Art at the New Museum

There’s a pretty stupendous show called “Grief and Grievance” on at the New Museum right now. It features the work of 37 black artists, most of them extraordinarily talented. Among my favorite things were the photos by LaToya Ruby Frazier, the welded steel sculptures by Melvin Edwards, and the paintings by Mark Bradford and Jean-Michel Basquiat.

I didn’t manage to capture any of those on film. Instead, I got this shot of an odd little hanging sculpture by Julia Phillips, along with its shadow. The extra is a detail from Nari Ward’s powerfully affecting Peace Keeper, a whole black hearse that has been covered in grease, blowtorched, and decorated with peacock feathers. You have to see it live — as with so much else in this show — to get anything like  the full impact.