#artforum

[garadinervi]

Joan Mitchell: "… my black paintings…" 1964, (adv. in «Artforum» magazine), Robert Miller Gallery, New York, NY, October 1994 [Art Books & Ephemera. Joan Mitchell Foundation, New York, NY. Art: © Estate of Joan Mitchell]

[sissyxxxenomorph]

Michael Zavros, Untitled, 2015. Oil on canvas. 71x71 inches.

[dopethingnut]

[fashionlandscapeblog]

Issey Miyake Spring Summer 1982 photographed by Eiichiro Sakata for Artforum 1982

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[lisamarie-vee]

[jacobwren]

"The past two years have given the lie to any wisdom that the art world constitutes the progressive avant-garde. I can count acts of bravery from less-visible artists, but a fog of silence continues to dominate the field: few expressions of solidarity forthcoming from institutions, and too few artists willing to speak out via social media, much less their own work. What do we make of this depressing amalgam of fear and apathy? How many will it take to break the art world’s attitude of mute acquiescence? I am struck by the fact that major celebrities seem more likely than major contemporary artists to publicly express support for the Palestinian cause. The musician Lorde lights the stage at Madison Square Garden in red, white and green. The actress Jennifer Lawrence tells reporters: “What’s happening is no less than a genocide and it’s unacceptable”. Joaquin Phoenix, Olivia Coleman and thousands more sign a boycott of Israeli film groups “implicated in genocide”. Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem make regular statements, and Hannah Einbinder shouts “Free Palestine” as she accepts her Emmy. These are not simply symbolic gestures, but meaningful demonstrations of solidarity. “The more of us there are, the more of us there are,” Nan said at the end of her speech. She understands that we pierce repression with a surplus of reparative and disruptive actions. More voices, more collective, louder, riskier. She understands that we make change not through holding ideologically correct or coherent beliefs, but through an uneven accretion of strategic and local decisions. Not everyone has to make the same choices. Certainly not everyone has to agree. But we all have to act. I have spent the past two years on unofficial hiatus from the official art world. Its ceremonial sound and fury feel remote to me. Speculation has been hollowing art out for decades, and we might simply have passed a threshold where price is the only measure of worth. But I’m alert enough to know that the era of unbridled conspicuous consumption might be ending. The proverbial bubble has burst. Collectors are disposing of their minions and concierges. Galleries are closing, or having less lavish parties. Artists at every level are feeling the burn. It’s only appropriate, now that the uneasy truce between the market and its playthings has been scuttled. Brute reality tore the mast from the boat. None of this is “complicated”, as the boilerplate from strategic wafflers would have you believe. As I write this, dim leaders celebrate the supposed end to this “war”. Those who couldn’t admit to a genocide now begin to speak of it in the past tense. We’re roughly 11 weeks into a supposed ceasefire, which Israel breaks daily with routine barbarism. As I write this, IDF soldiers continue their enduring project of annexation and extermination in the West Bank. A politics of wilful ignorance and escalating stupidity keeps the killing machines going. The writing can’t keep pace. Every minute there’s another atrocity tidily packaged as a sedate number in a headline. At least 70,000 Palestinians have been murdered, but these are the underreported official counts. Around 30 percent of these have been children, with an estimated average of 28 children killed each day since October 2023. More than 98 percent of Gaza’s cropland has been damaged or made inaccessible, or both. It’s increasingly hard to hold in mind the scale of devastation. It’s increasingly hard to care about the fate of an art world narcotised by money and self-regard. We had a chance to at least try and make a difference. We had a chance to not sell ourselves out. We had a chance, and we blew it. This did not end well, and still we can choose to begin again, tilting – collectively, contingently – toward the pitch of liberation." - David Velasco, How Gaza Broke the Art World

[davidhudson]

Artforum design director Alex Lesy on the redesign.

[stephengillette]

Abstract, January 22, 2026 : : California