Art
When Commercial Television Met the Art World
About halfway through the Jewish Museum’s Revolution of the Eye: Modern Art and the Birth of American Television, you can watch a curious short video circa 1952 directed by Sidney Peterson.
Reviews
Books
The Most Fantastic Architecture of the Soviet Union Was Built on Paper
Restricted by the aesthetic limits on architecture in the Soviet Union, Alexander Brodsky and Ilya Utkin imagined the most fantastic cities and wondrous structures on paper.
Books
Obsession, Exploded: The Stories of Clarice Lispector
“How do I know?” asks a character standing in for author Clarice Lispector in “Before the Rio–Niterói Bridge,” included in New Directions’ recent release of The Complete Stories. “I know the same way you do by imaginative guessing. I know, period.”
Art
Will Some Bright Morning Ever Arrive?
NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ — In 1963, while living in Los Angeles, Melvin Edwards welded “Some Bright Morning” out of different pieces of steel scrap metal, including a heavy chain and a dagger-like fragment extending from a circular, collar-like form.
Art
Justine, a Prophet: Blindness and Vision in Lars von Trier’s 'Melancholia'
The opening shot of Lars von Trier’s Melancholia (2011) is a close-up of Justine (played by Kirsten Dunst) her eyes shut, her wet, white-blonde hair wild, a feral halo around her face. And then she slowly opens her eyes.
Art
In and Out of Frame: Lorraine O’Grady’s “Art Is…”
Like a Choose Your Own Adventure story or a game of Mad Libs, the elliptical title of Lorraine O’Grady’s 1983 performance piece, “Art Is…,” creates space, playful and inviting, for structured audience participation.
Art
The Anti-Expressionist: Jack Tworkov’s Paradigm Shift
One of the many striking works in the exhibition Jack Tworkov: Mark and Grid is a large abstraction from 1977 called “Knight Series #8 (Q3-77 #2).” Resembling a Synthetic Cubist floor plan, it is in fact an experiment in gaming that looks back to the anti-art of Marcel Duchamp and forward to the rul
Art
Revisiting a 1992 Sign Project that Acknowledged NYC's Lost Histories
In 1992, artist collective REPOhistory installed 39 aluminum signs in Lower Manhattan that highlighted the overlooked history of New York City.
Art
The Erotics of the Everyday
MEXICO CITY — Martin Soto Climent’s solo show, now on view at Proyectos Monclova, illustrates humanity’s perverse ability to sexualize everyday objects.
Art
Wayfinding through Ruins and Castles in a Governors Island Art Intervention
It's unlikely you'd notice any of the art in Governors Island's Visitors without a map, as it's hiding in an abandoned swimming pool, a nondescript rock in a fortress, and those hulking billboards urban eyes are trained to ignore.
Art
Artists of African Descent Don Disguises in the Digital Age
SEATTLE — The Seattle Art Museum (SAM) attempts to confront the nuanced subtext of its vast collection of African masks in the ambitious and delightful exhibition Disguise: Masks and Global African Art.
Books
A Handy Beginner's Guide to Urban Light Projection
The Center for Urban Intervention Research recently released its first printed book, A Manual for Urban Projection, to illustrate the potentials of projection, particularly in urban spaces, whether sanctioned or not.