Bridgerton: Season 3 of the anti-history

The series offers not so much an alternative history, as an anti-history, aimed above all at an upper-middle class audience fixated on the politics of race and gender.

The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism, at New York’s Metropolitan Museum: Rewarding, incomplete look at contributions of African-Americans to art and culture in first half of 20th century

These works of art, in a variety of styles, were part of a flowering that included not only the visual arts but also literature, essays, drama, dance and—perhaps most famously—jazz.

The socially critical films of 1974: Part 4

Alan J. Pakula’s The Parallax View (1974): America “is a country with many dark secrets”

The film expresses the broadly felt suspicion in the population—at that time and even more so today—that there is something sinister and rotten in the American state.

Henry Taylor: B Side: An exhibition of the US painter’s work at the Whitney Museum in New York

Size is not the only way that Taylor’s work commands attention. Figures are boldly rendered, sometimes with colorful, abstract shapes or sketched with a black painted line.

Edward Hopper’s New York, an exhibition at the Whitney Museum in New York

The current exhibition focuses on the artist’s many depictions of the city where he spent the bulk of his working life from 1906 till his death 60 years later.

A significant exhibition of Puerto Rican art–and the nationalist outlook that mars it

Many of the pieces powerfully convey the intensity of Hurricane Maria, the Category 5 hurricane that struck the island in September 2017.

2022 global art market benefits from an “explosion of wealth” at the top

The “robust” character of the art market mirrors the stratospheric rise in the wealth of the world’s richest people over the same period.

Winslow Homer: Crosscurrents—Exhibition of the great 19th century American painter at the Metropolitan Museum

The aptly titled exhibition Crosscurrents at the Metropolitan Museum in New York underscores the centrality of racial and class relations during and in the aftermath of the Civil War in Homer’s work.

Conceptual artist places gold cube in Central Park: Once again charlatanry meets extreme wealth

Artnet News announced this week that “An Artist Placed a Cube Made From $11.7 Million Worth of Gold in Central Park—Protected By Its Own Security Detail.”

Titian: Women, Myth & Power at the Gardner Museum in Boston: The great Renaissance painter comes in for “moral scrutiny” from the New York Times

The exhibition at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston (until January 2) must be counted as one of the most significant art shows today.

As Biden announces new pandemic plan

New York Democrats reopen schools, order 280,000 city employees back to in-person work

In lockstep with Biden’s moves to fully reopen the economy amid soaring infections and deaths, all of New York City’s municipal workers have been ordered to report to their offices and work locations on Monday morning.

Alice Neel: People Come First—A major retrospective of the American painter

Nearly four decades after her death, American painter Alice Neel (1900-1984) has received the major museum retrospective that she has long deserved.

Exploiting social and economic crisis, Amazon launches massive expansion in New York City

After gorging on profits during the pandemic, Amazon is capitalizing on the social crisis in New York City to launch a huge expansion in operations in the area.

Amid surging COVID-19 cases, New York Mayor de Blasio orders 80,000 city workers back to offices

The move sets a benchmark for office workers throughout New York City and across the country to return to work despite a new surge in COVID-19 cases.

“They see us as disposable”: New York Amazon delivery driver speaks out

Almost overnight, Amazon has built up a massive delivery network which now accounts for two-thirds of its own packages.

Bridgerton: Not alternate history, but anti-history

The eight-part Netflix historical romance Bridgerton has been enormously popular. The creators hardly conceal their admiration for and envy of the aristocracy.

“United we stand, divided we fall.” Amazon worker speaks out on workplace conditions, calls for global struggle by the working class

The World Socialist Web Site International Amazon Workers Voice recently interviewed a warehouse worker in Connecticut who wanted to expose working conditions and organize within his facility.

Jacob Lawrence: The American Struggle—A remarkable exhibition

A timely and long overdue exhibition of Struggle: From the History of the American People reunites this remarkable series of paintings by Jacob Lawrence, the famed African-American artist, for the first time since they were completed in 1956.

Blatant censorship: Retrospective of American painter Philip Guston delayed four years

The decision by four major art museums in the UK and US to postpone for four years “Philip Guston Now,” a long-planned retrospective of one of postwar America’s most significant artists, is a cowardly act of censorship.