Film
The Macabre Painter Behind the Alien Movies
With Ridley Scott's prequel Alien: Covenant being released this week, it's worth revisiting the documentary on the painter H.R. Giger, who inspired the series' aesthetic.
Review
Art
From a Depression-Era Mural to Modern-Day Devices, Charting the Rise of Radio
The centerpiece of the Cooper Hewitt's The World of Radio exhibition is a rarely seen, 16-foot-long mural that broadcasts moments from the medium's early history.
Art
Photos of the Capitalistic Imagery that Overwhelms Beirut’s Landscape
Manal Abu-Shaheen records a city in the midst of being overtaken by billboards but still, for now, showing its history.
Art
The Wonder of Precarious Fabric Sculptures
This one-room exhibition is most interesting when it walks around the intersection of many worlds.
Art
Watching Human Dreams Disintegrate in Photos of the Ultra-Rich
Lauren Greenfield's Generation Wealth, a book and exhibition of the same name at the Annenberg Space for Photography, documents the out-of-control growth of the one percent.
Books
E.E. Cummings’s Long-Forgotten Artist’s Book
Published in 1931, CIOPW includes 99 examples of Cummings's visual art in charcoal, ink, oil, pencil, and watercolor.
Art
Divulging the Erotic Secrets of Self-Taught Artists
An exhibition at the Museum of Sex is the first to bring together sexually charged works by outsider artists.
Books
Staying Up with Suzanne Buffam’s A Pillow Book
Buffam’s A Pillow Book is a smart, funny, provocative collection of lists, research into pillows and sleeplessness, and details about all kinds of people, including famous insomniacs.
Art
A Celebration of the Rat Bastards: Joan Brown, Bruce Conner, Jean Conner, Jay DeFeo, George Herms, Wally Hedrick, and Others
Shortly after coming to San Francisco, Conner formed what he christened the “Rat Bastard Society.” Conner told the curator Peter Boswell that the name was fitting for “people who were making things with the detritus of society, who themselves were ostracized or alienated from full involvement with s
Art
Reimagined Landscapes: Frank Romero's Los Angeles
Born and raised in a middle-class family in Boyle Heights, Romero captured the pulse of Los Angeles through his pictorial and more abstract painting of decorated cars and the vast freeways (portrayed as our cultural shrines) connecting the different parts of the city.
Art
Mercedes Matter’s Awful, Wonderful Itch
Matter was a believer in the possibility of channeling a total, magical presence – even if it meant destroying a work or never completing it.
Art
On Life and Work: Hannah Black and Petra Buchegger
In Vienna, two shows offer meditations on the body, the earth, labor, and fate.