Art
The City and the (Giant, Blue) Cock
LONDON — Katharina Fritsch’s "Hahn/Cock," the new sculpture placed on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square, London, was unveiled on July 25th.
Reviews
Books
When the Brooklyn Bridge Was Attacked by a Tentacle Monster and Other Alternate Histories
A little known fact: a great obstacle to the building of the Brooklyn Bridge was Rosie the East River Monster, whose tentacle can be seen grasping at the completed structure in an 1883 illustration.
Art
Why Was a Major Outsider Art Survey 91.3% Male?
LONDON — A major survey of outsider art, Hayward Gallery's Alternative Guide to the Universe closed on August 26. It was a show featuring many of outsider art's most prolific practitioners of the last several decades, all under the aegis of providing institutional space for "alternative" modes of kn
Art
Abstract Expressionism’s Missing Link
Angels, Demons, and Savages: Pollock, Ossorio, Dubuffet, which was organized by Klaus Ottmann and Dorothy Kosinki for The Phillips Collection, Washington DC. (February 9–May 23, 2013) and is currently at the Parrish Art Museum, Watermill, New York (July 21–October 27, 2013), is — for many reasons —
Art
Simon Hantaï’s Discontent
In 1983, at the height of his career, Simon Hantaï (1922–2008), then sixty years old, decided to withdraw from the art scene and stop exhibiting his work, if not to stop painting altogether. He would not show again until 1998, a fifteen-year hiatus and self-imposed silence that echo with more force
Books
Was the Legendary Hanging Garden Not in Babylon at All?
Of all the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the location of the Hanging Garden of Babylon remains the most elusive, even with its believed home right there in its name. However, new research suggests it wasn't in Babylon at all, but in another city over 300 miles away.
Art
Two Pioneers of Arab Abstraction, Side by Side
LONDON — In a time of acute upheaval, there is something comforting about the concurrent retrospectives currently on view at the Tate Modern for two seminal Arab modernists, Saloua Raouda Choucair and Ibrahim El-Salahi.
Books
Consider the Migrant
Think of T.J. Demos’s The Migrant Image as a field guide to art for those interested in the politics of human rights, globalization, migration, and war.
Music
Fagen’s Critical Catalogue (August 2013, Part 2)
This week, reviews of J Cole, The-Dream, Robin Thicke, and Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeroes.
Art
What Does It Mean to Be Alternative at the Museum of Everything?
LONDON — The Museum of Everything, a twee traveling carnival of outsider art, seems to have appeared just about everywhere since its founding in 2009, from the Chalet Society in Paris to Selfridges department store in London.
Art
A Slice of Space, History, and Time at the Whitney Museum
When Robert Irwin abandoned his Venice beach studio in 1970 he did not know where he would go next.
Books
Better than Central Park: Olmsted and Vaux's Brooklyn Masterpiece
While we may not participate in miniature yacht races or have games of lawn tennis, the experience of visitors today to Brooklyn's Prospect Park isn't radically different from when it first opened in 1867.