Books
Photographs from an Underground Laser Laboratory
Deep beneath the University of Texas in Austin, the Texas Petawatt Laser can reach a power of 1,000 trillion watts — around 2,000 times that generated by all the country's power plants combined.
Reviews
Film
Dismantling the Higher Ed Swindle
Last week, Pioneer Works hosted a film screening of documentarian Andrew Rossi’s Ivory Tower followed by a panel discussion about the increasing cost, complex ideological underpinnings, and social dynamics of higher education in the United States.
Art
Hotel Paranoia: An Embedded View of Edward Snowden
BERLIN — A spirit of “fearlessness and fuck-you” drove NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden to make his identity public, explains reporter Glenn Greenwald in Laura Poitras’s documentary, Citizenfour.
Art
The Topic Is Change, and Artist Robert Waters Sweats It Out
TOKYO — Robert Waters is a 40-year-old Canadian conceptual artist who was born and brought up near Toronto. Later he lived in Mexico City, where he explored the rituals, beliefs and symbols associated with colonial and post-colonial Mexico’s variety of Roman Catholicism.
Art
Moving Targets: The Invisible Hand of Hans Haacke
David H. Koch, the left’s favorite low-hanging fruit, is the subject of Hans Haacke’s latest jeremiad on the state of institutional culture, an installation called “The Business Behind Art Knows the Art of the Koch Brothers” (2014), which takes aim at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s newly unveiled
Art
Harun Farocki and Antje Ehmann Arrive at Work
BOSTON — Two factory doors swing open and a rabble emerges. French workers literally stream out into the world in a seemingly choreographed departure after a long day at work.
Books
An Astronaut's Photographs of our Planet's Beauty and Mutilations
Astronaut photography has been influential on the perception of our planet almost since the first space missions.
Art
Pedestrian Art, Between Transportation and Perspective
LOS ANGELES — The crisply focused exhibition Following the Prescribed Path takes place in a city that is notoriously sprawling and impractical for long-distance walking.
Art
In the Relics of a Desert Utopia, a More Sustainable Future
It never reached the 5,000 inhabitants its creator dreamed of or produced much more than decorative wind-chimes, but the utopian city of Arcosanti may have just been ahead of its time. Designed by Italian architect Paolo Soleri, the compact metropolis was the embodiment of his idea of "arcology" — a
Art
Reading a Drawing Without Labels
Dan Miller has created some of the most glorious work that I’ve seen in a long time.
Art
The Very Modern Portraits of Egon Schiele
The central question of portraiture is how to best turn its subjects inside out — how to best manipulate an inanimate medium so as to capture an animate sitter with a hidden history of invisible experience.
Books
A Colorful Compendium of Infographics for Understanding the World Now
From the amount the potential tax revenue from legalizing drugs worldwide to disappearing seed varieties, data journalist David McCandless transforms abstract information into engaging visuals.