Art
The Bloody History of Pakistan in Miniature Landscapes
LONDON — Pakistan is not an old nation state, but its history — and, indeed, its present — is uncommonly steeped in blood.
Reviews
Art
A Room Full of Suspended Memories
There is whispering in the background here, or perhaps it’s talking I can't make out.
Art
An Intimate Encounter with Paul Strand’s Photographic Journeys
LONDON — It's always surprising when important artists get overlooked. It's the case of Paul Strand in the UK, whose contribution to the history of photography might still slip away from the British public's view.
Art
How Sean Scully Bent the Grid
The Irish-born, London-educated, abstract painter Sean Scully established a signature style of painting nearly four decades ago.
Art
Tactile Performances that Probe the Body and Its Aging
PHILADELPHIA — Ally, an exhibition at the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia, is a collaboration between artist Janine Antoni, choreographer Stephen Petronio, and movement artist and activist Anna Halprin.
Art
The Evolution of Dressmaking, from Hand- to Machine-Made
A clever way of telling if a piece of clothing is a knock-off is to look at the stitching: if it’s crooked, it’s probably been hastily assembled in some sweatshop; if it’s straight, it’s been meticulously formed with the utmost sensitivity to detail in an atelier.
Books
Reader’s Diary: ‘In the Empire of the Air: The Poems of Donald Britton’
When I wandered ingenuously onto the scene, Donald Britton was a young star, or so I considered him, just a few years older than me (actually a bit more than a few, it turns out — he always looked so boyish) yet somehow wiser.
Books
The Many Pleasures of Reading Donald Britton’s Poems
This slim volume of poetry might stir up the tears you have been keeping inside you, especially if, like me, you are old enough to remember the 1980s and the AIDS epidemic, the seemingly endless roll call of people you knew and didn’t know who died horribly.
Art
Stephen Westfall Unscrews His Grids Even More
Ten years ago, in an interview that I did with Stephen Westfall, he said that he was interested in a skewed grid because it looked as if “the whole thing could tremble and be knocked over.”
Art
Naked in the Berkshires: 'Splendor, Myth and Vision' at the Clark
Art and power have a strong mutual attraction; in the West, their passionately shared interest is the nude body – particularly the female one.
Film
The Lobster in Brief: Doctor Moreau and B.F. Skinner Captain the Love Boat through Orwell's Dreams
Like the diabolical spawn of Franz Kafka and Michael Haneke, the Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos sets unfortunate humans loose in mazes of arbitrary, absurd authority and films them with an indifference that borders on cruelty.
Music
They Might Be Assholes: Jake Bugg, Panic! at the Disco, The 1975, Drake
The artists featured below have little in common beyond deeply questionable, occasionally revolting public personas and a stubborn willingness to produce compelling art from these personas. Why do some succeed and others fail drastically?