Film
Social Bonds May Save Our Lives
Join or Die is part of a cresting wave of cultural production circling around the intertwined issues of loneliness, divisiveness, and our political right turn.
Alexis Clements
Writer and filmmaker in Brooklyn. Major works include: feature documentary about LGBTQ+ women’s spaces, “All We've Got;” experimental film and prose project, “There Must Be a Word;” and artist-focused podcast series, “The Answer is No.”
Film
It’s Time for a Queer Comedy Revolution
Outstanding: A Comedy Revolution drives home who is worth paying attention to if you want comedy to lighten your load, and your fellow humans'.
Art
Mickalene Thomas Is Fashioning Black Female Beauty
Thomas’s shimmering collages are, among other things, meditations on and appreciations of Black female beauty and sexuality.
Art
Queerness and Nature Intersect at Wave Hill
Two shows cast a critical eye on our fantasy of nature as it crashes up against the realities of the world we humans have created.
Books
Where Funhouse Erotics Meet Art History
A new volume of Hilary Harkness’s paintings enfolds us into surreal worlds of gender-bending militaries, feminine revenge, and alternative histories.
Books
Trans Actress Candy Darling Gets the Biography She Deserves
Half a century after the Warhol film star’s death, writer and critic Cynthia Carr brings Darling’s life to light in an empathetic, well-researched new book.
Art
The New York Housing Law That Helped Sustain Artists
Any New Yorker who steps into Loft Law: Photographs by Joshua Charow will likely look with a lascivious gaze upon the few remaining protected artist lofts.
Books
Diarmuid Hester Distills Queer Longing
In Nothing Ever Just Disappears, Hester wanders in search of kinship with queer bohemians such as James Baldwin, Josephine Baker, and Kevin Killian.
Art
The Mythmaking Apparatus of the US National Parks
In quiet yet scrupulous detail, Designing Experience asks how the US National Park Service shapes the narratives it tells about this country and the lands it claims.
Opinion
To Whom It May Concern: Abolish Recommendation Letters!
Several arts organizations have stopped requiring reference letters. More should follow suit.
Art
52 Artists Challenges the Meaning of "Women's Art"
What most stands out for me about 52 Artists at the Aldrich Contemporary is the sense of both engaging with and resisting categories.
Art
An Artist's Embroideries Reflect the Complexity and Interconnectedness of Queer New York
What struck me most about LJ Robert's Carry You With Me is the way in which it depicts some of the complexity of queer New York.