Film
The Gleeful Blasphemy and Queer Nun Romance of Benedetta
Beneath the explicit sex and violence of the latest film from Dutch provocateur Paul Verhoeven are thoughtful challenges about gender roles and institutional religion.
Reviews
Art
Rethinking Kandinsky
The problem with many of Kandinsky’s abstractions is that they don’t offer enough immediate visual information to “crack” his expressive code for color and form.
Books
Painter Edith Schloss Remembers a Life Lived in Art
Schloss’s The Loft Generation creates a mirror-memoir, as literary portraiture doubles as veiled self-portraiture.
Film
Bruno Dumont’s France Is a Cogent, if Convoluted, Critique of Celebrity Culture
This may not be a great film, but its narrative and tonal weaknesses throw into relief just how strong Léa Seydoux is as its thumping heart.
Art
Paintings Rather Than Pictures
This desire to go beyond the ordinary without forgetting its existence seems to be one motivation that Jane Freilicher and Thomas Nozkowski shared.
Film
Denzel Washington Stars in a New Black-and-White Macbeth
Working for the first time without his brother Ethan, Coen’s film adaptation, featuring Denzel Washington as Macbeth, embraces the text with unusual faithfulness.
Art
When an Artist’s Body Breaks Down, Human Relations Become Crucial
Michael Mandiberg’s Timeframe exhibition gives the viewer a window into a period of time when they had to deal with the breakdown of their own body.
Film
Exploring the Baffling Popularity of Kenny G
Penny Lane’s Listening to Kenny G finds fascinating layers to the cult of the smooth jazz icon.
Art
Bob Thompson's Provocative Challenge to Euro-American Art History
A new retrospective expands on the late artist's legacy as a Black Expressionist who teased out Civil Rights-era tensions in the United States.
Art
Assemblage Art for the Age of the Online Shopper
Bader brings a conceptual playfulness to found-object assemblage, updating Marcel Duchamp’s concept of the assisted readymade for the age of the online shopper.
Art
An LA Gallery’s Sexy Xmas Tradition
The Lodge has a cheeky interpretation of Christmas cheer.
Art
The Mysteries of the Universe in John Willenbecher’s Early Work
Between 1962 and ’75, Willenbecher made a substantial body of work reflecting his interest in games and the night sky, in the ancient human desire to make order out of the inexplicable.