Art
Exquisite Films that Make Reality Unearthly
The best word I can use to describe the feeling conveyed by John Akomfrah’s films at Lisson Gallery is fey.
Review
Art
A Collection of Magical Realist Games for Your Smartphone
Returning after a 20 year break, the Triennale International Exhibition, which is centered at the Triennale Museum in Milan, has a new media update.
Art
Paying Tribute to Moholy-Nagy with a Concert of Light and Sound
"Moholy-Nagy: Optical Sound,” a recent three-part concert curated by artist Luke DuBois and musician Zach Layton at the Guggenheim Museum, highlighted both the history and the modern trajectory of optically inspired sound, especially as put forth by visual artist László Moholy-Nagy.
Art
An Artist's Fixation on Felix the Cat
BLACKPOOL, UK — While obsessed with Felix the Cat, Mark Leckey has his own highly sensitive pair of whiskers.
Art
Rare 18th-Century Soul Sculptures Go on View at the Hispanic Society
Maggots spill from the bare ribcage of the toothy skeleton, and the poor soul in hell, his skin blood-red, is tearing apart his own torso. These are two of the four fates of the soul, as so horrifically and magnificently crafted by whom experts believe is the 18th-century Ecuadorian sculptor, Manuel
Art
Capturing the Faces of the Global Refugee Crises
LOS ANGELES — The Annenberg Space for Photography serendipitously opened their latest exhibition Refugee during the Jewish holiday of Passover, which celebrates one of our most enduring refugee narratives, the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt (even if its veracity is in doubt).
Books
The Uncanny Nature of Fake Flowers
The 73 photographic plates in Robert Voit's The Alphabet of New Plants each frame a different floral detail, from bursting blooms to twisting branches.
Art
Recognizing the Contributions of Regionalism at the Turn of the 20th Century
INDIANAPOLIS — In the mid-1970s, when my new, Hoosier husband first took me to visit Indianapolis, the city seemed haunted by the ghosts of middlebrow culture.
Art
The Whimsy and Wit of Isaac Mizrahi
Oversized frog heads; a thin, silk faille gown swathed in a cotton candy-colored parka; a cacophony of plaids, polka dots, chevrons, furs, sequins, feathers, tribal prints, and religious iconography. This is the world of Isaac Mizrahi, on view at the Jewish Museum.
Books
Reader’s Diary: On Richard Bellamy
Richard Bellamy is one of the very few art dealers around whose name the word “legendary” floats like an aura. But how to convey what was so special about him is a nice problem for a biographer.
Art
Every Day Is Black Friday in Doha
In her memoir, The Girl Who Fell to Earth (2012), Sophia Al-Maria, who was raised as a bicultural Muslim, says she feels like a “deep-sea diver, adjusting constantly to the pressures of […] two very different environments.”
Art
Indelible Stains
If you should not judge a book by its cover? What about the living room you grew up in? What do its contents say about you? Does its décor reflect who you are?