Welcome to another edition of Prescriptions. Today is June 19th, 2026. This week we saw a cage fight, a bridge we can’t use, and the art of the bad deal with Iran. An attack on Habeas Corpus is locked and loaded, and a name that was added is taken down at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Today is June 19th. On this day in history, in France, The National Assembly issues a decree abolishing the titles, orders and other privileges of the French nobility (1790); Francisco Franco’s Nationalist troops take Bilbao during their victorious Biscay Campaign in the Basques region during the Civil War (1937); Selections of the “The Magnificent Eleven” photos taken by Robert Capa during the D-Day landings in Normandy are first published in Life Magazine (1944); Kuwait declares independence from the United Kingdom (1961); Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space, returns to Earth (1963); Civil Rights Act of 1964 passes in the U.S. Senate 73 to 27 (1964); Bexit negotiations begin between United Kingdom and the European Union in Brussels (2017); The U.S. announces their withdrawl from the United Nations Human Rights Council (2018).
Today is June 19th, or Juneteenth National Independence Day, adopted starting only in 2021 as a federal holiday in the U.S., celebrating the emancipation of African-Americans who had been enslaved – a minor eulogy in the moratorium of reparations against the otherwise growing trend of walking back on Civil Rights and the newest wave of voter suppression and gerrymandering. We said this in 2021, and it is more true today than ever with the latest assault handed down earlier this month from the Supreme Court in Louisiana v. Callais, dismantling the remains of the Voter Rights Act.
On this day was born French Dadaist artist and writer Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, (1884) and British-Indian novelist Salman Rushdie (1947); On this day died American abstract expressionist painter Lee Krasner (1984).
Welcome to the 175th edition of Prescriptions. Here is our look at recent events in the arts.
SMITH, Untitled, in “Désidération (Prologue), 2019
SMITH: Ici Grand Ouvert
An artist-researcher, SMITH navigates between photography, moving images, installation, sculpture and performance. Shrugging off chronology, he shifts the boundaries of portraiture and landscape. On view at MAC VAL through January 31, 2027.
RR-126 Radio-Phonograph, 1965; Designed by Achille Castiglioni and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni
Art of Noise
These design choices feel like a part of the music itself; they become a key part of how we remember and understand sound in a multisensory way – through our ears, our eyes, and our sense of touch. On view at Cooper Hewitt / Smithsonian Design Museum through August 16, 2026.
Age of Content / Ballet national de Marseille – (LA)HORDE
BAM Winter/Spring 2026
BAM’s Winter/Spring season delivers a slate of innovative, full-tilt artistic visions, featuring major theatrical events like the National Theatre’s Hamlet and new works by American Opera Projects and V. Through June 2026.
Mohamed Hassan
Getxophoto: RESET
In this 2026 edition, Getxophoto turns twenty, after a trilogy dedicated to PAUSE, PLAY, and REC, the theme of this very special edition could only be RESET, an invitation to reboot the system. On view through June 21, 2026.
Venice Biennale
Venice Biennale 2026
The 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia – In Minor Keys by Koyo Kouoh (1967–2025) – will run from Saturday 9 May to Sunday 22 November 2026 (preview 6, 7, 8 May) at the Giardini and the Arsenale venues, and in various locations around Venice. Through November 22, 2026.
Anouk Chambaz
If We Could Inhabit the Skin
Anouk Chambaz: a Dramaturgy for Living the Boundary. On the occasion of the exhibition “Sometimes I Get Goosebumps” hosted by Recontemporary, artist Anouk Chambaz expresses her vision of a space of subtraction between the self and the other in a dual vision. Interview by Chiara Causo
Dyonne Chaves Boy
The Assault of Illusion
The Assault of Illusion presents a reading of art as a tool for producing illusions and deceptions and explores how this has progressively shaped both our desire and what we understand as reality. On view at The Santa Mònica through September 27, 2026.
