An artist, educator, and researcher based in São Paulo, Brazil, Paulino's work centers around social, ethnic, and gender issues, particularly foregrounding the histories, myths, narratives, and images of Black women in Brazilian society. Her practice, which spans drawing, embroidery, engraving, printmaking, collage, sculpture, and installation, explores the history of racial violence and the persisting legacy of slavery in Brazil, illuminating the impact of memory on psychosocial constructions.
Turning a corner on the fourth floor at the Museum of Modern Art, it appeared: Dogs of Cythera by Dorothea Tanning. Suddenly, the tempo of my visit collapsed not into calm, but into excited consequence. I had moved through the museum at a near run heels striking the floor, senses thrown open still electrified by Wilfredo Lam, but unsatisfied. It was that familiar MoMA condition: the body outrunning thought, the eye consuming faster than meaning can form.
Research from Johns Hopkins University's International Arts + Mind Lab, detailed in the 2023 bestseller Your Brain on Art by Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross, shows that engaging in art reduces the stress hormone cortisol, no matter your skill level, with some benefits appearing in as little as 20 minutes. A 2025 study of nearly 2,500 people across five countries found that creativity can be reliably predicted by how often the brain switches between its default mode network (active during mind-wandering)
However, the interactive screens are running Windows, and Windows is doing what Windows does best: displaying an awkward message. We suspect it's what the artist, famed for subversive and satirical artwork cropping up in the most unexpected of places, would have wanted. Windows complaining about activation can occur if there are licensing issues, or if there has been a hardware change that is enough to send Microsoft's finest into a cycle of despair.
One of Oregon's biggest arts leadership shuffles in 2025 was the resignation of Suzanne Nance as president and CEO of All Classical Radio and the arrival of Fred Child to take her place. Nance, who led the Portland-based global network creatively since 2018, including the station's move from the east side riverbank to downtown Portland, left to become executive director of the Wexford Festival Opera in Ireland, a post she assumes in January.
As Broadway shakes off the confetti of another holiday season, the first half of 2026 is taking shape as a cautious but telling moment for New York theater. Ongoing financial pressures have narrowed the fieldparticularly for new musicalsshifting attention toward star-driven revivals, acclaimed imports, and familiar titles returning in reworked forms. Against that backdrop, below are 10 Broadway and Off-Broadway productions and series to look forward to in the months ahead.
Many remember the Ecce Homo painting that decorates one of its walls not for the original 19th-century brushstrokes, but for the disastrous restoration carried out by a woman then just over 80 years old who acted spontaneously and without asking anyone's permission, though with good intentions. The work of Cecilia Gimenez, who passed away this Monday at the age of 94, was not only catastrophic, blurry, and unrecognizable, but also became an object of ridicule.
Founded in 2002 in Northern California by acrobat duo David Jones and Blaze Birge, Flynn Creek Circus tours the Pacific Northwest every year with a different theme. This year's theme, The Bridge, is inspired by Nordic folklore involving a wolf, a troll, and a goat. Traditional-meets-modern circus acts perform under Capitola's classic big top tent, including jugglers, aerialists, acrobats, contortionists, clowns, and hula hoopers who go by names like The Emperor, The Raven, Ferryman and Red Countess.
"Dear San Francisco" has held a residency at Club Fugazi since 2021, when it replaced long-standing fan favorite "Beach Blanket Babylon." The show features an athletic cast of circus performers in what's essentially a San Francisco-themed take on Cirque du Soleil. The 90-minute show runs from Wednesdays through Sundays and features singing, spoken word, acrobatics and interactive elements. It takes a relentlessly optimistic lens on the city, making it hands-down one of most family-friendly activities San Francisco has to offer.
However, for true magic none can best the way in which Birmingham Royal Ballet's The Nutcracker transforms the Royal Albert Hall's unwieldy, cavernous , proscenium-free space into a dreamy, immersive wintry landscape, thanks to an inspired series of projections by 59 Productions. Drenching the backdrop and sides of the stage with colour and imagery, it creates warm homely interiors, then a giant Christmas tree that gives way to chilly, starlit skies.
