Opinion
Required Reading
This week, defining "public," the Mona Lisa of digital art, the most modern curator, Baffler online, white flags over Brooklyn, the Chinese role in WWI, Americans eligible for Man Booker prize for the first time, and more.
Latest
Opinion
Weekend Words: Mess
“‘It’s a very tangled mess,’ said Gary Samore, a former national security aide to Mr. Obama.” That’s the sum of current events as reported in an article on Obama’s response to the crises mounting around the world that appeared in Wednesday’s New York Times. Samore continues:
Music
Fagen's Critical Catalogue (July 2014, Part 2)
In part 2 of this month, reviews of Lana Del Rey, Sam Smith, Indian Ocean, and Kitten.
Poetry
Marilyn Chin: Poet, Translator, Provocateur
A few weeks ago, on Centre Street–just north of Canal, the longtime boundary between Chinatown and the rest of Manhattan–I was on a panel, Re-imagining Asian American (and American) Poetry, at the Museum of Chinese in America (MoCA).
Film
Now on Film: The Mysterious Healing Power of Emery Blagdon’s Art
Yesterday evening’s nationwide PBS broadcast of Kelly Rush’s new documentary short, Emery Blagdon & His Healing Machine, served as a reminder of just what it is that distinguishes the lives and careers of the most exemplary outsider artists.
Art
Single Point Perspective: Peter Acheson’s Table
I first encountered Peter Acheson’s table sculpture several years ago. A strange thing that continues to change through the years, the weather and the seasons.
Books
Man of Letters: Ray Johnson Art in Motion
While the increased availability of Ray Johnson’s letters, notes, and statements subtilizes our understanding of this legendarily well-connected yet enigmatic artist, his flattened logorrheia is also just fun to read.
Art
The Real Life Politics of Palestinian Art in New York
Last night's opening of Khaled Jarrar's two-part exhibition No Exit at Whitebox Art Center and the related 10 Days, 10 Ideas workshops at Undercurrent Projects was a window into the art world realities facing Palestinian artists in the midst of the escalating violence in Gaza, the West Bank, and Isr
Books
Dispatches from the Gateways to Death Valley
Two rural communities have ominously declared themselves the "Gateway to Death Valley" — Baker, California and Beatty, Nevada — each isolated as the last stop before miles of harsh landscape.
Opinion
New York Times Archive Reveals Art Trends
A new web app created by the research and development wing of the New York Times allow users to create graphs tracing the appearance of individual terms or phrases in the paper over the course of its century-and-a-half history.
In Brief
New NYC ID Cards Could Come with Free Museum Admission
New York may lean on its cultural institutions to encourage adoption of a planned municipal identity card for undocumented New Yorkers, the New York Times reported.
Art
Revisiting a Master of Found Footage
A known face at film archives around the world, Austrian filmmaker and architect Gustav Deutsch is one of found footage’s most astute and assiduous artists.