The Hudson River School’s Missive

A visit to Akira Ikezoe’s studio, and contemporary artists’ takes on Lady Liberty.

Artists have been plumbing New York for political messaging for hundreds of years now. Check out Ed Simon’s piece on the prescient apocalyptic visions of Hudson River School artists like Thomas Cole, whose Course of Empire series (1833–36) is on long-term view at the New York Historical. Meanwhile, artist Akira Ikezoe — whose work is currently in both MoMA PS1’s Greater New York and the Whitney Biennial — is a contemporary messenger: His painted bears and frogs croak out an urgent ecological message for today’s age.

I took the ferry home from Jersey amid the heat wave this Independence Day weekend, and saw the Statue of Liberty shimmering in the distance like a mirage. Seemed an apt-enough symbol. Indeed, in a must-read piece this week, Aruna D’Souza rounds up contemporary artists who have appropriated Lady Liberty in their work as the nation convulses under the Trump administration’s crackdowns on basic rights.

This week, ton of fun things to do to escape the weather. Top pick: Brooklyn Art Book Fair is at Recess this weekend — fingers crossed its tagline, “hotter than ever,” is just metaphorical.

One of the United States’s first major art movements registered anxieties about industrialization, empire, and environmental ruin. | Ed Simon

Life With P. - Philip Guston: Paintings and Drawings 1964–1978 at Hauser and Wirth

"Guston’s things are the opposite of Minimalism’s shiny objects. They are old, used, homely survivors, evidence of a life whose history we will never know — the 'riddle' of things."

Charles Seliger: The Structure of Matter, A Centennial Exhibition at Hollis Taggart

"Charles Seliger: The Structure of Matter, A Centennial Exhibition brings overdue attention to this wonderful artist, who saw beauty in the invisible structures and patterns governing the visual world."

Amid all of the kitty-kat meow of today’s Vogue Fem performers, Andre Mizrahi Clark has the stern, calm energy of a lion tipping on its toes. | Ridikkuluz

Hyperallergic spoke with artist Alina Troyano about lesbian performance in 1980s Lower East Side, satirizing stereotypes, and embodying her iconic alter ego. | Natalie Haddad

The cartoonish earnestness of both artist and artwork belies a sharp attentiveness to the catastrophes unfolding around us. | Sofia Thiệu D’Amico

As artists like Amy Sherald, Marta Minujín, and Faith Ringgold remind us, the monument is far from a neutral symbol of so-called American values. | Aruna D’Souza

A new book gathers essays by the museum’s curators, researchers, librarians, and conservators on everything from Renaissance portraiture to the work of Wendy Red Star. | Anna Lee