Art
Pompeii Before the Point-and-Shoot: The Earliest Photographs of Italy
The first photographic images seen in Italy were botanical prints by Henry Fox Talbot, beginning three decades of experimentation with photography in 19th-century Italy.
Review
Music
Syd’s Pleasure Principle
Syd’s murmurs, exclamations, coos, and exhalations are layered with care and irrepressible delight — all so quietly you could blink and miss it all.
Art
Romare Bearden’s Fevered Dream
Derived from memory, Bearden’s bayou is at once real and mythic, the Black counterpart to William Faulkner’s apocryphal Yoknapatawpha County.
Art
Jeff Donaldson’s Celebration of an Alternative History
Donaldson wanted to replace the history of demeaning stereotypes of Black people that had been presented by white, mainstream culture. By connecting his work to Africa and developing a powerful transnational view, he aimed to develop an alternative history rooted in struggle.
Books
Timothy Hyman's Alternative View of Figurative Painting in Art History
Most of the artists in Hyman’s book, the author claims, are generally excluded from most survey courses and textbooks. Their presence here offers a sharp rebuke to the narrowing of creative possibilities and the disparagement of painting as a vehicle for the expression of modern life and consciousne
Art
Enrique Martínez Celaya's "The First Kierkegaard"
Kierkegaard has been a constant source of inspiration for the Cuban-born painter Enrique Martínez Celaya, one of a number of philosophers and writers whose work he has studied, absorbed, and responded to.
Art
In Carlo Zinelli and Eugen Gabritschevsky’s Art, the Life Spirit Endures
Diving into the American Folk Art Museum’s two new exhibitions, it’s quite likely that your head will spin — for all the right reasons — in the presence of some very potent expressions from two unsinkable human spirits.
Art
Two Artists Make a Mess in the Name of Process
Husband-and-wife artist duo Rotem Tamir and Omri Zin created a pair of elaborate contraptions to help them laboriously make balloons and ink inside the gallery.
Art
The Greatest Biennial of All
The Whitney Houston Biennial is back, showing the work of 167 women artists.
Art
Mao, Lenin, Thatcher, and Other Leaders Haunt Art Basel Hong Kong
Adjacent installations by Pio Abad and Shen Shaomin at the fair offer cautionary tales on the perils of communism and the evils of neoliberalism.
Art
A Dada Exhibition Fetishizes the Movement’s Ephemera
The exhibition is shallow, portraying the movement through familiar pieces and presentations that provided but a façade of its "simultaneity of contradictions."
Film
A Film Mixes Fact and Fiction to Illuminate the Lives of Queer Teens in Bangkok
'#BKKY' is a coming-of-age love story following Jojo, who embodies an amalgamation of interviews the director conducted with 100 Thai teenagers.