Books
Reader’s Diary: The Potential Novel of a Conceivable Algeria
The 1950s through the mid-1970s were the great era of the unreadable novel. Kateb Yacine’s Nedjma was one of the first and most remarkable of these.
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Music
Reestablished Forms: King, M.I.A., Young Thug, Sheer Mag
Erotic sagas are always political. This applies to the four albums reviewed below, several political despite themselves, each of which messes with established forms while representing desire.
Art
Jack Whitten’s Walls
Jack Whitten is the most relentless experimenter with materials in a generation of abstract artists who have yet to receive their due, perhaps because no one has come up with a catchy and marketable name for them, like the “Minimalists” or “The Pictures Generation.”
Art
The Studio Visit That Wasn’t Exactly a Studio Visit: Dan Devening, Mie Kongo, Peter Shear
It is not every day that you meet a self-effacing artist who makes no attempt to get you to see his work, but, in fact, points you to the work of others, only a few of which he shows.
Art
The Future
The more that our gaze is diverted from the monster of humanity, the more monstrous it becomes.
Art
Déjà Vu: Mark Williams’s Positive Echo
Mark Williams paints within the tradition of geometric abstraction and considers Agnes Martin, El Lissitsky, and Kazimir Malevich among his “art ancestors.”
Art
“Art” at the Science Museum: 'Da Vinci — The Genius' in Boston
In this age of fake news and climate change denial, we should be seeking to educate the public on scientific method rather than promulgating faulty science in the name of infotainment.
Art
Saying Goodbye to a Visionary Eye
The Susanne Hilberry Gallery was a gateway to the art world that lay beyond Detroit as well as a kind of training ground where artists, art students, and art critics could learn to view and interact with artworks critically.
Art
Chuck Webster’s Breakthrough
I have been following Chuck Webster’s work since his first show at Zieher Smith in 2003, where he employed different mediums on different kinds of antique and found paper. It was obvious to me that Webster loved to draw in both dry and liquid mediums, anything capable of making a line.
News
Digitizing Route Books from the Golden Age of the American Circus
Over 300 route books made by American circuses are being digitized for the first time by Illinois State University, Circus World, and the Ringling Museum of Art.
Art
The Solitude and Sensuality of an Artist's Studio
Paul Mpagi Sepuya's exhibition at Yancey Richardson Gallery illuminates the intimate terrains of the artist's studio life.
News
A 12,000-Pound Panorama of a Civil War Battle Is Lifted into Its New Home
The colossal 19th-century painting of the Battle of Atlanta has been hailed as a tribute to both the North and South, and its complicated history will be a focus in its new home at the Atlanta History Center.