Posted inOpinion

Required Reading

This week … insights into Ai Weiwei’s photos, photos of Japan’s gangs, aesthetics of interactive space, William Gibson on cities, fake Guggenheims, superhero costumes, art thefts in Toronto, vintage street art & graffiti spots in New York.

Posted inBooks

Reading Brooklyn Rail’s November Issue

This month’s Brooklyn Rail didn’t just update me on the critical reception of the past months’ art exhibitions, it also kept me well-informed about the state of vegetarian burritos, Indian call centers and the misunderstood G train! The November issue (my copy is elegantly covered in a Jonas Mekas lithograph of a hand cradling a flower bud) is a primer for anyone who hasn’t necessarily seen all of the right shows and read all of the right books for the recent spat of cultural production. Taken as a whole, though, the weighty newsprint publication’s most interesting articles lay in unexpected places and concern unexpected topics.

Posted inArt

Battle for the Nation: John Yau Questions Jerry Saltz’s America

In the newly released edition of the Brooklyn Rail, editor John Yau takes on New York Magazine’s art critic Jerry Saltz and his characterization of America as “big, bright, shiny, colorful, crowd-pleasing, heat-seeking, impeccably produced, polished, popular, expensive, and extroverted—while also being abrasive, creepily sexualized, fussy, twisted, and, let’s face it, ditzy.” Yau asks, “Is this ‘our America?’ Or is this Jerry Saltz shilling for Jeff Koons?”