Art
The Nostalgic Melancholy of YouTube Urban Exploration Videos
Many channels have made popular videos about "scary" things like abandoned asylums or amusement parks. But there is a different trend which reveals the mundane decay of the suburbs.
Review
Music
Vampire Weekend Self-Consciously Grows Up
Growing up and finding love are conflated as a general spiritual awakening on the band's new album.
Books
Allen Ginsberg: Poet on the Move
The poet travelled to 66 countries and left traces of each one in his poetry.
Art
The Secret Paintings of a Hermetic Filmmaker
Jordan Belson wanted the viewer to see only what was in front of his or her face — to scrutinize his paintings from up close.
Art
Surfboards, Skateboards, and the Question of Art
What is the difference between a painting in a museum and a tattoo on an arm?
Performance
This Year's Ten Best German Plays
The work on display at Berlin's Theatertreffen draws on film, novels, Brecht, and ancient Greek drama.
Art
A Universe of Mazes and Meta-Pictures
Laleh Khorramian fills two galleries with visions from a distant galaxy.
Art
Lucian Freud’s Mountains of Flesh
Freud’s forlorn, isolated figures and grotty interiors resonate appallingly with the steep cultural and social decline fated by Brexit, if it ever takes effect.
Art
How the Curatorial Stereotyping of Chinese Art Essentializes the Work of Zheng Guogu
The juxtaposition of Guogu's concurrent solo shows is a call to substitute a more rigorous and nuanced critical focus for ready-made stereotypical tropes in understanding contemporary Chinese art.
Art
Camp at the Met Museum: A Serious Fail at “Failed Seriousness”
The problem with the exhibition is that it’s simultaneously too self-aware and too clueless to capture the essence of camp.
Film
Christo and Jeanne-Claude's Dream to Walk on Water
A new documentary reveals the passion and labor that went into creating artworks that look too fantastical to be true.
Art
“The AIDS Crisis Is Still Beginning,” Says Artist and Activist Gregg Bordowitz
In a retrospective at the Art Institute of Chicago, Bordowitz reflects on living as a queer Jewish man with HIV and challenges us to understand the AIDS crisis as both historical and contemporary.