Film
The Gleeful Blasphemy and Queer Nun Romance of Benedetta
Beneath the explicit sex and violence of the latest film from Dutch provocateur Paul Verhoeven are thoughtful challenges about gender roles and institutional religion.
Latest
Art
TikToker Pokes Fun at Western Attitudes Towards Non-Western Art
"The Europeans are a simple people, but perhaps in this complex age we could learn something from their simplicity,” Rubin says mockingly as she reverses an attitude that remains embarrassingly prevalent in Western culture.
News
Watch 25 Hours of People Reading Herman Melville's Moby-Dick
The Moby-Dick Marathon has been an annual tradition at the New Bedford Whaling Museum since 1997.
Art
The Artist Who Helped Create a Very American Santa Claus
Abolitionist cartoonist Thomas Nast had a big role in manufacturing the US version of the Christmas patriarch.
Art
Required Reading
This week, debunking Christmas myths, Brian Eno on NFTs, artists we lost in 2021, garbage internet trends, and more.
Comics
When Artists Give Gifts
What could it be?
Art
Rethinking Kandinsky
The problem with many of Kandinsky’s abstractions is that they don’t offer enough immediate visual information to “crack” his expressive code for color and form.
Books
Painter Edith Schloss Remembers a Life Lived in Art
Schloss’s The Loft Generation creates a mirror-memoir, as literary portraiture doubles as veiled self-portraiture.
Film
Bruno Dumont’s France Is a Cogent, if Convoluted, Critique of Celebrity Culture
This may not be a great film, but its narrative and tonal weaknesses throw into relief just how strong Léa Seydoux is as its thumping heart.
Art
Paintings Rather Than Pictures
This desire to go beyond the ordinary without forgetting its existence seems to be one motivation that Jane Freilicher and Thomas Nozkowski shared.
Opinion
How the Met Museum Justifies Looting
The African Origins exhibition ignores the fact that approximately 160 objects from Benin are held by the museum under ongoing demands for their repatriation.
Art
This Be the Verse: Our Favorite Poetry Books 2021 (Mostly)
John Yau and Albert Mobilio select a few choice titles from the past year.