Art
Stilling the Wind and Rain as Suspended Metal
Paula Crown interprets the memory of rainfall in a cascade of suspended metal at Marlborough Gallery.
Reviews
Books
Ed Ruscha’s Cactus Omelette and 75 Other Recipes by Artists and Writers
The new Artists' and Writers' Cookbook compiles recipes and personal food-related stories from 76 contemporary artists and writers, from Swoon's Mississippi ratatouille to Ed Ruscha's cactus omelette and Sanford Biggers' red drink.
Books
A 19th-Century Master of Light and Violence Reconsidered
In the spring of 1870, Paris had yellow fever. Not the disease, but the color, which spread as quickly as an epidemic among the most fashionable of the French capital. The cause was a gleaming painting named for the biblical John the Baptist-slayer "Salomé" on view at the annual state-sponsored Salo
Books
Hiroshi Sugimoto's Otherworldly Photographs of Movie Theaters
The question that Hiroshi Sugimoto asked himself in 1976 sounded a bit like a koan: What happens if you shoot a whole movie in a single frame?
Performance
Queering the Canon of American Popular Music
This is not your grandmother’s drag show. A 24-Decade History of Popular Music by renowned playwright and drag performer Taylor Mac is a monumental production covering American popular music from 1776 to 2016.
Art
Art for an Uncertain World at the São Paulo Biennial
SÃO PAULO — Critics in major Brazilian newspapers have been calling the 32nd São Paulo Biennial too “politically correct,” all ideas and no art.
Books
Reader’s Diary: Henri Lefebvre’s ‘Critique of Everyday Life’ (Conclusion)
Encore un effort on Lefebvre. My first go was nothing but objections. Round two started out with admiration but I soon found myself airing further criticism — almost against my will...
Books
Alice Notley's Crystal City of In-betweenness
Alice Notley's recent book, Benediction, an epic written in ragged grammatical form, further concretizes her work to repossess the historically male-dominated epic poem as a feminist genre.
Art
Archaic Futurism
In an interview that appeared in The Brooklyn Rail (May 2014), Joyce Robins explained that the title of her early painting “The Vly” (1975) is the Dutch word for swamp.
Art
Vanity, Thy Name Is Man
CHICAGO — I was hooked by the time I finished reading “Mr. John F. Kennedy and Mr. Kenneth Noland” (2016), a text-filled drawing written in pencil in large and distinct capital letters that reminded me of penmanship practice in elementary school.
Art
“Vulnerability Could Be the New Stoic”: Paintings by Allison Schulnik
In Allison Schulnik’s hands, paint becomes matter and subject becomes object. Her paintings are about a continual state of flux: morphing, dripping, and melting.
Film
A Véritéble Weekend of Cinéma: A Film Festival in Maine
It is not surprising that the art crowd is at home on Maine’s coastline, where Hartley and Homer filled their canvases with crashing tides, and where Longfellow filled his mind’s chalice with classic verse, but I am compelled to wonder about what (if any) Maine connection has been forged by the docu