Books
Connoisseurship Is Not a Dirty Word
Connoisseurship, it is often said, is elitist, Euro-centric, and logo-centric, to employ the fashionable jargon.
Reviews
Books
What Is a Poet?
Deeply suspicious of anything that smacks of self-importance, of making a blanket statement or pronouncement, Clark Coolidge resists nailing down what the poet and poem are.
Art
Fixating on Giacometti’s Doomed Woman
Who is this nameless woman whose first (and last) breaths were drawn nearly 90 years ago?
Books
A Norwegian Tale of Love Is Translated
Originally published in Oslo in 1997 to great acclaim, Hanne Ørstavik's novella Love is a delicate, fragile tale governed by its own laws of narration.
Art
Making Room to Take In the Depth of John Akomfrah's "Vertigo Sea"
The three-channel film is a story of how humans are ultimately reductionists in our relationship to the ecology — in a world that feels like it is too much for us, we aim to cut it down to a digestible size.
Art
Revisiting a Seminal Exhibition on "Third World" Feminist Art at A.I.R. Gallery
Dialectics of Entanglement: Do We Exist Together? revisits A.I.R.'s 1980 exhibition Dialectics of Isolation, important for its promotion of women artists of color at a time when the New York art world was painfully exclusive and discriminatory.
Art
Creating a Pantheon of Black American Gods, from James Baldwin to Nina Simone
“We’ve had Civil Rights, and a lot of people we idealize, especially in the Black community, we treat them like they are gods,” says the artist Tylonn Sawyer.
Art
At the Whitney, a Fashion Exhibition Doubles as a Retail Store
Museum visitors may touch, try on, and purchase clothing and accessories designed specifically for the exhibit by fashion design duo Eckhaus Latta.
Film
The Double Bind of Palestinian Women in Israeli Society
Maysaloun Hamoud’s film about three Palestinian women living in Tel Aviv rattles stereotypes.
Art
A Shop in LA Is Selling Art Objects Cast with Spells
The objects in Lazaros's Astral Oracles correspond to a spell cast by the artist, who is himself a spiritual practitioner.
Art
The Power of Artists’ Books to Bind Together Radical Ideas
An exhibition at the Getty Research Institute illustrates the myriad ways that contemporary artists have pushed the boundaries and definitions of the book.
Art
Revisiting the Profound Joy and Pain of Girlhood
Life in My Pocket is a simulacrum of Diamond Stingily's childhood: chain-link fences, a weathered basketball hoop, and looped telephone cords — perfect for jumping rope.