Jordan Casteel, Scott Rothkopf, Amy Sherald and Darren Walker. Jason Lowrie/BFA.com Earlier this week, the Whitney held its 2025 gala, and as always, it was a sharp, high-gloss celebration of contemporary culture. The satin-fueled spectacle celebrated ten years since the Whitney decamped to its Renzo Piano–designed home in the Meatpacking District—a milestone nearly upstaged by […]
Realism Returns: The Resurgence of Traditional Art Skills in the Digital Age
Amid digital abstraction and A.I., collectors and creators are returning to the human touch of classical realism. Luc Castel/Getty Images “It comes down to reality,” Billy Joel sings in “New York State of Mind.” Indeed, slowly but surely over recent decades, realist art has bounced back into the mainstream. This resurgence follows a long period […]
Observer’s Guide to the New Frick: Highlights and Hidden Details
The Frick’s Fifth Avenue façade. © Nicholas Venezia The Frick Collection has long been one of New York’s most cherished institutions, and the steady lines since its reopening serve as proof of its lasting relevance in the city’s ever-evolving arts landscape. On April 17, the museum welcomed visitors back after a nearly five-year, $220 million […]
One Fine Show: “Survival of the Fittest” at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Richard Friese, Polar Bear and Eiders on the Coast. Rik Klein Gotink – Rijksmseum Twenthe Welcome to One Fine Show, where Observer highlights a recently opened exhibition at a museum not in New York City, a place we know and love that already receives plenty of attention. The longer I live in New York, the […]
Candida Alvarez Maps a Life in Color at El Museo del Barrio
Candida Alvarez in her studio. Courtesy GRAY Chicago/New York and Monique Meloche Gallery. Photo by Bob. (Robert Chase Heishman + Robert Salazar) Hispanic-American artist Candida Alvarez is getting some long-overdue institutional attention with a major mid-career survey at El Museo del Barrio. Titled “Circle, Point, Hoop,” the exhibition maps five decades of visual inquiry—an evolving […]
Last Swipe: NYC’s Farecard Artists Face Extinction as the MTA Eliminates the Beloved MetroCard
Juan Carlos Pinto holds a MetroCard portrait of Nina Simone. Photo by Jamie Lubetkin The Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s recent announcement that it will stop selling the iconic yellow MetroCards by Dec. 31 came as heartbreaking, though not unexpected, news to a small but passionate community of artists who use the credit-card-sized passes to create surprisingly […]
Alicja Kwade Probes the Edges of Reality in Her Pace Debut
An installation view of “Alicja Kwade: Telos Tales” at Pace Gallery. Photography courtesy Pace Gallery Throughout her career, Alicja Kwade has braided together art, physics and mathematics to question the structure of reality—constructing sculptures and installations that propose new modes of coexistence between the anthropic and the natural. For her first major solo exhibition since […]
‘Clay Has a Voice and It’s Screaming’: An Interview With Chris Gustin
Chris Gustin at work. Photo: Chris Gustin Ceramic art often feels utilitarian—more craftwork than artwork. That is, until it reaches a certain scale, at which point it becomes unmistakably sculpture. American ceramicist Chris Gustin, long considered a pivotal figure in contemporary ceramics, works precisely at that threshold. His massive forms are grounded in function but […]
Elegance Met Urgency at This Year’s Gordon Parks Foundation Gala
Anna Wintour. Photo by Noam Galai/Getty Images for Gordon Parks Foundation Earlier this week, the Gordon Parks Foundation Annual Gala returned to Cipriani 42nd Street to celebrate the indelible legacy of Gordon Parks, the trailblazing photographer whose lens captured the soul of the Black American experience. This year’s gala gathered a Who’s Who of photography, […]
How the Louvre Abu Dhabi’s Museographic Approach and the UAE’s Soft Power Strategy Line Up
In recent years, institutions worldwide have begun to reexamine their permanent collections and curatorial displays, reconsidering how these frame and narrate art history and the evolution of civilization. No museum operates as a truly neutral entity—each institution shapes how we perceive art history and society’s larger cultural dynamics. Confronting longstanding questions of representation, inclusivity and […]