The Art Angle

Most of us can agree: we are living through a cultural crisis. It doesn’t come from a single source—it isn’t just algorithms, aesthetics, politics, or the economy. It’s the convergence of all these forces, and beneath them, the erosion of institutions that once anchored collective life. Over the past decade, digital platforms, like social media, promised to be a new kind of connective tissue—a democratizing force to replace more slow-moving institutions. But while platforms have transformed our economies and society, they’ve also hollowed out the very structures that once gave us shared ground. Mike Pepi has long been a sharp voice in this particular debate. Straddling both the tech industry and the worlds of art criticism and cultural theory, he brings a rare perspective. His writing, which has appeared in Frieze, e-flux, Artforum, and The Brooklyn Rail, also takes the form of a compelling new book called Against Platforms: Surviving Digital Utopia that was published earlier this year. In it, Pepi dismantles some of Silicon Valley’s most enduring myths, and it’s a bracing argument about what we have lost and what’s at stake as we hand over so much power, diminishing along the way some of our core institutions. But he also looks at how we might begin to rebuild them. For the art world in particular, the implications of Pepi's ideas are profound.

This is a re-air of a popular episode from earlier in the year. Have you ever asked yourself: What do artists have to learn from the octopus? Maybe not—but the question is at the heart of the work of Miriam Simun, who currently has an exhibition about her Institute for Transhumanist Cephalopod Evolution at the art space Recess in Brooklyn. And it turns out the answer is mind-expanding. Almost literally. Simun’s unusual art practice can be seen as part of a serious trend in recent years of artists exploring non-human thought of all kinds in the hopes of shifting our troubled relationship to the natural world. The centerpiece of Simun's show at Recess is a series of workshops titled “How to Become an Octopus (and sometime squid).” For these, the artist guides participants through a two-hour program of “psycho-physical” exercises she has developed over many years through collaborations with marine biologists, engineers, dancers, and synchronized swimmers. She’s taught the method all over the world, and the description says the classes are “open to anyone curious about cephalopods, new ways of sensing, and expanding the definition of self”—an audience which included national art critic Ben Davis. He got in there to explore my cephalopod side, and for this week's Art Angle, we talk about Simun’s art and what he took away from my experience in her workshop.

If you want to know which artist is having the biggest year in museums, there is one name that springs to mind for me: Cara Romero. Since her first big breakout a decade ago at Santa Fe Indian Market, Romero has been steadily growing in influence. If you don’t know it yet, her photo-based art is full of color, drama, and detail. It’s sometimes funny, sometimes fantastical. And it moves between a variety of themes that are extremely important in museums right now: Indigenous identities, environmental concern, science fiction, and staged or set-up photography, to name a few. For that reason, Romero finds her work part of many surveys and touring exhibitions at the moment. She had this year a mid-career retrospective at the Hood Museum at Dartmouth, “Cara Romero: Panûpünüwügai,” meaning “Living Light.” She also has a two-person spotlight with her husband, the artist Diego Romero, called “Tales of Future Past,” currently at the Crocker art Museum in Sacramento. For someone who has risen to the very top of the museum circuit, Romero has had a unique career path and story. Join The Art Angle hosts Ben Davis and Kate Brown for a special live edition of The Round-Up with special guest Matthew Higgs at Independent 20th Century Art Fair on Saturday, September 6, at 5 p.m. in New York. Purchase your tickets at Independenthq.com, and learn more about Independent 20th Century’s full programming here.

