Books
Fusing Language and Landscape in Poetry
Lynn Melnick’s poetry — particularly its themes of sexual abuse, rape culture, violence, sex work, and drug use — pushes the boundary between public and private.
Weekend
Art
When a Painting Becomes an Incantation
Douglas Florian’s choice of words reminds us how much our nation indulges in name-calling and name checks.
Art
Laurel Nakadate’s Diary of Mourning
Nakadate’s The Kingdom is haunted by grief and irrevocable loss.
Art
The Great Victim
The oppressor assumes the role of the oppressed.
Art
Family, Landscape, and Race in Sally Mann’s Photographs
Mann’s historical and social explorations are anchored in her embrace of her identity as a Southerner.
Art
Nature Painting as Rorschach Test
Colin Brant paints a peaceable kingdom of leopards, orangutans, owls, and parrots.
Art
Carrie Moyer Reaches for the Stars
Moyer’s new paintings revel in color and visual pleasure, scrambling distinctions between abstraction and representation.
Art
Required Reading
This week, viral photo of the SpaceX launch, art and tech's complicity, Thomas Heatherwick's "The Vessel," travel in the age of Instagram, drone fashion models, the Las Vegas painting with a cult following, and more.
Art
Guarding Treasure in Louis Sullivan's Banks
With their winged lions, tapestry brick, interior murals, and stained glass windows, Sullivan’s banks instantly draw the eye.
Books
Douglas Crase, Literary Subversive
The entire body of Crase’s writing invites the kind of close attention that is usually reserved for poetry.
Art
Peter Williams's Everyday American Hell
Williams has a deeply personal awareness of the irreparable harm done to black bodies.
Art
Where Angels Fear to Tread
The marble floors are turning red.