had no sympathy for the idea — or perhaps the misplaced ideal — of the perfectly crafted sculptural object. | Michael Glover
The volume of problematic artifacts Locke uncovered in the British Museum’s archives illustrates the fundamental importance of objective historical research. | Olivia McEwan
In Women at War, art is a counterattack, a means by which a victimized populace fights back. | Lori Waxman |
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| | | | Nordic Utopia? African Americans in the 20th Century zeroes in on a far less charted corner of Black history than that of expats to Paris: the artists who ventured north. | Debra Brehmer
Sammy Baloji demonstrates how the architectural movement — and implicitly, Belgium as a country and culture — was underpinned by the colonization of the Congo. | Anna Souter
Legacies examines the varied strategies Asian-American artists used to navigate New York from 1969 through 2001, offering lessons for the future. | Alex Paik |
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MORE ON HYPERALLERGIC | | | | Female subjectivity in the work of Leonor Fini and Leonora Carrington, Christopher Suarez’s odes to the parking lot, Yolanda López’s heroic portraits, and more. | Matt Stromberg
John Craxton would see the animal mid-action and think, that’s another picture. On the occasion of National Cat Day, here are some of his most fantastic felines. | David Carrier
Identifying “dark forests” as digital havens from mainstream gamification, a new book plumbs the depths of the Internet and what it means for creatives today. | Sarah Hromack
Mati Diop’s Dahomey centers on the repatriation of 26 stolen Beninese objects and how it could shape the African country’s future. | Rhea Nayyar
This week, self-clicking computers, Saif Azzuz’s hymn to Indigenous plants, RIP Bed-Stuy Aquarium fishies, ugly Renaissance babies, Diwali-ween, and more. | Lakshmi Rivera Amin |
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FROM THE ARCHIVE | | | | Engravings by Francisco Agüera Bustamante in The Astounding Life of Death show the bony figure in a variety of roles, from a baby to a king. | Claire Voon |
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