Author: Autumn Reese

Most kids who are into Disney which is to say, most kids in general typically surround themselves with representations of Disney Princesses. But when Alex Da Corte made his first painting, at age 12, for the walls of childhood bedroom, he instead depicted the characters who antagonize these Princesses. Rather than sleeping beneath Cinderella, her evil stepmother loomed above his feet at night. A smiling Ursula appeared to emerge from a nearby window; Ariel was nowhere to be found. Da Corte is now in his mid-40s, but he seems no more interested in Disney Princesses now than he did 30 years ago.…

The most coveted commodity at an art fair, beside the wares themselves, is attention. At a blue chip bazaar like Frieze New York, where the crowd churns ceaselessly, and every wall aspires to be a show-stopper, a curator can’t leave discovery to chance. You might fear that Focus, the section of Frieze dedicated to enterprises 12 years and younger and to emerging talent, would be swallowed by the din. You’d be wrong. The section, curated by Lumi Tan, is an intergenerational showcase of artists hailing from New York and beyond. The works, spanning sculpture, painting, and photography, are variably raucous…

Finnish art museum corrects Ilya Repin’s nationality to Ukrainian after campaign reveals artist’s true heritage, challenging historical misattributions and highlighting the importance of accurate representation. Helsinki, Finland The Ateneum, Finland’s largest art museum, has revised the nationality of renowned 19th-century artist Ilya Repin from Russian to Ukrainian. This decision follows a persistent campaign by Ukrainians, particularly journalist Anna Lodygina, who uncovered evidence of Repin’s true heritage. Lodygina’s extensive investigation, published in Ukrainska Pravda, revealed that Repin’s family origins lie in present-day Ukraine, contradicting previous cataloging by the museum. Church records obtained by Lodygina confirmed that Repin’s father and grandfather were born in…

Rare are the shows that reveal a bona fide masterpiece to the public; the Museum of Modern Art’s rich, fascinating Wifredo Lam retrospective is one of them. I’m not talking about his iconic 1942–43 painting La jungla (The Jungle), a landmark of the Surrealist movement that has been a prized possession of MoMA’s since 1945. The real star here is Grande Composition (1949), a 14 foot wide tangle of angular, elongated creatures that twist through each other. Grande Composition was Lam’s largest work, and he made it by painting onto paper with oil so thinned down that it appears semitranslucent. Note the bottom portion of the painting, where…

Ukrainian Jewish artist Janet Sobel made very few statements about her practice, but one that stands out for its uncommon forthrightness is, “I am intensely interested in people and everything that pertains to them.” Sobel’s innate curiosity about people thus serves as the through line of her first solo museum exhibition, “Wartime,” at the Ukrainian Museum in New York, taking place more than 50 years since her passing and nearly three quarters of a century since fading into obscurity. Known, or rather unknown, by many names including Jennie Wilson and Yevhenia Olechovska Sobel has only recently begun to receive attention for her achievements,…

Horatio Nelson’s sexuality is once again under the spotlight after a museum in Liverpool, UK, proclaimed the British naval hero was “queer.” Curators at the state-funded Walker Art Gallery decided that his contested final words “Kiss me, Hardy” were enough to include Nelson in a “Queer relationships” collection. The works in question are Daniel Maclise’s The Death of Nelson (1859-1864) and Benjamin West’s painting of the same name, made in 1806. The mortally wounded admiral is believed to have uttered the famous phrase to his fellow officer Captain Thomas Hardy just before he died at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. The…

Art has the unique ability to transcend borders, cultures, and languages, creating connections between people through shared emotions and universal experiences. For Fitrajaya Nusananta, this belief lies at the heart of his artistic practice. Born in Indonesia and shaped by years of living, studying, and exhibiting across Europe and Asia, he has developed a distinctive body of work that reflects both his multicultural journey and his enduring fascination with the human psyche. Through symbolic imagery, thoughtful compositions, and open-ended narratives, Fitrajaya invites viewers to become active participants in the meaning of his paintings. Born in 1967 in Jambi Province, Central…

In 2016, the artist Teresita Fernandez organized a gathering for Latinx artists, writers, scholars, and curators at the Ford Foundation. At the time, few Latinx artists had solo shows at major US museums, and even fewer had work on view in these institutions’ permanent collection galleries. But if this year’s abundant offerings were any proof, a lot has changed since then. The best place to begin is with Amalia Mesa-Bains, who gave a presentation at that 2016 Ford Foundation gathering about her nearly five decades’ worth of advocating for Latinx and Chicanx art. Mesa-Bains, best known for her altar installations,…

The day after Donald Trump was elected president, Suzanne Jackson’s son, an actor and film producer named Rafiki Smith, died. He had suffered a heart attack earlier in the year, but he had still been running around Savannah, Georgia, where he and Jackson lived, to help get out the vote. The two of them watched Hillary Clinton’s concession speech, and that night, as the gloom descended, he had a second heart attack. He was 45. “A lot of younger people, and older people, went out at that time,” Jackson told me, mentioning the husband of an acquaintance who crashed while flying…

Painting has the unique ability to capture emotions, memories, and ideas through the language of color, texture, and composition. While some artists choose realism to communicate their vision, others find greater freedom in abstraction, allowing viewers to experience a work through personal interpretation rather than direct representation. Teguh belongs to this latter tradition, developing a contemporary painting practice that combines abstract forms with subtle references to landscapes. Working primarily with oil and acrylic on canvas, he creates compositions that invite reflection, emotion, and imaginative exploration. At the center of Teguh’s artistic practice is a fascination with the expressive possibilities of…