In recent decades, art in the public space has become far more dynamic in its presentation, as well as increasingly visible, accessible, and sometimes provocative. What role does public art play in facing the challenges of our times? How can art best aid in building communities, affecting social change, or even resisting oppression? What could be, or should be, the future of public art?

For more than three decades, María Magdalena Campos-Pons has used her body as a vessel in performances, photographs, sculptural installations, collages, and videos. A 2023 winner of the MacArthur “genius” fellowship, the artist has variously addressed motherhood, her family’s transnational heritage, and the hidden histories all around her, using objects and sites in her home country of Cuba to speak to painful generational memories of enslavement that linger on today. Across her multifarious body of work, she shows how the past is embedded in us, the people we hold dear, and the objects we collect.

by Deborah Willis and Kevin Merida. Kamala is a beautiful tribute to Kamala Harris’s remarkable rise from District Attorney in California to her historic presidential run in 2024. Curated by Deborah Willis and Kevin Merida, this visually captivating book features nearly 150 vibrant photographs that capture the joy, challenges, and triumphs of Harris’s campaign. Rather than following a strict timeline, the book is thematically arranged into sections like “Family & Early Life,” “The Ascent,” and “Powerful Rooms.” Each section offers a unique perspective on Harris’s multifaceted life and career, complemented by insightful essays that place this pivotal election in context.

The Venice Biennale has for the first time appointed an African woman as the curator of its contemporary art festival. Swiss-Cameroonian curator Koyo Kouoh has been put in charge of the 61st edition of the Biennale Arte, which will take place in Venice from April to November 2026. Born in 1967 in Cameroon but educated through her teens and twenties in Zurich, Switzerland, Kouoh has since 2019 been executive director of the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (MOCAA) in Cape Town, South Africa, which holds the continent’s largest collection of contemporary art. A self-described “fundamental pan-Africanist”, she was previously the founding artistic director of Raw Material Company, an art centre in Dakar, Senegal.

What is artistic freedom for? How can we express our full selves in times of danger? Hear Glenn Ligon and Solange Knowles discuss their work and their many selves, the expansiveness of the artist, and the multiplicity in us all. In the second season of the podcast with Hauser & Wirth, explore the line where left-brain meets right-brain; where logic ends and creativity begins—beyond the edge of reason. Hosted by Jeff Chang.

The AFRO American Newspaper emerged in 1892 in a post-Reconstruction era America, founded, financed and operated by entrepreneurs who had once been enslaved. Afro Charities — the organization that stewards the AFRO Archives, is proud to have first-hand access to the blueprints for our survival. The AFRO has persevered through Jim Crow, two World Wars, the Civil Rights Movement, and more. Afro Charities’ teacher and student trainings provide guidance on how to access the AFRO Archives remotely.

Pace Gallery. Pace is pleased to present Kinship of the Soul, Hank Willis Thomas’s second solo exhibition with the gallery and his first at Pace in London. The presentation showcases a new body of retroreflective collages that continue Thomas’s exploration of the histories of abstraction through the lenses of colonization, globalization, and appropriation, with reference to Romare Bearden, Aaron Douglas, and Henri Matisse. These works, which reveal latent images depending on their lighting and the viewer’s perspective, underscore Thomas’s interest in using wayfinding materials to illuminate often overlooked histories and narratives.