Alex Bowditch

Take a Trip Through Ursula K. Le Guin’s Conjured Worlds The fantasy and science fiction writer found her way into her invented worlds by making maps and then mentally exploring them.

Science fiction and fantasy writers owe a lot to the author Ursula K. Le Guin, who, as it turns out, was also a visual artist. Map-making helped her find her way in her invented worlds. Today, an exhibition of these works begins to unlock her secrets.

What I Wish I Had Known About Germany Earlier A German newspaper commissioned an article from me but then refused to publish it.

A German newspaper commissioned an article from Ai Weiwei but then refused to publish it. You can now read the artist’s original reflections in full on Hyperallergic.

Indigenous Artists Reclaim The Met’s American Wing An unsanctioned exhibition uses AR to insert works by Native artists, like Cannupa Hanska Luger and Jeremy Dennis, into the museum’s 19th-century landscapes.

Native artists are staging an unsanctioned exhibition at the Met’s American Wing, using digital tools to layer Indigenous writing and imagery over artworks that erase their existence from the American landscape.

Opportunities in October 2025 Residencies, fellowships, grants, and open calls from the Asian Cultural Council, Banff Centre, the Thoma Foundation, and more in our monthly list of opportunities for artists, writers, and art…

Our monthly list of opportunities is a resource for artists and creatives seeking funding and community support to further their work.

The New York Film Festival Dives Into the Art Scene From feature films to experimental shorts, several highlights of this year’s lineup explore what it takes to live and work as an artist.

Starting this weekend, the New York Film Festival is screening movies that tackle what it takes to live and work as an artist, with films about Peter Hujar, Miguel Abreu Gallery, and Martin Scorsese.

Alison Saar’s Artistic Revolution The artist talks to Hyperallergic about being raised by strong Black women, creating with abandon, and the full-circle significance of receiving the David C. Driskell Prize.

“I was surrounded by really strong Black women and always in awe at their abilities to raise families and to nourish them and to work — they all were workers — and then at the same time, to just bring beauty into the world as artists or as craftpersons.” —Alison Saar

James Bidgood’s Dreamy Homoerotica Best known for his cult film, “Pink Narcissus,” Bidgood’s 1960s photographs of men as mythological figures are equally alluring.

“Playboy had girls in furs, feathers and lights. They had faces like beautiful angels. I didn’t understand why boy pictures weren’t like that.” —artist James Bigood

This Is Not the Real Geronimo Elbridge Ayer Burbank’s haunting paintings of the Apache leader capture a likeness that was only ever real from the vantage point of a White man with a gun, canvas, or camera.

“If Geronimo’s surrender marks the culmination of the shift from savage to ward, his portrait represents a similar turn in how Indians were imagined in the settler mind.” —Joseph M. Pierce, author of “Speculative Relations: Indigenous Worlding and Repair”

LA Museum Condemns US Border Patrol Presence on Its Grounds “We are outraged and deeply distressed,” said the Japanese American National Museum, noting the “stark” parallels to the arrests of Japanese Americans on the site in 1942.

“We are outraged and deeply distressed that armed federal agents came onto our campus — making arrests on the very ground where, in 1942, Japanese American families were forced to board buses bound for concentration camps.” — Ann Burroughs, CEO of the Japanese American National Museum

Sub-versive DC Protester Becomes Memeorable Tributes to the “hero with a hero” who flung a Subway sandwich at a federal agent have emerged across the nation’s capital and online.

Nothing outsmarts autocrats like humorous resistance: The latest unlikely people’s hero famously flung a Subway sandwich at Border Protection officers last week in Washington, DC.

We Can’t Afford to Lose the Institute of American Indian Arts The threat of defunding this precious, influential university is heartbreaking to those of us who know the worth of the IAIA experience.

“The threat of defunding [the Institute of American Indian Arts] is not only an added stressor to an actively rebuilding and healing Indigenous community, but is also heartbreaking to those who know the worth of an experience like the one IAIA has to offer.” –artist Rose B. Simpson, IAIA trustee

A Photographer Brings New York City’s Water System to the Surface Stanley Greenberg has spent decades answering the question of how water arrives in our taps and building interest in this vast and impressive system.

Photographer Stanley Greenberg has spent decades documenting the New York City water system: “If you start to see the city differently, then I’ve done my job.”

A Hiroshima Survivor’s Message for Jerry Saltz “I don't think there's any kind of justification for the dropping of the bomb,” said Howard Kakita in response to the art critic’s statement in defense of the American atomic bombing of Japan in 1945.

Why did Jerry Saltz feel compelled to post on Instagram about the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? He called them “acts of unimaginable suffering,” but for survivors like Howard Kakita, such suffering is still as clear as the summer sky on August 6, 1945.

The Asian Modernists of Paris Across more than 220 works by Asian artists, a landmark exhibition tells a different story of the city’s golden age.

“City of Others: Asian Artists in Paris, 1920s-1940s” at the National Gallery Singapore doesn’t refer to those otherized by Western discourse as a subsection of a city of “insiders.” Rather, it remaps interwar Paris itself as a city of others.

I Lost My Job at the Whitney, but the Art Community Lost Much More The museum suspended its Independent Study Program, a space of collective thought and political solidarity, during a time when it is most needed.

If the Whitney, unlike the Smithsonian, is so anti-censorship, how come they suspended their Independent Study Program over pro-Palestinian content? Former Associate Director Sara Nadal-Melsió examines this dissonance and the resulting impact on the arts community.

