Art
The Enduring Power of Experimental Paintings from 1975
Working during a period when it was proclaimed from every quarter that painting was dead, Reed and a sizable New York cohort of like-minded artists carried on below the fray.
Reviews
Books
Reader’s Diary: Walter Benjamin's ‘Sonnets’
In 1913, the young Walter Benjamin struck up an intense friendship with the poet Christoph Friedrich Heinle — one of the most enigmatic episodes in Benjamin’s enigmatic life.
Art
An Artist Who Is Not a Capitalist Minimalist
Nahum Tevet's premise is straightforward: What do you need to temporarily preserve and mount a drawing on the wall?
Art
Scar Tissue
One of the things that I admire about Brenda Goodman is her willingness to push a painting into a territory all its own. She isn’t interested in stylistic consistency or any of the other common denominators that can be used to brand one’s work.
Art
In Philip Guston's Nixon Drawings, a Tool Kit for Satirizing Loathsome Presidents
Over 170 caricatures of Richard Nixon offer an instructive precedent for artists struggling to overcome political and creative blocks in one leap.
Art
Nazis, New York, and Max Beckmann
What New York gave Beckmann was not superficial subject matter, but inspiration in the form of energy.
Books
Sound of Silence: Michael Palmer’s 'The Laughter of the Sphinx'
Michael Palmer’s trust in the generative power that emerges out of silence for poetry runs counter to a deep strain of pessimism throughout The Laughter of the Sphinx.
Art
Beyond Gorgeous: Illuminated Manuscripts from Boston Collections
For viewers accustomed to looking at paintings on canvas and panel, manuscripts are a different beast.
Art
The Fateful Attraction of Jasper Johns and Edvard Munch
Sometimes an exhibition, propelled by its clarity of purpose and emotional force, will lead you to a point that feels genuinely cathartic. And sometimes an exhibition will hit that mark and then shift into overdrive.
Art
A 19th-Century Photographer's Journey Through Jerusalem's Layered History
In 1854, Auguste Salzmann traveled to Jerusalem to search for the biblical history visible in the city's architecture.
Art
An Homage to a Syrian Cosmonaut Turned Refugee
Take a ride with Halil Altındere through his Martian fantasy.
Film
A Filmmaker’s Impromptu Conversations on the Streets of Tunis
Ismaïl Bahri's film began with a simple premise: he would walk around Tunis with a white sheet of paper taped over his camera lens and record the changes of light.