Watch as New York Times art critic Aruna D’Souza examines works in our collection that hold the promise of a better future in her series 5 Pictures for a New World. Philip Guston was a highly recognized abstract painter of the New York School along with Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and others. Then he pivoted toward something radical. Philip Guston’s Head II is a 1969 self-portrait in which Guston interrogates his complicity in racial violence surrounding him. The poignant drawing features “mournful eyes about to burst into tears,” and as D’Souza notes, calls audiences to examine their “complicity in relation to the systems that produce violence.” Head II harnesses the power of self-reflection as a crucial step in allyship and the fight against racial inequality in our nation. Aruna D’Souza was the Edmond J. Safra Visiting Professor at the National Gallery’s Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts in 2022.