Art Review
How the Motorcar Helped Fuel Feminism
A show demonstrates how the motor vehicle drove aesthetics, fashion, and feminism in interwar France.
Eileen G’Sell
Eileen G’Sell is a poet and culture critic whose work focuses on gender, sexuality, and economic class. She is a 2023 winner of the Rabkin Foundation Prize in arts journalism and teaches at Washington University in St. Louis.
Film Review
An Artist Who Transgressed the Boundaries of the Body
“A Body to Live In” takes a multilayered perspective on artist Fakir Musafar’s life to creatively excavate his role as a pioneer of extreme body modification.
Film
The Tumultuous Journey of Faith Ringgold’s Rikers Mural
Catherine Gund’s Paint Me a Road Out of Here uses the artwork to tell truths about the US carceral system.
Film
At Sundance, Films Tackled Sex, Love, Gender, and the Law
Whether it’s catfishing clueless rich guys, catching sex predators on YouTube, or assisting a woman in conceiving a child, questions of legality often have little to do with morality.
Art
The Haunted Women of Else Hagen
In the mid-20th century, the Norwegian painter plumbed the tensions, envies, frustrations, and tender bonds among feminine subjects.
Film
60 Years Before Wicked, a Movie Musical That Made Your Eyes Sing
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is one of the most brain-quiveringly beautiful films ever to flood a screen.
Film
The 25 Best Films of 2024
An eclectic round-up spanning feature-length investigative documentaries, avant-garde short films, YouTube essays, and even talk shows.
Film
A Dazzling Light in Dance History
When dancer Loïe Fuller’s spinning garment reflected the stage lights, it took on a life of its own, beguiling those in New York, Berlin, and Paris.
Film
The Secret Life of Suzanne Césaire
Merging the filmmaking process with snippets of the protagonist's life and words,The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire blurs distinctions between past and present.
Film
The Dizzying Contradictions in Contemporary Classical Ballet
The dancers we grow to know (and love) in Swan Song are sweating, swearing, soaring women, at odds with conceptions of purity and frailness.
Film
Look Into My Eyes Is an Intimate Portrait of Psychic Healing
Uninterested in proving anything definitively, this film instead asserts the complicated humanity of psychic healers, their clients, and the practice itself.
Film
In Hummingbirds, Joy Is an Act of Resistance
The coming-of-age documentary is as full of whimsy and joy as it is packed with clear-eyed resilience.