Film
A Darkly Comic Animated Film Set on China's Urban-Rural Fringe
Have a Nice Day is a stark, ruthless, and true-to-life movie about people living on the urban-rural fringe of China today.
Mengna Da
Film
In The Shape of Water, Small Acts of Rebellion Make a Splash
Guillermo del Toro's latest film, about a mute cleaning woman who liberates and falls in love with a humanoid amphibian monster, is intimate in scale but tells a potent story of empowerment.
Art
The Many Arms of Takashi Murakami’s Career
A retrospective at the MCA Chicago charts the many strands of Murakami's painting practice, from his early Nihonga style to recent Buddhist iconography.
Art
Jordan Wolfson Evades the Politics of His Violent Images
At a screening of his work at the New Museum, the artist failed to acknowledge the privilege that lets him reduce violence to an aesthetic form.
Art
Surveying Landscapes for Clues to Political Violence
Two films made almost 50 years apart use silent shots of landscapes to examine the conditions that drove two young people to criminality.