Books
Learning Little from John Cage's Letters
Some of us didn’t need letters from him, because he trusted us to do what we did without requiring his instruction or encouragement.
Reviews
Books
The History of Life-Sized, Fully Dissectible "Anatomical Venuses"
In the 18th century, medical students and the general public learned about the insides of the human body through a tool that to 21st-century eyes likely appears shocking or offensive.
Art
Trying (and Failing) to Make Painting Great Again
Here’s the thing about the Make Painting Great Again exhibition at Canada Gallery: I honestly dislike it.
Art
A Bedazzled Alternate World Where Death Comes to Life
Raúl de Nieves’s El Rio at Company Gallery is totally alien to Western notions of death.
Books
Photographs of the Birds and Bones in US National Park Collections
When a wayward tufted titmouse slammed against photographer Leah Sobsey's window, the bird's tiny corpse suddenly recalled all the natural specimens that had captivated her as a child at Chicago's Field Museum.
Art
On the Shore of the Hudson, an Occasion to Simply Be
BEACON, NY — "All right, folks, Beacon will be next ... Beacon next, Beeeeaa-con Beacon Beacon," says a Metro-North conductor in my headphones.
Performance
This Katty and Declawed Musical About the Kardashians Is Pawful
Katdashians! Break the Musical! began 15 minutes late. If only that were its gravest error.
Art
Apollinaire, the Immigrant Poet Who Shaped the Parisian Avant-Garde
PARIS — On September 7, 1911, French police arrested poet Guillame Apollinaire for stealing the Mona Lisa.
Art
Copper Tomb Sculptures Show Rare Forms of Mesopotamian Portraiture
The ten statues in Founding Figures: Copper Sculpture from Ancient Mesopotamia, ca. 3300–2000 BC at the Morgan Library & Museum in Manhattan were never meant for our eyes.
Art
In Cambodia, War Widows Share Their Stories Through Art
BATTAMBANG, Cambodia — The Cambodia War Widows Project, which began seven years ago as a social practice project exploring photography as a form of art therapy, is now having its first gallery installation in Cambodia.
Art
Praying at the Altar of Genesis Breyer P-Orridge
The psychic cross — a cultic symbol adapted from the Eastern Orthodox Church — hangs above the Rubin Museum’s winding staircase, alerting you that something unusual is happening on the top floor of a museum devoted to Asian culture.
Art
Extending a Local Legacy, Bay Area Artists and Media Activists Fight for Social Justice
SAN FRANCISCO — Just around the corner from the newly expanded San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) — a veritable temple to wealth amassed in the form of contemporary artworks — the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts has mounted a very different kind of installation, one which monumentalizes act