In art history, the pastoral has long offered a vision of nature as sanctuary—Arcadian meadows, idyllic countrysides, and timeless landscapes painted as if untouched by human conflict or change. It is a mode steeped in longing, often idealizing rural life as a place of harmony, simplicity, and beauty. From the verdant backdrops of Renaissance allegories to the sunlit fields of 19th-century landscape painting, the pastoral tradition has provided generations of artists and their audiences a gentle escape from the turbulence of urban and political life. You can still see these scenes in their full, romantic bloom at institutions like the Met in New York or the Louvre in Paris, where they stand as visions of a perfect, almost mythical world. Today, however, a different strain of pastoral is taking root—one that resists the urge to smooth over complexity. My sharp-eyed colleague Katie White has spotted a cohort of contemporary artists who are engaging with pastoral imagery in ways that raise the stakes, bringing the countryside into conversation with the crises and contradictions of the present. She’s dubbed this approach the para-pastoral, a genre that does not retreat into a calm and untroubled countryside but instead ventures into ambiguous, layered, and sometimes unsettling terrains. According to Katie, this new approach reframes the landscape not as a static refuge but as a charged space, marked by ecological urgency, political tension, and social change. Rather than romanticizing, the para-pastoral interrogates: Who has access to land? What histories does it conceal? How do rural spaces fit into the global story of climate and capitalism? Katie joins senior editor Kate Brown on the podcast to trace the history of pastoral art and explore the tense, resonant present of the para-pastoral. Together, we’ll look at what’s fueling the genre’s resurgence, the social and environmental urgencies shaping it, and how artists are reimagining the natural landscape—not as a refuge from reality, but as a mirror of it. Episode artwork: Samantha Joy Groff, Backwoods Diana the Huntress (2024). Photograph: Sofia Colvin. Courtesy of the artist.

While we are on summer break, this is a re-air of a popular episode from earlier in the year. Can you think of a work of art that truly thrilled you? Maybe you can—and if you can, maybe it even literally made you shiver, or sent a chill up your spine. This is the phenomena that is called “Aesthetic Chills.” It’s tied to strong emotional reactions to music or dramatic moments in fiction, or even to works of visual art. The effect is a bit mysterious, though it’s also associated with some of our most memorable art encounters. What does it mean for an artwork to be literally “spine-tingling?” Why does it happen when it happens, and why is it so rare? Ben Davis wrote a two-art essay last year on this fascinating phenomena. Ben’s essay argued that this was more than just a technical subject. He thought that it might even point towards some vital parts of what make art important in our lives that don’t get enough attention. Based on the reaction of readers, many seem to agree—we also published an essay of readers responding with their own examples of artworks that had the effect on them.

It may be the dog days of summer, but the art world doesn’t take a break, and there’s plenty to talk about for our monthly roundup episode, where we parse and analyze the biggest headlines shaping the art world and industry. In this episode, we take a look at what is going on in the art scenes across London, New York, and Berlin, including some of the biennials going on this summer. Then, we get into the headlines: including a dive into a long-gestating biopic by actor Johnny Depp, called Modì: Three Days on the Wing of Madness. The new film is Depp's first directorial effort in nearly three decades, and it dramatizes 72 chaotic hours in the artist Amedeo Modigliani’s life as he chases around early 20th-century Paris with artists Chaim Soutine and Maurice Utrillo. We also talk about Depp's new art drop. Is it all a rebranding exercise? After that, we break down the intrigue swirling around the U.S. pavilion for next year’s Venice Biennale and what it might reveal about American cultural diplomacy in 2025. Within that fold, we take stock of a proposal from controversy-loving artist Andres Serrano and another idea from far-right American blogger Curtis Yarvin. Last but not least, we analyze the Labubu mania, a craze for these mischievous little dolls that has finally made its way into the art world and into the market. National art critic Ben Davis and our editor-in-chief, Naomi Rea joined senior editor Kate Brown on the podcast to talk about it all.

If you’ve been around art in the last several decades or so, you likely have heard the term “institutional critique.” This is a genre of art that turns the lens back  onto the world around the art object as its subject, finding playful or polemical ways to provoke thought on art’s unspoken rules and expectations and links to the wider world. Andrea Fraser is one of the artists who has most helped define “institutional critique” as a genre and as a practice. She has done this in artworks that sometimes look like performances, or lectures, or works of research—but also in her essays and theoretical writings. One of her recent essays, “The Field of Contemporary Art: A Diagram,” published over at e-Flux Notes, is an attempt literally to map out how contemporary art is not one thing but a landscape of different competing camps and value systems, so that you might figure out where you stand within it. She calls this theory “a resource to make sense of a field that makes no sense,” and she agreed to talk to art critic Ben Davis about it.

