Art
Before the Selfie, the Self-Portrait
The selfie is a smartphone-produced version of the self-portrait, which has been a staple of art and photography history since artists first began seeing examining their own images in the mirror.
Latest
Books
The Grotesque Beauty of Wangechi Mutu
Culled from old medical illustrations and National Geographic, pornographic, motorcycle, and fashion magazine clippings, Wangechi Mutu's writhing female figures have a dangerous beauty to them, one that's grotesque and alluring all at once. A traveling exhibition — recently closed at Duke's Nasher M
Comics
Is It Laziness or Style?
Tomato, tomahto …
Opinion
Required Reading
This week, art forgeries, Frere-Jones on Jay Z's crappy album, food criticism drama, sound art resonates, the woman who was raped by Roman Polanski speaks, Boston's only graffiti park, Freudian analysis of sexting, 3D printing renaissance, and more.
Opinion
Weekend Words: Enemy
This week Bradley Manning was acquitted of charges of aiding the enemy. But in the immortal words of the prophet Pogo, "We have met the enemy and he is us."
Art
Studio Visit: Richard Walker in Glasgow, Scotland
GLASGOW — My first encounter with the Scottish artist Richard Walker was when I went to his exhibition House Paintings at the Alexandre Gallery (November 29, 2012 – January 5, 2013). Measuring around 15 x 20 inches, and done on panels, Walker’s paintings were observations of a darkened room at night
Art
Languages of Devotion: Basil King's Life in Art
One day in 1965, as he was walking by St. Mark's Church in New York’s East Village, Basil King came to a dreadful realization. "You're a painter," he told himself, "who's never been." The verdict, which he relates in Learning to Draw / A History (Skylight Press, 2011), was, of course, wrongheaded. K
Poetry
Long on Ambition: The Public Poem in Books from Rachel Levitsky and Andrew Zawacki
According to Mark Edmundson’s uncritically nostalgic and, by now, notorious article “Poetry Slam: Or, The Decline of American Verse,” which was published in the July 2013 issue of Harper’s, “[o]ur most highly regarded poets—the gang now in their fifties, sixties, and beyond” (such as Sharon Olds, Ro
Art
Rock Hard: LaToya Ruby Frazier’s Photo Excavations
LaToya Ruby Frazier’s elegiac installation at the Brooklyn Museum is entering its final week, and if you haven’t already, it’s time to make the acquaintance of this dauntless artist.
Art
Remembering "Verve," the Journal That Helped Define Modernism
Few magazines managed to embody the creative aesthetic of their time as Verve magazine did in the first half of the 20th century. And although the Paris-based journal last received some attention in 1988, when Verve: The Ultimate Review of Art and Literature was published, it has mostly faded into o
Art
"Picasso Baby," One More Time
Jay Z's "performance art film" may be debuting on HBO tonight, but if you weren't cool enough to be invited to missed his live performance at Pace and are craving something a little more real, there's Michael Mahalchick. He's currently performing "Picasso Baby" for six hours straight at Louis B. Jam
Art
FBI-Seized Forgeries Get a Gallery Retrospective
In what might be the first-ever exhibition of artworks co-curated by an intelligence agency, a show has been mounted at Fordham University's Center Gallery to showcase some of the finer specimens of forged art seized by the FBI's Art Crimes team.