The point is: We remember traumas, and it’s crucial that we do, and not foist off our responsibility onto mute things that do not answer when we call.
Seph Rodney
Seph Rodney, PhD, is a former senior critic and Opinion editor for Hyperallergic. He is now a regular contributor to it and the New York Times. In 2020, he won the Rabkin Prize for arts journalism and in 2022 won the Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant. In 2024 he co-curated Get in the Game at San Francisco Museum of Art.
Posted inArt
Five NYC Art Shows to See This Week
Depth and wonder abound in shows featuring artists Alexis Rockman, Stephanie H. Shih, Raoul De Keyser, Roxanne Jackson, and Tabboo!
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Roxanne Jackson’s Fantasia Under the Sea
Maybe Jackson’s ceramic “monsters” are just creatures who look like they shouldn’t belong — and in her world-building Jackson has made a place where they do.
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Lubaina Himid Asks Who Gets a Seat at the Table
Those empowered to supervise large swaths of humanity too often dehumanize us, whether through the levers of state, financial, or political power.
Posted inOpinion
Hoping Is Not Enough
The idea of public criticism as “talking shit” rather than a collaborative venture permeates the arts, and it’s ultimately counterproductive.
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8 New York City Art Shows to Kick Off the New Year
From the visual pleasures of Mary Sully to the cultural critique of Gary Simmons, to a lesson in Haitian art history, there’s plenty of great art to see right now.
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The Never-Ending Cycle of Fear and Desire
Gary Simmons’s art suggests that rather than make progress our culture more often makes elaborate circles over and over again on the ice until the music stops.
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Words That Leave a Ragged Edge
While Scrawlspace is a deeply inquisitive and well-researched exhibition, the premises are in some instances cliché and a bit contradictory.
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With Less Glitter, Arcmanoro Niles’s Illusory Spaces Gleam
While his paintings follow the rules of linear perspectives, Niles uses the materiality of the paint itself to pull viewers into the compositions.
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At the Root of Justice Are Different Kinds of Love
The exhibition No Justice Without Love poses questions about the roots and limitations of our civic imagination.
Posted inOpinion
Are We Asking Too Much of Public Art?
We want public art to interrogate social injustices, fill us with love and joy, and brush aside human flaws, but it rarely ever lives up to these expectations.
Posted inArt
Discovering How Black Women Might Forge a Path to Freedom
The “Loophole of Retreat” symposium at the Venice Biennale demonstrated that the personal is not only political; it’s also where most of humanity lives.