Comics
Goya Was Right
The overabundance of reason makes it hard to produce anything …
Latest
Opinion
Required Reading
This week, MoMA's Rauschenberg/Johns closet, Libeskind rails against autocrat-serving architects, Piero della Francesca at the Frick, Dalí's curious 1958 interview with Mike Wallace, Cory Arcangel in The New Yorker, and more.
Opinion
Weekend Words: Cuts
With the threat of sequestration looming over the country all week like the sword of Damocles, Weekend Words has compiled its own set of cuts...
Music
Fagen’s Critical Catalogue (March 2013, Part 1)
Since January I’ve been squeezing an extra review into each catalogue, and, nearing the end of February, it finally cost me a deadline. I’m pretty satisfied with the way things turned out, though. As of this post since March last year, I’ve reviewed 100 2012 albums, not bad. High points here are a C
Art
Breaking the Postmodern Creed: Thomas Nozkowski’s Unimaginable Paintings and Drawings
By 1974, Thomas Nozkowski had made two decisions – he would paint on widely available, 16 x 20-inch, prepared canvas boards, and everything he painted would come from personal experience.
Interview
Beer with a Painter: Jesse McCloskey
I’ve known Jesse McCloskey for years, but his work and words are always surprising me. They get to the heart of the matter quickly. In one of the early days after I had my first child, I wanted nothing more than to go out and see some shows in Chelsea. It still makes me laugh that this childless dud
Art
Automatic Transmission: Drawing Surrealism
Surreal. It’s one of those words like insane or awesome that’s taken a beating from aggressive misuse. I’ve heard the term applied to both a bus driver wearing a funny hat and the sight of the second plane hitting the tower. “It was so surreal,” that long e sung out like an animal’s cry of distress,
Art
Slithering Toward Us: “Drawing Surrealism” at the Morgan
How much more powerful to say “drawing surrealism” than something like “surrealist drawings.” It gets the action into the art, which is, often, exactly where it is. Unweighted by color, untrammeled by, oh you know, something like the history of painting and how the surrealists (in whatever grouping
News
Retro-Futuristic Pan Am Worldport at JFK in Danger of Demolition
Part of aviation architecture history may soon be lost if Delta's expansion project at JFK airport goes forward as planned. Terminal 3, built in 1960 and designed by Ives, Turano & Gardner Associated Architects as the Pan Am Terminal, later renamed the Pan An Worldport, is expected to close this May
Opinion
Is the Dachshund UN More than Just a Silly and Highly Enjoyable Farce?
If you can possibly get over the adorable thing that is happening in this photo, let's think about why exactly a bunch of cute dachshunds acting as 36 dog delegates in a replica United Nations assembly on Human Rights might be successful as a sort of experimental theatre. Australian artist Bennett M
Books
An Appreciation for the Often Hilarious, Usually Horrible, World of Bad Graffiti
Who cares about bad graffiti or street art? The spray paint scrawls of ill-chosen tag names ("Piggy Nasty," "Pony Tail," "Tricky Trout, Jr."), reckless vulgarity (penises and boobs drawn on absolutely everything), and sad drawings that barely shape into the animal, face, or whatever they're trying t
News
Rebel Diaz Arts Collective in the Bronx Raided and Shut Down
The South Bronx-based arts community center Rebel Diaz Arts Collective was reportedly shut down yesterday and locked out of their converted warehouse space. A rally/press conference is being held tonight at 6 pm outside their building at 478 Austin Place.