Books
The Knotty Legacy of Weirdo, R. Crumb's Underground Comix Magazine
A new book chronicles the decade-long run of Weirdo, an oddball magazine founded by the comix world's enfant terrible.
Review
Film
Werner Herzog Adds to Mikhail Gorbachev's Endlessly Strange Pop Culture Legacy
In the documentary Meeting Gorbachev, Herzog finds nostalgia for a lost past.
Art
Choosing One's Own Adventure at the Greenpoint Open Studios
The event was rife with artists treading the line between childlike, creepy, abstract, and surrealist art, which catered to my undying penchant for nostalgia.
Film
Exploring a Film Critic's Tastes Through the Movies She Loved — and Hated
On the centennial of Pauline Kael's birth, the Quad Cinema is presenting Losing It at the Movies, a retrospective including both films that received her highest praise and those she viciously tore apart.
Film
Surveying Queer Art and Literature from Before the Term “Homosexuality” Was Invented
The documentary Before Homosexuals seeks to educate those whose knowledge of queer history doesn't go further back than the 20th century.
Art
The Every Woman Biennial Defies Critical Evaluation
The salon-style biennial, featuring over 600 women and non-binary artists, is neither hierarchical nor overly precious.
Art
The Colorful Waves Generated by Mohamed Melehi and the Casablanca Art School
Artists in postcolonial Casablanca created a specifically Moroccan form of Modernism, merging the influences of Pop art and Hard-edge painting with the rich tradition of abstraction in Berber craft and architecture.
Books
The Cult of Jean-Michel Basquiat
What happens when an artist's mythologized life distracts from his work?
Art
An Exhibition Tells the Tragicomic Story of a Former Gallerist’s Collection
Memories of Travel: The Antoine de Galbert Collection takes us to a thrilling world of outrageous abnormality, which positivist art history had ignored and repressed.
Film
What New Yorkers Are Too Afraid to Say About the Future and Climate Change
In the documentary The Hottest August, director Brett Story interviews sweaty bystanders about how the world is changing.
Art
Two Women in a Man’s Art World
You are not likely to find the work of Mimi Gross and Marcia Marcus in the permanent collections of any major New York City museum. I find that both predictable and troubling.
Books
Why Matisse Thought “A Picture Should Always Be Decorative”
For Matisse, decoration was never a secondary matter.