Contemporary Art and Culture
This month’s Manhattan highlights focus on artists tapping into the natural world, where these practices converge with the man-made in a clash of stunning reinvention and compelling engagement. These exhibitions channel the experimental through exploratory processes that harness our attention and hold us in their spell.
Recently I was watching a guy on TikTok gently freak out about all the revelations coming back from the James Webb Space Telescope. His panic was so relatable because the images returning from deep space only reinforce how utterly minute we Earthlings are in the cosmos. The JWST is so powerful that, looking from Earth, it can sense the heat signature of a single bumblebee on the moon. And, of course, faced with this, he just shrugged helplessly and said, “We’re a total nothing burger.”