This week, art’s role in the creation of Asian American identity, the best and worst of graphic identities in 2019, gentrification and how it dehumanizes us, directory of culturally specific US museums created by people of color, and more.
January 4, 2020
Rhythm, Divination, and Naming in Jay Wright’s Poetry
In Wright’s poems the name of the absolute is scrawled in a host of esoteric tongues.
Articulating a New Kind of Class Struggle
Capital Is Dead: Is This Something Worse? illustrates that Capital is actually dead. Something new and much worse, involving what author McKenzie Wark calls “the vector” has usurped it.
The Poet as a Dream Guide
In Joseph Donahue’s Wind Maps I-VII we are led out of sleep by the poet, just as he has been led out of sleep by a dream guide, into a renewal of mythic or storied truth.
The Power and Limits of Ai Weiwei’s Irreverence
While his political commitment comes through in many works, it’s hard to square talk of “revolution” with Ai Weiwei’s staggering mainstream US success.
Agnes Denes’s Future Imperfect
Spanning half a century, this retrospective reveals Denes’s art to be so forward-looking that some of it remains ahead of its time even today.
John Pai’s Complex, Abstract Drawings in Space
John Pai’s steel sculptures, nourished by a community of Korean artists in New York, reflect a sensibility outside the mainstream of American art.