The greatest library of its age, that of Alexandria, burned intermittently over several centuries. Thousands of scrolls vanished, and with them much of antiquity’s science, philosophy, and literature. The intellectual inheritance of the ancient world was reduced to ash. We cannot rule out deliberate intent in some of those episodes. Long before, a vast portion of Phoenician-Punic art had disappeared in the wars we know as the Punic Wars. Nothing remained of Carthage, a cultural and artistic power of its time.

Not long ago I came across a Facebook post claiming that “sometimes… destroying art is art.” It offered three examples that, to my mind, have little to do with one another. Let’s take them one by one.
On the morning of November 15, 2022, two activists from Letzte Generation (Last Generation Austria) threw a black, oily liquid over Gustav Klimt’s Tod und Leben, on view at Vienna’s Leopold Museum...

The last time I was at the CAC was in late 2017, for Caledonia Curry’s exhibition—better known as Swoon—titled The Canyon: 1999–2017. It was her first museum retrospective. I don’t recall every detail with clarity, but I do retain the certainty that it was a profoundly inspiring experience. Eight years later I return to the CAC for the public opening of What a Revolutionary Must Know, by the Iranian American artist Sheida Soleimani (b. 1990, Indianapolis).

I don’t know Miguel Rodez personally. Nor does the immense—if small—majority who read this blog. It’s possible I crossed paths with him more than once at Miami openings over the last four years. Our relationship is, essentially, a social-media one. For our regular readers, his name will likely be unfamiliar because he arrived in the United States in 1972, a thirteen-year-old adolescent ...

Perhaps it was possible, even then, to sense that Jesus of Western Avenue, inaugurated on October 16, 2021, at the Cleve Carney Museum of Art (College of DuPage, Glen Ellyn, Illinois), would become Tony Fitzpatrick’s final solo exhibition in his lifetime. The show gathered more than sixty recent works, reaffirming his—almost proverbial—fascination with Chicago’s urban nature and environment, expressed through his unmistakably personal graphic language.

A few weeks ago, a post appeared on my Facebook feed from the Beagle Freedom Project, celebrating the seventy-fifth anniversary of Snoopy — perhaps the most universal of all beagles. Since 2010, the Beagle Freedom Project (BFP) has been rescuing, rehabilitating, and rehoming animals once used in research laboratories. The initiative was born of people who, for some reason, paid special attention to this breed — probably for its docility and its good-natured temperament.

One of the people I love most in the world—among other reasons, for something like this—cried for several minutes upon realizing that the book which had occupied her for a brief stretch of time had come to an end. To close it and return it to the shelf meant abandoning a world she already considered her own: one where good and evil were distinguished in every conceivable way...

To speak of Kina Matahari is to confront the politics of disguise. Her work unfolds where visibility becomes dangerous and the body itself turns into a medium of camouflage. Between the myth of the colonial dancer and the lived reality of the contemporary artist, Skin as Camouflage traces a lineage of women who have negotiated power through performance, artifice, and survival. What begins as an act of concealment becomes, in her hands, a language of emancipation.

This time, yes. I read Virginia’s post a little after noon. I couldn’t pay much attention at the moment — I had a few things to finish. Hours later, when I was finally free, I came across the news again, this time shared by Rubén Javier. That’s when I realized what many of us already knew would happen had finally happened.

Perhaps I am a member of The Grief Club. For several weeks now, a small print has rested on my desk granting me that privilege — dark cobalt green, number 137 in an edition of 200, signed by Sarah Stolar. It is not a relic, nor even a reminder of mortality. It is evidence that artistic experience, when born of pain, orients us toward an identitarian core that endures even through fracture. In the act of retracing what has been lived, we might find reconciliation, perhaps even peace.

Avi Schiffmann was born in Washington State on October 26, 2002. That same month saw the release of Ghost Ship, a gothic supernatural thriller that, through its pale and diluted horror, moralizes about the sin of greed. A salvage crew discovers the ocean liner Antonia Graza, lost for forty years, drifting in the Bering Sea; on board, they find gold bars and the remnants of a massacre. They soon realize the ship is cursed: a demon has set a trap to harvest as many souls as possible, using the treasure as bait.

There are moments of alignment, when it seems as if the universe is sending us a sign. Vain hope. One could say the same of crossing a disciplined line of ants at work, each keeping perfect distance from the other—and all it would mean is that they are carrying organic matter back to the nest.

In these times, corporate philanthropy moves with caution. At least in the United States, it seems to be entering a period of adjustment. Federal scrutiny over diversity, equity, and inclusion policies has altered donation strategies. It is not something that keeps me awake at night. It leaves, rather, a curious sensation—like noticing, in a moment of distraction, that a cloud has drifted over the sun while a cold breeze lifts one corner of the notebook.

Helene has been regarded as the deadliest inland hurricane in modern U.S. history. It was impossible to foresee the magnitude of the disaster as it moved toward eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina. It was there, in the latter, that the greatest number of deaths occurred—over a hundred. Material damage is incalculable. Recovery has been slow, fueling political debates. Yet even if it had been swift and efficient, the loss of human lives is irreparable.

It is enough to walk long enough through the arteries of any major city for the iconic eyebrows of Frida Kahlo to emerge from some unexpected corner. Alongside the Virgin of Guadalupe and the poblano chili, they constitute Mexico’s leading exports and a confused symbol for millions of women worldwide. In her homeland her image circulates on banknotes, perfumes, and the most unimaginable supports.