Author: Arden McKenna

Scholar Larry Silver sheds light on depictions of old age in Greek, Biblical, and European art history, but misses a deeper exploration. The years before Michelangelo’s death were some of his most productive and most celebrated including his work as the lead architect of St. Peter’s Basilica and his murals at the Pauline Chapel in Rome. He passed at age 88 in 1564, a long life even by today’s standards. Did the extra years give him special skills or insights? Art historian Larry Silver would say so. In Old Age in Art, he explores the impact of a long life on…

Contemporary abstract art often finds its greatest strength in its ability to transform personal emotions and lived experiences into visual expression. Through color, texture, and movement, artists create worlds that encourage viewers to interpret rather than simply observe. Among the artists embracing this expressive language is Dex Kusuma, a Bali-born painter whose vibrant abstract works explore the relationship between nature, emotion, and modern life. Originally from Tampaksiring, Bali, Indonesia, Dex Kusuma has developed an artistic practice rooted in intuition and creative freedom. His paintings are inspired by the natural environment that surrounds him, yet they move far beyond traditional landscape…

His film Assembly is more than just documentation of a performance. It’s a kind of communion. Rashaad Newsome’s Assembly is technically a documentary about a performance. But calling it that feels small. Yes, it documents his installation at the Park Avenue Armory, but what it offers is a vision, a map, a speculative ritual for survival. At its core, Assembly documents Rashaad Newsome’s multi sensory performance at the Park Avenue Armory, staged in March 2022. The piece blended live performance, digital projection, and participatory workshops to explore themes of decolonization, healing, and Black queer futurity. Dancers performed choreography by Maleek Washington beneath towering video…

Miles J. Unger’s new study on the artist is in part a critical biography and in part an impressive and sensitive account of his creation of some key paintings. Christianity had failed him. What next then? Art? Vincent van Gogh’s life as an artist had the most faltering and rudimentary of beginnings in 1880. By 1890 he was dead, by suicide, at the age of 37. A tempestuous life snuffed out. A Fire in His Soul: Van Gogh, Paris, and the Making of an Artist is in part a critical biography and in part an impressive and sensitive account of his…

Mernet Larsen, whose painting Getting Measured (1999) appears on the cover of the Winter 2025 issue of Art in America, is profiled in the magazine. From her home in Tampa, Florida, Larsen told A.i.A. the backstory of the canvas, shown here in full. This painting was really a turning point for me. I had been working quite abstractly, but I got this longing to make old fashioned paintings of people and places and ordinary things. I felt jealous of Piero della Francesca. I’d done representational paintings before, but I didn’t want to go back to conventional realist paintings. So, I thought: Well, what if I use…

Artistic growth is rarely a straight path. It is shaped by changing environments, new relationships, and the willingness to embrace fresh ideas while remaining true to one’s creative instincts. For Yono San, widely known simply as Yono, this journey has been defined by continuous evolution. From his beginnings in Surabaya to his artistic development in Bali and his international exhibitions in Japan, Yono has built a career centered on exploration, personal growth, and an enduring commitment to creativity. Born on October 7, 1977, in Surabaya, Indonesia, Yono developed his artistic interests within the rich cultural landscape of Java. Indonesia’s diverse…

The bicentenary of Jacques Louis David, who passed away on December 28, 1825, is just around the corner. To mark the occasion, the Louvre presents an exhibition of 100 works by the celebrated French artist. “This anniversary was certainly an opportunity,” the exhibition’s curator Sébastien Allard told ARTnews ahead of the opening, “but more importantly our last David retrospective dates back to 1989 and was strongly tied to the bicentennial of the French Revolution. After 35 years, it is time for us to revisit his career in a new light.” Though the Paris museum may hold the largest collection of works by David, the exhibition,…

In a new book, art historian Jack Hartnell reconsiders the gruesome image as “one of the period’s most sophisticated repositories of medical hope.” Even safely contained on the page, the Wound Man is deeply unnerving. The many versions of the image produced between the late Medieval and early modern periods vary, but they all depict a nude (or mostly nude) man riddled with weapons, everyday injuries, and signs of disease. Between the blunt trauma to his head and the buboes at his groin, the Wound Man’s prognosis doesn’t look good. And yet, the figure appears indifferent. Some Wound Men meet our…

For anyone interested in poetry (not the same as verse); underknown art and artists; the artists and poets of the New York School after the death of Franz Kline and Frank O’Hara; collaboration; collage; a do-it-yourself spirit; the Lower East Side (particularly from the late 1960s until the late ’80 For anyone interested in poetry (not the same as verse); underknown art and artists; the artists and poets of the New York School after the death of Franz Kline and Frank O’Hara (in 1962 and ’66, respectively); collaboration; collage; a do it yourself spirit; the Lower East Side (particularly from…

An exhibition at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum includes works by Tewa Pueblo artists, helping dispel the problematic “O’Keeffe Country” narrative. SANTA FE During a recent tour of Georgia O’Keeffe’s house in Abiquiu, New Mexico, I looked out a window and recognized the view of the highway snaking up the mesa toward Española. I felt a little uneasy when I realized that my familiarity came primarily from the artist’s paintings of the landscape.  O’Keeffe’s renderings of Northern New Mexico which do not include Tewa people or culture and the lore of her independent settler spirit are ingrained in the history of Western Modernism, and…