What’s a painting worth? For art world professionals, that question of price has never been easy—but lately, it’s gotten harder than ever. As we’ve discussed on this podcast before, the art market has cooled off. But this isn’t just a downturn—it’s a disruption. The system that once supported pricing logic is now in disarray, and dealers and advisors are feeling the strain. In a recent report for Artnet News Pro, our editor-in-chief Naomi Rea explored how the traditional rules of art pricing have stopped making sense. With confidence waning and speculation drying up, dealers are quietly recalibrating. What we’re seeing may be more than a correction—as Naomi reports, it could be the unraveling of an entire logic. Naomi joins senior editor Kate Brown to unpack what’s going on in the “danger zone” of the market and how different players—from mega-galleries, emerging dealers, to advisors and collectors—are adapting. They also discuss whether we might be heading toward a more sustainable and meaningful art market.

Every rising generation reinvents the rules of how art works. What are the new new ways of working? What kinds of spaces serve those needs? Art critic Ben Davis keeps coming back to these questions, and it’s part of why he decided he wanted to talk to Maya Man. Man got her MFA from the famous Media Art program at the University of California in 2023. She makes art that’s fun and very online, looking at the digital world and the way it blurs reality and performance. Right now, her work A Realistic Day in My Life Living in New York City is the first-ever work commissioned by the Whitney Museum for its “On the Hour” program, taking over the museum’s website every hour for 30 seconds. Set your clock if you want to catch it. Man is also a scene-maker herself. Davis first heard about her experimental art space, Heart, after it had already closed, earlier this year. But in its brief, frenzied life, it left a big mark. It was a space where a certain kind of experimental online/offline art scene that feels very now started to define itself.

When we first aired this episode about red chip art a few months back, it captured a cultural and art market phenomenon hiding in plain sight. My colleague Annie Armstrong mapped out a world of Cybertrucks, crypto wallets, and Alec Monopoly openings—a bro-filled art scene where KAWS, MSCHF, and Daniel Arsham are the mainstays, and where spectacle often outpaces substance. Then Adrien Brody had an art show. This summer, at Eden Gallery in New York, the Oscar-winning actor unveiled his solo exhibition "Made in America," including a body of work that dives headfirst into the visual language of red-chip art. The show includes mixed-media paintings with portraits of Marilyn Monroe, and there are also Basquiat-inspired crowns, rats, and images of Mickey Mouse. There’s even a participatory element that involves audience members sticking their used chewing gum on the gallery wall. Brody's maximalist, pop-culture salad seems tailor-made for virality, sure—but reactions in the art world have been quite mixed. Some see Brody’s exhibition as a genuine creative endeavor; but others view it as a high-profile example of what happens when celebrity, commerce, and art collide in an already hype-driven market. Some don't mind the celebrity aspect but think it is just bad painting. Either way, what’s certain is that Brody isn’t just dabbling in this so-called red chip art world sphere—he’s fully committed and he is now the new face of it— in all of its chrome-coated, algorithm-charmed aesthetic. In honor of the buzz surrounding "Made in America," we’re re-airing our episode on red chip art. In it, I spoke to Annie about the phenomenon, exploring how social media, speculation, and celebrity culture are reshaping a corner of the art world that often defies traditional critical frameworks. Whether you see it as democratizing or dystopian, red chip art is impossible to ignore.

