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Arts

"I'm not so interested in the expression of something. I'm more interested in what the material can do. So that's why I keep exploring," said artist, educator, and civic leader Ruth Asawa, reflecting on a six-decade-long career. Featuring some 300 artworks, Ruth Asawa: A Retrospective charts the artist's lifelong explorations of materials and forms in a variety of mediums, including wire sculpture, bronze casts, drawings, paintings, prints, and public works.

In the uncanny world of Yuichi Hirako, the relationship between humans, nature, and the built environment plays out in vibrant color and unique proportions. The Tokyo-based artist creates large-scale sculptures, paintings, and installations that explore coexistence, often through compositions that appear crowded with domestic objects, food, cats, and figures whose faces are obscured by cartoonish head coverings shaped like trees or antlers.

Artist Meriem Bennani transforms the familiar flip-flop into a vibrating instrument of collective rhythm with her large-scale installation Sole Crushing, on view at Lafayette Anticipations in Paris until February 8th, 2026. The project fills the foundation's entire vertical space with 201 flip-flops animated by a pneumatic system and synchronized to a musical composition created in collaboration with musician and producer Reda Senhaji (aka Cheb Runner).

Roberts, who is forty-two and grew up in Miami, joined the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre at nineteen and danced there for nearly two decades, until 2021. He began to make dances in 2016, and his early choreography-astonishingly original and powerful-was inextricably tied to his own dancing and the ways he could morph his majestic six-foot-four body as if it were molten.

ASHLAND - The Oregon Shakespeare Festival has announced casting and directors for its 2026 season, unveiling the artists who will bring to life 10 productions ranging from Shakespearean favorites to modern American classics and new works. The announcement marks the next step in a season already previewed for its bold mix of voices and eras - one that Artistic Director Tim Bond says reflects theater's power to unite communities and "illuminate our collective humanity." The season opens in March and runs through late October across the Angus Bowmer, Thomas, and Allen Elizabethan theaters in Ashland. Tickets go on sale to the general public Dec. 2, with early access for OSF members beginning in November.

Artist Francis Bacon is known for his hell-raising antics in London, but the Dublin-born painter also had a soft spot for Paris. Following his hit exhibition at the Grand Palais in 1971 he took a a small studio apartment in the French capital. During this time Michael Peppiatt, the UK art historian who wrote Francis Bacon in Your Blood (2015), was his guide to the French capital, helping him navigate the City of Lights.

As global temperatures increase annually, communities across the world are facing the troubling fact that their infrastructure was built for a climate that no longer exists. Offering a glimpse of the potential issues to comae, residents of Phoenix, Arizona-the hottest city in the US, and fifth-largest-are grappling with life-threatening conditions, including recent reports of heatstroke and burns affecting its community of unhoused individuals.

(Editor's Note: The publishers of the San Francisco Bay Times, upon learning that Ed Decker would soon step down from his nearly five decades of inspired, dedicated leadership at the New Conservatory Theatre Center (NCTC), asked him to provide his thoughts about some of NCTC's most memorable, significant productions over the years. Since he has produced or directed over 500 productions for NCTC, the Bay Times asked him to look back on a select number of NCTC productions. Here's what he shared.)

Celebrated as one of the most outstanding 20th-century photographers, Keïta ran a photography studio in the Malian capital, Bamako, between the late 1940s and early 1960s, where he shot black and white portraits of fashionably dressed people, with the patterned backdrops that he is perhaps best known for. He also documented the social and political landscape in pre- and post-independence Mali. That work was introduced to the West in the early 1990s, first anonymously in New York and then later identified, in group and solo exhibitions

The Pleasance (Theatre) has been at the heart of our community for 30 years, and local theatre like this deserves our support,

You wanted more quizzes, and we've delivered! Now you can test your wits every day of the week. Each weekday, your host, Ray Hamel, concocts a challenging set of unique questions on a specific topic. At the end of the quiz, you'll be able to compare your score with that of the average contestant, and Slate Plus members can see how they stack up on our leaderboard.

The funny thing about illusions is how true they can be. In Soren Hope's solo show, Two Time at New York Life Gallery, there is great truth to be discovered. Deftly playing with abstraction and figuration, repetition and fragmentation, Hope's paintings and prints are at once dazzling and contemplative, decipherable and utterly beguiling. But there are no cheap tricks here-no feints or gotchas. Rather, Hope's show is a profound meditation upon the fallibility of perception and the folly of certainty.

$4,500 Artist GrantsFeatured The Hopper Prize is accepting submissions for $4,500 and $1,000 artist grants, totaling $13,000. Two artists will each receive $4,500, and four artists will each receive $1,000. This is an international open call, and all visual media are eligible. The prize provides a direct path to get your work in front of an international community of curators, artists, gallerists, and arts administrators. Additional exposure is available via a 30-artist shortlist, online journal, and Instagram, currently reaching over 150,000.

X ZHU-NOWELL was appointed executive director and chief curator of Shanghai's Rockbund Art Museum (RAM) in January 2025, after serving as its artistic director since 2023. From 2014 to 2021, they were an assistant curator at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, where they commissioned "Wu Tsang: Anthem," 2021, and contributed to exhibitions such as "Art and China After 1989: Theater of the World," 2017-18.

ArtsWatch is trying something new for the last two months of the year, a way to celebrate the holidays and the season of giving and thanks. We've spent months dreaming up a few new features - ArtsWatch Insider included - and we're jazzed to roll them out. What's in store? Give!Guide This is launch day! We are honored that we were accepted into Willamette Week's Give!Guide this year. Our first time! Only 25% of new applicants were accepted and we received a coveted 3-year spot.

I don't entirely believe that there's a single state of finished. It's usually more of a series of waves peaking,

In Charlotte, North Carolina, a black food truck moves slowly down the road. It doesn't deliver food it delivers art. Inside, lights, copal incense, pan de muerto (sweet bread for Day of the Dead), and a calavera (skull decoration) welcome anyone who steps into the Mobile Art Studio, the traveling project of Mexican artivist Rosalia Torres-Weiner, 64, which this year's Dia de Muertos, or Day of Dead has been transformed into an immersive, free experience for Latino communities in the southern United States.

Take our quiz to test your knowledge of Harvard Art Museums' eeriest works Lurking in the galleries and archives of the Harvard Art Museums you'll find works that inspire, delight, and, sometimes, unnerve. The following quiz shines a light on the darker corners of these hallowed halls. You might like Arts & Culture Touring cast visits to offer students insights into theater and representation, gain some into U.S. history around campus

Throughout her practice, Renée Condo draws on the philosophical tenets of her Mi'gmaq ancestry. The Montreal-based artist works with wooden beads that she sands, paints in bold acrylic, and nests into energetic compositions depicting juicy fruits, raindrops, and brilliant, golden suns. Condo is interested in mntu, or spirit, and what she refers to as heart knowledge, acts that emerge from empathy and love. Through sculptural pieces that emphasize interconnection and flow, the artist draws on Indigenous creation stories and myths, considering her beadwork a reimagining of various traditions.