The resolute materiality of painting continues to attract artists, says Painter Painter co-curator Eric Crosby. “It’s a vivid contrast with our daily routine, where we experience so many images by using a cursor. Painting resists this kind of experience,” he adds. “A lot of artists today embrace that notion, going where the materials take them, not where the history of painting tells them to go.”

“Non participation,” say Karen Mirza and Brad Butler of the central idea in their upcoming Walker exhibition, is evident “when, for example, people encounter something they believe is valid or necessary—say, homelessness, the right to protest, the Iraq War—but in that simultaneous moment they ignore it or reject it.” In a new interview, the UK-based duo discusses their approach to art and resistance.

In a traditional museum, art is presented in the context of singular art history, says the Van Abbemuseum’s Steven ten Thije. But “if you start to see works themselves as contexts, then each work starts to be not just a story of itself, but to offer a perspective on the world—a different background against which things can be ordered.” Here he discusses the museum’s evolving thinking on curation.

In the years before Roe v. Wade passed in 1973, a trio of activists received a flood of letters from people seeking a list of doctors who provided safe abortions. Recognizing the continuing significance of the work of Rowena Gurner, Patricia Maginnis, and Lana Phelan—dubbed the Army of Three—Andrea Bowers began an activist project of her own, carefully copying the letters by hand, word-for-word.