It’s the end of June. It’s hot. And it’s time to take a look back at the hot art stories of the last month. Today the Art Angle team has picked out three items. On the agenda: —The announcement of a brand new, ambitious museum-like art venue, Canyon, dedicated to immersive video art, on the Lower East Side. We'll also talk about the general state of immersive art attractions. —What went down at Art Basel, the big Swiss art fair that is the art industry’s most important event, and the ongoing chaos in art prices. —And finally, the Oscar-winning actor Adrien Brody’s painting show in New York City, which has everyone talking—or at least, tittering. Culture editor Min Chen joins art critic Ben Davis and Artnet senior editor—and Art Angle co-host—Kate Brown to talk about it all.

The Los Angeles–based trend forecaster and writer Sean Monahan is known for his sharp takes on the zeitgeist. Over the past decade, his cultural insights have routinely gone viral—most famously when he coined the term “vibe shift,” a phrase that quickly spread from niche corners of the internet to mainstream outlets like The New York Times and The Guardian. In the early 2010s, he co-founded the trend-forecasting collective K-HOLE with Greg Fong, Sean Monahan, Chris Sherron, Emily Segal, and Dena Yago. Though short-lived, their reports had an outsized influence on the cultural sphere, best known for popularizing the term “normcore”—a concept that began in the art world and ended up becoming a household world an era of anti-style. Today, Monahan runs 8Ball, his cult-favorite newsletter on Substack that decodes contemporary aesthetics, social dynamics, tech, and the subtle undercurrents of change. If you want to understand why things look, feel, and behave the way they do right now—his writing is essential. Senior Editor Kate Brown spoke with Sean about his own journey from art school to consulting for brands, and how that path informs his view of the present moment. They discussed institutional decay, the legacy of post-internet art, generational shifts, and the persistent sense that culture has entered a holding pattern. He also offered thoughts on why the 2020s—after several false starts—may finally be congealing into a definable decade.

We’re on the cusp of the 2025 edition of Art Basel—the flagship fair held each June in Basel, Switzerland. More than 200 galleries from around the world gather to present works spanning the 20th and 21st centuries. Art Basel is both a bellwether and a battleground. Participation is prestigious—and costly. It’s competitive, and it’s high-stakes. That’s always been true. What’s newer is the softening of the art market. Sales are down. Demand is cautious. Buying patterns are shifting. “Uncertainty” was the word last year—and it still is. Much of the focus tends to fall on the top of the market. But what about the emerging tier? The galleries selling works under $250,000 and $100,000? The ones spotting and raising new talent, pushing aesthetics forward? What does a “win” look like for them in this moment? What does growth mean now—and how do they survive in a contracting ecosystem? To unpack these questions, Senior Editor Kate Brown is joined by three dealers whose programs I’ve followed closely over the years. Their perspectives offer a real-time snapshot of what’s at stake. On the podcast with us is Robbie Fitzpatrick, of Fitzpatrick Gallery, a dealer who has operated galleries in Los Angeles and Paris, and who recently decided to take his gallery program nomadic. Robbie also founded Art Basel Social Club in 2022, an annual event that has become a defiant and central alternative during the week in Basel. This year, the edition is bigger than ever and takes place in a formidable location of a former bank in the center of the city. Kate is also joined by Lisa Offermann, founder of the gallery LC Queisser. Lisa opened the gallery in 2018 in Tbilisi, Georgia, and launched a second location in Cologne earlier this year. She’s participated in several editions of Art Basel and is part of its newest sector, Premiere, this year. Freddie Powell, founder of Ginny on Frederick, is also on the show—Freddie opened in London in 2020. With a sharp program and quick ascent, the gallery is making its debut at Art Basel this year, in both Basel and in Paris in the fall.

