2026-10-06 02:56:17
In archaeology, discoveries typically prompt more questions than answers. For Max Lehman, who studies Pre-Columbian art history, what we don’t know—and may never—about ancient peoples and civilizations is what makes the discipline so compelling. The ancient Mayans, for example, bedecked their elaborate temples with images on carved rock slabs, and the Aztec sun stone, or calendar stone, is a remarkable example of Mexica sculpture.
Lehman’s work has one foot in the advanced civilizations of the past and another in the distant future, a time long after today’s developments around robotic and machine learning technologies. His current show Ancestral Androids at Hecho a Mano delves into a kind of future past inspired by science fiction, where modern tech and prehistoric visual culture merge in unexpected and idiosyncratic ways.
The New Mexico-based artist imagines his pieces being excavated by archaeologists many years down the line, when their exact origin and function has been lost to time. “I resist providing complete explanations because archaeology rarely offers certainty,” Lehman says in a statement. “We reconstruct civilizations from fragments, projecting ourselves into the spaces left empty by time.”
Lehman’s work also nudges the nature of information itself, as we find ourselves in an era of data and archives (digital and otherwise) at a scale unprecedented in human history. It begs the question: in the next thousand years or more, what information will remain? And how will AI influence which stories are told and what is considered fact or myth? These technologies are already reshaping our minds.
“Artists understandably worry about AI appropriating their ideas,” Lehman says. “My own work, however, remains deeply rooted in the physical act of making—there is still no machine that can throw a ceramic vessel with the intuition, hesitation, and accumulated experience of human hands. Clay continues to preserve evidence of the maker in ways that cannot be simulated.”
Vividly colorful characters with titles like “The Mother of Machines” and “Sapphire Sage” nod to sacred figures with enigmatic associations. They’re cartoonish, and occasionally clownish, with expressions that read as slightly unsettling. It’s almost as if the characters are devoid of any real feeling, like both a robot or a carved stone. Additional faces often appear on bellies or foreheads, suggesting collectivity and shared consciousness. “The sculptures ask us to consider what happens when artificial beings become old enough to have ancestors, old enough to leave ruins, and old enough for their own history to become myth,” the artist says.
Ancestral Androids continues through November 1 in Santa Fe. See more on Lehman’s Instagram.
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2026-10-06 00:34:00
As a child in Dashishan Village in southern China, Tang Shuo was afraid of snakes. He and several generations of the Tang family lived together in a small community and farmed the land, tending to crops and sheep and encountering the occasional reptile. In a vivid new painting on linen, the artist confronts this adolescent fear as he envisions himself grasping a sleek, black serpent, its recently shed skin lying beneath them.
Long interested in his ancestry and familial connection to the land, Tang once again journeys to his home territory for Borrowed History, his first solo exhibition in New York. This body of work extends the artist’s approach to questioning how our heritage informs our understanding of who we are and how we got here. Working from photographs of himself, Tang renders his likeness in a variety of positions he envisions his kin having occupied. There’s “The Migrant” carrying a small sack slung over his back, for example, and “The Settler” hoisting a tree trunk with tools and bones scattered in the background.
Tinged with magical realism—Tang cites Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude as an influence—the paintings reach backward to imagine the lives of the artist’s ancestors. Lush forests and candy-colored clouds envelop the scenes as a way to connect eras and generations. Nature and the terrain occupied, the artist suggests, is the throughline that tethers him to those who came before.
Although the specific scenes are fictional, Tang also considers his practice to be one of archiving “a world that is disappearing,” a statement says. “When he was a child, more than two hundred people lived in Dashishan; today, only a dozen or so remain. He continues to document the inhabitants and stories of the village and will eventually publish a book recording its history, which he describes as his ‘own bible.'”
Borrowed History is on view from October 8 to November 7 at Plato Gallery. Explore more of Tang’s works on Instagram.
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2026-10-05 22:27:57
From nail-cloaked ceramic vessels to larger-than-life busts influenced by African and Oceanic visual culture, Sharif Bey’s bold works summon the complexities of heritage, identity, and society. In his ceramic and mixed-media Guardian Series and Crown Series, calm yet imposing figures evoke the Benin Bronzes, ceremonial masking traditions, the giant Moai stone heads of Easter Island, and more.
Bey has long been interested in the commanding nature of objects, especially the ways in which colonialist forces have mined cultural heritage. The Benin Bronzes, which artisans created during the 14th century in what is now Nigeria, are a prime example: British troops looted thousands of plaques in 1897, and The British Museum, The Met, the Smithsonian, Chicago’s Field Museum, and more keep them in their collections. Some have been repatriated, but most remain in Western institutional collections.
In Sharif Bey: Homecoming at The Andy Warhol Museum, the title of which nods to the artist’s background growing up in Pittsburgh, works like “Crown Series: Iris” and “Guardian Series: Blink” possess a deified air. Ceramic beads complement rusty nails, spikes, and chains that mimic hair and garments and also nod to a past filled with brutality and violence, especially—but not limited to—the transatlantic slave trade.
