Art
Seeing American History Through the Art of a Black WWI Soldier
Horace Pippin was a self-taught artist out of necessity, as the society in which he lived had shut most of its doors on him.
John Yau
John Yau is an award winning poet, critic, curator, and publisher of Black Square Editions. He has published over 50 books of poetry, fiction, and art criticism.
Art
Roger Brown’s Innovative Still Lifes
Brown was interested in mishaps and disasters, but above all, he was interested in what it meant to be American.
Art
In Praise of Painting's Ambiguity, Part 3
Jasper Johns breaks down the image of a broken man.
Art
The Disturbing Greatness of Hyman Bloom
Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock considered Hyman Bloom to be America’s first Abstract Expressionist, a label, it should be pointed out, that the artist himself rejected.
Art
In Praise of Painting's Ambiguity, Part 2
Despite all the changes that Jasper Johns’s art has undergone since the mid-1950s, he has repeatedly returned to the theme of brokenness.
Art
Our Love for Fetishes
Sculptor Margaret Wharton and painter Issy Wood are both open to the irrational currents flowing through our lives.
Art
In Praise of Painting's Ambiguity
The literalism of 1960s Formalism has been replaced by an insistence on the factual, which leaves little room for the imagination or for speculation.
Art
Sculptures on the Cusp of Language
Even as some of her works evoke functional objects, Christina Tenaglia is not interested in parody or citation. Their formal strength sets them in their own domain.
Art
Suburban Visions to Make Your Skin Crawl
Amy Bennett gives us just enough tantalizing visual details to enthrall and mystify, without becoming heavy-handed.
Art
Robert Rauschenberg and the Men on the Moon
Rauschenberg was among the artists invited by NASA to attend the launch of Apollo 11, the spaceflight that landed two Americans on the moon 50 years ago this month.
Art
How T.C. Cannon Redefined American Indian Identity
Cannon's art is not about identity politics, but the layers and contradictions of self-representation in a society that valorizes assimilation and whiteness.
Books
The Unreality of Everyday Life
What makes Ha Seong-nan's Flowers of Mold so powerful is her ability to reveal the almost imperceptible slippage between actual events and the protagonists' perceptions.