Books
Carrie Mae Weems’s Visual Response to Sam Cooke's “A Change Is Gonna Come”
Weems’s essay is excerpted from Ways of Hearing: Reflections on Music in 26 Pieces.
Photography
Opinion
The Many Problems with Deana Lawson’s Photographs
Lawson’s images, and the ways that she has discussed her process, seem to be actively reproducing the kind of big-dick energy power dynamics of White male artists who also claim mastery over their subject matter.
Books
The Disruptive Architecture of Border Walls
Rafał Milach sharply documents three international border walls and how they impact our sense of identity and memory.
Art
Whimsy and Personality in Early American Photography
An exhibition of cabinet cards at LACMA showcases marketing and personal panache.
Books
A View of Oxford That Evades Its “Ethos of ‘Intellectualism’”
“Oxford has a complex social divide that tends to be ignored,” says photographer Arturo Soto.
Art
The First Museum Exhibition of Brazilian Modernist Photography Outside Brazil
This retrospective of the work from a São Paulo photo club is a reminder that Modernism was not solely a European phenomenon.
Books
For Masahisa Fukase, Cats Were Much More Than Cute
Fukase’s obsession with photographing the people he was close to overwhelmed his subjects and eventually drove them away — so he turned to cats.
Books
An Artist Excavates Her Family’s Pre-Holocaust Story
Sara Davidmann explores the space between what we can know about one of the darkest moments in human history and what is impossible to recover.
Art
The Silent Lives of Found Photographs
The mind works desperately to fill the gaps in these lost stories.
Art
See the Striking Photos that Competed for the Bird Photographer of the Year Awards
Mexican photographer Alejandro Prieto’s image of a roadrunner at the US-Mexico border took home the top prize.
Books
Photography and Its Hidden Power
Patrick Nathan suggests that capitalism benefits when human relationships are reduced to two-dimensional representations.
Books
Why an Italian Village Tied Itself to a Mountain
The event was devised by artist Maria Lai and involved almost all of Ulassai’s 1,000 inhabitants and required nearly 17 miles of light blue denim ribbon.