All posts filed under: Review

Dépendence, Iconoclast Brussels Gallery, To Close

Dépendence, Iconoclast Brussels Gallery, To Close

Published by Jenni Sidey

Dépendence, the iconoclast, 23-year-old Brussels gallery that built a trusted reputation as an “artists’ gallery,” is closing. “Galleries come and go. Some are short-lived but leave a clear trace, others endure for decades without changing much. Dépendance has been there for twenty-three years and now we feel it’s time to say good-bye,” stated the gallery (spelled in all lowercase) via press release sent last night. Co-founded by Michael Callies, a former artist, and Stephan Jaax, a former banker, the gallery resisted expansion during its over two-decade-long history. With its single location in the city, Dépendance was a highlight of the Brussels’ gallery scene, while also promoting its artists internationally. It stewarded their participation in international exhibitions such as the Venice Biennale, Skulptur Projekte, Münster, Documenta Kassel, and at institutions such as MoMA, New York, Tate Britain, Stedelijk Museum, and many others. Related Articles Dépendance represented about 30 artists, many of whom joined through early connections to the acclaimed Städelschule in Frankfurt, where Callies, a conceptually-oriented artist, studied. They include artists such as Thomas Bayrle, Michael …

The Latest on the Institute of Museum and Library Services

The Latest on the Institute of Museum and Library Services

Published by Jenni Sidey

As he did for the Fiscal Year 2026 budget, Trump once again proposed defunding the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) for Fiscal Year 2027. This is his sixth attempt to dismantle the only federal agency dedicated to libraries and museums. Citizens across the country pushed back fiercely against last year’s attempt to sunset the IMLS, which came on the heels of its gutting at the hands of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and the administration’s efforts to repurpose the IMLS as an arm of propaganda. Ten months of fighting culminated in a successful outcome, as the IMLS received nearly its full 2026 budget. When news of the attempted defunding for 2027 hit, so, too, did advocacy organizations pick that work right back up. Now, nearly two months after the proposed 2027 budget, there’s both good news to share on its status as it makes its way through Congress and a continued call to action to save this vital agency. IMLS Funding Status in Congressional Review Right Now On Friday, June 5, the …

Matthew Aucoin on Opera, Music Criticism, and Poetry | Matthew Aucoin, Jarrett Earnest

Matthew Aucoin on Opera, Music Criticism, and Poetry | Matthew Aucoin, Jarrett Earnest

Published by Jenni Sidey

In this episode of Private Life, Matthew Aucoin joins Jarrett Earnest to discuss the state of music criticism, the work of music composition, and the life and writing of Aucoin’s former professor and mentor, the poetry critic Helen Vendler. Click the “Subscribe” link in the player above to follow this podcast on your favorite listening platform. The two also talk about “Inside the Music,” Aucoin’s essay from the Review’s November 6, 2025, issue about the decline of music reviews in mainstream media, as well as “Chronicles of Love and Loss,” Vendler’s review, from our May 11, 1995, issue, of o James Merill’s final book of poetry, A Scattering of Salts.(1995). Aucoin is a composer, conductor, and writer. His operatic song cycle Music for New Bodies, inspired by the poetry of Jorie Graham, premiered in 2024 and was staged at the Lincoln Center in the summer of 2025. He is the author of the book The Impossible Art: Adventures in Opera (2021), and he has been a contributor to The New York Review of Books since 2018. Also in 2018 he was the recipient of …

Queer Latine Books on Sale at Bookshop.org

Queer Latine Books on Sale at Bookshop.org

Published by Jenni Sidey

I sat down to make a list of new and recent queer Latine books to read for Pride. But here’s the thing: I’ve been talking about most of the books that came to mind all year long. That’s a good thing, of course: celebration months should, after all, be gentle reminders to read lit by marginalized authors, but not the only time you think to do so. I’m proud to have queer books in my rotation year-round, but I didn’t want to just rehash recs I’ve made as recently as two weeks ago. But lo, a happy coincidence! While rounding up a longer list of books to recommend, I discovered that Bookshop.org is running a sale on queer books for Pride. I combed through pages and pages of titles to pick out a whole bunch of queer Latine reads to read this month (and beyond!), all on sale now for 15% off. You get to support queer authors AND support indie bookstores while you do it—que mas quieren!? Just use code Pride26 at checkout to …

📚 Amazon’s best books of 2026 so far

📚 Amazon’s best books of 2026 so far

Published by Jenni Sidey

Anthony Aycock is a writer, teacher, and librarian. His newest book, Just Plain Filthy: The Story Behind Book Banning’s Trial of the Century, is out this week from Bloomsbury Academic. Below, he discusses why the 1982 Supreme Court case Island Trees v. Pico is required reading for anyone interested in fighting censorship and book bans. Book bans, which have been around almost as long as books themselves, have had a resurgence in recent years. In 2025, ALA tracked 4,235 unique titles challenged—the second highest ever. The highest: 4,240 in 2023.  County governments have legislated new bans, as have states. In March, Congress began considering the Stop the Sexualization of Children Act, which Publishers Weekly calls a “national book ban.”  The U.S. Supreme Court passed up a chance to outlaw book bans when it declined to hear Little v. Llano County last December, leaving in place its 44-year-old ruling in Island Trees v. Pico.  That case was the first—and, so far, only—book ban dispute ever heard by the high court. It began in 1975, when the …

