The Quilt of Romare Bearden’s Life

For 30 years, the artist worked for the New York City Department of Welfare, a day job that was much more than a necessary evil.

Aidan Levy

Rethinking Cultural Currents of the South

Two new projects remind us of the cultural potency of the region.

Elizabeth Pochoda

The Presence and Absence of Basquiat

Stuart Klawans

The Standard of Pure Abstraction

The painters Joe Overstreet and James Little subvert the demands of representation.

Barry Schwabsky

Joan Jonas’s Fragments

More than anything else, time itself is the material Jonas works with, manipulating it as a sculptor might mold clay.

Barry Schwabsky

The Ubiquitous Medium

Carissa Rodriguez’s work leads viewers to scrutinize our choices and values as they relate to video—to recording and being recorded.

Larissa Pham

Joyce J. Scott’s Coexisting Forces

Scott’s art is unabashedly political, broaching subjects like guns, racism, and misogyny. It’s also gorgeous, rich with tactile materials, color, and an attention to light.

Jillian Steinhauer

John Ashbery’s Day Job

The poet as art critic.

Barry Schwabsky

Encountering Ghosts in Family Photos, Historical Dolls, and ‘Black Panther’

Mythmaking can connect the past to the present, and reveal a promised future.

Patricia J. Williams

Daniel Joseph Martinez’s Blunt Statements

What does it mean for an American artist to make photographs using the image of the German revolutionary Ulrike Meinhof?

Barry Schwabsky