| Good afternoon. As you likely well know by this point, New York City’s governance has once again devolved into chaos. The interim US attorney for the Southern District of New York — long nicknamed the “Sovereign District” for its reputation for independence from Washington — resigned when the Justice Department asked it to drop its case against Mayor Eric Adams. It was just one in a cascade of resignations. So you could say I’ve been meditating on chaos, and the reviews this week seem to suggest ways to wrangle it into more manageable — sometimes even beautiful — forms. Take, for instance, the aqueous sculptures of Roxanne Jackson, particularly this sentence from Seph Rodney’s review: “Jackson is enamored of the bizarre partly because, I think, she recognizes that the demands of life impel creatures toward situations that, perceived from outside, might seem freakish.” Upon reading this line, I thought immediately of the Adams/Trump carnival. But her work, in Rodney’s reading, is oriented toward the good monsters of the world, and impels us to consider the difference. Natalie Haddad looks into the off-kilter works of abstract painter Raoul de Keyser, noting their dissonance and awkwardness. The waywardness of his paintings, she writes, is a product of an internal logic: “Its actors — all those marks and variations that animate each work — are performing precisely the right roles.” Extrapolated outside the bounds of his canvases, it’s an optimistic view, suggesting an underlying order that might just escape our limited perception. Alexis Rockman might disagree. About his seven-painting cycle, which expands Thomas Cole’s series The Course of Empire to stretch from the pre- to the posthuman, Editor-in-chief Hrag Vartanian writes: “Each of these paintings suggests that the larger plague is us.” Before we go, though, at least we get to enjoy Rockman’s image of Death as a “sickle-wielding skeleton astride a Norwegian rat shitting out a yellow plume over the city of Naples.” Rats’ll probably outlive us all — and despite his “war” against them, they’ll certainly outlast the Adams administration. — Lisa Yin Zhang, Associate Editor | | |
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 | | Depth and wonder abound in shows featuring artists Alexis Rockman, Stephanie H. Shih, Raoul De Keyser, Roxanne Jackson, and Tabboo! | Natalie Haddad, Hrag Vartanian, Seph Rodney, and Julie Schneider |
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SPONSORED |  | | | | This exhibitionexplores the nuanced layers of the past, present, and future within contemporary art by Native American, Alaska Native, First Nations, and Métis artists, drawn from the collections of Art Bridges, the Forge Project, and the Gochman Family Collection. On view through August 31, 2025. Learn more |
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FROM OUR CRITICS |  | | | | Tabboo!: Early Works at Karma gallery and at Gordon Robichaux gallery | | “He’s holding what could be a cigarette, joint, or a crayon, and it’s in that moment that I recognize the energy that underlies his best work and probably some of his finest drag: the idea that from a single mark, smudge, or action, a whole world can be born.”
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| | Naples: Course of Empire at Magenta Plains | | “This is an ambitious series, and by choosing Naples, a great city that never quite regained its status as a world capital, the artist also reminds us that time is long, while our memories and reign of power are not.”
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WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING? |  | -
Check out a new photo book on the beloved Flaco the Owl as we approach the year anniversary of his untimely passing. -
Coinciding with the anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X, the Schomburg Center hosts a conversation about his friendship with activist Yuri Kochyama. (Wed Feb 19) [nypl.org] -
Bikes for Migrants is hosting a movie night fundraiser at Woodbine, an experimental hub in Ridgewood. (Wed Feb 19) [instagram.com] -
Johanna Fateman, John Stoltenberg, and Sarah Leonard will be discussing Andrea Dworkin’s works on occasion of the reissue of some of them at the Invisible Dog Art Center. (Thu Feb 20) [eventbrite.com] -
Film Forum’s screening Art Spiegelman’s Disaster Is My Musethis week, with the directors joining for a Q&A on Friday and Saturday. (Opens Fri Feb 21) [filmforum.org] -
Solo musicians will be performing pieces reflecting on memory by Strauss and Vaughan Williams at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. (Sat Feb 22) [stjohndivine.org] -
Black Tech Camp — a workshop for young Black adults interested in learning the technical skills of event and theater production — happens all day Saturday at Performance Space. (Sat Feb 22) [instagram.com] -
More than 200 publishing houses, artists, designers, collectives, galleries, and university programs will be showing at the Jersey Art Book Fair. (Fri Feb 21 – Sun Fri 23) [jerseyartbookfair.org] -
An interactive pop-up exhibition and screening series of Thomas Allen Harris’s work is happening all week. [instagram.com]
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