It’s that weird, in-between time of year again, when the holiday season is decidedly over but the glacial weather proceeds like a hangover.
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New York • January 07, 2025

It’s that weird, in-between time of year again, when the holiday season is decidedly over but the glacial weather proceeds like a hangover. The articles in our newsletter this week delight in that odd in-betweenness: Our list of shows to see in New York right now includes Gary Simmons’s mash-up of a blatantly racist cartoon and idealized European forms, Mary Sully’s graphic works infused with Native motifs, and Romare Bearden’s musical paintings. 

In Reviews, John Yau writes on Peter Young’s maximalism, which was deeply influenced by the otherworldly mysticism of the modernist painter-couple Lee Mullican and Luchita Hurtado. Petala Ironcloud teases out how Raul De Lara, Shanique Emelife, Sihan Guo, and Tahnee Lonsdale dissolve the boundaries of the word “immigrant,” while Qingyuan Deng toggles between the queer memory work of Hunter Reynolds and Dean Sameshima. And AX Mina walks us through an exhibition on mandalas at The Met, guiding us through a circular journey in which the ancient interweaves the contemporary. 

Finally, we’ve got the last part of our NYC Housing Stories comic. After giving life to the experiences of artists, activists, and organizers all around the city, Noah Fischer finally tells his own story, in which he was evicted from the Prospect Heights brownstone in which he lived, severing him from his community. “These days, caring about people begins to feel like a weakness,” he writes, but “transactionalism is not the deeper truth of the city.”

— Lisa Yin Zhang, Associate Editor

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8 New York City Art Shows to Kick Off the New Year

From the visual pleasures of Mary Sully to the cultural critique of Gary Simmons, to a lesson in Haitian art history, there’s plenty of great art to see right now. | Natalie Haddad, Hakim Bishara, AX Mina, Seph Rodney, Julie Schneider, and Daniel Larkin

FROM OUR CRITICS

AX Mina

Mandalas: Mapping the Buddhist Art of Tibet at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

“The physical arrangement, in which paintings, carpet, and external light all interact, makes the experience feel like dipping into an actual mandala, our own contemporary charnel grounds, where unspeakable violence projects from our digital screens and in the news.”

John Yau

Peter Young: “Stick” Paintings, 1970 at Craig Starr Gallery

“What you see is not a tightly executed, machine-like painting, but a humbler and more vulnerable approach, the labor of the painter.”

Petrala Ironcloud

Raul De Lara, Shanique Emelife, Sihan Guo, Tahnee Lonsdale at Alexander Berggruen 

“De Lara’s wooden monstera sculptures signify both personal and ecological migration, while Emelife, Lonsdale, and Guo explore the interplay between human and transcendental forms, challenging Western spiritual and cultural binaries.”

Qingyuan Deng

Hunter Reynolds / Dean Sameshima: Promiscuous Rage at PPOW

“Together, the two works [by Hunter Reynolds and Dean Sameshima] signal to viewers that they are walking into an exhibition moving between that which is particular and universal in queer experience and the incessant gaps between the two.”

NYC HOUSING STORIES

A Prospect Heights Ghost Story

The final part of our NYC Housing Stories series focuses on its creator, who was displaced from his Brooklyn brownstone. | Noah Fisher

See more comics in the series

CLOSING SOON 

WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING?

  • The MTA is preparing to phase out those beloved orange-seated subway cars — the only time I’ll be calling for a subway delay. 

  • This Saturday, Jan. 11, Secret Riso Club is hosting an Open Studio in collaboration with the clothing brand PAAL World [instagram.com]

  • This Saturday and Sunday, Jan. 11 and 12, the Center for Fiction is holding a 20% off and “Take What You Can Carry” tote bag sale. [instagram.com]

  • This Sun., Jan. 12, Folklore Salon is offering free haircuts in exchange for a donation of $50 or more to Gaza Mutual Aid Solidarity. [instagram.com]

  • The American Inst. of Architects is hosting a talk between the jurors of their design awards to announce the winners on Mon., Jan. 13. [aiany.org]

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