Opinion
Mark Zuckerberg's Face Made of Books
Malaysian artist/architect Hong Yi carved the face of Mark Zuckerberg in a stack of books, creating a strange portrait of the famous Facebook founder.
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Books
The Fear of Making Art
When Amazon recommends literary selections I might be interested in, I usually do a quick scan of the offerings, decide I can’t afford to splurge on assorted art books and delete the email. But once in a while something catches my eye. Not too long ago, among the artist bios, museum catalogs and cri
Art
A Story of Love, Plants and Death
Based on Alejandro Zambra's masterful novella, the film Bonsái is a story of love, plants, death and the literature that seamlessly links them all. Bonsái premiered at Cannes to favorable reviews and took the top prize at the Miami Film Festival earlier this year. Directed by the Chilean Cristián Ji
Opinion
YouTube Users Visualized
There are two entertaining things about watching YouTube videos. The first is the video itself, whether that be a cat playing a keyboard or a musician singing a new tune. The second is the comments and the amazing amount of likes, dislikes and random jabber that appear, especially beneath the most p
Opinion
Dr. Seuss's Political Cartoons
Although the majority of his books are already some half a century old, Dr. Seuss remains one of the most beloved children's authors and illustrators in American history. I'd bet that most of us, if asked, could name a Dr. Seuss favorite that made a lasting impression (One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blu
Art
Political Pressure Censors Artwork And Creates Unexpected Spectacle
I feel naïve to have thought that art offered one of the only scared spaces to be freely expressive. Two weeks ago, I wrote a post that attempted to diplomatically depict the controversial saga that has unfolded over artist Brett Murray’s “The Spear”, a Communist propaganda style portrayal of South
Opinion
Bangin' Haring Baby Bib
Walking through a Duane Reade the other day looking for a snack, I stumbled across this Keith Haring Baby Bib by Bumkins.
Opinion
Required Reading
This week, the Corcoran Museum considers a move to the 'burbs, Caribbean art in New York, a guide to the Serpentine pavilions, Gavras's "disingenuous, superficial, irresponsible" video for Kanye & Jay-Z and more.
Books
Sleeper Awake: Michael O’Brien’s “Avenue”
Poems often groan beneath their encumbrances: weighty metaphors, top-heavy conceits. Which is why I like it when Michael O’Brien, in his most recent book Avenue (FloodEditions), writes of a poem being merely “certain words in / a certain order.” This stripped-down formulation courts a charge of bana
Art
The Soulful Insolence of Sven Lukin
I have been a Sven Lukin fan since 1970, when I first saw "Untitled" (1969) in one of the concourses running under the Empire State Plaza in Albany. Made for, and located in, a long recessed area — and playfully hovering between flatness and volume, the pictorial and the sculptural — Lukin’s "Untitl
Performance
Happily Tangled Webs
On my way to the Joyce SoHo last Wednesday, while thinking about David Gordon’s 50th anniversary — and realizing that, while he has been making work for five decades, I would be seeing it live for the first time that night — I got to wondering: What does Gordon, renowned for resisting any sort of ti
Art
Oh Sue, If Only I Could Love You More
Sue Coe has called the art world “a zipped-up body bag of what they call culture.” Thinking about the troubling and troubled work of this extravagantly gifted artist, I found myself circling back to that statement, which is from a 1996 profile written by Steven Heller for Eye Magazine.