{"id":149566,"date":"2026-03-02T11:36:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T11:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/149566\/"},"modified":"2026-03-02T11:36:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T11:36:09","slug":"nycs-new-culture-commissioner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/149566\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC\u2019s New Culture Commissioner"},"content":{"rendered":"

Daily Newsletter<\/a><\/p>\n

Diya Vij appointed DCLA commissioner, dispatches from Frieze LA, finding god at the Brooklyn Museum, and the jazz photos the FBI censored. <\/p>\n


\n \"Hyperallergic\"\/
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced his pick for culture commissioner this weekend. He chose well: Diya Vij, a veteran curator with a strong record of community-forward work, has her heart in the right place. Best of luck to her. <\/p>\n

Also, please join me today at 3pm (ET) for a virtual conversation with artist-writer Damien Davis<\/a>. Since he started writing for us in 2024, Damien has emerged as one of the strongest voices in the field. We\u2019ll discuss his recent essays, studio practice, and how the two converge. The event is for Hyperallergic Members only. It’s not too late to sign up.<\/p>\n

\u2014Hakim Bishara, editor-in-chief <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Curator Diya Vij (photo by Sam Richardson)Curator Diya Vij Named NYC Culture Commissioner<\/a><\/p>\n

Diya Vij, who was a member of\u00a0Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s transition team, will succeed Laurie Cumbo just four months after joining the Brooklyn nonprofit Powerhouse Arts as vice president of curatorial and arts programs.<\/p>\n

\"CTA<\/a><\/p>\n

Join us today, March 2, for an exclusive, virtual talk with artist and\u00a0Hyperallergic\u00a0contributor\u00a0Damien Davis<\/a>, whose distinctive voice challenges the power structures and inequities of the contemporary art world.<\/p>\n


\n Learn more
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\"CTA<\/a><\/p>\n

Affordable Art Fair New York Spring 2026<\/p>\n

Affordable Art Fair returns to the Starrett-Lehigh building for an incredible showcase of 90 galleries presenting thousands of one-of-a-kind artworks, all priced from $100 to $12,000. From March 18\u201322, interact with brilliantly curated installations, enjoy food and drinks, immerse yourself in artworks from all over the world, and fall in love with collecting art.\u00a0<\/p>\n


\n Get tickets
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

Opinion\"\"<\/a>Art Not Genocide Alliance protesting outside the Israeli and United States pavilions at the 2024 Venice Biennale (photo by Matteo de Mayda, courtesy Art Not Genocide Alliance)The Case for Palestine at the Venice Biennale<\/a><\/p>\n

Does the exhibition prefer to destroy its long-standing significance for artists, curators, and art workers than to hold the moral clarity that this moment is asking from us? | Art Not Genocide Alliance<\/p>\n

Dispatch From Frieze\"\"<\/a>Amanda Ross-Ho, \u201cUntitled Orbit (MANUAL MODE)\u201d (2026) (photo Matt Stromberg\/Hyperallergic)Frieze LA Meets the Real World<\/a><\/p>\n

Cognitive dissonance can be hard to shake at any art fair, let alone Frieze Los Angeles. This year, though, Matt Stromberg reports on several moments of quiet resistance that made the way artists engage with contemporary issues impossible to ignore. These range from artworks themselves \u2014 including Y. Malik Jalal’s embedded car-mat pieces and Christina Fernandez’s photographs \u2014 to a conflict between the fair and a nonprofit that works with migrant communities along the US-Mexico border.<\/p>\n

From Our Critics\"\"<\/a>Louis Armstrong, Basin Street East, New York (c. 1954\u201356) (\u00a9 Lisette Model Foundation; image courtesy Eakins Press Foundation\/The Metropolitan Museum of Art via Art Resource, New York)The Jazz Pictures the FBI Silenced<\/a><\/p>\n

Fearing for her safety, Lisette Model buried her photos of artists like Billie Holiday and Louis Armstrong, but a new book reveals them to the world. | Julia Curl<\/p>\n

\"CTA<\/a><\/p>\n

IDSVA Extends PhD Program to BA and BFA Applicants<\/p>\n

Earn your PhD in Art Theory, Aesthetics, and Philosophy with the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts (IDSVA).<\/p>\n


\n Learn more
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

Political Amnesia\"\"<\/a>The abandoned Museo de Memoria de Colombia in Bogot\u00e1 (all photos Kurt Hollander\/Hyperallergic, unless otherwise noted)The Uncertain Future of Colombia\u2019s Museum of Memory<\/a><\/p>\n

It’s been 15 years since the government greenlit the creation of the Museo de Memoria de Colombia in Bogot\u00e1, a space to collectively remember, grieve, and learn. But as Kurt Hollander reports, the Brutalist fortress of a building now sits abandoned after mismanagement and interference from the political right, who prefer to leave the Colombian government’s role in the 70-year armed conflict out of the history books (and the museums).<\/p>\n

A Book of the Dead in Brooklyn\"\"<\/a>Detail from an illustrated Book of the Dead (c. 305\u201330 BCE), papyrus, ink, gold, and paper (photo courtesy the Brooklyn Museum)Finding God at the Brooklyn Museum<\/a><\/p>\n

Greta Rainbow spoke to superstar conservator Ahmed Tarek, from the Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo, about what it was like to restore the more than 2,000-year-old Egyptian Books of the Dead, now on view at the Brooklyn Museum. \u201cYou just have to cut your breath and be very, very patient,\u201d he told her. \u201cEvery day for 18 months, we went to work and peeled acidic paper from just this one object.\u201d The end result is breathtaking, inducing a real sense of reverence for our species, the past, and the people who preserve it.<\/p>\n

From the Archive \"\"<\/a>Creative Time\u2019s Diya Vij Helps Launch an Art World Think Tank<\/a><\/p>\n

The unorthodox program will gather together a group of thought leaders for 10 months to reflect and advise on happenings in the art community. | Hrag Vartanian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Daily Newsletter Diya Vij appointed DCLA commissioner, dispatches from Frieze LA, finding god at the Brooklyn Museum, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":135007,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,56,63,65,64],"class_list":{"0":"post-149566","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-ny","10":"tag-nyc","11":"tag-nyc-headlines","12":"tag-nyc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149566\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}