Art
The Hidden Power of New York City's Everyday Objects
Can one single object encapsulate the dense knot of energy that is New York City? An exhibition is trying with 62 objects, selected by 62 people who all dwell in its diverse, sprawling bounds.
Review
Art
Walking on Mirrors Until You Bleed, and Other Images from a Performance of Poetic Pain
Is it better to see a man walk on broken mirrors until his toes leave bloody red prints across the panes, or listen to the mirrors irregularly shatter in darkness?
Art
Is High-End Art as Social Practice a Form of Commodity Activism?
CHICAGO — At its most rarefied levels, art as social practice seems oxymoronic. Is it possible to produce work that jars the elitist art world out of its aesthetic bliss while appearing on its sanctified white walls? Probably not. Cheryl Pope's solo exhibition Just Yell at Monique Meloche Gallery ir
Books
The Rise and Fall of Polaroid
Instant: The Story of Polaroid, an entertaining book by the New York-based writer Christopher Bonanos, follows the long and twisting career of Edwin Land and his brainchild corporation, Polaroid.
Books
Inside David Wojnarowicz's Comic Book
Many people know that David Wojnarowicz was an excellent artist, but fewer probably know that he was also an excellent writer. 7 Miles a Second, originally put out by DC Comics in 1996 and recently republished by Fantagraphics Books, is a memoir comprised of personal stories mixed with dreams, hallu
Art
Patrick Strzelec’s Sculptures Are in the Middle of an Improbable Thought
In drawing, a line need not become a contour or an image. In sculpture, this resistance to becoming is harder to pull off. For all their insistence on pure abstraction, Donald Judd makes boxes and Richard Serra makes steel fortresses. The problem is that this kind of sculpture smacks of signature sh
Art
Single Point Perspective: Munk and Me
In Loren Munk’s painting "An Attempted Documentation of Williamsburg, 1981-2008” (2008-2011), I recognized a slice of my own history in a place I had known well. After a lifetime of looking at paintings, this experience was oddly new to me.
Music
Fagen’s Critical Catalogue (July 2013, Part 2)
It's Alternarock Week at Critical Catalogue Headquarters with reviews of the Yo La Tengo, My Bloody Valentine, Adult, and Laura Marling.
Art
Great Outdoors: The Biennial of the Americas in Denver
In Poetics of Space, Gaston Bachelard envisions the house as a "vertical being," with two symbolic poles: the irrationality of the cellar and the rational consciousness of the roof. “Up near the roof, all our thoughts are clear … Here we participate in the carpenter’s solid geometry.” The same can b
Art
A Midsummer Group Show Dream
CHICAGO — As we settle into midway-through-summer mode here in the city that does sleep sometimes, we spend more time hanging at the beach, BBQing with friends and generally chillaxing. With this slowing down of general movement comes the proliferation of — wait for it! — the summer group show.
Art
Sculpture that Just Wants to Play
Some curious creatures have arrived in City Hall Park, although they look pretty miserable about it. Olaf Breuning's "The Humans," with its loop of anthropomorphic figures showing a story of humans evolving from fish to fisher king, has each whimsical figure sporting a deep frown upon their marble f
Art
The Inner Life of a Museum
Jem Cohen’s new feature film, Museum Hours, unfolds like a series of postcards from a lonely traveler, fresh with the pressure of on-site writing while calculating that the memory will be received miles and days away. Shooting primarily in Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum, Cohen’s foreign camera se