Hyperallergic

Required Reading This week: a new museum of Chumash history and culture, Sally Ride gets the doc she deserves, the future of fireflies, the beauty of “ugly” Instagram cakes, and much more.

Leonora Carrington’s newly reissued novel “The Stone Door,” the Santa Ynez Chumash Museum and Cultural Center is making waves, why you should cancel your New York Times subscription, and more in this week’s Required Reading.

Ruth Asawa Proved That Mothering Is Inherently Artistic Jordan Troeller’s book about the Bay Area sculptor and her artist-mother community shows us how reciprocity and caretaking become the work itself, not just the subject or the conditions.

Ruth Asawa, Merry Renk, Beth Van Hoesen, Sally Byrne Woodbridge, and Imogen Cunningham: In spite of ideas of the modern male genius alone in his studio, these women modernists “made motherhood into a medium.”

20 Must-See Art Shows in New York City This Summer Our list of long-running museum and noncommercial exhibitions includes John Singer Sargent, Jane Austen, Lorna Simpson, and so many more.

Summer in New York City is an Italian ice from a cart, lounging in the park with a book and a tallboy, taking the scenic route because you’ve got nowhere to be and, damn, it’s nice out. Smell the flowers, slow it down, and see some art with our summer art guide.

The Brilliance and Privilege of Jane Austen and Julia Margaret Cameron It is crucial to grapple with the colonial structures that helped sustain the lives and work of the two 19th-century contemporaries, both celebrated as feminist heroines.

What would it mean to admire Jane Austen and Julia Margaret Cameron while acknowledging the inequalities that shaped their worlds?

Smithsonian Removes Trump Impeachment Reference The institution said that “a future and updated exhibit will include all impeachments,” but the timing of the alteration has raised questions.

The Smithsonian has removed a label from a National Museum of American History exhibition that referenced Trump’s two impeachments. The institution said that “a future and updated exhibit will include all impeachments,” but the timing of the alteration raises questions.

A View From the Easel “I like renting short-term studios in shared spaces — it makes me feel free.”

In this week’s installment of A View From the Easel, artists prepare to say goodbye to their current studio and draw on the earth tones of an upbringing spent in the Southwest.

10 Shows to See in Upstate New York, August 2025 Daniel Giordano’s eccentric installations, Lynne Tobin’s indomitable linework, Brandon Thomas Brown’s masterful humanity, and more.

Exquisite mixed-media works by Ken Ragsdale at Front Room Gallery in Hudson will charm you. Lynne Tobin’s conceptual line studies at Cross Contemporary Art Projects in Stone Ridge are cool. Art shows are bringing glee to Upstate New York this month!

Raymond Saunders, Who Made the Color Black His Own, Dies at 90 The Bay Area artist integrated chalk notation and assemblage on his idiosyncratic blackboard surfaces, plumbing the depths of lived experience and racial identity.

Raymond Saunders, a cult-like figure in the Bay Area arts community whose mixed-media work influenced Basquiat and is often compared to Robert Rauschenberg, passed away at 90 years old, just days after the closing of his first major museum retrospective.

How Helen Chadwick Took the Piss Out of Art A biography of the late artist, who used everything from raw meat to bubbling chocolate, acts as an anecdote to historical amnesia around her pioneering material experimentation.

“Life Pleasures,” a 272-page book on Helen Chadwick, still feels like it is only scratching the surface of an artist who confounded our notions of desire and disgust.

Rashaad Newsome’s Futurist Manifesto of Black Joy His film “Assembly” is more than just documentation of a performance. It’s a kind of communion.

Rashaad Newsome’s “Assembly” (2025) is technically a documentary about a performance. But calling it that feels small. Yes, it documents his installation at the Park Avenue Armory, but what it offers is a vision, a map, a speculative ritual for survival.

How My Museum’s Celebration of America’s 250th Birthday Got Complicated At the New York Historical, our virtual wish wall for the nation’s anniversary faced unexpected political challenges.

As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary next year, the New York Historical faces a daunting task: how to build thoughtful programming around the nation’s birthday in a time of extreme political division.

The Berlin Biennale's Complicit Silence It fails to directly address the German state’s repression of pro-Palestine expression, even as many of its works model “safer” forms of resistance.

The Berlin Biennale’s failure to take a stance and address Germany’s repressive cultural-political climate amounts to complicity. It’s difficult to understand how an exhibition this visible can fail to confront its own volatile context.

Anti-Gentrification Protest Targets Mexico City Contemporary Art Museum A number of cultural figures decried the actions of the demonstrators, who graffitied and smashed the glass facade of the Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo.

As demonstrations against rising housing prices and the displacement of local residents continue in Mexico City, a group of anti-gentrification protesters vandalized the contemporary art museum of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).

“No Other Land” Contributor Killed by Israeli Settler Activist and teacher Awdah Hathaleen assisted with filming the Oscar-winning documentary, which chronicled the displacement of Palestinians from the Occupied West.

Awdah Hathaleen, a beloved Palestinian activist and teacher who worked on the Oscar-winning documentary “No Other Land,” was shot and killed by an Israeli settler in the Occupied West Bank.

Twenty Years of Life in Chinatown Thomas Holton photographed the Lam family for two decades, drawing attention not only to where but also how they live.

Picture this: You are a set of clothes hangers on a clothesline, placed there to extend the square footage in a small apartment. Throughout “The Lams of Ludlow Street,” certain objects, like those hangers, will pop up over and over again, drawing attention not only to where but how the Lams live.

