Art
Divulging the Erotic Secrets of Self-Taught Artists
An exhibition at the Museum of Sex is the first to bring together sexually charged works by outsider artists.
Reviews
Books
Staying Up with Suzanne Buffam’s A Pillow Book
Buffam’s A Pillow Book is a smart, funny, provocative collection of lists, research into pillows and sleeplessness, and details about all kinds of people, including famous insomniacs.
Art
A Celebration of the Rat Bastards: Joan Brown, Bruce Conner, Jean Conner, Jay DeFeo, George Herms, Wally Hedrick, and Others
Shortly after coming to San Francisco, Conner formed what he christened the “Rat Bastard Society.” Conner told the curator Peter Boswell that the name was fitting for “people who were making things with the detritus of society, who themselves were ostracized or alienated from full involvement with s
Art
Reimagined Landscapes: Frank Romero's Los Angeles
Born and raised in a middle-class family in Boyle Heights, Romero captured the pulse of Los Angeles through his pictorial and more abstract painting of decorated cars and the vast freeways (portrayed as our cultural shrines) connecting the different parts of the city.
Art
Mercedes Matter’s Awful, Wonderful Itch
Matter was a believer in the possibility of channeling a total, magical presence – even if it meant destroying a work or never completing it.
Art
On Life and Work: Hannah Black and Petra Buchegger
In Vienna, two shows offer meditations on the body, the earth, labor, and fate.
Art
Paintings that Praise the Paradises of Bohemia
Thomas Trosch's paintings at Fredericks & Freiser Gallery recall idyllic settings from movie musicals.
Art
The Animations and Improvisations of a Trailblazing Nigerien Filmmaker
The Museum of Modern Art's retrospective of the works of Moustapha Alassane is every bit the breakthrough it appears to be.
Art
Art That’s Too Lovely to Make Its Politics Convincing
Elias Sime's work at James Cohan gallery reclaims and transforms e-waste into art. While an act of conscience, I can’t help but think that the work is swamped by its own aesthetics.
Art
The Multifarious Feminism of the Whitney Biennial
Through its feminist contributions, the exhibition offers a window onto some of our most pressing cultural concerns, as well as our shortcomings.
Art
An Installation in a 19th-Century Department Store Collapses Time
In Michael Jones McKean's exhibition The Ground, organized by the Contemporary, he explores the many lives of a former department store that is now home to a sea of internet servers.
Books
How Artists Strive to Make Sense of the Archive in the “Middle East”
The ambitious volume Dissonant Archives: Contemporary Visual Culture and Contested Narratives in the Middle East in many ways responds to the post-1990s archive fever, but from a specific geographic locale.