Art
The Seduction of Inscrutable, Shrouded Paintings
I find it easy to get lost in a painting by Alex Dodge even if I'm not entirely certain what the subject matter is.
Reviews
Books
An Anthology of Queer Art Theory Puts Artists First
Whitechapel Gallery and the MIT Press recently published Queer, the latest addition to Documents of Contemporary Art, a popular series of anthologies on major themes and ideas in contemporary art.
Art
Peering into a Caravan Haunted by Marionettes
As the sounds of a storm fill the gallery, the illuminated caravan begins to clatter with life.
Art
John Waters Curates a Show of Low-Tech Art in Silicon Valley
SAN FRANCISCO — There’s something deliciously subversive about an old-guard, establishment art gallery mounting an adamantly low-tech, analogue art show that celebrates dysfunction, messiness, and thwarted purpose, and doing it at the vortex of an industry that fetishizes streamlined, enhanced, digi
Art
Art That Takes Flight Toward a Higher Consciousness
PARIS — An uplifting yet melancholy poetry pervades Ken Matsubara’s show at Galerie Eric Mouchet, Hou-Chou, Releasing Birds, through the flickering of endlessly looped moving images that suggest shadowy ghosts.
Art
How van Dyck Laid the Foundation of Modern Portraiture
Van Dyck: The Anatomy of Portraiture, currently at the Frick Collection, provides a window onto how the premier Baroque portrait style came together in the busy studio of a gifted, if short-lived, painter.
Art
Buildings Get Erected in an Architectural Dating Game
"If you want to stain me, come to 2689 Santa Fresca Blvd." So reads the sext I have just received from BeautifullyStained, a staircase with a wooden railing that was, indeed, beautifully stained.
Books
The Relics of Victorian Natural History in Eye-Popping Stereoscope
Natural history storerooms are a bit like drowned Noah's Arks, with specimens from every realm of the animal world posthumously preserved.
Art
A History of Detroit Through Its Bricks
DETROIT — Object-oriented ontology suggests that inanimate objects have lives and wider spheres of experience than the ways in which they relate to humans.
Art
The Photographers of 1870s London Who Documented Their Disappearing City
The idea of capturing something in photography before it disappears dates back almost to the dawn of the medium.
Art
A Monumental Critique of Empire, from Napoleonic to Corporate Times
PARIS — Scattered throughout the cavernous nave of the Grand Palais are mountains of shipping containers.
Books
Reader’s Diary: Lorraine Lupo's 'By Way Of'
Cards on the table: I prefer short poems to long ones, slender bodies of work to massive ones. So naturally, I consider the best way to read poetry is not in a book, but in a chapbook.