Last week, the Nottoway Plantation in Louisiana burned to the ground.
| Last week, the Nottoway Plantation in Louisiana burned to the ground. Nothing was left of the antebellum mansion but ashes of a shameful past. “For Black people, it wasn’t just the fall of a building,” writes artist Damien Davis in a must-read opinion piece below. “It was a release [...] Watching it burn felt like witnessing a lie collapse under the weight of truth.” These days, it seems like the whole world is on fire. But there’s still plenty of courage and resistance going around. Case in point: A court orders the Trump administration to reinstate museum grants it had slashed after attorneys general from 21 states banded together to file a lawsuit. Many times, compliance is a choice. In the latest episode of the Hyperallergic Podcast, our Editor-in-Chief Hrag Vartanian speaks with author Michelle Young about her new book The Art Spy. It tells the true story of Rose Valland, a French curator and spy who saved art from the Nazis during World War II. There’s a lot more to read on this long Memorial Day weekend here in the US, including impressions from the 2025 Hawai’i Triennial, Kashmir’s “Museum of Memories,” John Yau on Stanley Rosen’s clay alligators, and a new book that tries to rehabilitate (or at least complicate) Paul Gauguin’s tainted reputation. We need your help to keep up the work in these extremely uncertain times. Please consider joining our community as a Hyperallergic Member for as little as $6.67 a month ($80/year). It’s less than a glass of orange juice in New York City (don’t get me started on that). Enjoy your weekend! — Hakim Bishara, Managing Editor | | |
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| | For Black people, watching the Nottoway plantation go up in flames felt like witnessing a lie collapse under the weight of truth. | Damien Davis |
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SPONSORED | | | | | The Anchorage institution exists to be a purposeful, active place where culture is embodied, enacted, and shared. Learn more |
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NEWS THIS WEEK | | | Nearly 260 quilt panels lined the National Mall spelling the message “Freedom To Be” as part of a temporary installation celebrating trans joy and resilience. A judge blocked the Institute of Museum and Library Services from carrying out Trump’s mandate to gut the agency, but the future of funding remains uncertain. Fellows in the prestigious Independent Study Program denounced the Whitney Museum’s move to cancel a performance about Palestinian mourning. Columbia University students honor Mahmoud Khalil at the “People’s Graduation” in uptown Manhattan. Archaeologists in Australia have identified a new Aboriginal rock art style that dates back to the mid-to-late Holocene age, around 7,000 to 5,000 years ago.
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NEW PODCAST EPISODE | | | Michelle Young joins Hrag Vartanian to discuss her new book, which uncovers astonishing findings about the World War II hero. |
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SPONSORED | | | | | New from Field of Vision, Mariam Ghani’s film The Fire This Time is a stunning visual and historic investigation into the intertwined histories of pandemics, riots, and colonial violence. Learn more |
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LATEST REVIEWS | | | Sue Prideaux’s new biography of the artist reveals both a discomfort with his complex legacy and that, in 2025, redemption arcs sell. | Alisyn Amant
The triennial has been a reminder to seek creative ways to link tradition and the present moment and to connect across difference. | Stephanie Smith
These contemporary interpretations acknowledge artistic roots while building new forms, and each work opens up portals into other lineages. | Mána Taylor |
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| | | People of color are often called upon to perform their identities, but Nguyen’s lush tapestries largely avoid that trap. | Lisa Yin Zhang
Consistent throughout Rosen’s unglazed alligator sculptures is his ambition to connect the shaping of clay with prehistoric visions. | John Yau An exhibition spanning the 1960s through ’90s prods the potentialities and limits of a cyborgian body. | Ela Bittencourt |
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MORE ON HYPERALLERGIC | | | The Unlock Hunderman–Museum of Memories isn’t curated by professional archivists, but by local residents of a village located along the India–Pakistan Line of Control. | Shoaib Shafi
In presenting the distinct ecological identity of Australia, Peter Sharp and Michelle Cawthorn are landscape artists who don’t show you the landscape. | John Yau
Dressed in flowing pink robes, artist and activist Dee Mulrooney — or “Growler” — is urging the British Museum to return a Síle na Giġ statue back to Ireland. | Emma Cieslik
“Central heating would be nice.” | Lakshmi Rivera Amin
This week: Mona Chalabi on animating hijabis, the history of screensavers, Mexican activists fight big tech, the flip phone revolution, Pedro Pascal cookies, and much more. | Lakshmi Rivera Amin |
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FROM THE ARCHIVE | | | Goya neatly clothes himself in his own world of fantasy: He will have her in the end. In life, where the climate is much chillier, it was, alas, to be otherwise. | Michael Glover |
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