It was the summer after Rachel Sennott attended her first Met Gala, riding high off the kind of early filmography that would make an agent’s eyes water—with Shiva Baby, Bodies Bodies Bodies, and Bottoms released one year after the next. It was the summer she had her comedy pilot ordered by HBO, cut her hair into a bob, starred in director Ally Pankiw’s dark comedy I Used to Be Funny, and presided over a coven of Internet hot girls in Charli XCX’s instantly viral “360” music video.
The British singer’s notoriety soared for months off the back of her hit album, TikTok trends, and a repartee with presidential nominee Kamala Harris that had news anchors explaining “brat summer” to Middle America on prime time. There next to Sennott—popping bottles and enjoying “writhing-around-on-the-floor kind of nights”—was Charli. Once the drinks were cleared away and the post-party film was developed, the two sat down for a debrief about the hottest summer on record.
2. Exactly How Bad Is the Art Market Right Now? Experts Sound Off as the Fall Season Begins
This was not a typical summer for Susanne Vielmetter. Having been in business for 24 years, the Los Angeles contemporary art dealer has seen her fair share of market ups and downs. But in her view, the current dip is a doozy. “I think this contraction is as bad if not worse than 2008,” she tells CULTURED.
So, she is changing the way she does business. In good times, dealers have waiting lists for popular artists’ works and sometimes require payment within 30 days. These days, Vielmetter is offering additional discounts and allowing clients up to 12 months to pay. And for market participants who entered the game after 2020, all this turbulence may come as a surprise.
The ins and outs of Travis Scott’s relationships are standard fodder for tabloid headlines. But one relationship in particular—his six-year-long creative flirtation with artist George Condo—has flown largely under the radar. The pair first crossed paths in 2019 when Scott penned the exhibition text for Condo’s contribution to that year’s Venice Biennale: a collection of paintings depicting his “paranoid visions” about the social media age and the “deterioration of American values.” The next year, the artist returned the favor by crafting an abstract portrait for Scott’s single “Franchise.”
From their respective perches in Houston and the Hamptons, the pair let CULTURED listen in on the kind of conversation they’d typically have over dinner—a meeting of the minds equal parts intimate and unpredictable.
4. Two Art Dealers on How to Emerge From a Market Downturn Smarter, Stronger, and Smaller
With a growing list of galleries closing in New York and beyond, the contraction of the market has rattled the art world.
We can’t say, however, that we couldn’t see it coming. In the predictable boom-and-bust cycle of the art market, what goes up must come down. But do galleries necessarily have to go down with it? CULTURED posed the question to Candice Madey and Laurel Gitlen, two New York gallerists who shuttered their businesses after the 2016 contraction and restarted them again in recent years, older and wiser.
5. New York Forever: 5 Painting Shows That Prove the City and Its Artists Can Thrive No Matter What
Every few seasons, the art world wonders if painting is over.
And every few seasons, we’re reminded it’s not. In back rooms and upstairs spaces, galleries are hanging high-energy painting shows that are both serious and fun—the fact that they are easy to love does nothing to diminish the rigor behind their making. And of the five artists included here, four live and work in New York, reminding us that no matter how filthy and expensive the city may get, like painting, New York will never die. The market may not know what it’s doing, but the artists do.
6. Here Are 11 New York Museum Shows You Do Not Want to Miss This Fall
From deeply researched archival exhibitions to riotous sculpture and painting, CULTURED presents the best of the fall museum calendar. Discover shows like "Energies," which feature ecologically minded works, or ask "Who Wants to Die For Glory?" with Jasmine Gregory, whose pieces work as a sharp lampooning of American consumer culture. Elsewhere, Elizabeth Catlett, Steve McQueen, Thomas Schütte, and more are on view.
7. Fashion Heavy-Hitter Morgan Stewart McGraw Has a Private Passion for Art. See Inside Her Collection.
Sometimes, all it takes is one piece to turn you into a collector. For Morgan Stewart McGraw and her husband Jordan McGraw, it was a Raymond Pettibon. They spotted No Title (Yellow, sound for), 2019, at Los Angeles’s Regen Projects and were transfixed by its vibrant, sunny hue. “We fell in love,” she recalls, “and bought it immediately.” The impulse buy sparked a burgeoning collection, developed in partnership with advisor Donna Chu, that now includes works by Rashid Johnson, Guadalupe Rosales, and Wolfgang Tillmans. In an interview with CULTURED, the designer delves deeper into her collecting philosophy and the beauty it has brought into her life.
8. Politics and Candy: Our Critic’s Guide to the Fall Art Openings
Welcome to The Big Picture, where CULTURED’s critics zoom out for a wider view of the art world. While the main focus of The Critics’ Table, CULTURED's new art criticism offering, will be reviews, this space is reserved for longer reflections—treatises, prognostications, diaries, and meanderings. Really, anything goes. For the inaugural installment, Co-Chief Art Critic Johanna Fateman waded into the back-to-school furor of early September in New York, when the galleries open for the fall, and emerged with this report.
Victor Barragán and Betsy Johnson are no strangers to taboo. Barragán launched his namesake label in 2016, shortly after moving to New York from Mexico City, and wooed the fashion set with designs that collapsed religious iconography, gay paraphernalia, and Internet subcultures into viral garments worn by the likes of Madonna and Rosalía. Then the designer made a radical decision: to drop out of the fashion week rat race and show off-calendar and outside the industry’s sanctified locations. Here, the friends share how they drown out the noise—and make space for the stories they want to tell.
10. Don't Miss These 10 Gallery Shows Sweeping Los Angeles This Fall
LA galleries are bringing their best for the fall season, from Alice Neel to Arthur Jafa. Discover exhibits like Betye Saar's “Mojotech," a pioneering achievement in altar assemblage intertwined with ritual objects, circuit boards, and computer parts. And join eco-hacktivist Lauren Bon in “Concrete is Fluid," where evocative room-scale installations weave ancient soils with industrial landscapes to underscore ecological resilience in the modern world.
