May 11, 2023
Good morning. ☀️ It’s art fair season in New York City, that time of year when we flock to crowded art shopping malls mostly to see and be seen. To help you navigate through it all, we prepared an A-to-Z guide of all the major fairs descending on the city this month. You can also expect honest coverage of these fairs, unlike the usual fluff reports you might see elsewhere.
In the news, the Met Museum is finally taking action to address its possession of ill-gotten antiquities, appointing a team of provenance researchers. Will it be enough? Time will tell.
Also today: John Yau on the anonymous artist known as new.shiver, Faye Hirsch on Lois Dodd, Isabella Segalovich on social media’s dangerous fascination with the British royal family, and Maya Pontone on the Brooklyn artist who wants us to acknowledge the individualism of snails.
— Hakim Bishara, Senior Editor
A No-Nonsense Guide to NYC’s May Art Fairs
Frieze or Future? NADA or Volta? To help alleviate the daunting dizziness of too many options, we’ve got the run-down for you. | Rhea Nayyar
SPONSORED
Luc Tuymans: The Barn, Opening Tonight
Opening tonight at David Zwirner’s 20th Street gallery in New York is a presentation of new paintings by artist Luc Tuymans. One of the most important painters working today, Tuymans pioneered a distinctive style of figurative painting beginning in the 1980s that has been singularly influential for his peers as well as subsequent generations of artists.
WHAT’S HAPPENING
- Brooklyn’s Bushwick neighborhood is getting its first official historic district on Linden Street.
- Following high-profile art seizures by the Manhattan DA, the Metropolitan Museum of Art will bring on new staff to conduct provenance research.
PAINTINGS AND SCULPTURE
The Joys of Watching Paint Dry
In contrast to the speed and bravura of gestural abstraction, new.shiver slows time, and invites viewers to ponder how one might shape time passing. | John Yau
The Brooklyn Artist Who Wants You to Care About Snails
In a world where humans exploit snails as extractable resources, artist David Colosi’s latest exhibition asks us to consider their individualism. | Maya Pontone
SPONSORED
The European Graduate School Announces Its 2023 Summer Program
Join distinguished professors including Alenka Zupančič, Achille Mbembe, and Slavoj Žižek in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, from June 22 to July 25 for the school’s Silver Anniversary session.
Lois Dodd’s Life in Nature
From the mid-1960s, when Dodd first took her Masonite panels outdoors to paint, her production has been shaped by observation. | Faye Hirsch
HYPER-OPINIONATED
The Dangerous Allure of the Royal Aesthetic
The pomp and pageantry of King Charles’s coronation follows the playbook of authoritarian theatrics. | Isabella Segalovich
How a Stolen Nepali Statue Found Its Way Home
A long-lost Vajradhara sculpture that resurfaced in a Hong Kong collection highlights scholars’ responsibility to mediate between communities and the art market. | Emiline Smith
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IN MEMORIAM
Alfredo Arreguín (1935–2023)
Mexican-American painter | Hyperallergic
Dorothy Bohm (1924–2023)
British photographer known for her portraiture and street photography | New York Times
Bruce McCall (1935–2023)
Canadian author and illustrator known for New Yorker covers | New York Times
Laura Pels (1931–2023)
Nonprofit theater supporter | New York Times
John Olsen (1928–2023)
Australian abstract artist and winner of the 2005 Archibald Prize | New York Times
