Museums & Institutions In Pictures: See How Starchitect Frank Gehry ‘Reimagined’ the Philadelphia Museum of Art With a Brand-New $233 Million Expansion The starchitect's uncharacteristically subtle renovation of the Philadelphia museum is now open to the public. By Ben Davis, May 12, 2021
Analysis The Buyers of Beeple’s $69 Million NFT Sold Thousands of Speculators on a Crypto Art Investment Scheme. So Far… It Is Not Going Well Up next? A plan to sell a new $58 million NFT. By Ben Davis, May 10, 2021
Art World How the ‘Village Voice’ Art Section Became the Subject of Art Itself + 4 Great Essays to Check Out From the Past Month A round-up of ideas from around the art web. By Ben Davis, May 4, 2021
Politics How ‘Classically Beautiful’ European Architecture Became a (Failed) Rallying Cry for a Hard-Right Republican Caucus Anti-modernism was a serious talking point of Marjorie Taylor Greene's aborted America First Caucus. By Ben Davis, Apr 21, 2021
Art World Wait, Why Are So Many Dogs Smoking Joints in Old Art? We Looked Into It, and the Answer Is Pretty Far Out A very important art-historical investigation. By Ben Davis, Apr 20, 2021
Opinion Alice Neel’s Communism Is Essential to Her Art. You Can See It in the ‘Battlefield’ of Her Paintings, and Her Ruthless Portrait of Her Son The great painter's survey at the Met shows how she believed in art as way of intervening in history. By Ben Davis, Apr 15, 2021
Opinion How One Artist Became a Warrior for QAnon + 4 Great Art Essays Worth Reading From This March A round-up of ideas from around the art web. By Ben Davis, Apr 2, 2021
Opinion What the NFT World Can Learn From the Great ’90s Comic Book Bubble. (It’s a Cautionary Tale) Lessons for Beeple and Grimes from the days of Deadpool and Spawn. By Ben Davis, Mar 29, 2021
Opinion I Visited the Digital Beeple Art Museum and All I Got Was an Aggressive Pitch for My Money Is this really the future of online art? By Ben Davis, Mar 24, 2021
Art World The Buyers of the $69 Million Beeple Reveal Their True Identities—and Say the Purchase Was About Taking a Stand for People of Color Vignesh Sundaresan and Anand Venkateswaran also plan to fund pro-NFT journalism. Oh, and Beeple owns 2 percent of their investment fund. By Ben Davis, Mar 19, 2021
Opinion I Looked Through All 5,000 Images in Beeple’s $69 Million Magnum Opus. What I Found Isn’t So Pretty 'Everydays: The First 5,000 Days' is the third-most expensive work ever by a living artist. Not many people have actually looked at it. By Ben Davis, Mar 17, 2021
Opinion Museums Are Where Artworks Go to Die. But the Frick Madison’s Stunning New Installation Brings Them Back to Life Again Contemplating the many meanings of Duccio's "Temptation of Christ on the Mountain" at the famed New York museum's temporary home. By Ben Davis, Mar 11, 2021
Reviews Why KAWS’s Global Success May Well Be a Symptom of a Depressed Culture, Adrift in Nostalgia and Retail Therapy How to make sense of the popularity of an artist known for sad cartoons and collectable toys? By Ben Davis, Mar 2, 2021
Art World Debating the Troubled Legacy of Brazil’s Cannibalist Art Movement + 4 Other Great Art Essays Worth Reading From This February A round-up of ideas from around the art web. By Ben Davis, Feb 26, 2021
Opinion The Myths About FDR’s New Deal Arts Programs Are Misleading. Here Are the Real Lessons for Struggling Artists Today Commentators have looked the New Deal art projects for lessons for today's crisis. Do we really understand their legacy? By Ben Davis, Feb 24, 2021