Today you can read about the politicized and often ego-driven 500 year-history of the English dictionary, Yinka Shonibare’s intervention in the legacies of Winston Churchill and Queen Victoria, and Lauren Lee McCarthy's revealing work on how Big Brother uses our bodily fluids — including sperm, eggs, and saliva — to surveil us.

In the news, a Rhode Island school cancels an exhibition because of a student's "anti-Catholic" work, while Bard College in Upstate New York announces a new Keith Haring Wing funded by the late artist's foundation.

There's more, including a visit to Pratt Institute's MFA photography show, Alexandra M. Thomas's review of a new book by Aliyyah Abdur-Rahman tackling questions of identity and representation in contemporary Black art, and more.

— Hakim Bishara, Senior Editor

Tracing the 500-Year History of the English Dictionary

An exhibition at the Grolier Club in New York shows that lexicographers are just like us: petty, creative, and political.

Daniel Larkin

LATEST NEWS

• Workers at Maryland’s Glenstone Museum, founded by billionaires Mitchell and Emily Rales, have moved to unionize saying they want fair wages and an improved work environment.

• A group exhibition at Providence College was abruptly canceled just before its opening after school officials deemed the work of one artist to be “anti-Catholic” and “sacrilegious."

• CCS Bard in New York’s Hudson Valley has announced plans for a new Keith Haring Wing, a major library expansion project made possible by a $3 million gift from the late artist’s foundation.

LATEST REVIEWS

Pratt MFA Photographers Turn Landscapes into Critiques of Power

The students put their own spins on landscape photography to coax out questions of race, power, sexuality, and sustainability.

Daniel Larkin

The Anti-Spectacle of the Black Avante Garde

Aliyyah Abdur-Rahman’s Millennial Style considers the political utility of Black abstraction and related forms to refute false narratives of progress.

Alexandra M. Thomas

Lehman College Art Gallery Presents 2024 Thesis Exhibition

This year’s show features art by MFA, MA, and BFA students working across a variety of disciplines. On view May 15–29 in the Bronx.

Learn more

Lauren Lee McCarthy Swaps Stories of Saliva and Surveillance

Bodily Autonomy takes advantage of humor and hyperbole to demonstrate a very real world in which biosurveillance is prevalent overtly and covertly.

Renée Reizman

Yinka Shonibare’s Patterns of Decolonization

In a gallery such as Serpentine, defined by both Britishness and blue-chip status in the art world, how much can categories be suspended?

Aida Amoako

IN MEMORIAM

• Frank Stella (1936–2024)
  American abstract painter | Hyperallergic

• Norma Howard (1958–2024)
  Choctaw painter | KOSU

• Daniel Kramer (1932–2024)
  Photographer known for Bob Dylan portraits | Rolling Stone

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