From European detective dramas to art documentaries, Yau reflects on some highlights from a year inside.
John Yau
John Yau has published books of poetry, fiction, and criticism.
His latest poetry publications include a book of poems, Further Adventures in Monochrome (Copper Canyon Press, 2012), and the chapbook, Egyptian Sonnets (Rain Taxi, 2012). His most recent monographs are Catherine Murphy (Rizzoli, 2016), the first book on the artist, and Richard Artschwager: Into the Desert (Black Dog Publishing, 2015). He has also written monographs on A. R. Penck, Jasper Johns, and Andy Warhol. In 1999, he started Black Square Editions, a small press devoted to poetry, fiction, translation, and criticism. He was the Arts Editor for the Brooklyn Rail (2007–2011) before he began writing regularly for Hyperallergic Weekend. He is a Professor of Critical Studies at Mason Gross School of the Arts (Rutgers University).
Posted inArt
An Icon of Unconventional Abstraction
Serge Poliakoff: Gouaches 1938-1969 furthers the case for Poliakoff’s importance and continuing relevance to abstract painting.
Posted inArt
Two West Coast Art Communities Outside the Mainstream
One thing seems pretty clear about both groups: they separated themselves from mainstream culture, including the art world. This is practically unheard of today.
Posted inArt
Brenda Goodman’s Abstraction and Pain
In her art, Goodman seems to both revisit trauma and heal it. The results are moving and painful.
Posted inBooks
Invisible Racism in the Old West
In his debut novel, Tom Lin underscores the invisibility of the Chinese to white Americans in late 19th-century United States.
Posted inArt
A Poet-Artist Looks to the Stars
Monica Ong is a 21st-century visual poet who extends the reader’s sense of what is possible.
Posted inArt
Facing Catastrophe With Calm
Joshua Marsh has fashioned a world where a sweet, wise humor in the face of mortality and inescapable change prevails.
Posted inArt
An Asian Artist’s Isolation in New York
Yuri Yuan’s sense of isolation is an inescapable feature of her daily life, which she simultaneously examines and holds at bay through the act of painting.
Posted inArt
The Trouble with Capitalist Utopias
Maybe a sense of belonging is a thing of the past, a sign of privilege.
Posted inArt
How Soutine Showed de Kooning a Way Out
It seems to me that Soutine’s complete lack of interest in the cubists’ desire for order was exactly what appealed to de Kooning.
Posted inArt
The Second Act of Andrew Forge
After finding success in England, Forge walked away from everything he knew how to do and started over.
Posted inArt
Painting and Time’s Winged Chariot
Paint’s materiality has a capacity to release meaning into the work, to underscore our vulnerable bodily presence in the world and time.