Have you ever found yourself crying in a museum? If so, you’re in good company. There is a strangely cleansing quality to that singular moment when a work of art seems to meet, almost exactly, the grief, joy, or uncertainty you are carrying.
Critic Lavinia Liang explores that emotional bond between viewer and artwork — or the absence of it — in Ann Patchett’s new novel, Whistler. The book traces one family’s unraveling and eventual reunion, with its story framed by the galleries of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Also in this edition: our reporting on ICE’s seizure of 22,000 smuggled artifacts in Florida, coverage of the Chinese Pavilion’s withdrawal from the Gwangju Biennale in South Korea in protest of the Taiwan Pavilion, and a guide to Upstate New York art shows this month.
And there is more beyond that, as this issue brings together news, criticism, and exhibition coverage from across the art world.
—Lakshmi Rivera Amin, associate editor
