Books
Some of the Best Art Books of 2020
Abstractions, illusions, DIY concoctions, museums touting their collections, and other holiday confections.
Weekend
Books
A Poet Who Wrote the Way Abstract Expressionists Painted
Barbara Guest stands apart as a radical traditionalist, committed to poetry’s clairvoyant, mythical potentials.
Art
The Bioweapons of Culture War
The hope now is not for this to end well, but simply for it to end.
Art
The Crude, Exhilarating, Watery Worlds of Alfred Wallis
Wallis tore up the rule book and pointed a way forward for British painting.
Books
Felix Gonzalez-Torres's Photostats Document Subjugation and Violence
The artist stretched constructs of authority and authorship to impel the viewer's awareness and participation.
Film
When Class Conflict Met Queer Romance
Ammonite tells a 19th-century love story that prompts less a tingle through the loins than a chill down the spine.
Music
Pop Noise Overkill
Big and loud music from Backxwash, Food House, Toriena, and Blackpink.
Art
Required Reading
This week, the racialization of painters' palettes, destruction concerns in Artsakh, why fascists like Dune, how Facebook didn't ban Holocaust deniers, elite panic, and more.
Interview
Beer with a Painter: Suzan Frecon
The content is the paint.
Art
Zac Skinner's Survivalist Sculptures
Skinner imagines the jury-rigged technology that would enable survival in the wake of apocalyptic climate disaster.
Interview
Artists Quarantine With Their Art Collections
“We’re all now isolated in our pods but still very susceptible to the outside noise of the world: I am guilty of this.”
Books
Yayoi Kusama’s Self-Portrait as a Young Provocateur
Kusama: The Graphic Novel is an ode to the power of art, which, on multiple occasions, saved her.