Books
Finding Beauty in the Mundane Landscapes of Northern Italy
In Luigi Ghirri's Colazione sull’Erba, previously unpublished images from the photographer’s archive present a sparsely populated world of placid tranquility.
Review
Books
Artists Who Have Addressed Sexual Trauma Since the 1970s
In Against Our Will, Vivien Green Fryd makes a convincing case for the need to examine artworks through the lens of sexual trauma, a violent reality that unfortunately spans across gender, ethnicity, race, and time.
Film
Two Dance Projects Meld Hungarian and Romani Traditions
The documentary Three Dances and the stage musical Hungarian Nights approach modern Central European culture from vastly different standpoints.
Books
How Victorian Intellectuals Idealized Japan and Its Culture
The undercurrent of the book is the link between Japonisme, aesthetics, and queer culture: Admiring Japan was, in several cases, shorthand for queerness and a dainty homoeroticism.
Art
Subverting the Whiteness of Antiquity
Lily Cox-Richard questions — and successfully subverts — a long-held association between the aesthetic qualities of classical sculptures with physical whiteness.
Music
Megan Thee Stallion, a Hardcore Master of Rap
What makes this music hardcore, a term that has meant many things to many genres, is technical mastery.
Books
Taking Cuteness Seriously
In The Power of Cute Simon May posits that "cute" is a modern-day iteration of the Renaissance archetype of the monstrous.
Books
Finding Oneself in Poetry
The poetry of Ariana Reines outlines a utopian prospect where suffering can be transformed into benevolent light.
Books
Broaching the Subject of Beauty
A look at three paintings from the cusp of the 20th century that make a powerful argument for beauty.
Art
Redefining Identity Through Artists' Books
The works at Center for Book Arts embrace a wide spectrum of emotions and subjectivities outside of White-centric definitions of what an “American” is.
Books
The Rise and Fall of Three Actresses
In Amanda Lee Koe's debut novel, the lives of Marlene Dietrich, Anna May Wong, and Leni Riefenstahl are intertwined with changes in the world and with one another.
Art
Catching Up with Taiwanese Art
We in America have some idea of what is going in art in China, Japan, and South Korea, but we seem to know almost nothing about contemporary Taiwanese art.