“Alligator Alcatraz” Construction Halted, But Native Heritage Remains at Risk The Miccosukee Tribe says the notorious detention center is located close to “hundreds, if not thousands, of protected ceremonial and religious sites.”

“Alligator Alcatraz” has halted construction after a judge ruled that the detention center puts Miccosukee heritage and several endangered species at risk.

José María Velasco Lovingly Captured a Changing Mexico He celebrated the physical entity of Mexico in its exactness, rather than appealing to ingrained nationalistic European sensibilities of history painting.

The National Gallery in London’s José María Velasco exhibition is, staggeringly, its first show dedicated to a Latin-American artist. Critics who call the painter “unromantic” miss the point: Velasco should be viewed as a technical powerhouse who rejected nationalistic European sensibilities.

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.

Interested in learning more about the materiality of paint and the intersection of science, culture, and creativity? Join us for a virtual discussion with artists Rina Banerjee and Ellie Irons on August 12 to learn more about their approach to color.

Harlem’s Studio Museum Announces Reopening Date After a seven-year renovation beset by delays, the New York institution returns with significantly expanded spaces and iconic works from its collection.

After seven years of renovations, the Studio Museum in Harlem will finally reopen to the public on November 15 with a look back at Tom Lloyd, the late sculptor and activist whose 1968 solo exhibition was the museum’s inaugural show.

The Hyperallergic Art Crossword: Public Art Edition Niki de Saint Phalle’s exuberant sculptures, street art in Puerto Rico, a certain infamous “bean,” a mural for Muddy Waters, and more in this month’s themed puzzle!

Test your knowledge of public art gems from around the globe in our August Art Crossword, from “The Bean” in Chicago to the world-famous structure at the heart of Paris’s Champs-Élysées.

I Lost My Job at the Whitney, but the Art Community Lost Much More The museum suspended its Independent Study Program, a space of collective thought and political solidarity, during a time when it is most needed.

If the Whitney, unlike the Smithsonian, is so anti-censorship, how come they suspended their Independent Study Program over pro-Palestinian content? Former Associate Director Sara Nadal-Melsió examines this dissonance and the resulting impact on the arts community.

How Do You Remember a Home Reduced to Rubble? Through interviews with survivors and satellite imagery, data journalist Mona Chalabi and SITU Research created models of razed houses in Gaza, Iraq, and Syria.

“You cannot erase memories,” said Mohammed Osman, whose home in Manbij, Syria, was destroyed in an airstrike by the US-led coalition in 2016. His former house is one of three homes modeled in “Patterns of Life,” Mona Chalabi’s exhibition at the Cooper Hewitt.

Amy Sherald’s Trans Lady Liberty Painting Graces New Yorker Cover The artist withdrew her exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery over concerns that the artwork would be censored.

After Amy Sherald withdrew her exhibition from the National Portrait Gallery over censorship concerns, the New Yorker put “Trans Forming Liberty” (2024), her contested painting of a Black, trans Lady Liberty, on its cover.

Opportunities for Artists, Writers, and Art Workers in August 2025 Residencies, fellowships, grants, and open calls from Foundwork, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Princeton University, and more in our monthly list of opportunities for artists, writers, and…

Our monthly list of opportunities is a resource for artists and creatives seeking funding and community support to further their work.

How the Moomins Showed Us a More Compassionate World At the Brooklyn Public Library, an exhibition on queer Finnish artist Tove Jansson's beloved characters reminds visitors of all ages that justice and joy are within our grasp.

There’s a reason Tove Jansson threw herself into writing the story of the Moomins. When World War II broke out, painting seemed meaningless. But in that moment, fashioning another world meant something — one where trolls aren’t enemies, but friends, and fairy tale conventions give way to justice.

The Woman Scientist and Artist Who Revolutionized the Study of Mushrooms Scientists today still make use of Mary Banning’s research, examining the same mushrooms that she located, preserved, and packed away for posterity.

Who is Mary Banning, the woman whose contributions to our understanding of mushrooms and fungi went largely unacknowledged, and what can we learn from her studies today?

Ruth Asawa Showed Us the Way to an Artistic Life Asawa gracefully wove together many sides — an innovative and singular artist, a tireless advocate for arts education, a community builder, and a loving wife and mother.

Ruth Asawa’s iconic looped wire sculptures are the star of her retrospective at SFMOMA. The seemingly infinite variations that she found within the limits of the medium are staggering — the best reductive abstractionists can spend a lifetime trying to achieve the same thing.

The Renaissance, But Make It “Game of Thrones” A new documentary emphasizes the political intrigues of Da Vinci, Raphael, and Michelangelo.

A documentary can sometimes tell a viewer more about the time it was made than the one it recounts. The greatest influence on the new BBC docuseries “Renaissance: The Blood and the Beauty” is clearly “Game of Thrones,” starting with the violence-tinged title.

Stripper Collective’s Life Drawing Merges Sex Work and Art The East London group sees their life drawing sessions “as a natural progression from the age-old practice of hiring professional harlots and hussies as models for art.”

The East London Stripper Collective defines stripper life drawing “as a natural progression from the age-old practice of hiring professional harlots and hussies as models for art.” To them, the line between sex work and art is non-existent.

As a Japanese American in LA, the ICE Raids Hit Home 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.

When the US unleashed its military in Los Angeles, Sharon Mizota knew the moment would reverberate for generations. She knew it because she is a fourth-generation Japanese American whose parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents were unjustly incarcerated by the US government during WWII.