Opinion
One of the Art World's Most Interesting Couples
This New York love story chronicles the chaotic 40-year marriage of boxing painter Ushio Shinohara and artist Noriko Shinohara.
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Art
Walk into a Painting's Colorscape
DALLAS — It was a normal day in downtown Dallas in June. The heat and humidity were bearing down on me with intense aggression, the traffic on Harry Hines Boulevard was jammed as usual, and glare beaming off of Museum Tower almost blinded me as I made my way to the arts district. Destination? The Na
News
Jay Z's "Performance Art Film" to Debut on HBO
Earlier this month, Jay-Z set up a daylong operation at Pace Gallery in Chelsea, where he rapped at members of the art world for six hours. Participants included Lawrence Weiner, Mickalene Thomas, Klaus Biesenbach, and the grandmother of performance art, Marina Abramović, among many others. The resu
Art
Revealing Your Inner Selfie
CHICAGO — Selfies are private moments made available for public consumption. When the shutter snaps, the subject realizes that they're ready to admit something about themselves that would otherwise remain hidden.
Art
Five Stories of Art Saved from War's Annihilation
The greatest casualty of war is always human life, and there's no doubt that a saved painting can't account for a lost life. Yet the preservation of culture in wartime prevents a total loss of what gave a place its spirit and meaning.
Opinion
Required Reading
This week, "smart dumb" is a thing, High Line shenanigans, Martin Scorsese talks cinema aesthetics, the charitable-industrial complex, every movie reference in The Simpsons, and more.
Opinion
Weekend Words: Ditch
It was only a matter of time before MOCA ditched Deitch.
Art
Patrick Strzelec’s Sculptures Are in the Middle of an Improbable Thought
In drawing, a line need not become a contour or an image. In sculpture, this resistance to becoming is harder to pull off. For all their insistence on pure abstraction, Donald Judd makes boxes and Richard Serra makes steel fortresses. The problem is that this kind of sculpture smacks of signature sh
Art
Single Point Perspective: Munk and Me
In Loren Munk’s painting "An Attempted Documentation of Williamsburg, 1981-2008” (2008-2011), I recognized a slice of my own history in a place I had known well. After a lifetime of looking at paintings, this experience was oddly new to me.
Music
Fagen’s Critical Catalogue (July 2013, Part 2)
It's Alternarock Week at Critical Catalogue Headquarters with reviews of the Yo La Tengo, My Bloody Valentine, Adult, and Laura Marling.
Art
Great Outdoors: The Biennial of the Americas in Denver
In Poetics of Space, Gaston Bachelard envisions the house as a "vertical being," with two symbolic poles: the irrationality of the cellar and the rational consciousness of the roof. “Up near the roof, all our thoughts are clear … Here we participate in the carpenter’s solid geometry.” The same can b
Opinion
Under Construction: Engaging with Art from the Ground Up
WILLIAMSTOWN, MA — After a while it felt like a barrage: a darkly rendered animation set in a psychiatrist’s office and a gigantic space station; a Chinese labor camp investigation enacted by singing puppets; a film featuring a Depression-era Kansan doctor, goat testicles and the world’s most powerful radio