Film
An Essential Watchlist of Groundbreaking Black Documentaries
These films illustrate both the undeniable threat of white supremacist capitalist patriarchy and the incomparable strength of Blackness.
Review
Books
John Cage, Forager of Music and Mushrooms
No matter how much one knows about the artist or mycology, John Cage: A Mycological Foray surprises with its ode to continuous wonder.
Music
Reflections of America in Rap
Four new rap releases reflect the divided state of the nation.
Books
Memoir as the Fragments of Memory
When Michel Leiris died in 1990 at age 89 he was a canonical figure in France, mainly for having remade the genre of memoir in his own image.
Art
Hauntingly Beautiful Photos for an Anxious Moment
On Instagram, Kana Hashimoto’s images of nocturnal Tokyo unwittingly capture the odd feeling of time itself as the coronavirus pandemic drags on.
Books
Bernadette Mayer Evokes the Banality and Urgency of the Quotidian
In Memory, the poet shapes a new visual and textual language that explores the simmering possibilities of consciousness.
Film
Surveying Transgender History in Film and Television
The documentary Disclosure: Trans Lives on Screen, now streaming on Netflix, focuses too much on representation, to the detriment of other aspects of the trans experience in cinema.
Film
Snapshots of Gay Culture and History in Pornography
Elizabeth Purchell’s collage film Ask Any Buddy stitches together 100 adult films from the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s, illuminating aspects of everyday life amid the sex.
Art
When Fire Becomes Another Word for Revolution
At the Palais de Tokyo, Our World is Burning allows 30 artists to express the dream and necessity of a sustainable future in an egalitarian world.
Film
Looking Back at Philadelphia’s Notoriously Racist Mayor Frank Rizzo
Recent protests have finally ousted longstanding local monuments to Rizzo. The 1978 documentary Amateur Night at City Hall draws out a history of resistance to his brand of white authoritarianism.
Books
Alice Trumbull Mason, a Pioneer of Abstraction, Makes a Triumphant Return
Emily Mason remembers her mother saying, “I’ll be famous when I’m dead.” Though fame may not be quite secured (yet), the artist’s first-ever monograph acts as bulwark against forgetting her legacy.
Books
On the Figurative Road
Alice Notley's book-length poem charts the journey during which we assess the value of words and their historical contexts.