Art
How Do Artists Get Into the Whitney Biennial?
I made a spreadsheet to find out what the participants in the Whitney Biennial have in common.
Review
Art
Paradise Lost: Paul Davies's Fictive California
The painter's depiction of breezy palm trees and picturesque mountain ranges contain eccentric, discordant details.
Art
The Ideas Hidden in One Artist's Embroidery
Elaine Reichek uses hand-embroidery to emulate the handwriting of authors whose ideas she makes her own.
Art
A Silver Exhibition's Classist Undertones
Despite the artistry on display in this Gorham Silver exhibition, I found it difficult to suppress a kernel of class hatred in looking at it.
Art
The Bold, Blessed Paintings of a Sharecropper’s Daughter
An exhibition showcases the graphically powerful work of Mary T. Smith — a self-taught artist from Mississippi — in a rare, in-depth survey.
Art
A History of Writing, from Hieroglyphs to Squiggles
An exhibition at the British Library powerfully delves into the personal and political complexities of writing, driving home that it's not only one of humanity’s greatest inventions, but born out of the strongest human motivations.
Film
How a '70s Anthropological Experiment Turned into the "Sex Raft"
In Marcus Lindeen's documentary The Raft, the subjects of the disastrous study reenact its strange events.
Art
A Show About Stonewall's Legacy Falters on Inclusion
While impressive in its scope and engagement with the era’s tensions, Art After Stonewall fails to adequately represent the roles of people of color, trans folks, and folks with disabilities.
Film
The Woman Who Recorded Decades of TV News on 70,000 VHS Tapes
The documentary Recorder explores the life and work of Marion Stokes, who amassed the world's largest independent TV archive without anyone noticing.
Art
Gandhi Is the Central Protagonist at the Indian National Pavilion in Venice
Our Time for a Future Caring primarily brings together the work of eight artists, from different generations, who have reflected on the Gandhian legacy of decolonization.
Film
A Cuban Filmmaker's Brutal Satire of Religion and Colonialism
Tomás Gutiérrez Alea’s The Last Supper plays as part of Film Forum's ongoing series The Hour of Liberation: Decolonizing Cinema, 1966-1981, which presents both classic and overlooked anti-imperialist films.
Books
An Art Historian’s Ode to His Mentors, Including Leo Steinberg and Beatrice Wood
Francis M. Naumann's Mentors is an accessible and richly detailed celebration of intense cross-generational exchanges.