The Whitney Biennial is opening to the public tomorrow. While it has lost some of its luster over the years, it’s still considered a barometer of American art today. Read what our critics and editors thought of the show below.
While we’re talking New York, do check out our useful guide of art shows to see across the city this spring. We’re expecting 60 degrees Fahrenheit this weekend. Happiness is just around the corner.
Also, RIP DePaul Art Museum, whose imminent closure has upset many in the art community. Some say this hard decision could’ve been avoided, and they’re fighting against it.
Read Seph Rodney on Carol Bove at the Guggenheim, John Yau on Cordy Ryman’s abstractions, Julia Curl on Lisette Model’s forbidden jazz photos, and lots more. Also, did you know you could be suffering from a “creative hangover” after a productive day at the studio? Luckily, it’s curable.
Please support our work by becoming a Hyperallergic member. It’s less than $8 a month for you, but a huge help for us. Enjoy reading and have a great weekend.
—Hakim Bishara, editor-in-chief
First Impressions From the 2026 Whitney Biennial
Here’s what we liked, what we didn’t like, and what we’re still working through. | Lisa Yin Zhang, Lakshmi Rivera Amin, and Hrag Vartanian
The Polycrisis Sublime of the Whitney Biennial
It felt like the world as I experience it: no clear path, but enough moments of beauty to convince me to put one foot in front of the other. | Aruna D’Souza
Making a Mess With CFGNY
We spoke to the fashion collective, who will be in the Whitney Biennial and shows at Pioneer Works and Amant, about collectivity and taking chances. | Lisa Yin Zhang
Latest News
Call for Applications: 2026 Craft Archive Fellowship
The Center for Craft will award up to four $5,000 fellowships to support research on underrepresented craft histories, culminating in an article on Hyperallergic.
Learn more
Spring in New York
Hyperallergic Spring 2026 New York Art Guide
The gleeful subversiveness of Duchamp at MoMA, the first major US show on Raphael at The Met, and exhibitions on spirituality, the body, fashion, and more.
15 Art Excursions Outside NYC This Spring
The avant-garde environments of Piero Manzoni, the abstract visions of Agnes Martin, Rina Banerjee’s diaphanous monuments, and so much else to see.
Finding God at the Brooklyn Museum
The Ancient Egyptian “Book of the Dead” turned me into a believer. We talked to the curators and conservators to learn how it came to be. | Greta Rainbow
From Our Critics
An Overfilled Guggenheim Retrospective Dulls Carol Bove’s Brilliance
A smaller survey would have allowed for something more meaningful than just showing what Bove has been doing for the past decades. | Seph Rodney
Wally Hedrick Protested War With Sex
The countercultural San Francisco artist specialized in antiwar art and the transcendent potential of sex in the era of flower power. | David S. Rubin
Magdalena Abakanowicz Sculpted the Collective Body
Her organic sculptures convey a quiet power, the faceless anonymity of multitudes transformed into a collective oneness. | Ela Bittencourt
Everyday Traces of NYC’s SWANA Diaspora
An exhibition at NYPL offers a window into life within this paradox where invisibility and visibility are two sides of the same coin. | Natalie Haddad
The Jazz Pictures the FBI Silenced
Fearing for her safety, Lisette Model buried her photos of artists like Billie Holiday and Louis Armstrong, but a new book reveals them to the world. | Julia Curl
Also on Hyperallergic
The Uncertain Future of Colombia’s Museum of Memory
Originally envisioned as a center for collective memory and mourning amid the country’s 70-year armed conflict, the building still sits empty in the middle of Bogotá. | Kurt Hollander
Cordy Ryman’s Playful Remix of Minimalism
The son of legendary painters, Ryman has developed his own visual language, transforming aspects of his parents’ work, and Minimalism, into something recognizably his.
Remembering Iris Cantor, Ulysses Jenkins, and Rena Bransten
This week, we honor an arts patron, a video artist, and a San Francisco gallerist.
Art Movements: Anicka Yi Picks Up the Pace
The artist is now represented by Pace, along with three other galleries. Plus, NYC has a new culture commissioner, closures at art schools, and more industry news.
Required Reading
Iranian heritage sites, a Native artist’s anti-ICE beadwork, France’s Braille Museum, mapping Black-owned bookstores, the business behind America’s sauna frenzy, and more links from around the web.
A View From the Easel
In Brooklyn, artist George Seyffert transforms their law school notes into a medium, and Nimisha Doongarwal in Berkeley, California, weaves the studio into their everyday life.
Opportunities This Month
Residencies, fellowships, grants, and open calls from Vermont Studio Center, the Japanese American National Museum, and more in our March 2026 list of opportunities for artists, writers, and art workers.
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