Man Dies in Whitney Museum Fall The 34-year-old was found on the sidewalk outside the museum after "falling from an elevated position," according to police.

A 34-year-old man died after a fall from the Whitney Museum of American Art in Manhattan on Wednesday, July 30.

BlackStar Festival Returns With 92 Films From Around the World A documentary filmed in Gaza, the story of a teenager afraid of getting "cancelled," and a biography of Black writer and activist Toni Cade Bambara are among this year’s highlights.

Here are some of our favorite films at this weekend’s BlackStar Film Festival.

New York City and Upstate Shows to See Right Now Histories are at the heart of some of our favorite shows, from queer video art to the cultural and familial traditions invoked by Candida Alvarez and Thomas Holton.

This week in NYC, artists Candida Alvarez and Thomas Holton summon childhood memories and cultural traditions by looking back on tender and casual moments among family. Check out these recs and more in our weekly art guide!

Framing Heritage Destruction as a Human Rights Violation The way in which assaults on cultural and religious sites are presented to the public is critical to linking these attacks to atrocity crimes, a new book argues.

“Because conflict is often justified through historical narratives, and because cultural heritage is tied to identity and homeland, stories around cultural heritage may be purposed to either legitimate or exploit geopolitical aims.” —Mischa Geracoulis, human rights journalist

Fire on Miccosukee Reservation Engulfs Homes and Artifacts Among the structures destroyed was a building housing the Creativity Center, where community members learned to sew, bead, and make traditional patchwork.

A three-alarm fire tore through parts of the Miccosukee Reservation, destroying family homes, a community center, and a traditional Chickee structure, as well as troves of art and artifacts.

Met Museum Trustee Among Victims of Midtown Manhattan Shooting Wesley LePatner, who was elected to The Met’s board this year, was fatally shot by a gunman in Blackstone’s Park Avenue headquarters.

Wesley LePatner, a member of The Met’s Board of Trustees, was among the four individuals killed after a gunman opened fire in a Midtown Manhattan office building on July 28.

A Paean to the Bygone “Borscht Belt” Marisa J. Futernick creates fictions inspired by the Catskills, a vacation destination for midcentury Jewish families.

As younger generations of Jewish people trend towards a more secular path, enclaves for Jewish Americans are disappearing. Marisa J. Futernick explores mid-century memories of a diaspora that once vacationed in the Catskills every summer – marked by Mah Jongg, “Dirty Dancing,” and borscht.

The Poetic Optimism of Latina Lesbian Activism An exhibition centers efforts in Los Angeles from the 1980s to the 2000s to chart an ongoing struggle for liberation.

“EN CADA BESO UNA REVOLUCIÓN.” “LESBIANAS. UNIDAS. ¡FELICES!” Such battle cries embody the poetic optimism of Latina lesbian activism across borders. The ongoing struggle for liberation is charted through protest posters, now on view at the Vincent Price Art Museum.

Member Event: Artists and the Alchemy of Color Join us on August 12 for a virtual conversation about paint and pigment-making with artists Rina Banerjee and Ellie Irons.

Delve into the particularities of working with different pigments and surfaces, the process and chemistry behind creating paint, and more with Hyperallergic and artists Rina Banerjee and Ellie Irons on August 12.

Memory Becomes Form in the Art of Candida Alvarez Abstraction and representation bleed into one another in the same way that memories momentarily coagulate into images before dissolving again.

Candida Alvarez’s dreamlike abstractions reflect her experience in Brooklyn’s Puerto Rican diaspora as she plays with the distinction between memory and representation.

A Glimpse Inside the Dizzying Psyche of Daniel Johnston An exhibition features over 300 drawings by the late artist, whose maximalist creative output was his main form of resistance against his mental demons.

Tinged with dark humor, Daniel Johnston’s drawings give insight into an artist consumed by comics, unrequited love, and a battle with mental illness.

Robert Rauschenberg's Centenary Gets Major Guggenheim Show One of several global events marking the late American artist’s centenary, “Life Can’t Be Stopped” will reunite over a dozen artworks at the Manhattan institution.

Robert Rauschenberg’s 32-foot-long silkscreen painting “Barge” will reunite with over a dozen of his works at the Guggenheim this fall, part of a global celebration of the late American artist’s 100th birthday.

Why Does Elon Musk Have Such a Straight View of Antiquity? Musk and other conservatives often omit the role of queer soldiers in ancient military successes when extolling the virtues of Greek warriors.

If Musk had known even a fraction of the queer history of the Ancient Greek military unit the Sacred Band, he perhaps would have realized that his plans for a new political party are rather magnificently “woke.”

BlackStar Festival Returns With 92 Films From Around the World A documentary filmed in Gaza, the story of a teenager afraid of getting "cancelled," and a biography of Black writer and activist Toni Cade Bambara are among this year’s highlights.

“Each festival has been very special, but this year’s lineup feels especially epic. I’m looking forward to communing with filmmakers and audiences, sharing a collective laugh or cry.” —Maori Karmael Holmes, Blackstar Film Festival’s chief executive and artistic officer

Video Art That Chases the Rainbow Homage: Queer Lineages on Video is worth a visit for anyone to broaden their horizons of what queerness might mean, and to discover histories often left untold.

Most queer people aren’t privileged with having queer parents, so many look to those who came before as role models. In “Homage: Queer Lineages on Video,” artists draw upon the legacies of folks who opened the doors we now get to walk through.