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.
 


There Is Not One Art World. There Are (at Least) Five

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.

The Round-Up: Johnny Depp Does Modigliani, Labubu Mania, and a Weird Idea for the Venice Biennale

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.

Re-Air: What Makes Spine-Tingling Art? Aesthetic Chills: Explained

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.




Why This New Art Trend Feels So Familiar

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.


Is This the Museum World's Favorite Artist?

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.

Re-Air: The Art World's Octopus Teacher

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.


Why We Need New Art Institutions

Fans of the Art Angle know our monthly Art Angle Round-Up, where Kate Brown and Ben Davis are usually joined by a writer to talk about three topics in art. For the early September week of art fairs in New York, we decided to mix it up with an experiment: a live edition of the Art Angle Round-Up, at Independent 20th Century.
Our guest was the curator Matthew Higgs. He’s the director of storied New York alternative art space White Columns; founding curatorial advisor to Independent; and—I’m really not just saying this—someone who's been on my shortlist of people to have on the show for a long time. Higgs is one of the most thoughtful observers of the art scene that you could to have a chat with.
The house was packed for the live Saturday recording. Of course, we know that people listen to the show—but to see people actually turn out and to hear from listeners who have thoughts about it and want to talk about art and toss around ideas was very exciting. So, a big thank you to everyone who joined us in the audience.
And of course thanks Independent 20th Century, and to Matthew for a lively and serious conversation.


The Round Up: Live From New York

We’re thrilled to be able to say that the latest edition of Artnet's Intelligence Report: The Mid-Year Report 2025, has been published. It's free for all—head to Artnet News to download it as a handsome PDF.

Within its covers, you'll find a bounty of information on the auction world and the art industry, which artists have been having a great year, how various countries' markets are performing, and a great deal more. Surprises abound from the Old Masters to the ultra-contemporary. You'll also find interviews with power players from the field, like the Guggenheim Museum's chief, Mariët Westermann, and the widely admired, now retired art dealer, Jack Hanley.

And then there is the cover story by our ace columnist, Katya Kazakina. It's titled The Storm Hits the Art Market: Who's Getting Swept Away? It looks at recent upheavals in the art industry with galleries closing left and right, and everyone spent their summer thinking about how to run an art business now. There are tales of crash-outs and heartening new models; there's something for everyone. Artnet Pro editor Andrew Russeth speaks with Katya about her reporting after she pounded the pavement at openings for exhibitions all over New York City.

A Turning Point for the Art Market?

It’s September, and the art world is back to business. In this month’s episode of the Art Angle Round-Up, we’re diving into the stories making headlines from Buenos Aires to New York—and even into the fantastical worlds of ⁠Frank Frazetta⁠.
We start with a remarkable development out of ⁠Argentina, where a couple has been charged with concealing looted art⁠. Then, we turn to the gallery scene, where art superstar ⁠Jeff Koons is once again on the move, returning to Gagosian⁠ after ditching Pace. And finally, we celebrate a record-breaking sale in the fantasy art market: ⁠Frazetta’s iconic Conan the Barbarian painting⁠ Man Ape fetched $13.5 million, more than doubling his previous auction record.
Joining Kate Brown to unpack these stories is co-host Ben Davis, along with returning art market expert Eileen Kinsella.


Ep308_TheArtAngle_SeptemberRoundUp

a weekly podcast that brings the biggest stories in the art world down to earth. Go inside the newsroom of the art industry's most-read media outlet, artnet News, for an in-depth view of what matters most in museums, the market, and much more.

Re-Air: What Makes Spine-Tingling Art? Aesthetic Chills: Explained

The Art Angle

Related tracks