To see Upson’s memorial exhibition at Sprüth Magers is to absorb the full intensity of the artist’s explorations of trauma, vulnerability, and abjection.
AX Mina
AX Mina (aka An Xiao Mina) is an author, artist and futures thinker who follows her curiosity. She co-produces Five and Nine, a podcast about magic, work and economic justice.
Posted inArt
Bread and TikToks for the Masses
The recent government threats to TikTok raise questions about the future of the internet, which we once saw as free and democratic. Is that still the case?
Posted inArt
Livestreams and Spirit in a Time of Pestilence
The emergence of spiritual circles online in the face of COVID-19 strikes me as the opposite of viral — a place to be still in the face of viral turbulence on the streets and in the air, and viral turbulence on social media and the broader internet.
Posted inArt
On the Origins of “They Tried to Bury Us, They Didn’t Know We Were Seeds”
After the Families Belong Together protests this past weekend, we talk to Greek media scholar Alexandra Boutopoulou on the widely used phrase, “They tried to bury us, they didn’t know we were seeds,” and its poetic origins.
Posted inArt
Discussing the Realities and Risks of Transgender Visibility
On the occasion of the publication of Trap Door, the New Museum convened a panel to discuss the realities of transgender artists and cultural workers and their lives in the so-called mainstream.
Posted inArt
Celebrating Intersectionality in the Futuristic Netflix Series ‘Sense8’
As anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ, and isolationist policies sweep a growing number of nations, Sense8 takes us into a microcosm of a world these policies react against.
Posted inArt
In ‘Transparent,’ the Dangers of Apathy in Weimar Germany’s Queer Culture
They’re on top of the world: partying, popular, queer kids with everything going for them. This is not 1960s San Francisco or 1980s New York or today’s internet communities: it’s 1933 in Weimar Berlin.
Posted inArt
Seeing Fractured Explosions in Fragmented Mirrors
SAN FRANCISCO — The past year has seen many powerful, violent images.
Posted inArt
An Iranian-American Artist Revisits Images from the 1979 Revolution
SAN FRANCISCO — Follow a major social movement today, and unless you can afford to travel onsite, you’re likely to experience it through photos, hashtags, and video uploads. But a movement’s record has always had global resonance, distributed through a mix of broadcast and pre-internet forms of citizen media like pamphlets, posters, and zines.
Posted inArt
Architecture for Humanity at the New Aspen Art Museum
ASPEN, Colorado — Despite its reputation as a resort town for the 1%, the heart of Aspen looks much like a classic Western American town. The new Aspen Art Museum, designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Shigeru Ban, stands out in this context in both height and design.
Posted inArt
Behind the Scenes with a Beloved Children’s Book Illustrator
SAN FRANCISCO — Anyone who’s read Arnold Lobel’s iconic Frog and Toad series may wonder: why pick a frog and a toad? And what’s the difference between a frog and a toad anyway?
Posted inOpinion
Surreal Puppets Retell the Jabberwocky
SAN FRANCISCO — At San Francisco’s annual Dickens Fair, I learned about the work of Darren Way, whose Dangerous Puppets creations feature fanciful characters and bizarre imagery bordering on the fantastical and grotesque.
