New York
April 5, 2023

Dual Portrait of Old Master Rachel Ruysch Holds a Trove of Secrets

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has just acquired the rare painting, which depicts the Dutch artist at work surrounded by her signature flora. | Elaine Velie

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ALSO IN THE NEWS

• NY Governor Kathy Hochul's proposed budget slashes pandemic-era arts funding by more than half.

• Workers rallied outside the Guggenheim during a VIP opening, pressuring the museum for better wages and job security.

• The Met is repatriating 15 antiquities to India, all of which were at one point sold by disgraced art dealer Subhash Kapoor.

• MoMA apologizes for kicking out a Black artist from the Black Power Naps installation after a White visitor called her "aggressive."

FROM OUR CRITICS

Josephine Halvorson Paints to Remember

She invites the viewer to contemplate all the ways we mark and live in time, and how much of what we record and keep we will eventually dispose of. | John Yau

Josephine Halvorson: Unforgotten
Mar. 17–Apr. 18, 2023
Sikkema Jenkins & Co., 530 West 22nd Street, Chelsea (sikkemajenkinsco.com)

Minerva Cuevas Strikes the Gods of Environmental Destruction

In taking aim at contemporary corporations, especially oil companies, Cuevas draws a connection between colonization, trade, and the devastation of the natural world. | Annabel Keenan

Minerva Cuevas: In Gods We Trust
Mar. 3–Apr. 15, 2023
kurimanzutto, 520 West 20th Street, Chelsea (kurimanzutto.com)

Witches Take Over Westchester

Bowen’s multimedia art is an alchemical mix of the sensuous and arcane, and it is more than a little witchy. | Faye Hirsch

Nancy Bowen: Sometimes a Body Is Not Just a Body
Jan. 16–Apr. 12, 2023
Westchester Community College Art Gallery, Hankin Academic Arts Building, 3rd Floor, 75 Grasslands Road, Valhalla (wccartgallery.com)

NEW & UPCOMING

Penguins! Past and Present
Apr. 2–Aug. 6, 2023
The Bruce Museum, 1 Museum Drive, Greenwich, Connecticut (brucemuseum.org)

This multifaceted exhibition delves into the incredible resilience of 10 penguin species as they navigate survival through climate change and habitat loss in the already harsh conditions in which they’ve evolved to thrive. Curated by renowned penguin expert Daniel Ksepka, the science-heavy display showcases 60 million-year-old fossils, scaled dioramas, footage of penguins in their natural environments, and information about the ways penguins and humans have influenced each others’ histories. Opening in conjunction with Gallery A, this show also marks the museum’s expansion, doubling the institution’s size and adding dedicated spaces for exhibition, community, and education.

Juan de Pareja, Afro-Hispanic Painter
Apr. 3–Jul. 16, 2023
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue, Upper East Side (metmuseum.org)

You might recognize Juan de Pareja from a 1650 portrait of him by Diego Velázquez, now hanging at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. There’s a dark history behind his iconic portrait: The Afro-Hispanic painter was enslaved at Velázquez’s studio for 20 years before regaining his freedom and embarking on his own art career. The exhibition includes Pareja’s rarely-seen paintings and works by others that chart the history of forced artisanal labor in Spain’s “Golden Age” and beyond.

Jaune Quick-to-See Smith: Memory Map
Apr. 19–Aug. 2023
Whitney Museum of American Art, 99 Gansevoort Street, Meatpacking District (whitney.org)

All is vanity, as the saying goes. British artist Cecily Brown takes the sentiment to heart with each bold brushstroke, disrupting all manner of strict representation — whether of beauty or beast. Brown’s solo exhibition Death and the Maid at The Met highlights her influential position within contemporary painting’s recasting of art history’s grandiose themes.

MORE ON HYPERALLERGIC

Quieter Artworks Stand Out At a New York Photo Fair

At this year’s Association of International Photography Art Dealers show, the best works offer glimpses into the personal lives of photographers and their subjects. | Elaine Velie 

The Objectification of Yayoi Kusama

Louis Vuitton’s collaboration with the artist raises questions of autonomy, agency, and objecthood. | Hindley Wang

The Women Artists Commemorated on an NYC Sidewalk

The signatures of Rosa Bonheur, Mary Cassatt, and six other historical women artists are engraved on a small stretch of sidewalk on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. | Elaine Velie