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.
Kennedy Collective members open their annual group show with a free reception at Kennedy Heights Arts Center.
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.
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.
In the summer of 1965, a young black man was pulled over by a white police officer for suspicion of driving while under the influence. The incident occurred on August 11 on the outskirts of Watts and brought with it an unsettling exchange. What initially began as a roadside argument quickly escalated into a fight, attracting the attention of a growing group of onlookers.
In 2013, the announcement that Garth Risk Hallberg, a debut novelist, was to receive an advance of nearly two million dollars, set the literary world atwitter. A New York Times article stated that the book drew a two-day bidding war, prompting ten publishers to offer more than a million dollars.
The brilliantly gifted novelist Mary Gaitskill, whose novel Veronica was a finalist for The National Book Award some years ago, and which showcased the greed and narcissism of the 1980s through the character of a high fashion New York model, has returned with her equally impressive The Mare.
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.
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.
Meta has put on hold new business terms that would have let it collect material from the websites of companies that advertise or sell through Facebook and Instagram, news publishers included. In a notice to business customers on November 5, the company said the changes to four sets of commercial and advertising terms would not take effect on November 20 as planned, and that its existing terms remain in force. Early versions allowed the collected material to be used to train Meta’s AI systems, with no way to opt out. On October 16 the company removed the word “train” and limited the use to advertising and business products, but publishers kept objecting. “We’re pausing the changes as we continue to engage with stakeholders,” a Meta spokesperson told Nieman Lab.
The pause followed court orders in two countries. On October 28, the Oslo District Court ruled that the terms could not take effect in Norway until a court reviewed whether they are legal, after a request from an association of Norwegian media companies that includes Schibsted, NRK and TV2. On November 3, a judge in São Paulo barred Meta from collecting and using content from members of three Brazilian newspaper, broadcaster and magazine associations without permission, including for AI training, with a fine of 1 million reais per day, capped at 100 million, if it does not comply. Britain’s competition regulator is also investigating whether Meta used its dominant position to impose unfair terms on publishers and advertisers.
Voters in American towns and counties turned down data center development almost everywhere they were asked on November 3. According to Ballotpedia, 41 local ballot measures in 10 states dealt with the large computer buildings that run artificial intelligence services, through bans, temporary pauses, rezoning requests and nonbinding advisory questions. With most results counted on Wednesday, CNBC and Scientific American reported that voters sided against data centers in every case but one. In Wells, Maine, more than 80 percent approved a 180-day pause on data center construction that also applies to projects already proposed. The single exception was Harwood, North Dakota, where voters rejected, by about three to one, a proposal requiring extra review of industrial projects, data centers included. A $3 billion data center is already being built near the town.
The local votes came alongside races in which the buildings were a campaign issue. In a CNBC voter poll, 56 percent of voters said data centers were a crucial or major factor in their decision. Ohio’s incoming governor, Amy Acton, supports a conditional moratorium that would require new data centers to pay all of their utility costs and to be built with union labor, a position that could slow a large computing site planned by OpenAI, Nvidia and SoftBank in southern Ohio. The tallies are still unofficial. In towns that approved bans or pauses, developers will have to wait out the moratoriums or persuade voters to change the rules.
