Books
Reader's Diary: Edward St. Aubyn's ‘The Patrick Melrose Novels’
To begin reading a contemporary novel isn’t easy, if you’re not in the habit.
Weekend
Art
An Ivory Tower Artist: Joe Bradley’s Recent Paintings, Sculptures, and Drawings
His work suggests that once Bradley conceives of his project, he is able to pass effortlessly through the style, like an adept actor able to play any role as long as it isn’t too serious and doesn’t require a lot of feeling.
Art
Full Steam Ahead: Steve DiBenedetto’s Recent Paintings
Steve DiBenedetto has not been sitting still. I cannot imagine that he ever does.
Interview
Beer with a Painter: June Leaf
Walking through the green door into June Leaf’s old-school New York studio — a street-level space downtown — is a bit like entering a Willy Wonka world.
Art
Alexander Girard: Design for the World — and Just About Everything in It
Sometimes an exhibition can be so packed with information and ideas that it can send viewers racing home to try their hands at their own creations. That’s the kind of pay-off that can feel as rewarding as examining a deeply illuminating show itself.
Music
Kanye West Fragmented
First things first: Kanye West’s release strategy for his new album was a catastrophe.
Art
Graven Images and Desert Edens: The Art of Harry Sternberg
The political diction of the 1930s has made a comeback. Long-gone buzzwords like “socialism,” “fascism,” “the rich,” “worker rights,” “economic crisis” and “Wall Street bankers” have been bandied about these past few years, amplified by news cycles and social media memes.
Art
Theater, Science, Music: The Expansive Art of Fausto Melotti
There are numerous points of beguilement throughout the show, beginning in the very first room off the street.
Opinion
Required Reading
This week, the attention web, Art Institute of Chicago's rehanging, Superman's Jewishness, Libeskind in Kurdistan, defining neoliberalism, and more.
Opinion
Weekend Words: Fraud
"Whoever is born in New York is ill-equipped to deal with any other city: all other cities seem, at best, a mistake, and, at worst, a fraud. No other city is so spitefully incoherent."
Books
Reader's Diary: Franklin Bruno's 'Armed Forces’
I keep wondering whether it’s really possible to write at length and in depth about this kind of music.
Art
The Wild Children of William Blake
Raymond Foye – who possesses an encyclopedic knowledge of various underground currents of poetry, music, and art – is the only person on the planet who could have conceived of this exhibition, Dark Star: Abstraction and Cosmos at Planthouse.