| Happy first weekend of Pride Month! As per tradition, we’re publishing a dedicated series of articles throughout June, with a focus this year on important moments, monuments, and heroes from New York’s LGBTQ+ art history. We begin the series with the remarkable stories of the Lesbian Herstory Archives in Brooklyn and Staten Island’s Alice Austen House Museum. Meanwhile, Isabella Segalovich visits a Medieval-style “Pilgrimage to Pride” at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
In our Opinion section, artist Damien Davis writes about the art establishment’s exploitation of Black queer pain during Pride Month, while Erin L. Thompson asks: Why do we need to fly all the way to Paris to see New York’s only slavery memorial?
Meanwhile, in a shocking move, the Whitney Museum suspends its once-famed Independent Study Program and discharges its associate director. That’s after the museum faced intense backlash for canceling a performance about Palestinian grief. Hundreds of the program’s alumni and faculty decried the decision in an open letter.
In other news, President Trump has a new official portrait that looks AI-generated. Our Staff Reporter Maya Pontone compares and contrasts it with previous presidential portraits throughout American history. And in the latest episode of the Hyperallergic Podcast, Editor-in-Chief Hrag Vartanian speaks with Mohawk artist Alan Michelson about his decades-long career and his poignant commission outside the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Make sure you also check out our guides to the best art shows to see this summer in Los Angeles and Upstate New York, as well as this month’s art book recommendations, Opportunities listings, and the ever-fun Hyperallergic Art Crossword. Thanks for reading and have a great weekend. — Hakim Bishara, Managing Editor | | |
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| | A version of Barbara Chase-Riboud’s inaccessible Manhattan monument “Africa Rising” is now on public display at the Jardin des Tuileries. | Erin L. Thompson |
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SPONSORED | | | | | Onassis Stegi presents an immersive open-air biennale in Athens featuring visual art, music, cinema, performances, and more. Learn more |
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NEWS THIS WEEK | | | Come this fall, a new Frida Kahlo museum in Mexico City will intimately explore the renowned artist’s early life and familial relationships. The Whitney Museum pauses the 2025–26 iteration of the Independent Study Program just weeks after it canceled a performance about Palestinian mourning. A tourist reportedly damaged two sculptures in the famous “Terracotta Army” in the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor in Shaanxi province in China. The White House released an ominous new portrait of Donald Trump that seems to echo the nation’s decline into authoritarianism. Art dealer Daniel Lelong, co-founder of Galerie Lelong in Paris and New York, has died at the age of 92. |
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PODCAST | | | The artist discusses his gleaming installation outside MFA Boston, his journey to reconnect with his Mohawk roots, and how he responded to the racist trope. |
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SPONSORED | | | | | Work by finalists for this year’s cycle of the largest award for women figurative realist painters is on view at the Muskegon Museum of Art. Learn more |
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ALL ABOUT PRIDE | | | Decked out in tassels and tulle, hundreds of attendees gathered at the storied church for the second annual Pilgrimage to Pride, hosted by TikTok’s Greedy Peasant. | Isabella Segalovich
Nestled between brownstones near Prospect Park, the Lesbian Herstory Archives houses the world’s largest selection of materials by and for anyone who identifies with the word. | Rhea Nayyar
The Alice Austen House Museum in Staten Island is preparing to receive thousands of images and negatives by the iconic artist who defied 19th-century gender norms. | Isa Farfan |
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| | | For many Black queer artists, Pride Month doesn’t feel like a celebration. It feels like extraction. | Damien Davis |
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| FROM OUR CRITICS | | | A Paris exhibition traces artists’ obsession with the Apocalypse, from rare Medieval illuminated manuscripts to Blake, Kandinsky, and Kiki Smith. | Daniel Larkin
The Met’s exhibition expands Black fashion history by centering ordinary individuals and their dress practices. | Imani Wiliford
I wanted to hate these artworks, then I wished to poke my finger through their holes, and finally they became a perfect aestheticization of the contemporary moment. | Lori Waxman |
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ALSO ON HYPERALLERGIC | | | Dig into new and upcoming tomes on the long lineage of LGBTQ+ art, from Beauford Delaney’s bond with James Baldwin to iconic lesbian photographer JEB and Alice Austen.
Jeffrey Gibson’s ebullient beadwork, Luchita Hurtado’s restitched canvases, Black cowboy history, Barbara T. Smith’s photocopy experimentation, and more to see this season. | Matt Stromberg
Welcome the sweetest season with Emily Pettigrew’s moody paintings, Native artists on time and memory, Renée Green’s shuffled words, Black history in the Hudson Valley, and more. | Taliesin Thomas
This week: Alison Bechdel has a new graphic novel, Noor Abdalla on facing motherhood alone, Nathan Fielder’s unhinged brilliance, a vegetable orchestra in London, and more. | Lakshmi Rivera Amin
Residencies, fellowships, grants, and open calls from the Grand Canyon Conservancy, the Dedalus Foundation, and more in our monthly list of opportunities for artists, writers, and art workers. |
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| ✍️🤔💭 | | | Start Pride Month with clues on Inca Cola memes, Basquiat’s favorite music genres, Dictee’s author, lesbian Victorian photography, and much more. | Natan Last |
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