Have you ever asked yourself: What do artists have to learn from the octopus? Maybe not—but the question is at the heart of the work of Miriam Simun, who currently has an exhibition about her Institute for Transhumanist Cephalopod Evolution at the art space Recess in Brooklyn. And it turns out the answer is mind-expanding. Almost literally. Simun’s unusual art practice can be seen as part of a serious trend in recent years of artists exploring non-human thought of all kinds in the hopes of shifting our troubled relationship to the natural world. The centerpiece of Simun's show at Recess is a series of workshops titled “How to Become an Octopus (and sometime squid).” For these, the artist guides participants through a two-hour program of “psycho-physical” exercises she has developed over many years through collaborations with marine biologists, engineers, dancers, and synchronized swimmers. She’s taught the method all over the world, and the description says the classes are “open to anyone curious about cephalopods, new ways of sensing, and expanding the definition of self”—an audience which included me. Art Critic Ben Davis got in there to explore his cephalopod side, and for this week's Art Angle, he talks about Simun’s art and what he took away from his experience in her workshop.

It's been a minute, but we're back with our Round-Up episode, where we parse and discuss some of the biggest stories going on around the art world, and it's really good to be back into this format again after a little commercial break.  A lot has been happening lately in the so-called art world—good, bad, and there's been plenty of in-between that—but it remains as colorful, contradictory, and chaotic as ever.  We'll be diving into crypto collector Justin Sun’s escalating legal battle with Blue Chip Titan David Geffen over a long-nosed Giacometti sculpture; a trio of massive Hulk sculptures by Jeff Koons that descended on Frieze New York a couple of weeks ago—these big green bellwethers for the state of the market are in play; and finally, we'll look at some of the major developments at Art Basel, including the launch of its very first art award. Senior Editor Kate Brown is joined by co-host, art critic Ben Davis, and Artnet News Pro Editor Andrew Russeth.

There is nothing that Artnet’s Art Critic Ben Davis likes better than finding a name for a phenomenon that’s all around him, but that he doesn’t have a name for yet. The writer and theorist Nadia Asparouhova has a new book out that offered exactly this. It’s called Antimemetics: Why Some Ideas Resist Spreading. We tend to think of cultural influence as being tied to popularity and visibility. What Asparouhova wants us to pay attention to is a whole other class of cultural stuff whose influence is linked instead to being hard to find or difficult to understand. These are what she calls “anti-memes.” It’s the opinion puts you at odds with some people but really connects you to others, so you’re careful how you share it. It’s the artwork that looks like nonsense to the majority of the audience but is full of intricate meaning to fans. The theory of "anti-memes” is about how some of our most intense cultural investments are below the radar—not because they haven’t been found yet, but because that’s how they are built. All this touches on themes that a lot of artists have been thinking about. Asparouhova’s book, in fact, is published by a group of artists and thinkers called the Dark Forest Collective, named after writer Yancey Strickler’s idea of the internet as a “dark forest,” a space that has become so contentious and commercial that the smart people retreat to more private digital spaces for authenticity and cachet. Asparouhova’s book helps focus in on the question of how difficult ideas and art that’s not built to go viral survive and find real fans now.

Spring art week just wrapped in New York City. Known for its extravagant floral displays and signature oysters and champagne, TEFAF is the fair with a vibe. This year, 91 exhibitors from 13 countries presented everything from antiquities to modern and contemporary art and design at the stately Park Avenue Armory. There’s a real sense of passion here— dealers are eager to share the stories behind their works. Which brings us to today’s episode, recorded live at the Thrill of the Chase panel with three very different cultural omnivores who personify Tefaf’s ethos which span centuries and styles. Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn‘s gallery Salon 94, has long blurred the lines between art and design. Housed in a Beaux-Arts townhouse on the Upper East Side she has presented everything from Rick Owens furniture to the recent Kennedy Yanko solo exhibitions. Adam Charlap Hyman, co-founder of Charlap Hyman & Herrero, brings a sweeping vision to interiors, furniture, architecture, and opera sets. He also curates, most recently Glass Subjects at R & Company which is currently on view. Alexandra Cunningham Cameron, Curator of Contemporary Design at the Cooper Hewitt, began her career in literature before turning to storytelling through objects. Her work explores symbolism, inclusion, and cultural memory. Together, they explore what makes an object irresistible. Is it beauty, rarity—or the story it tells? In this conversation, Artnet Studio's William Van Meter dig into the thrill of discovery, the elusive “X factor,” and how great objects help shape layered narratives.

