Books
Anselm Berrigan’s Ambivalence about Words
I am going to start with a “Note for poems” that Anselm Berrigan wrote about his most recent book, Pregrets.
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
The Wonderful World of Rudy Burckhardt
When it comes to the artistic community of New York City, especially from the late-1930s to the end of the 20th century, I can think of many writers, photographers, and artists who readily qualify as flâneur, but there is only who matched Charles Baudelaire’s description of the “passionate spectator
Art
Cy Twombly’s Remarkable Treatise
A drawing/collage that Cy Twombly made on May 27, 1970, includes three disparate objects: a reproduction of his large, multi-panel painting, “Treatise on the Veil” (1968); a sheet of paper whose dimensions echoed the reproduction, with vertical creases made by folding; and another sheet containing h
Art
Some Follow-up Thoughts on Michael Mazur (1935–2009)
In the catalogue accompanying the exhibition, Looking East: Brice Marden, Michael Mazur, Pat Steir, at the Boston University Art Gallery, John Stromberg opens his essay, “Michael Mazur: A Delicate Balance” with this sentence: “Michael Mazur’s path to his recent paintings based on Chinese art has bee
Art
Can I Be a Witness?
I have been thinking about the difficulty of characterizing Michael Mazur in part because, while he became highly celebrated as a printmaker, his paintings have never received nearly the same attention. Once a label is attached, it takes years to remove it.
Art
Jasper Johns Refuses to Play by the Book
Currently on view in the exhibition Jasper Johns: Sculptures and Related Paintings 1957–1970 at Craig F. Starr is “Book” (1957), a work I suspect many people either don’t know about or are not likely to have seen, even in reproduction.
Art
Gladys Nilsson’s Portraits of Everywoman
There is something wonderfully incongruous and deeply disquieting about Gladys Nilsson’s art, which is primarily done in the medium of watercolor.
Art
Some Thoughts About Richard Serra and Martin Puryear (Part 2: Puryear)
Like Serra, Puryear went to Yale’s famed M.F.A. program (1969-71), but he attended five years after Serra had graduated. In fact, Serra and Robert Morris were visiting artists while he was a student there.
Art
Some Thoughts About Richard Serra and Martin Puryear (Part 1: Serra)
It is easy to forget that Richard Serra (b.1939) and Martin Puryear (b.1941) were born only two years apart. The different relationships that they developed toward craft and materials makes it all too easy to overlook that they are nearly contemporaries.
Poetry
Why I Am a Member of the Lee Harwood Fan Club
Mark Ford’s blurb on the back of Lee Harwood’s most recent book of poetry, The Orchid Boat (London, Enitharmon, 2014), inspired me to look up the original review from which it was quoted.
Art
Catherine Murphy Looks Ahead
Catherine Murphy calls herself “an observational painter,” but that modest self-characterization tells only part of what she has been up to for the past twenty years.
Poetry
The Beauty of Christopher Middleton’s Prose
A few years ago, in an essay called “Why I am a Member of the Christopher Middleton Fan Club,” I stated the need for “a selected prose that brings together all the different kinds of writing he has done." Loose Cannons: Selected Prose, which includes an insightful foreword by one of Middleton’s most