Art
The Body Politic, in the Flesh
A snapshot of a singularly unhinged moment in American politics has inadvertently envisioned an uncertain and potentially terrifying future.
Weekend
Art
Required Reading
This week, it's all about the Trumpocalypse, including fake news and other signs of a waning US democracy.
Art
Weekend Words: Block
"Americans will put up with anything as long as it doesn't block traffic."
Books
Reader’s Diary: Pierre Reverdy’s ‘The Song of the Dead’
I daresay Pierre Reverdy is the favorite French poet among American poets. But how well do we really know his work?
Art
The Quick and the Dead
Salvatore Scarpitta’s imagination was wild and full of high jinks. It is one reason why the art world has never known what to do with him.
Art
The Triumph of the Chickens
Like Ralph Ellison, who did not think of the Invisible Man as a protest novel, Kerry James Marshall is interested in the nuances of invisibility, in how much goes unseen, and the many different ways willful blindness manifests itself.
Music
Leonard Cohen R.I.P.
In addition to everything else he was — poet, wordsmith, conceptmaster, religious seeker, suave scruffy ladies’ man, Zen monk, belated concert fixture — he was also a major political songwriter.
Music
We Need Ear Candy More Than Ever: Rae Sremmurd, Tegan & Sara, Shura, Reekado Banks
Usually I mix positive reviews with mixed ones. Given recent events I couldn’t bear to be mean — I'm working up to it, I swear — so here are four albums that I love.
Performance
Conceptual Dance Lite: Jérôme Bel's Elemental Choreography
For more than twenty years, the French choreographer has pioneered a kind of dance that highlights the biography and particularity of the performer.
Art
David Antin: Cultural Icon
I had long been involved with David Antin through my close relationship with Marjorie Perloff, who was one of the first major US critics to engage in a critical dialogue with him and his writing.
Art
A Breach in the Membrane: Gwenn Thomas
In recent years, luminosity itself has emerged as Gwenn Thomas's ultimate subject.
Art
The Worst Years of Our Lives
As it happens, there are currently two exhibitions in New York that offer glimpses into the bonding of artistic communities in defiance of the encroaching darkness, first in rage and then in compassion.