Displayed in Robert Smithson’s current exhibition at Marian Goodman Gallery is the artist’s unrealized Forking Island (1971), rendered in paint on a mirror. With its searching projections reaching outward from a central point, the island looks less like a landmass and more like a network, its form presenting a problem to the hypothetical cartographer. We […]

We are now witnessing the highest levels of displacement on record. An unprecedented 70.8 million people around the world have been forced from home. Among them are 25.9 million refugees, over half of whom are under the age of 18. — The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, “Figures at a Glance,” June 18, 2019 This […]

Visiting the Whitechapel Gallery after lockdown was the first time, to my knowledge, that I had my temperature read in public. I can tell you that I saw Radical Figures: Painting in the New Millennium on Sunday, July 26 at 4:30, because I had to book in advance and I still have the confirmation email. […]

As New York City galleries and museums begin to reopen this fall, masks and social distancing are mandatory. Some proprietors have implemented added precautions, asking to take visitors’ temperatures as they enter the gallery, or requesting names and phone numbers for possible contact tracing in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. Some of the larger […]

In a time long ago, before photography, and certainly before the internet or widespread world travel, words were the primary conduit to experiencing an artwork from afar. Words aspired to, in the best of circumstances, convey the essence and the sensation of being in the presence of an artwork to readers who might never see […]

If history is written by the victors, then Bristol is yet to declare a winner. In fact, it’s precisely this one-sided view of history that is on trial throughout Europe and the US. The port city in Southwest England was built on the transatlantic slave trade, and sustained by the beneficence of Edward Colston of […]

Highlights of New York Contemporary Art Galleries at the Shutdown As Covid-19 spread, with social distancing restrictions in place and most workplaces shuttered in response, New York City’s art galleries and museums entered lock-down mode in mid-March. As of mid-May, there were still no reopening plans in sight. The art world has practically ground to […]

To confront the new reality of social distancing under COVID-19, galleries are engaging in a virtual arms race. Whether experimenting with virtual and augmented reality, or building more basic digital platforms to keep connected with clients, dealers and auction houses are fast-tracking their digital strategies. On a superficial level, these efforts appear to be paying […]

Over the past several weeks Londoners have been living in a time warp. On Friday, March 12, I visited White Cube Bermondsey where, as my phone convulsed with push notifications and emails of museum closures in the United States, a gloved gallery attendant stood by the entrance to open the door for me. As each […]

1. Tracey Emin at Galeria Lorcan O’Neill In this particular moment of apprehension and anxiety in the midst of the coronavirus outbreak, the tumbling financial markets, and against the backdrop of climate change, not to mention the tension-fraught U.S. presidential election, Tracey Emin examines “how it feels.” Her beacon-like pink cursive neon sculpture hung high […]