Books
Molly Nesbit Chases the Big Ideas
“I’m interested in how ideas function in the world, in questions of practice, not just theory,” Nesbit told me. “I’m not interested in theory per se, but rather in thinking.”
Weekend
Art
The Feminist Avant-Garde, Now More than Ever
Their only solution was to make their revolution their own way, without help and without precedent.
Art
Required Reading
This week, Peggy Guggenheim's life in Venice, curating Black Radical Women in Brooklyn, talking to art dealers in Santa Fe, the horrible Damien Hirst show, the legacy of Confederate monuments, and more.
Art
Weekend Words: Letter
"Never write a letter if you can help it, and never destroy one!"
Books
Staying Up with Suzanne Buffam’s A Pillow Book
Buffam’s A Pillow Book is a smart, funny, provocative collection of lists, research into pillows and sleeplessness, and details about all kinds of people, including famous insomniacs.
Art
A Celebration of the Rat Bastards: Joan Brown, Bruce Conner, Jean Conner, Jay DeFeo, George Herms, Wally Hedrick, and Others
Shortly after coming to San Francisco, Conner formed what he christened the “Rat Bastard Society.” Conner told the curator Peter Boswell that the name was fitting for “people who were making things with the detritus of society, who themselves were ostracized or alienated from full involvement with s
Art
The State of Self
I still maintain the belief in the possibility of some positive, humanitarian outcomes.
Art
Reimagined Landscapes: Frank Romero's Los Angeles
Born and raised in a middle-class family in Boyle Heights, Romero captured the pulse of Los Angeles through his pictorial and more abstract painting of decorated cars and the vast freeways (portrayed as our cultural shrines) connecting the different parts of the city.
Art
Mercedes Matter’s Awful, Wonderful Itch
Matter was a believer in the possibility of channeling a total, magical presence – even if it meant destroying a work or never completing it.
Art
In Hiroyuki Doi’s Tiny Circles, Expanding Miniature Universes
Doi has written that “using circles to produce images” provided him with “relief from the sadness and grief” he felt following his brother’s death. Since that time, his circle motif has alluded to such themes as “the transmigration of the soul, the cosmos, the coexistence of living creatures, human
Art
On Life and Work: Hannah Black and Petra Buchegger
In Vienna, two shows offer meditations on the body, the earth, labor, and fate.
Art
Required Reading
This week, whitewashing ancient history, Alice Neel's Indian-American portrait, taking an online architecture course at Harvard, the birth of global tourism, street libraries and neoliberalism, and more.