The Women was among the most checked-out books in U.S. public libraries this year, making top-10 lists in library systems as far-flung as those in Clawson, Mich., Lawrence, Kan., Flathead County, Mont., and the entire state public library system of Hawaii. It was also the year's most-borrowed ebook on the public library app, Libby. The bestselling novel by Kristin Hannah follows a U.S. Army nurse from the frontlines of the Vietnam War to a family deeply divided about the war and her service.
To start, don't ask her to incorporate any summer stone fruits in a late December menu. "I've had clients who have asked me to make a peach cobbler in December and I'm like, 'No, I'm not going to do it. I didn't put up any peaches!," she said, laughing. Holland doesn't celebrate Kwanzaa herself, but she still sees the season as a chance to celebrate the entire African diaspora.
For instance, the Louvre did not own a single video artwork until this year, when Mohamed Bourouissa's piece documenting the Tuileries Garden made its way into the collection. Acquisitions also illustrate networks of power and exchange in the art world. One of Tate Modern's big gets, a stunning Joan Mitchell triptych, came from none other than Miami-based developer and museum founder Jorge Pérez and his wife Darlene.
Now Eber, as executive director of what's formally called the Empire State Plaza Performing Arts Center, is finishing up a $19.5 million renovation - the first major overhaul since the Egg opened in 1978. She hopes the glow-up will change the Egg from a place to sit and watch shows to a forum for immersive works - or just a quirky place for people in Albany and around the state and region to enjoy. The unique space itself should become a touchstone for performances.
Become a paid member to listen to this article As 2025 comes to a close, we take a look back at our top 10 stories that got the most attention this past year. Our most popular articles span the topics you care about most-from transit and art to historic preservation, film locations, and the hidden secrets of NYC. Enjoy our countdown and let us know what your favorite story was this year!
turning the city into a living canvas where art became accessible to all. Through their perspectives, the theme 'In the Blink of an Eye' emerged not only as a reference to light and speed, but also to the city's rapid transformation and its deeper cultural timelines. The curators describe the festival as a public encounter with memory, imagination, and everyday life, revealing how light can connect communities across generations and geographies.
By now, you will be used to the feminist practice of finding a historical woman and rescuing her from the clutches of evil biographers who have done her dirty. What if Marie Antoinette or Typhoid Mary were a more rounded figure-more constrained by the expectations of her time, perhaps, or a victim of her circumstances and upbringing? That is not the approach that the playwright Cole Escola has taken in Oh, Mary!, which is currently playing on Broadway and has just opened in London.
Aside from the nationally famous amphibian who cavorted in front of the ICE facility in South Portland, though, our theaters were alight with the passion and profound insights brought to us by an array of directors, actors, musicians and designers. Not only has their work sparked conversation and mirrored the pain and joy of being human - in general and specifically in 2025 - these artists offered us something we all crave: delight and entertainment.
In 1968, when Robert Crumb published Head Comix, the poet Allen Ginsberg called him a "supreme funny underground comic strip incarnation of the post-historic flower age". Crumb sang the praises of LSD. If you did not take drugs, Crumb's entropic scenes could make you feel as if you did. Countless businesses pirated his images all the way to the bank. Andy Warhol was probably jealous, but he died before Crumb started making money.
Foreboding music begins. A scary green witch announces her arrival with a cackle. It's the opening of Wicked Witches, a British holiday-time play known as a "pantomime," at a North London theater. But soon after she walks on stage, it's clear the witch isn't happy with the audience. She says the audience is being too quiet, and should boo her as loudly as they can, because she is the "villain" of the pantomime.
As this year comes to a close and we gear up for an exciting 2026, let's take a moment to reflect on Hyperallergic 's most read stories of 2025. From our coverage of the Louvre heist to the rising authoritarianism in the White House, this year has generated plenty of fodder for art discourse, memes, and more. We're proud of our coverage of the art world this year and the fact that we've published so many stories that have resonated with you.
