After several years of closure, the New Museum on Manhattan’s Lower East Side is reopening today with a new look and expanded galleries. We attended a press preview earlier this week and came back with mixed feelings. Read our candid, messy thoughts below, plus Aaron Short’s report on the business side of the $82 million facelift.
This week’s edition is packed with must-reads. Leila Seyedzadeh, an Iranian artist living in New York, writes about her feelings these days as her home city of Tehran is under unceasing bombardment. David Markus, a contract professor at NYU, explains why he and his colleagues plan to strike soon. Curator Sadaf Padder acquaints us with the artists heralding Islamic futurism. Critic Aruna D’Souza muses on Zarina’s architectural paintings. And in this month’s Art Movements, art coach Paddy Johnson offers useful tips for how to get gallery representation. As always, there’s much more. Enjoy reading and have a great weekend.
—Hakim Bishara, editor-in-chief
What Do We Really Think of the New New Museum?
Hyperallergic’s editors sit down for an earnest conversation about the institution’s expanded building and inaugural exhibition. | Hrag Vartanian, Hakim Bishara, Valentina Di Liscia, Lisa Yin Zhang, and Lakshmi Rivera Amin
What’s So New About the New Museum Building?
The Lower East Side institution’s OMA-designed, $82 million expansion debuted this week to mixed reviews. | Aaron Short
Pratt’s 2026 Fine Arts MFA Thesis Exhibitions, on View This Spring
Pratt Fine Arts is delighted to invite visitors to a two-part show curated by Alessandra Gómez at Dock 72 in the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
News
- Nearly 200 artists, curators, and staff participating in the Venice Biennale are calling on the event organizers to exclude Israel from this year’s program in a new open letter.
- California schools are removing references to Chicano labor leader Cesar Chávez, who was accused of sexually abusing girls in a new investigation.
- The New York Academy of Art announced it will donate $65,900 in funds associated with Jeffrey Epstein to an organization supporting survivors of sex trafficking.
- Seattle police have arrested a man for allegedly shattering highly valuable glass sculptures at Chihuly Garden and Glass, causing $240,000 worth of damage.
- How much did it cost to paint Pompeii’s dazzling “Blue Room”? A new study has the estimates.
From Our Critics
The Canonization of Frida Kahlo
An exhibition blasts apart any crystallized conception of the artist until no easily digestible singular figure emerges. | Liz Kim
Zarina Brought the World to New York
Her visual idiom was fully embedded in South Asian histories, but she never fell into a too-close relationship with national identity. | Aruna D’Souza
Interdimensional Timelines: Hartford Art School Exhibits Liz Nielsen’s Photograms
As she concludes her term as the university’s Distinguished Chair in Photography, Nielsen’s “light paintings” are on view this spring in West Hartford, Connecticut.
Opinion
Flying Back With the Birds to My Hometown of Tehran
Since the war began, I feel as if I am living inside a shadow. It has no physical form, yet it follows me everywhere. | Leila Seyedzadeh
I’m an NYU Contract Professor. This Is Why We Plan to Strike.
For years, NYU’s administrators have casualized the school’s teaching force, many of them artists, by creating a second tier of full-time contract faculty. | David Markus
When a Palestinian Artist Asserts Her Own Humanity
Basma al-Sharif’s screening at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf was met with threats and a smear campaign, proving the point of her films on separation and displacement. | Adam Broomberg and Michele Faguet
On View in NYC
What Can $500 Buy at the Affordable Art Fair?
And, more importantly, is the work on view worth the price? | Rhea Nayyar
The Sartorial Is Political in “The New York Sari”
At the New York Historical, an exhibition reminds us that the sari is a living art form, an heirloom, a document, and a political statement in one. | Lakshmi Rivera Amin
A Visual Journey Through 150 Years of the Legal Aid Society
A new display at the NY Historical traces the impact of the largest legal organization for low-income individuals in the United States. | Isa Farfan
Features
Artists Set Islamic Futurism Into Motion
Islamic visual traditions have long made space for realities beyond direct perception, and these artists work in calligraphy, installation, and speculative image-making to carry them forward. | Sadaf Padder
Meet the Woman Who Made Museums More Accessible
The first head of Accessible Programs at the National Gallery of Art tells us about her path and the future of museum accessibility. | Emma Cieslik
The Tender Work of Preserving Renee Good’s Memorial
A traveling photographer has decided to stay in Minneapolis to care for the hundreds of artworks, objects, and messages left in memory of the poet and mother. | Isa Farfan
Community
Art Problems: How Do I Get Gallery Representation?
Dreaming of showing at your favorite gallery? Paddy Johnson has the masterplan.
Art Movements: And the $100K Rauschenberg Award Goes to…
Winners of the Rauschenberg Centennial Award, Madeleine Grynsztejn leaves MCA Chicago, Banksy is (maybe) unmasked, and other industry news this week.
Remembering Axel Burrough, Kazumasa Nagai, and Éliane Radigue
This week, we honor a pioneering composer, Indigenous muralist, and Upper East Side gallerist.
Required Reading
Ukrainian mosaics, artists and motherhood, Dolores Huerta speaks out, copaganda in the US, wall labels versus artworks, and is your diet a little bit fascist?
A View From the Easel
This week, artist Lex Maria repurposes school supplies and Jade van der Mark collects faces on the subway.
Want to take part? Check out our submission guidelines.
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.
