Art
Matthew Wong: Kind of Blue
It seems that Wong was in touch with his deepest feelings and they came through in all of his art; this is what makes him special.
Review
Art
Gauging the Potential of Abstraction at Art Basel Miami Beach
Questions of privilege aside, the range of abstract works reminded me how artists are providing nuanced ways of thinking about identity that move beyond exclusion/inclusion binaries.
Film
Rethinking Villains in Documentary Film
At the 2019 International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, the programming strand "The Villain" looked for new ways to depict unsavory subjects.
Film
How Martin Scorsese Seeks Revelation in Documentary
Film Forum's new series Scorsese Nonfiction brings an under-discussed facet of the director's career into focus.
Film
A Showcase of Boundary-Crossing Brazilian Cinema
Kicking off today at Film at Lincoln Center, the series presents a body of work that’s particularly heartening when one considers the encroachments on freedom that Brazilian cinema must now confront.
Books
The Unique Legacy of an American Indian Modernist
Mary Sully's artwork reflects her cultural moment, but it is also as a blueprint for rewriting history to include marginalized perspectives.
Art
A Tale of Two Pioneering Women Painters in Renaissance Italy
At a time when women were seen as incapable of serious creative or intellectual activity, Sofonisba Anguissola and Lavinia Fontana gained international renown for their exceptional bodies of work.
Film
"DIY or Die": Brooklynites Face the Apocalypse in Empty Metal
We might think of Adam Khalil and Bayley Sweitzer's latest as a cyborg film — both its subject matter and formal approach depend on unifying across difference, a fuck-you to essentialized binaries.
Books
Changing the Tune of Globalization
In her new book on changing patterns of cultural production and consumption, Fatima Bhutto posits that it’s not American pop songs but K-Pop that has become the soundtrack of globalization.
Art
Imagining Utopia, Just Over the Horizon
The final exhibition of a trilogy at the Ford Foundation gallery imagines that our best selves have yet to be. They are on the horizon and the people who have been most oppressed, most ignored, and rejected will lead us all there.
Books
Merce Cunningham Takes the Book Out of the Box
More of an art- or archival collection than a typical book, Cunnigham's recently reissued Changes gathers sketches, notes, photographs, programs, and all other manner of ephemera in a creative package.
Art
Baseera Khan's Vivid, Anti-Imperialist Odes
snake skin is a corporeal study of the body politic, in which Khan wields the tools of cultural autopsy in her dissections of ancient ruins and traditions.