Frieze London, Frieze Masters Name Nearly 300 Galleries for 2026 Fairs

Frieze London, Frieze Masters Name Nearly 300 Galleries for 2026 Fairs

Published by Jenni Sidey

Nearly 300 galleries will participate in the upcoming editions of Frieze London and Frieze Masters, which will run in the Regent’s Park from October 14 to October 18. Frieze London will have 172 exhibitors, while Frieze Masters will host 138. Eight galleries will have booths in both fairs including Hauser & Wirth, Hales, Alison Jacques, Harlesden High Street, and Richard Saltoun Gallery. “What gives Frieze London and Frieze Masters their energy is the breadth of what comes together: galleries and artists from long-established centres alongside scenes gaining recognition further afield,” Frieze’s EMEA director Eva Langret said in a statement. “At Frieze London that range is also an argument for greater equity: for giving space, visibility and serious attention to artists and galleries whose work is advancing contemporary practice, wherever they are based.” Related Articles Frieze London will feature numerous blue-chip galleries including Gagosian, Hauser & Wirth, Pace Gallery, David Zwirner, Thaddaeus Ropac, White Cube, Lisson, and Lehmann Maupin. London galleries at various levels of the market are also well-represented including Sadie Coles HQ, Victoria Miro, …

This Immortal Heart by Jennifer Saint

This Immortal Heart by Jennifer Saint

Published by Jenni Sidey

Jennifer Saint has built her career on giving the women of Greek mythology room to breathe outside the narrow frames their original poets gave them. With This Immortal Heart by Jennifer Saint, she steps onto unfamiliar ground in two ways at once. First, she hands the narration to a goddess rather than a mortal woman. Second, she leans openly into romance for the first time, threading her usual mythological scholarship through the bones of a love story that her acknowledgements freely admit is her switch into the genre. The result is a sensuous, slow-burning retelling of Aphrodite and Ares, an affair the ancient sources usually treated as gossip, scandal, or a punchline involving Hephaestus and a golden net. Saint takes that tabloid sliver and stretches it across centuries. Premise and Setup, Spoiler-Free Aphrodite tells her own story. She is newly born from sea-foam and her father’s blood, comfortable in her power, devoted to her worshippers’ secrets and the quiet pleasures she stirs in mortal and divine hearts alike. Her dalliances are brief and bright, and …

20 of the Best Books of 2026, According to Amazon

20 of the Best Books of 2026, According to Amazon

Published by Jenni Sidey

Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. Amazon’s List of the Best Books of the Year So Far I want to say that Amazon’s list of the best books of the year so far is robust because it is, in a way. There’s an overall roundup of the top 20 books of all genres, then expanded lists of different genres, like Biographies & Memoirs, Children’s Books, Literature & Fiction, Romantasy, and more. This year, they’ve also added a Book Club section. What’s holding me back from fully calling this list extensive is its glaring lack of diversity. Within the top 20 overall list, there are only two lists by authors of color—Kin by Tayari Jones and Night Objects by Eli Raphael—and the expanded lists by genre don’t seem to do too much better. Just wild to think of in 2026. As an aside, I see Jones’s Kin as being named The Book of the Year for quite a few lists. The Authors …

Gagosian, Olney Gleason to Present Exhibition for Lee Krasner in France

Gagosian, Olney Gleason to Present Exhibition for Lee Krasner in France

Published by Jenni Sidey

Just months after the Metropolitan Museum of Art announced a blockbuster Lee Krasner–Jackson Pollock exhibition, galleries Olney Gleason and Gagosian have announced their own Krasner presentation, albeit at the latter’s Rue de Ponthieu space in Paris.  Both shows will open in October: October 4 for the Met, and October 19 for Gagosian, a week before the run of Art Basel Paris’s 2026 edition. The Olney Gleason–Gagosian show, presented in collaboration with the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, will show paintings and works on paper by Krasner, whose market has lagged behind that of Pollock, her husband and fellow Abstract Expressionist. As ARTnews‘s Daniel Cassady reported in April, though the price gap between the long-dead artists is sizable, Krasner’s market is fast changing as she continues to gain well-deserved institutional recognition. Related Articles The Paris show, which the galleries say is her first in France, will also be her first show with Gagosian. Olney Gleason represents the artist globally through its partnership with the Pollock-Krasner Foundation. “The 1960s marked a key turning point in Lee Krasner’s life and career, …

A Lucien Freud Nude is Poised to Break Auction Records at Sotheby’s

A Lucien Freud Nude is Poised to Break Auction Records at Sotheby’s

Published by Jenni Sidey

The subject of an auction-bound Lucian Freud nude portrait may be asleep, but the painter’s market is wide awake and keenly watching the rare lot. Titled Sleeping by the Lion Carpet, the painting could fetch between £25 million and £35 million ($33.4 million to $46.8 million) when it hits the block on June 24 at Sotheby’s in London—to the astonishment of its subject, Sussex resident Sue Tilley. The model and frequent Freud muse told BBC Radio Sussex that she was “flummoxed” by the market fervor. “I can’t quite believe it’s happening,” she said. Related Articles According to Tilley, she met Freud “by luck” in 1993 through a mutual acquaintance, the fashion designer and performance artist Leigh Bowery, one of Freud’s most celebrated sitters, who had already appeared in a series of striking nude portraits—thickly painted studies of dimpled, mottled flesh flowing over bone. Freud held famously unhurried sessions, often requiring sitters to spend unbroken hours in the studio over the course of days or even months. As a result, many subjects were depicted reclining or …