Performance
An After-Midnight Murder Mystery Takes Place in a Cemetery
How do you get people to see theater in a Bronx cemetery at three in the morning? Don't tell them where they're going.
Reviews
Art
Laboring Over Walead Beshty's Bodies
LOS ANGELES — Walead Beshty’s solo exhibition at Regen Projects, Selected Bodies of Work, claims to “address bodies and labor as they are rendered visible in or on the art object.” Where and what are these bodies and labor?
Art
Pat Steir and the Properties of Paint
Pat Steir cut her teeth in the 1970s and went on to become part of the fabric of the New York art world. From her quasi-conceptual paintings of that decade to the Waterfall paintings of the late '80s, Steir has long been something of a ubiquitous presence — but, like many of her generation, she also
Art
Cady Noland and Diane Arbus Make a Picnic Out of You
The current show at Gagosian, Portraits of America: Diane Arbus/Cady Noland is in a small gallery reachable only by walking into and through the Gagosian's Upper East Side gift shop. In order to see the exhibition, to enter the gallery, one must first pass through this physical barrier.
Art
Collaging Art History in the Kitchen
Suffering from inner ear problems possibly related to the chemicals in the black-and-white photographic process, and urged further by the extinction of Kodak film, Jed Devine has turned to (gasp!) digital, and what's more, to color. He might as well be working in a different medium altogether.
Music
Fagen's Critical Catalogue (March 2014, Part 1)
In part 1 of this month, reviews of Beck, 2NE1, Eric Church, and St Vincent.
Art
Jasper Johns’s Reinvention of an Old and Familiar Subject
Regrets — the collective title of Jasper Johns’s most recent series of paintings, drawings, and prints — is currently on display at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (March 15–September 1, 2014). The inspiration for the series was a ripped, crumpled and stained photograph of Lucian Freud perched on
Books
Art of Darkness: Matt Kish Illustrates Conrad's Classic
What’s stunning about Matt Kish’s illustrations for Heart of Darkness — one for every page of Joseph Conrad’s text — is how sunny they are. His modest palette comprises yellow, green, black, and white, with the occasional hit of red, orange, or blue. The novel, on the other hand, is tonally dark: se
Art
Fresh from the Cosmic Junk Heap: The Sculpture of Peter Buggenhout
Peter Buggenhout’s massive stacks of debris hang off the wall or sprawl across the floor in a state of dereliction and collapse, monumental castoffs from a world spinning out of control.
Art
Counting Up With Martin Creed
LONDON — The fact he gives each work a number is the first thing anyone learns about Martin Creed. His website lists "Work No. 3" up to "Work No. 1674" and counting. Pointing out the UK artist likes seriality is like pointing out that Pollock liked drips or that Duchamp liked plumbing or even the fa
Books
Artists Offer Their Escapes from Creative Block
It seems like a lot of artists just have it together, never missing a beat in churning out work as if on an assembly line powered by boundless creativity. Of course the truth is, everyone gets in a rut sometimes that can feel like being lodged in the Mariana Trench.
Art
Living in a Post-Private World
What if we were more aware of the thoughts and exchanges that we're unwittingly making public? That's the intention of neverhitsend, a 12-person LA-based arts and technology collective that formed in 2013, post–Snowden leaks, to discuss issues of digital communications today.