Performance
A 1944 Dalí Backdrop Gets Its Own Surreal Circus
The archives of the Metropolitan Opera can seem like some kind of pharaonic tomb, packed as they are with theatrical treasures.
Review
Books
The Forgotten Artistic Playgrounds of the 20th Century
The Playground Project explores an era of artistic play.
Art
From Navajo to Arctic Landscapes, Exploring the Aesthetics of Sound
ALBUQUERQUE, NM — Sound often accompanies visual experiences, such as music set to film, dance, and performance. Yet it is less frequent to have a visual depiction of our auditory experiences.
Art
A Photographer Who Captured Workers Without Romanticizing Them
PARIS — Poignancy pervades A Working Eye, the first comprehensive retrospective of François Kollar’s Constructivist-style photography that, through nuanced grays and deep blacks, dramatized French workers’ empowerment.
Art
A Museum Show Makes the Case for Art Institutions as Graveyards
MEXICO CITY – Drawing from its massive contemporary art collection, the Museo Jumex has turned introspective for The Natural Order of Things, a flawed and biased critique of the function of art museums.
Art
Photographing the Acceleration of Modernity Through a Privileged Lens
PITTSBURGH — The work of Jacques Henri Lartigue melds today’s concepts of the autobiographical with street, fine art, action, and fashion photography.
Books
“The Ephemeral Moment of Exchange” in Barbara Bloom’s Wrapping Papers
Bloom’s papers mine the histories of gift rituals, interrogate the meaning objects are endowed with as gifts, and place value on an object that is meant to be used once and then discarded.
Film
A Psychological Portrait of Eva Hesse
Telling the story of Eva Hesse's life and work presents one major challenge: as a narrative arc, it is necessarily truncated.
Art
A Show About Delacroix’s Influence Is Sorely Missing His Work
LONDON — Delacroix and the Rise of Modern Art suffers from too few of Delacroix’s works and far too much of the “modern art.”
Art
New Portal Art Fair Fails to Make the Most of a Lower Manhattan Landmark
Most tourists who wander into the rotunda of Federal Hall on Wall Street likely won't be there for this week's Portal Art Fair, but the three floors of mixed-media art may cause them to linger longer in the 19th-century space.
Art
Holograms, Robots, and 3D-Printed Masks at a New Art Center in Vietnam
HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam — Highlighting six HCMC-based contemporary artists and featuring several large works all incorporating new media, this exhibit would feel at home in any global arts city, from NYC to Beijing.
Art
An App Turns the Failures of Image Recognition into Whimsical Text
When I was a little girl, I always wondered what my Teddy Ruxpin mechanical bear would say if there wasn't a cassette tape commanding his interactions with me.