Recently, the president of the United States issued a threat to obliterate Iran’s “whole civilization.” While it was likely a bluff, such declarations can have enduring consequences. Once the tensions subside, Americans might need to reflect on which civilization should truly be concerned about its future.
This edition features Ed Simon’s exploration of Salvador Dalí’s “Nuclear Mysticism,” John Yau’s examination of Jasper Johns’s extensive career, Aruna D’Souza’s passionate rebuttal to an essay by artist Josh Kline that stirred the New York art scene, Rhea Nayyar’s interview with the duo behind Hilma’s Ghost, and Tara Sansone’s vision of universally accessible art supplies for artists and educators.
The issue also includes a studio visit with Tom Burckhardt in Beer With a Painter, along with an Appalachian artist’s critical review of a Queens Museum exhibition depicting her childhood landscapes.
Don’t miss this Wednesday’s (3-4pm ET) virtual discussion between photographer Tonika Lewis Johnson and Senior Editor Valentina Di Liscia. Johnson, whose work on racial segregation in Chicago’s South Side earned her the 2025 MacArthur “Genius Grant,” will be sharing her insights. Enjoy your weekend.
—Hakim Bishara, editor-in-chief
Salvador Dalí’s Frustrating Vision of the Divine
Having abandoned the profane for only the sacred, Dalí’s “Nuclear Mysticism” renounced the richness of experience for the aridity of metaphysics. | Ed Simon
Paul Klee: Other Possible Worlds
The first US museum exhibition to focus on the artist’s late work, produced in response to the fascism of the 1930s. On view at the Jewish Museum through July 26, 2026.
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News
- A rarely seen portrait from Wifredo Lam’s early career has found a place in the Hispanic Society Museum and Library’s collection.
- The US president has expanded his threats to include the entire Iranian population, as well as its rich history and culture.
- San Francisco is set to unveil a new permanent exhibition space for late modernist sculptor Ruth Asawa this May.
- After 12 years at the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum, Melissa Chiu will transition to the Guggenheim Museum as its new director this September.
- New research in American Antiquity suggests that dice were first used over 12,000 years ago, much earlier than previously thought.
- See Albrecht Dürer’s “Triumphal Arch,” one of the largest prints ever made, at the New York Public Library before it is stored away this fall.
From Our Critics
Jasper Johns Keeps Looking
He has never lost his love for art and artists, while recognizing that nothing stays in time. | John Yau
It’s Gabriele Münter’s World, We’re Just Living in It
It is her home, her landscape, her family and friends, portrayed in these images that feel miles away from her contemporaries’ modernist abstraction. | Natalie Haddad
Theresa Hak Kyung Cha Made Human Again
Learning about Cha was like a secret revelation handed down among Asian American artists and poets. This show helped me appreciate her more clearly. | Alex Paik
Tonika Lewis Johnson: Segregation and How to Disrupt It
Join us on April 15 for a conversation with social justice artist and recent MacArthur “Genius Grant” winner Tonika Lewis Johnson and Hyperallergic Senior Editor Valentina Di Liscia.
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Opinion
Unlike Josh Kline, I Choose New York
His new article taps into deep frustrations about affordability, but I throw my lot in with those making change, rather than moving out. | Aruna D’Souza
What If Every City Provided Artists With Free Supplies?
Materials for the Arts offers free tools for teachers and artists in New York, but what if more cities funded programs like ours? | Tara Sansone
How to Extract the Story of Appalachia
Fia Backström’s Queens Museum exhibition replaces beauty and complexity with a visual and narrative language that reduces the region to a site of suffering. | Paige Phillips
Features
Elucidating the Esoteric with Hilma’s Ghost
Through research and collaboration, a feminist art collective reclaims the place of alternative spiritualities in art history. | Rhea Nayyar
The Museum Breathing Life Into New York’s Downtown Performance Scene
The Leslie-Lohman is figuring out how to collect art while connecting with the basic needs of the city’s queer community. | Tavia Nyong’o
Saad Khan Archives the Detritus of Censored Culture
Since 2019, the New York-based archivist has cultivated a digital and physical menagerie of censored mass media spanning South Asia to the Maghreb known as Khajistan. | Naib Mian
Community
Beer With a Painter: Tom Burckhardt
“My favorite phrase lately is ‘mouthfeel,’ which is used in relation to food and drink,” said the East Village artist. “I’m thinking about that textural quality as a parallel to the paintings.” | Jennifer Samet
Art Movements: Meet The Met’s New Photography Curator
Oluremi C. Onabanjo’s new role, grants for Queens artists and orgs, the “pinkest pink” turns 10, and more art industry news.
In Memoriam: Remembering Nathan Farb, Thomas Zipp, and Christine Ruiz-Picasso
This week, we honor an intrepid photographer, a punk German artist, and the founder of the Museo Picasso Málaga.
Required Reading
Compton’s forthcoming art center, a Lebanese artist’s workshops for displaced children, dog sledding in Yukon, the NGA goes viral on TikTok, stop-motion versus AI, and more from around the internet.
