Art
A Documentary Takes a Walk Through Hélio Oiticica's Past
“My life has transformed itself into a montage of simultaneous things,” Hélio Oiticica wrote in a letter in 1971.
Review
Performance
Stories from Prison, Set Inside a Fiction
Prison plays an ambivalent role in the imagination of many white Americans.
Art
With Photography, Sarah Charlesworth Deconstructs the World
Exiting the big, steel elevator to enter Doubleworld, the first major survey of Sarah Charlesworth's work currently at the New Museum, one steps into another, double, world and directly into the gallery of Stills: 14 photographs of people jumping or falling from tall buildings.
Books
Two Comics Narrate the Unsaid and the Unknown
A common piece of advice to writers is to show, rather than tell.
Books
The Creation, and Re-creation, of the Curator
After centuries of slaving away in the shadowy alcoves of museums, libraries, and archives, curators are finally having their 15 minutes in the spotlight.
Books
A 17th-Century Woman Artist's Butterfly Journey
In June of 1699, a 52-year-old Maria Sibylla Merian departed on a cargo ship for South America's Suriname with only her 22-year-old daughter Dorothea Maria for company.
Art
When Commercial Television Met the Art World
About halfway through the Jewish Museum’s Revolution of the Eye: Modern Art and the Birth of American Television, you can watch a curious short video circa 1952 directed by Sidney Peterson.
Books
The Most Fantastic Architecture of the Soviet Union Was Built on Paper
Restricted by the aesthetic limits on architecture in the Soviet Union, Alexander Brodsky and Ilya Utkin imagined the most fantastic cities and wondrous structures on paper.
Books
Obsession, Exploded: The Stories of Clarice Lispector
“How do I know?” asks a character standing in for author Clarice Lispector in “Before the Rio–Niterói Bridge,” included in New Directions’ recent release of The Complete Stories. “I know the same way you do by imaginative guessing. I know, period.”
Art
Will Some Bright Morning Ever Arrive?
NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ — In 1963, while living in Los Angeles, Melvin Edwards welded “Some Bright Morning” out of different pieces of steel scrap metal, including a heavy chain and a dagger-like fragment extending from a circular, collar-like form.
Art
Justine, a Prophet: Blindness and Vision in Lars von Trier’s 'Melancholia'
The opening shot of Lars von Trier’s Melancholia (2011) is a close-up of Justine (played by Kirsten Dunst) her eyes shut, her wet, white-blonde hair wild, a feral halo around her face. And then she slowly opens her eyes.
Art
In and Out of Frame: Lorraine O’Grady’s “Art Is…”
Like a Choose Your Own Adventure story or a game of Mad Libs, the elliptical title of Lorraine O’Grady’s 1983 performance piece, “Art Is…,” creates space, playful and inviting, for structured audience participation.