Books
Reader's Diary: Edward St. Aubyn's ‘The Patrick Melrose Novels’
To begin reading a contemporary novel isn’t easy, if you’re not in the habit.
Latest
Art
An Ivory Tower Artist: Joe Bradley’s Recent Paintings, Sculptures, and Drawings
His work suggests that once Bradley conceives of his project, he is able to pass effortlessly through the style, like an adept actor able to play any role as long as it isn’t too serious and doesn’t require a lot of feeling.
Art
Full Steam Ahead: Steve DiBenedetto’s Recent Paintings
Steve DiBenedetto has not been sitting still. I cannot imagine that he ever does.
Interview
Beer with a Painter: June Leaf
Walking through the green door into June Leaf’s old-school New York studio — a street-level space downtown — is a bit like entering a Willy Wonka world.
Art
Alexander Girard: Design for the World — and Just About Everything in It
Sometimes an exhibition can be so packed with information and ideas that it can send viewers racing home to try their hands at their own creations. That’s the kind of pay-off that can feel as rewarding as examining a deeply illuminating show itself.
Music
Kanye West Fragmented
First things first: Kanye West’s release strategy for his new album was a catastrophe.
Art
Graven Images and Desert Edens: The Art of Harry Sternberg
The political diction of the 1930s has made a comeback. Long-gone buzzwords like “socialism,” “fascism,” “the rich,” “worker rights,” “economic crisis” and “Wall Street bankers” have been bandied about these past few years, amplified by news cycles and social media memes.
Art
Theater, Science, Music: The Expansive Art of Fausto Melotti
There are numerous points of beguilement throughout the show, beginning in the very first room off the street.
Interview
The Meandering Comics and Narrative Paintings of an Independent Chinese Cartoonist
SHANGHAI — When Yan Cong started self-publishing comics in the mid-2000s, his work ignored the conventions of the manga-influenced Chinese comics industry and looked instead like characters from children’s cartoons had wandered into an unexpectedly adult world.
Art
Darkly Funny Paintings Mash Up Comix and Cubism
Lucia Love is a talented, Brooklyn-based artist, but if you Google her name you'll probably find a different Lucia Love — a British hardcore porn star.
Art
If a J-Pop Girl Group Took Over Your Smartphone
Japanese hip-hop idol group Lyrical School's newest video, for the track "RUN and RUN," is a bit like an iPhone ad on acid, or a Luddite's nightmarish parody of what goes on in the worlds of screen-addicted teenagers.
News
Art Movements
This week in art news: the Metropolitan Museum intends to offer buyouts and cease new hires to curtail its multimillion-dollar deficit, a rug designer found one of the UK's largest Roman villas buried in his backyard, and Maurizio Cattelan prepared to install a solid gold toilet at the Guggenheim.