Art Culture

Exhibition reviews, institutional commentary, and art world writing. Covering contemporary art culture, disability and access in the arts, and the stories worth paying attention to.

The Met Swallows the Golden Room: Why the Neue Galerie Merger Matters

Black and white museum poster showing a sculptural head on a plinth with a blank label, gallery visitors, and text about The Met, missing credit, and cultural attribution.

The Met and the Neue Galerie have announced a landmark merger for 2028, bringing Klimt’s Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I and over $1.5 billion in Austrian and German modernist art under one roof. Commentary on custody, restitution, legacy, and what happens when a jewel-box museum joins a giant.

Thoughts about the Duct Taped Banana.

The duct-taped banana (Tribune, 2024) (Rabb, 2024): A Provocative Reflection on Art, Value, and Consumerism? Courtesy: Sotheby’s In the world of contemporary art, few pieces have stirred as much debate as Maurizio Cattelan’s banana duct-taped to a wall, which famously sold for $1.5 million. While it provokes discussion about what constitutes “art,” this banana also … Read more

Voice in art vs communication in art

Voice and communication are two words that get thrown around constantly in art education, often interchangeably, as if they mean the same thing. They do not. Communication in art is about transmission. It is the part of the work that reaches outward: the colour choices, the composition, the materials, the scale, the placement, the context. … Read more

The language of art

Art is sometimes described as a universal language, which is one of those phrases that sounds profound until you think about it for more than ten seconds. Art is not universal. It is deeply specific. A Yoruba masquerade, a Song dynasty ink painting, a Sol LeWitt wall drawing, and a Second Life installation are all … Read more