Carolina A. Miranda | The New York Review of Books

Poisonous Objects

Two exhibitions in Los Angeles respond to the racist monuments to Confederate soldiers that have been erected all over the United States.

MONUMENTS

an exhibition at the Geffen Contemporary at the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Brick, Los Angeles, October 23, 2025–May 3, 2026

Tavares Strachan: The Day Tomorrow Began

an exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, October 12, 2025–March 29, 2026

March 12, 2026 issue

Close to the Punches

Vincent Valdez has made an unlikely career portraying human figures, especially underdogs and antiheroes.

Vincent Valdez: Just a Dream...

an exhibition at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, November 15, 2024–March 23, 2025, and the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams, May 24, 2025–April 5, 2026

June 26, 2025 issue

Intimate Theatricality

Meticulously installed domestic spaces set the tone for Mickalene Thomas’s current exhibition, which features the work for which she is best known: sumptuous portraits of Black women in repose—the artist’s mother, lovers, and friends.

Mickalene Thomas: All About Love

an exhibition at the Broad, Los Angeles, May 25–September 29, 2024; the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, October 20, 2024–January 12, 2025; Hayward Gallery, London, February 11–May 5, 2025; and Les Abattoirs, Musée–Frac Occitanie Toulouse, June 13–November 9, 2025

December 19, 2024 issue

The Return of Trump—VI

On rage, fluoride, the task of the journalist, the Garden of American Heroes, and the Buffs and the Blues.

November 15, 2024

Mythic Chaps

Two recent exhibitions in Denver reveal how many legends and surprising realities coexist in the idea of the American cowboy.

Cowboy

an exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, September 29, 2023–February 18, 2024, and the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, September 28, 2024–March 23, 2025

The American West in Art: Selections from the Denver Art Museum

edited by Thomas Brent Smith and Jennifer R. Henneman

Eight Seconds: Black Rodeo Culture

by Ivan McClellan

October 17, 2024 issue

‘Places That Weren’t Supposed to Be Places’

Three exhibitions of Caribbean art in New York, San Juan, and Chicago show artists intent on rewriting the history of the region.

no existe un mundo poshuracán: Puerto Rican Art in the Wake of Hurricane Maria

an exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City, November 23, 2022–April 23, 2023

Forecast Form: Art in the Caribbean Diaspora, 1990s–Today

an exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, November 19, 2022–April 23, 2023; the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, October 5, 2023–February 24, 2024; and the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, April 6–July 8, 2024

Tropical Is Political: Caribbean Art Under the Visitor Economy Regime

an exhibition at the Americas Society, New York City, September 7–December 17, 2022; and the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico, San Juan, February 18–July 30, 2023

July 20, 2023 issue

Art of Place

“As art fairs have come to dominate the arts calendar, art feels increasingly placeless, something that parachutes in and just as quickly disappears.”

May 7, 2022

Tomorrow Is Today

It is impossible to write about Prospect.5, New Orleans’s citywide art triennial, without considering the reason for its existence: Katrina.

Prospect.5: Yesterday we said tomorrow

an exhibition in various locations in New Orleans, October 23, 2021–January 23, 2022

May 12, 2022 issue

‘Who Designs Your Race?’

At a time when Latino identity is in flux, El Museo del Barrio’s triennial embraces its fragmented nature.

Estamos Bien: La Trienal 20/21

an exhibition at El Museo del Barrio, New York City, March 13–September 26, 2021

October 21, 2021 issue