Book Review
Why Don’t We Talk About Race in Fairy Tales?
Characters in fairy tales “are white not by chance, but by design,” Kimberly J. Lau writes in a new book.
Reviews
Film
The Emotional Valences of Brutalism
Historically, cinema has invoked the architectural movement as an easy shorthand for villainy. In The Brutalist, though, it embodies a proletarian dream.
Art
Exposing the Dark Underbelly of the American West
Out of Site focuses on the scientific tools used to map the West’s resource-rich landscape, and how those technologies have become forces of destruction.
Art
Holly Lane’s Elegiac Shrines to the Natural World
The artist evokes a keen awareness of the threats facing the environment by honoring it through opulent, reliquary-style frames and delicate paintings.
Books
An Incomplete History of Griffins in Art
Despite its ambition to expand our definition of the creature to include other winged, hybrid beasts, Griffinology is hemmed in by a European framework.
Art
Street Art Meets Aboriginal Culture in the Work of Reko Rennie
The artist challenges binaristic distinctions between “traditional” Aboriginal and contemporary art through works drawn from his expansive two-decade career.
Film
Werner Herzog’s Anticlimatic Exploration of the Human Brain
The filmmaker seems out of his depth in Theater of Thought, too willing to let his subjects make questionable claims without pushing back or delving deeper.
Art
The Sinister Subtext of Farshid Bazmandegan’s Paintings
The artist’s latest show connects the art industry with geopolitics, urging us to examine our role in a complicated negotiation of denial and strategic ignorance.
Art
Sheila Hicks’s Faith in the Latent Power of Materials
An invigorating survey of mostly recent works by the American artist at Kunsthalle Düsseldorf is a feast of rhythmic form and pulsating color.
Art
Cecilia Vicuña’s Poetry in Space
The artist suggests that like her fragile assemblages, peace demands care, balance, and the resolve to hold together what might otherwise fall apart.
Art
Alternate Landscapes of Diasporic Homelands
Samantha Box constructs altars to the interconnection between plant and human life while Sheida Soleimani creates collages imbued with familial memory.
Art
Samia Halaby’s Abstractions Map Displacement and Home
The trailblazing artist’s abstract paintings, on view in her first US museum retrospective, are luxurious fields of color and form, each one pulsating with its own energy.