Feature
In a Volatile Market, Art Basel Galleries Bet on Our Attention
For most exhibitors at the Swiss art fair this year, the answer is not spectacle, but rather laser focus.
Ela Bittencourt
Ela Bittencourt is a critic and cultural journalist, currently based in Berlin. She writes on art, film and literature, often in the context of social issues and politics.
Obituary
Georg Baselitz, Purveyor of the Tortured Male Genius Myth, Dies at 88
The German artist was known for emotionally charged paintings and distorted views about women artists.
Art Fairs
The Paradoxical Delights of South America’s Biggest Art Fair
The 22nd edition of SP-Arte in São Paulo stands at a global nexus, yet feels decidedly regional.
Art Review
Magdalena Abakanowicz Sculpted the Collective Body
Her organic sculptures convey a quiet power, the faceless anonymity of multitudes transformed into a collective oneness.
Feature
Berlin’s Porn Film Festival Celebrates 20 Years
Pushing back against rigid boundaries between erotic film and art, the annual festival creates an inclusive, sex-positive space for exploring human desire.
Feature
Is Art Basel Paris Too Big to Fail?
The fair showed relative market resilience but leaned into the risk-averse paintings, with most standout work in the emerging sectors.
Art Review
The São Paulo Biennial Is the Calm Before a Storm
Even as it privileges quiet reflection, the show’s 36th edition cannot fully contain the frictions and instabilities that surround and infuse it.
Art Review
The Pliable Philosophy of Brazilian Geometric Art
An exhibition emphasizes the fluidity between Brazil’s Constructivist, Concrete, and Neo-Concrete movements.
Art Review
Shu Lea Cheang’s Art of Hacking
Cheang is concerned with the ways technology enables commodification and control, from communication to nourishment to sex.
Art Review
Do We Still Dream of a Cyborg Future?
An exhibition spanning the 1960s through ’90s prods the potentialities and limits of a cyborgian body.
Art
The Riotous Variety of Brazilian Modernism
A show of 10 artists working from the 1910s to ’70s demonstrates that the movement was much more diverse than its most notable names suggest.
Art Review
An Artist’s Songs for the Armenian Diaspora
With the stringed qanun as its beating heart, Silvina Der-Meguerditchian’s show explores how music crosses boundaries and preserves collective memory.