Books
A Deep Dive Into Walter Benjamin
The Benjamin Files by Fredric Jameson explains everything by reference to everything else, in a way that often makes the narrative all but impenetrable.
Review
Film
An Astonishingly Intimate Film Takes Us Deep Into the Woods
Filmed over 10 years, Mindaugas Survila’s The Ancient Woods avoids the usual trappings of anthropomorphism.
Art
A Costume Designer’s Beautiful and Grotesque Sculptures
Cathy Cooper’s sculptures fan out with hoop skirts, oversized cowls, and long bustled trains.
Film
Elena Is a Proud Celebration of Haitian Heritage in the Dominican Republic
Michèle Stephenson’s documentary short finds beauty in qualities of Haitian life which the Dominican government scorns.
Books
Work (Even the Creative Kind) Won’t Love You Back
Amid the recent wave of art worker unionizing, Sarah Jaffee’s Work Won’t Love you Back offers some instructive takeaways for understanding the trap of that persistent Neoliberal myth: the “labor of love.”
Art
Hannah Wilke's and Eva Hesse’s Irreverent Experiments in Abstraction
Erotic Abstraction revels in the subversive absurdity shared by both artists.
Art
Christian Nyampeta Transforms the Guggenheim Into a Anti-Colonial Night School
Though exceptionally accessible, Nyampeta’s exhibition occasionally strikes as too safe, particularly given the context of its installation.
Art
An Exhibition Trembles With Black Spiritualities
Otherwise/Revival traces the contours of Black spiritual thought from Louisiana plantations to Azusa Street to our present moment.
Film
Western Films About Africa Are Neocolonial Even When They Try Not to Be
Attempting to interrogate its own lens, the documentary Stop Filming Us mixes sharp insights with disappointing shortcomings.
Art
The Tension in Liat Yossifor’s Paintings
In Yossifor’s work, connections between the imagination and the ordinary world are made not through the pictorial, but through the paint itself.
Art
Alvin Armstrong's Black Bodies in Motion
Armstrong's paintings explore the role of Black athletes as agents of social change even as white fans push back.
Art
Standing Inside Yayoi Kusama’s Mind
How much of the effect is the object reflected, or the reflection of the object?