Art
An Evolving Art Oasis on the Great Plains
OKLAHOMA CITY — One of the most meditative art museum experiences is out in the middle of the Great Plains, in a place you would likely never think to look.
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Film
Cell Phone Images of the War of Terror
The NSA surveillance scandal has, in a short term, made a lot of people feel depressed and/or worried about the state of governance in America. This is both good and bad for Jeremy Scahill’s new documentary, Dirty Wars, which is directed by Richard Rowley and is also the title of a simultaneously re
Opinion
Shoot for the Stars: First GIF Shared in Space
To launch a project that will crowdsource digital media projected into space, it makes sense to start with a GIF, the most beloved manifestation of our current internet noise. Today the first GIF to ever be sent into space started a journey to a distant solar system — which it will reach in 2031.
News
Egypt's Embattled Culture Industry
To say it's been a bad year for secular culture in Egypt is a special kind of understatement, but a string of developments this month — all linked to President Mohamed Morsi's appointments of several key positions in tourism and culture — have left observers reeling and provoked a series of bold dir
Art
Closing the Loop: Fan Art, Part 2
CHICAGO — Falling in love with an image isn't easy. Images are unattainable, removed, and physically distant, yet they feel so real and right there with you. Images of people are also the teen crush embodied — an opportunity to fall head over heels for an idealized illusion of someone you may never
Art
America’s Grand Gestures Reign Supreme Again in Basel
BASEL, Switzerland — Fifty-five years ago, the exhibition The New American Painting arrived at the Kunsthalle Basel. It was the first stop on a yearlong tour that touted the work of seventeen Abstract Expressionists before eight European countries — the first comprehensive exhibition to be sent to E
News
How to Destroy a James Turrell
NORTH ADAMS, Massachusetts — Everything is bigger in Texas: the roads, the suburbs, the T-bone steaks, the ten-gallon hats, and certainly the sky. The Texas sky seems to go on and on, an uncanny hue of blue, pierced only by the white-hot nexus of the unrelenting sun. Indeed, waxing poetic with refle
Interview
Unicorns, Ghosts, and a North Korean Past
CHICAGO — Last December, rumors about a North Korean unicorn lair circulated the internet. Word got out that an ancient Korean king once rode this mythical beast. But soon it was discovered that this "unicorn" was not an actual unicorn, but rather an English mistranslation of the word "unicorn." Acc
Art
In Venice, A Dream Reborn
SONCINO, Italy — Having just returned from Venice, with its literal acres of art, crowded parties, Arsenale hikes, and tourists wielding umbrellas through the rain, one exhibition left me gratefully awed. Ca’ d’Oro, an example of late Gothic architecture built between 1421 and 1440, is one of most b
Art
Art Rx
This is a week for big-name, legendary artists — but don't worry, the doctor's got alternative prescriptions, too.
Art
What Is the Economic Monster of Our Time?
When I recently visited the exhibition CR(I)SES AD(JUST)MENTS (COLLAPSED) at Flux Factory, a solo show by French artist Christine Laquet, I was immediately seduced by a white circular platform featuring red high-heeled shoes and imagery projected onto it from the ceiling. The images fluctuated betwe
Art
Tips for Artists Who Want to Sell, or Channeling Baldessari in Bushwick
It was a dark and stormy night. Last Thursday, I mean. In Brooklyn, anyway. A storm that brought the kind of hard, windy rain that makes you want to stay home and drink tea. But I didn’t. I snuck into the back of the exhibition space at 3rd Ward instead, sodden and dripping after jogging four blocks