In its October 19, 2026 edition, The Christian Science Monitor Weekly devotes a double-page spread to an interactive sculptural installation. I mention it for its photograph, which is hardly anything special in itself, though it has something striking about it. The contrast between the abyssal blue of the background and the gentle lines of light is lovely.
CAM presents more than 150 photographs and archival materials in the first career retrospective devoted to Nancy Rexroth.
Edie McKee Harper’s photographs, paintings, weavings, and prints go on view October 17 at the Taft Museum.
A FotoFocus show pairing artworks with the photographs that inspired them ends November 13 in Northside.
The Art Academy of Cincinnati opens a comics art exhibition with original work by more than 30 artists.
Artist and writer Andrew Sungtaek looks at Donald Judd’s time in occupied Korea in a free lecture at NKU.
Lexington artist Kim Dixon talks about her artwork in the touring Celebrating the Black Experience exhibit in Erlanger.
Cincinnati artist Terence Hammonds pairs new printed ceramics, wallpaper and textiles with museum objects about Black history.
Artist Lydia Smith discusses her installation Cyclorama and the Norwood Mound in a free talk at The Carnegie.
I have sometimes thought about what, for once, I might call “the oneiric substance,” if only to steer the question into less sinister territory: do dreams arise from experiences not fully processed, or are they autonomous energetic structures, detached from various material or temporal sources, that pass through the mind in search of the lost warmth of emotions? The question has its beauty.
In encounters with certain works of contemporary visual art, perception activates modes of association that situate aesthetic experience in territories where matter, gesture, and time intertwine. Elizabet Cerviño’s (Manzanillo, Cuba, 1986) exhibition The Rhythm of Resilience, recently presented at Gallery 114 in Ybor City, Florida, unfolds within this horizon.
Three steeples patina glimmering mossy green after rain. Green as copper does after salt and pollutant-filled raindrops clobber for years, after intermittent wind burns and sun bleaches beat their surface like flint for fire; the parts most exposed are most faded, as with us humans.
The April issue of aeqai has just posted, and it’s a very full issue: you may have noted that each issue of aeqai is getting bigger, and that’s because we’re getting a lot of national attention, as well as regional, and we’ve been finding superb writers in many other cities: we’re now covering Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston, Seattle, occasionally Austin, and New York, as well as Lexington/Louisville.
Two novels by young American women writers popped onto the literary scene in the past month or so; Wreck and Order (perhaps poorly titled), is a debut novel by Hannah Tennant-Moore, and Innocents and Others, the fourth offering by Dana Spiotta, one of the world’s most astonishing newer talents.
Whenever I take part—as a curator or a viewer—in an exhibition bringing together several artists, seven women in this case, any number of men or any combination of the two sexes, I try to imagine the reasons, the implicit mystique that such a combination requires.
On Saturday, September 12th, The Annex Gallery brought together some forty people for an evening of celebration and fundraising dedicated to advancing the education of children living in some of the world's poorest communities. Jens G. Rosenkrantz and Kay Hurley, mother of Katie Hurley Wales, opened the gallery to host a benefit for Brighter Children, the organization led by Katie, under the banner Gather with Purpose.
Beyond I.T.I.N.E.R.A.T.I.O.N.S., at The Annex Gallery, The Most Merciful Thing in the World, by renowned American artist Trevor Paglen, was the first exhibition I visited in the current FotoFocus Biennial at its main venue. Open since October 1, it held its official reception only yesterday, on the 3rd, following a performance-lecture by Paglen. This carefully conceived exhibition has been curated by Kevin Moore, Ph.D., Artistic Director and Curator of FotoFocus.
Australia will create a regulator for artificial intelligence safety able to penalize the companies behind the most advanced AI systems, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced on November 10. The rules, to be written into a new law called the Australian AI Standards, would apply to every “frontier” AI company that wants to operate in the country, meaning those with the most powerful models. Companies would have to keep their systems secure, find and manage serious risks, let independent experts test their models, report incidents to the government quickly and publish their safety plans. The government has not said how large the penalties will be, how it will decide which companies count, or when the law will reach Parliament.
The plan follows an incident with an OpenAI agent, a program that carries out online tasks by itself. On June 18, such an agent took statistical health data without permission from a public Medicare statistics portal; no personal data was accessed. OpenAI told the government only in September. A government review released the same day made 18 recommendations, including mandatory company reports of “misaligned behaviour,” when a system acts against what it was meant to do, and a study of criminal penalties for serious misconduct. The government accepted them. Albanese said the incident “couldn’t be allowed to happen again.” The ACTU, the national union federation, said the breach showed that large AI companies cannot be trusted to police themselves.
Five of Britain’s biggest banks, HSBC, Nationwide, NatWest, Barclays and Lloyds, have moved to keep AI agents out of their customers’ accounts, The Telegraph reported on November 8. An AI agent is a program that carries out tasks for a person, such as paying bills or moving savings, often after the person hands over a username and password. Some of the banks specifically bar these programs from making payments without the customer’s direct involvement. The bans are preventive. Lloyds’ finance chief, Will Chalmers, said the bank had seen no sign of agents getting into accounts but guards against the risk. In October, Citi, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley took similar steps in the United States.
The banks’ worry is who pays when software makes a mistake with someone’s money. JPMorgan’s chief executive, Jamie Dimon, told investors he did not want “rogue agents,” adding that “there could be thousands of them.” Charles Schwab’s chief executive, Rick Wurster, said the firm blocks between 10 and 20 clients a week from using agents, including Meta’s assistant Muse, which is expected to arrive in Britain. Citi still lets approved services see account details without moving money. Wells Fargo’s online agreement, according to American Banker, treats any instruction from an AI agent as if the customer had given it, with no further check. Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority is now working with other regulators on rules for AI agents in finance.
Google will turn off its AI tools for school students unless their schools decide to switch them on. In a blog post on Tuesday, November 3, the company said Gemini, its chatbot, along with Gemini Notebook, Gemini in Classroom and Google Search, will be off by default for K-12 student accounts, the accounts schools manage for children from kindergarten to high school. Administrators can turn on one, two or all of these services. Google told AFP the change will roll out worldwide, starting in the United States, but gave no date. It reverses a choice made in August, when Gemini in Classroom was opened to students of all ages and switched on automatically in schools that already allowed Gemini.
The decision came after senators Richard Blumenthal and Josh Hawley wrote to the company in October asking why AI features had been made the default on school devices. Their letter said more than 150 million students use Google Classroom. Search is on the list because AI answers are now built into it. Chris Phillips, Google’s vice president for education, told The New York Times that if a school bans AI, its students will lose Search too and see a message saying it is not available. New York City said the chatbot and AI Mode were already blocked on student Chromebooks and asked Google to remove AI summaries from students’ search results as well. Los Angeles schools said they are reviewing the announcement.
