February 25, 2023

People couldn't get enough of the news last week that a collector accidentally shattered a small Jeff Koons "Balloon Dog." Another collector is now interested in buying the shattered artwork, which is part of an edition of 800. Some days you just have to laugh at all of it.

We also sent reporter John Seed to investigate the newly unveiled art in the largest Catholic parish church in the United States, while AX Mina takes a look at a book that breaks down the Roman Empire using infographics, Isabella Segalovich thinks TikTok's new trend is the crisis of men's mental health, and Matt Stromberg digs LA's hottest new art space, which may be gravely needed.

This week we published our Spring 2023 guide. Thank you to the hundreds of people who attended our launch event last Thursday at Union Pool in Brooklyn. It was Hyperallergic's first IRL event in four years and it was wonderful to see everyone and reconnect after so much time socially distanced.

You have no idea what it meant to us at Hyperallergic to be able to meet and chat with members and supporters after so much time isolated in front of screens. It was pure bliss. Thank you.

— Hrag Vartanian, editor-in-chief

AI, WTF Do You Know About Pain? 

Something in this era of AI-generated art feels debased, devalued. That something is me, the artist. | Noah Fischer

NEWS THIS WEEK

• A collector accidentally shatters a $42,000 Jeff Koons “Balloon Dog” at an art fair in Miami.

• A new exhibition at the National Museum of Denmark gathers some of metal detector amateurs’ and hobbyists’ most remarkable finds.

• An outdoor exhibition was cancelled after a Florida college deemed works about diversity and inclusion “potentially offensive.”

• Joan Mitchell’s estate sends a cease and desist order to Louis Vuitton for its inclusion of three of the artist’s paintings in an ad campaign.

WHAT TO SEE IN NYC THIS SEASON

Hyperallergic’s Spring 2023 New York Art Guide

This guide is focused on the art institutions that help make this city great, highlighting the breadth of venues throughout the boroughs and a section on new art spaces we’re particularly excited about, as well as a few shows in the tri-state area for those who want to explore outside the city limits. Art in New York is unlike anything else in the world: Go make the most of it.

— Hrag Vartanian

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OUTSIDE THE WHITE CUBE

A Day With the NY Sanitation Department’s Resident Artist

sTo Len, whose fascination with waste removal started when he was a child, is the agency’s current artist in residence. | Rhea Nayyar

LA’s Hottest New Gallery Is in a Cemetery

Artist Nao Bustamante debuted Grave Gallery on a 3-by-7-foot burial plot at the historic Hollywood Forever cemetery. | Matt Stromberg

The Art in America’s Largest Catholic Parish Church

St. Charles Borromeo Church features Mission Revival architecture, murals evocative of a Pixar movie, and nearly an acre of interior space. | John Seed

FOLK ART & TRADITIONS

Making Mischief in Merry Old England 

These rowdy, carnivalesque capers, and all this wild costuming, are about defiant displays of unreason, at odds with the dreary drone of the “voices of authority.” | Michael Glover

The Preserved Beauty of Italian Island Traditions

Alys Tomlinson traveled between Sardinia, Sicily, and the islands of the Venetian lagoon to document traditional community festivals. | Lauren Moya Ford 

The Vivid Offerings of Mexican Papier-Mâché

La Cartonería Mexicana is drawn from traditional masks, sculptures, toys, and piñatas. | Rachel Harris-Huffman

ON OUR RADAR

Brenda Goodman, Scars and All

The paradoxical combination of freedom and entrapment animates Goodman’s composition in her latest body of work. | John Yau

Trulee Hall Creates a Paradise of Lesbian Forest Nymphs

In the artist’s first feature-length film, Ladies Lair Lake, the choice to not have children is presented as valid and dignified. | Renée Reizman

Keep an Eye Out for These Emerging Chicago Artists

Ground Floor at the Hyde Park Art Center is a sensitively curated selection of works by exceptionally promising young artists. | Lori Waxman

MORE ON HYPERALLERGIC

The Roman Empire Visualized in Infographics

A new book uses graphic design as a way to tell the story of Roman conquests, economy, and culture. | AX Mina

The Met Shouldn’t Have Reclassified Ivan Aivazovsky as “Ukrainian”

We should not replace the ignorance shown in the previous identification with a new type of ignorance. | Vartan Matiossian

TikTok’s “Corecore” Is Where Men Scream Their Anguish

The trend’s throwback to Dada offers a warning about the crisis of men’s mental health and the rise of the far right. | Isabella Segalovich

Required Reading

This week, more inclusive crayons, categorizing female muses as artists, Tiktok-fueled “secret menus,” Bernie walks into a TikTok, and much more. | Hrag Vartanian and Lakshmi Rivera Amin