Almost by definition, the frame of a picture is something that you are not supposed to notice. But if you go to the art galleries to look at paintings now, you might get a very different sense of what a frame can or even should do. Weird and wild frames that very much draw attention to themselves seem to be having a moment. Recently, Artnet writer and editor Katie White penned a piece titled Bordercore: Why Frames Became the New Frontier in Contemporary Art. In her essay, she looks both at the history of framing styles, and talks to a number of contemporary painters to figure out what is causing so many to treat something that was literally considered peripheral to what they do as very much part of the main attraction. This week she joins Art Critic Ben Davis on the podcast to discuss this new frontier in art.

Kent Monkman is one of the most vital and provocative voices in contemporary painting. Based between Toronto and New York, and a member of the Fisher River Cree Nation in Treaty 5 Territory, Monkman is known for his epic, genre-bending canvases that challenge dominant historical narratives and reframe them through Indigenous and queer perspectives. Monkman has developed a distinctive visual language that subverts classical European art traditions—particularly those of 19th-century and 20th-century history painting—to expose the distortions and omissions of colonial narratives. His work blends these European conventions with Indigenous histories, recontextualizing colonization while exploring themes of resilience, sexuality, joy, and identity. At the center of many of these works is Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, Monkman’s time-traveling alter ego. Clad in high heels, Miss Chief operates as both a trickster figure and a witness to colonial encounters, embodying Indigenous worldviews and queering history in a way that destabilizes settler-colonial perspectives. Through Miss Chief, Monkman reimagines historical events, placing Indigenous presence and agency at the forefront. Monkman’s large-scale commissions include mistikôsiwak (Wooden Boat People), a pair of monumental paintings created for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2019, which directly confronted the institution’s colonial legacies. His work has been exhibited in major museums across North America and Europe, and is part of significant public and private collections. As his first major U.S. museum exhibition, "History is Painted by the Victors," opens at the Denver Art Museum, Monkman joined me to reflect on the road to this moment—a journey that spans decades of challenging entrenched narratives in Western art history. We spoke about how growing up in Winnipeg, amidst the complexities of Indigenous representation in Canadian institutions, shaped his relationship to museums; how painting serves as both a political tool and a personal method for processing historical trauma; and the collaborative energy that fuels his expansive studio practice.

This week we are running a re-air of an interview with the curator and writer Elisa Auther about the fascinating history of fiber art and its recent rise. The show we mentioned in the episode, woven histories, textiles and modern abstraction has arrived at the Museum of Modern Art in New York this week. And I think Auther's perspective makes a nice compliment to that important show. Contemporary art comes in many shapes and forms, but close your eyes and think of what an artist looks like and nine times out of 10, I bet you are still thinking of a painter in front of a canvas. If recent interest for museums and galleries is any indication, however, that image should be joined by another one: the fiber artist. Think of a weaver seated at the loom or a quilt-maker laboriously stitching together layers of fabric. The textile arts have experienced a quiet but steady groundswell of interest in the last decades, and recently I've noticed that it feels as if it is kicked into a new, even higher level, from the many kinds of textile based art throughout the most recent Venice Biennale to the major show "Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction," which is on a tour of some of North America's most important museums right now. As many textile scholars will tell you, tapestry was once as exalted as painting as an art form, and it may be so again. This surge of interest is bringing new audiences, new histories, and new vocabularies into the center of the action that are worth getting familiar with, and to unravel all the different threads, Art Critic Ben Davis turned to Elissa Auther, a scholar who looked at the tangled history of fiber art in her book String Felt, Thread: The Hierarchy of Art and Craft in American Art.  More importantly, she's been closely observing and encouraging the contemporary boom in textile art as the chief curator at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York. This week she the podcast to discuss what's behind the resurgence of interest in this medium.