Blue became my favorite color as soon as I laid eyes upon that most reproduced of artworks: Hokusai's "The Great Wave off Kanagawa," a framed poster of which still hangs in my grandmother's room. Maybe you grew up with a print of this piece somewhere in your home, too. Over the last 12 months though, as blue as they've been, I find myself drawn more and more to the green that hooks my eye: the brushstrokes behind enthralled ballet dancers in British artist Lynette Yiadom-Boakye's " Harp-Strum" (2016), the shifting fabric in Art Deco painter Tamara de Lempicka's 1931 "Young Woman in Green" and the candy paint of the Bugatti in her 1929 self-portrait, the phthalo green skin of Byron Kim's '90s Belly Painting series.
"I came home finally from a red eye, and I slept for, I want to say, like, 30 hours," she told Morning Edition host Leila Fadel. "I clearly needed it. And now my back hurts. I'm 40, so that's okay."
In a year marked by political unease, cultural whiplash, and an industry still recalibrating its sense of purpose and underlying economics, New York theater often looked backward even as it searched for new ways forward. This list reflects the ten best Broadway and OffBroadway shows that opened in 2025. Thus, it does include shows that were part of the 2024-2025 season but opened in 2024, including Maybe Happy Ending and Sunset Boulevard.
For instance, I didn't expect to be writing this very piece just days after PG&E shit the bed (again) and sent most of our fair city into a days-long blackout. I didn't expect said blackout a mere two weeks after a PG&E gasline caused another residential explosion in the East Bay. And I certainly didn't expect to write that the aforementioned blackout made notoriously-homocidal robo-taxis cause the very sort of gridlock everyone was expecting to happen from closing The Great Highway.
In the heart of San Francisco Chinatown, Portsmouth Square. As Seen on "America's Got Talent" Season 7, LionDanceME & Yau Kung Moon Kung Fu Sport Association USA will be showcasing their amazing acrobatic dragon dance, and high flying lion dance, as well as some traditional martial arts. This festive showcase is open to the general public for drop in. So if you ever wanted to see Dragon & Lion Dance up-close personally...
Experts are using artificial intelligence (AI) to help reassemble a priceless fresco by the early Renaissance artist Cimabue that was reduced to tens of thousands of fragments when earthquakes devastated a 13th-century basilica in central Italy nearly 30 years ago. The project has revived hopes for the full recovery of a masterpiece hailed by Italy's prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, as a symbol of national pride.
As the year winds to an end, we cannot move forward without remembering who we've lost. David Lynch, a filmmaker so revolutionary that his style became a new standard. Frank Gehry, the sculptor of skylines. Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, the multi-hyphenate force of Indigenous aesthetics. Alonzo Davis, who was one of the first Black gallerists in this country and didn't stop there. Koyo Kouoh, who would have been the first African woman to direct the Venice Biennale. And so many more.
The name Ana Fedina may not ring a bell, but if you've played games like "Diablo IV," you've seen her work. For more than seven years, Fedina has been working as a professional artist and has contributed illustrations to games like "Raid: Shadow Legends" as well. Most recently, she was the illustrator for "The Armory of Heroes," a full-art compendium of weapons and character art released by the gaming and media company Critical Role in July.
Perhaps a more uncontroversial and profound Turing test is the mystery of the absolute arbitrariness of what makes us happy. Looking over this year's list, patterns emerge-trips, new friends-but much more here inheres in the mundane, lowercase, sense-activating thinginess of life: walking through clouds of butterflies, eating candy alone, homemade stew, wearing pink glitter, cold clementines in a hot bath. Joy is not second-hand. Its unpredictability identifies us as precisely as our fingerprints.
Art duo Cooking Sections bring their immersive, environmental practice to Centro Botín in Santander with a stirring audio-visual exploration of lost waves. Daniel Fernández Pascual and Alon Schwabe are known for deeply researched projects that sometimes lead to tangible change. In 2020, they prompted Tate to remove farmed salmon from its menu, while their Ministry of Sewers at the 2025 Folkestone Triennial invited the public to submit official complaints about sea pollution.
