The New Yorker excerpted my essay from the book Órale: Love and Death in Mexico City, which collects the photographs of the late Michel Hurst. The book is out now from @hunterspointpress . Link to the excerpt in the bio
I wrote about Aaryan Sinha (@aaryansinha ), winner of the 2026 Aperture Portfolio Prize, for the summer issue of Aperture (@aperturefnd ). Link in the bio
Chris Wiley talks about art and the future. His show Galesburg is at @nicellebeauchene thru May 9, 2026. Full episode on YouTube at The Fee Art School channel. Please subscribe!
#chriswiley #thefreeartschool #freeartschool #livingasanartist
Please join us Thursday, April 2nd from 6 to 8pm to celebrate Chris Wiley’s current project space exhibition “Galesburg” which features a group of 8 new photographs in artist’s frames.
In the exhibition text, Wiley writes that “sifting though old photographs of Galesburg that my father keeps tucked away in our family’s basement, you could get the impression that it was some kind of American idyll pulled straight out of Norman Rockwell: stickball games on brick back streets; portraits of proud soldiers shipping off to serve; shining new automobiles. Of course, this is a kind of pleasant lie. Even Rockwell, who suffered keenly from depression most of his life, was said by his biographer, Deborah Solomon, to have painted his ‘longing’ rather than his reality. My grandmother struggled with alcohol. After getting dinged up in one too many drunk driving accidents, a dentist removed her teeth and gave her dentures, figuring that was easier. My father once chased a man she was seeing out of their house with a gun, after discovering him in their bed with another woman. Other lives were just as tough. But the desire to tell the pleasant lie is coextensive with the dream of a better life, a better future. This dream used to feel within reach in Galesburg. I can’t say it does anymore.”
Chris Wiley
“Untitled (American Picture) 8” (2026)
Inkjet print, artist’s frame with Trafficmaster carpet
Framed: 42 1/4 x 29 inches
Chris Wiley
“Untitled (American Picture) 4” (2026)
Inkjet print, artist’s frame with sandpaper and nails
Framed: 42 x 28 3/4 inches
Chris Wiley
“Untitled (American Picture) 5” (2026)
Inkjet print, artist’s frame with concrete
Framed: 42 1/4 x 29 inches
@weistwiley
I wrote about Torbjørn Rødland (@rodland.jpg ) for the New Yorker. His new show “Bones in the Canal and Other Photographs” is up through the 25th of April at David Kordansky in Chelsea (@davidkordanskygallery ). Link in the bio
Hunters Point Press is proud to announce Órale: Love and Death in Mexico City, the debut monograph by the late photographer and collector Michel Hurst (1948–2023).
Co-edited by Barney Kulok (@bkulok ) and Nan Goldin (@nangoldinstudio ), with an essay by New Yorker Magazine photography critic Chris Wiley (@weistwiley ) and an afterword by Hurst’s husband of forty years, Robert Swope (@rsswope2 ). Available for pre-order now @hunterspointpress
Made in and around his adopted home of Mexico City over a period of roughly eight years, Órale's photographs pulse with the lifeblood of a country marred by suffering but consistently renewed by the promise of redemption. Through Hurst's lens, the reader observes ancient rituals and new cults, beauty and degradation, danger and tenderness, lust and longing. With the flinty eye of a hard-bitten street photographer and the soft touch of an aesthete, Hurst shows us not just Mexico but the human condition itself.
More soon.
