Author: Megan Foster
New York is a pretty sick town. Not in the “bro, that’s sick” way. Morbid, ill, macabre. The sickness has a lot to do with how disastrously emphasized the “New” in “New York” is with each passing generation. Forget what came before you. Just accept that things change. Enjoy the present while it lasts. While eating at the new New York restaurant Manuela in SoHo, I had only one thought: Our present sucks. To be blunt: Manuela is quite nice. The food is obviously excellent; even better are the people who work there. It’s the streets around it that are…
Liu Jiakun, a Chengdu-based architect known for his sensitive, place-driven approach to design, has been awarded the 2025 Pritzker Architecture Prize, the most prestigious honor in architecture. Liu, who has spent decades crafting a body of work rooted in the traditions and materials of his native Sichuan province, is only the second Chinese citizen to receive the prize, following Wang Shu in 2012. The Pritzker jury praised Liu for using “Chinese tradition without nostalgia, but as a springboard for innovation,” crafting spaces that function as historical records, infrastructure, landscapes, and public forums. His projects, which range from museums and universities to entire…
This week, fashion designer Gabriela Hearst debuted her latest ready-to-wear fall 2025 line at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris as part of the city’s fashion week. Those in the crowd may have noticed some familiar faces—namely, artist Rashid Johnson—among the models. This collaboration between art and fashion is hardly new, though it’s not often that contemporary artists walk the runway themselves. For the show’s 11th look, Johnson wore a black turtleneck, wide-legged black trousers fitted with a belt, and a knee-length dark brown coat. Related Articles In his art practice, Johnson is known for his sharp meditations on race and class rooted in…
The Canada Council for the Arts revealed the 2025 winners of the Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts on Wednesday (5 March). At a time when US President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to annex Canada and make it the “51st state”, all the while launching a trade war between the longtime allies, the awards are a reminder of the richness of Canadian culture and celebrate the exceptional careers of the eight artists and curators working in diverse media across the country. From the decolonial history painter Kent Monkman to emerging artists like Sandra Rodriquez, the awards celebrate both the…
A $600m casino resort in Sonoma County is at the centre of an ongoing dispute between the Koi Nation and the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, the latter of whom claim that the development violates its tribal sovereignty over the historical and cultural assets of the land. Last month, the outgoing administration of US president Joe Biden approved a land trust application for the Koi Nation’s Shiloh Resort and Casino, which has been met with resistance from the Graton Rancheria and other neighbouring communities since the project was announced in 2021. The application is a process required for tribal gaming,…
A virtual reality (VR) work premiering at the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in Austin, Texas will let viewers experience the story of Carolyn Mercer, a transgender woman in the UK who survived electroshock conversion therapy meant to “cure” her gender dysphoria as a teenager. In the Current of Being (9 March-11 March), by the Texas-born, Los Angeles-based director and digital storyteller Cameron Kostopoulos , is the second VR project they have created with the aim of helping audiences understand the transgender experience. “Right now, with how under attack the trans and queer communities are, it’s really important to reach across the aisle…
On 3 March, the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) announced the initiation of a voluntary repatriation to Nepal. The 12th-century artefact in question, a “significant sculpture” dubbed Buddha Sheltered by the Serpent King Muchalinda, will be returned to its home country after provenance research at the museum unearthed new details of its origin. The AIC proactively contacted the Embassy of Nepal in Washington, DC, after discovering that the work had been stolen from Guita Bahi in the Kathmandu Valley. (The AIC’s provenance-research team is one of the largest in the US.) “This return reflects the importance of provenance research, as well as the Art…
President Emmanuel Macron of France was not happy about a recent exhibition at an art centre on the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe that showed him beheaded with his neck dripping in blood. The gory piece was included in the exhibition Exposé.e.s au chlordécone (exposed to chlordecone), which opened in January at the Centre des Arts in Pointe-à-Pitre. According to local press, the Kolèktif Rézistans collective, a trio of artists, organised the headline-hitting exhibition, which the French government considers “an incitement to violence”. The French newspaper Midi Libre says that an artist called Blow made the work , which raises concerns about chlordecone, a…
A new report published by the Cultural Policy Unit—an independent UK think tank—says that introducing admission charges for international visitors at UK national museums would be “logistically complex as well as ideologically at odds with the global collections that the UK has accumulated”. Last July Mark Jones, the former interim director of the British Museum, said that an admission fee of £20 should be introduced for overseas visitors. “It would make sense for us to charge overseas visitors for admission to museums as they charge us when we visit their museums. The biggest visitor attractions in Britain are our great…
Tiny green shoots of recovery have been discernible in a stubbornly bearish art market during London’s marquee auctions this week, but Phillips slim 29-lot evening sale yesterday (6 March) punched below its weight, bringing in £12.2m (£15.4 m with fees) against an estimate of £16.4m to £24.2m. All estimates are calculated without fees. Two works, by Le Corbusier and Lucio Fontana, were withdrawn just before the sale and three failed to find homes. According to the London-based art market analytics firm ArtTactic, just three lots sold above mid-estimate and 25 went below mid-estimate, giving a particularly low confidence indicator of…