With their eyes closed, Bey’s figures exude a serene power and dignity in the face of historical injustices, which are woven into the fabric of our present. The show pairs the artist’s work with pieces by Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat from the institution’s permanent collection, delving into the way all three explore themes of identity and society.
If you’re in Pittsburgh, you can see Homecoming through October 12. Discover more on Bey’s Instagram.
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2026-10-03 03:00:00
Gaia Alari’s works are defined by a distinct, effervescent visual language. Made from thousands of handmade drawings on paper, the artist’s elaborate animations put on strikingly tactile performances as fleeting marks of oil pastel and charcoal dance across the screen.
Meandering botanical forms, gestural bodies, and sweeping birds converge into fluid loops that create a rhythm reminiscent of a stream of consciousness. Whether Alari is collaborating with a brand, exploring personal interests, or creating static illustrations, it’s clear that each piece tells a distinct story. Watch more from the artist on Vimeo and keep up with her explorations on Instagram.
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2026-10-03 00:02:10
How might we visualize the inextricable web of space, time, and matter, enormous concepts that are so systemic they can almost become abstract? Rendering these connections in a tangible, accessible, and even participatory manner continues to ground Tomás Saraceno’s multidisciplinary practice. Born in Argentina and based in Berlin, the artist plays with scale and spectacle to draw our attention to the life-giving ecosystems in which we’re all bound, merging art, architecture, and science into alluring works.
At Haus der Kunst, Saraceno’s ecological and collaborative projects take center stage for a sweeping presentation titled Ancestral Futures. Spanning more than two decades, the solo exhibition emerges from the central premise that the knowledge we’ve gained in the past is critical to understanding and creating our shared tomorrow.
Called “the art world’s favorite arachnophile,” Saraceno frequently returns to the spider and its web as a metaphor for and example of the networks that undergird life. Interactive installations invite visitors to crawl through sprawling structures, while the decade-long Webs of At-tent(s)ion series welcomes several species of spiders into the museum to spin their sticky structures inside boxes. Continually returning to the web is a clear reminder that we’re all connected to one another and that nature’s processes are cyclical.
Saraceno also adapts his interest in solar-powered air balloons for the museum. An immersive cavern made of crowd-sourced plastic bags inflates with the help of willing visitors who ride stationary bicycles to power the project. Others can wander inside, where they become enveloped by a colorful patchwork of brands and remnants of humanity’s culture of disposability and consumerism.
Perhaps the most impressive works in the exhibition are those created as part of Saraceno’s ongoing collaboration with Indigenous communities of Red Atacama, in the basin of Salinas Grandes in northwestern Argentina. Eleven weavers loaned their handmade blankets, which are presented together as a vibrant, soft space for lounging at the show’s opening. Immersion into the landscape of Salinas Grandes follows with galleries filled with sand, water, salt, and more.
Several works reference The Sanctuary of Water, the multi-pronged project Saraceno and the people of Salinas Grandes are undertaking together. The collaboration, the museum says, “emerges in solidarity with the communities’
resistance to lithium mining in one of the world’s largest lithium-rich regions. Their struggle highlights the continuing legacy of colonial exploitation: While international corporations profit from resources such as lithium—essential for technologies including electric cars—the environmental and social costs are borne by local communities.”
As a permanent land work, “The Sanctuary of Water” is organized around a large reflective pond that captures the sky above, skewing boundaries between land and air. “In our worldview,” says the collaborative project’s website, “Pacha names the inseparable weave of space, time, and matter. It is one living body, sustained by the water that flows through them all.”
If you’re in Munich, you can see Ancestral Futures through February 7. Otherwise, explore more of the artist’s collaboration with the communities of Salinas Grandes on the project’s website.
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2026-10-02 21:41:17
The year’s best roundup of the funniest animal photos is back with its list of 2026 finalists, taking on a kind of blooper reel-like quality with some of the goofiest happenstances and candid moments photographers captured. Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards 2026 celebrates the wild, wonderful, and wily in habitats around the world.
From Tanner Mansell’s “Spicy Orangutan” snapped in Borneo to a damselfly appearing to wave at British photographer Lee Frost through a window in a nibbled leaf, this year’s top contenders are not only silly, but immanently relatable, illustrating how for all of our differences, we all share this incredible planet.
At more than 10,000 photos, the competition received its highest ever number of entries this year from photographers in 112 countries. “What began as a small effort to raise awareness of wildlife conservation has grown into something far bigger than we ever imagined,” says awards co-founder Tom Sullam. “We use humour to get people to feel empathy towards wildlife, and it’s that empathy that creates behavioural change for the better.”
Nikon will announce the competition winners on December 8. In the meantime, see all 40 finalists, plus portfolios, videos, and youth submissions on the contests’s website. Additionally, cast your vote for the Sterna People’s Choice Award.
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