Required Reading
This week, a Mercedes inspired by the film Avatar, the psychosexual dimensions of Slave Play, Instagram censorship, the dance that revolutionized ballet, the anti-imperialist history of the untucked shirt, and more.
The Latest
Music • Weekend
Jpegmafia, Isolated in His Own Head
The more you listen to All My Heroes Are Cornballs, the more it teaches you how to listen.
Art • Weekend
Cowboys, Curators, and Finicky-Fingered Mincers
As fairly customary, Glen Baxter is taking a tilt at the absurdities of the fuzzy, whizzy showbizyness of the art world.
Art • Weekend
What Giacometti Learned From de Sade
Prompted by his friend André Breton, Alberto Giacometti first read de Sade in 1933, and his studio notes ruminated on seduction, idolatry, and fetishism.
Art • Weekend
El Anatsui’s Urgent Visions of the Past and Future
While the material itself consists of forgettable or disposable objects from everyday life, El Anatsui transforms these into remarkable forms embedded with narratives and histories in manifold ways.
Art • Weekend
Minimalist Art that Speaks for the Birds
With their exhibition, Look, it’s daybreak, dear, time to sing, Richard Ibghy and Marilou Lemmens investigate the complex, cross-species relationship between birds and humans.
Art • Weekend
The Quiet Dignity of Peter Hujar
Hujar wrote that his portrait subjects were “those who push themselves to any extreme” and those who “cling to the freedom to be themselves.”
Art • Weekend
A Not Completely Lost History
The artists in Post prove that paintings and drawings can be captivating years after they were done, and that a timely style has a way of becoming uninteresting, even mummifying.
An Artist’s Altars to Unsung Women
Rendered in a rainbow of vibrant colors, Clarity Haynes’s portrayals of queer, heavy, and disabled bodies reimagines the white box as a communal space that allows for the possibility of healing.
In Brief
Artists Withdraw From Iranian Festivals After Country Admits to Downing of Ukrainian Plane
Visual artists, filmmakers, and musicians are withdrawing from the Fajr festivals in solidarity with protesters and those mourning the loss of loved ones involved in the crash, which killed all 176 passengers on board.
Art
In Baltimore, Generations Traces a Lineage of Abstraction Among Black Artists
Most shows can’t or don’t hold these very separate aspects in synchronous rotation: sober assessment of an art historical lineage and a feeling of intimacy. This one does.
News
A German Casino Worker Is Suing Ai Weiwei for Saying He Showed a “Nazi Attitude”
The world-renowned dissident artist, who is celebrated in the gambling community as a “Blackjack Guru,” explained the story behind the lawsuit in a New York Times op-ed.