Welcome to a brand-new Art in America. With this year’s edition of our annual New Talent issue, we’ve given the magazine a reboot, with new features, a spirited and stylish design, and a unique approach to our cover.
The issue kicks off with an expanded Datebook section of exhibitions and events we’re sure you’ll want to know about in the coming months, with some books and films and other things thrown in. We’re introducing fun and thought-provoking new sections, like Battle Royale, which pits one art world fixture against another (in this case, Chelsea and Tribeca, New York’s most-trafficked gallery districts), and Object Lesson, in which we explore a single artwork by an esteemed artist (first up is Jaune Quick-to See Smith, who has a retrospective on view now at the Whitney Museum). You’ll also see that we’ve given additional space to our columnists Chen & Lampert, who have added an interactive quiz to their popular Hard Truths advice column.
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As for New Talent, we’ve increased the number of artists this time to 20—more in line with the huge number of exceptional creators who arise on the worldwide art scene every year. This year’s group skews to the Global South, where some of the most intriguing new talents are being cultivated these days. We’ve also included a special focus on New Talent in New York—where square-footage is expensive and competition among artists is intense—with a feature taking you into five artists’ studios. We offer even more new talent scattered throughout a feature on artists who are using fiber and textiles in ways that elevate the medium to the status of painting.
And we aren’t just celebrating new talent. Emily Watlington conducted a revealing interview with Kerry James Marshall, an artist who is at the top of his game—but refuses to be pegged to any one style.
Finally, with this issue we inaugurate a feature that you saw before you even opened the pages here: a cover artist. The idea is that, for each issue of Art in America, we will choose an emerging (or re-emerging) artist whose work we’ll showcase on the cover, and you’ll find an interview with that artist on the final page of the magazine, along with a full view of the artwork from which we chose a detail. In this case it’s a painting by Drake Carr, who summoned a spirited milieu rooted in part in his work as a bartender at a self-described “queer tiki disco dive bar” in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Learn more about it on page 136—and enjoy the read.
New Talent
20 exciting artists to watch, as chosen by the editors of Art in America.
New Talent New York
A.i.A. visits the studios of five New York–based artists on the rise.
Fiber Is the New Painting
On gallery walls, tapestries are replacing canvases as young artists disregard distinctions between fine art and folk art.
by Wendy Vogel
Bow Down
As scholars revisit early matriarchal cultures, artists are rediscovering the Goddess movement.
by Eleanor Heartney
Grand Theft AI
A new lawsuit asks, can you steal a style?
by Shanti Escalante-De Mattei
Softer Power, with a French Touch
The Centre Pompidou’s landmark agreement with Saudi Arabia is more complicated than it seems. So are the politics of art there.
by Devorah Lauter
DEPARTMENTS
Datebook
A highly discerning list of things to experience over the next three months.
by the Editors of A.i.A.
Issues & Commentary
The best and worst artists of our time are sending work into space.
by Emily Watlington
Battle Royale
Tribeca vs. Chelsea—gallery districts face off.
by the Editors of A.i.A.
Syllabus
A reading list for a crash course on video art.
by Emily Watlington
Inquiry
A Q&A with Kerry James Marshall about his new exquisite corpse works.
by Emily Watlington
Sightlines
Counterpublic curator Allison Glenn tells us what she likes.
by Francesca Aton
Hard Truths
A teacher and an artist ask for advice. Plus, an interactive quiz.
by Chen & Lampert
Appreciation
A tribute to Peter Schjeldahl, writer of vivid, unforgettable prose.
by Jackson Arn
Book Review
A reading of Amanda Wasielewski’s Computational Formalism: Art History and Machine Learning.
by Sonja Drimmer
Object Lesson
An annotation of Jaune Quick-to-See Smith’s Memory Map.
by Francesca Aton
Spotlight
Revisiting Leon Polk Smith’s abstractions in the context of identity.
by Barry Schwabsky
Cover Artist
Drake Carr talks about his painting featured on the front of the magazine.
by the Editors of A.i.A.
REVIEWS
Hong Kong
Hong Kong Diary
by Andrew Russeth
New York
“Bispo do Rosario: All Existing Materials on Earth”
by Elise Chagas
“Juan de Pareja, Afro-Hispanic Painter”
by Maria H. Loh
Cape Town
“When We See Us: A Century of Black Figuration in Painting”
by Nkgopoleng Moloi
Sharjah
The 15th Sharjah Biennial
by Emily Watlington
Berlin
“Martin Wong: Malicious Mischief”
by Martin Herbert