Art
A Portrait of a Predator
A video work about avian predators and their prey blends documentary and fictional narrative of the life of a bouncer in Mexico City.
Review
Books
From Seminal Fluid to Sassy Scribbles: The "Non-Art" Works of Marcel Duchamp
Even after digesting this considerable amount of ostensibly transitory disclosure, Duchamp remains an unadulterated, irreverent enigma.
Art
The Transporting, Tactile Pleasures of Porcelain
An exhibition at the Frick features pieces from its collection of Royal Meissen porcelain curated by artist Arlene Shechet, as well as works she made while in residence at the historic manufactory.
Art
Celebrating Intersectionality in the Futuristic Netflix Series 'Sense8'
As anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ, and isolationist policies sweep a growing number of nations, Sense8 takes us into a microcosm of a world these policies react against.
Books
Reader’s Diary: The Potential Novel of a Conceivable Algeria
The 1950s through the mid-1970s were the great era of the unreadable novel. Kateb Yacine’s Nedjma was one of the first and most remarkable of these.
Music
Reestablished Forms: King, M.I.A., Young Thug, Sheer Mag
Erotic sagas are always political. This applies to the four albums reviewed below, several political despite themselves, each of which messes with established forms while representing desire.
Art
Jack Whitten’s Walls
Jack Whitten is the most relentless experimenter with materials in a generation of abstract artists who have yet to receive their due, perhaps because no one has come up with a catchy and marketable name for them, like the “Minimalists” or “The Pictures Generation.”
Art
Déjà Vu: Mark Williams’s Positive Echo
Mark Williams paints within the tradition of geometric abstraction and considers Agnes Martin, El Lissitsky, and Kazimir Malevich among his “art ancestors.”
Art
“Art” at the Science Museum: 'Da Vinci — The Genius' in Boston
In this age of fake news and climate change denial, we should be seeking to educate the public on scientific method rather than promulgating faulty science in the name of infotainment.
Art
Chuck Webster’s Breakthrough
I have been following Chuck Webster’s work since his first show at Zieher Smith in 2003, where he employed different mediums on different kinds of antique and found paper. It was obvious to me that Webster loved to draw in both dry and liquid mediums, anything capable of making a line.
Art
The Solitude and Sensuality of an Artist's Studio
Paul Mpagi Sepuya's exhibition at Yancey Richardson Gallery illuminates the intimate terrains of the artist's studio life.
Art
The Troubling Delight of Feminine Monsters
Bonnie Lucas's exhibition at JTT features surreal gouaches and playful assemblages that mess with the social conventions of girl- and womanhood.