Ways of Seeing John Berger, in Two Recent Documentaries
“It’s in hell where solidarity is important, not in heaven.” – John Berger, Seasons in Quincy Media veracity, it seems clear, has dissolved into…
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Romancing the Stone: Three Berlin Exhibitions Commune with the Ancients
The past vexes us. Longing to feel connected to it, those with money tour the world’s ancient ruins searching antediluvian kin. Meanwhile in Eurocentric contemporary…
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The Past Imperfect of Jutta Koether
For many years, Jutta Koether drained blood and love from the color red. In her paintings, that untouchable hue became atmosphere for a genus…
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The Ellipses of Eva Hesse: Reading Her Collected Diaries
Eva Hesse’s collected diaries begin at the end. In the book’s last sentence, editor Barry Rosen thanks Hesse’s friend Gioia Timpanelli for discovering the…
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Simone Leigh’s Powerful Meditation on Race and Healthcare Suffers, Ironically, from Lack of Access
Within intimate relationships, symptoms of passive aggression range from mild irritation to buckling torpor. When the relationship is between entire populations and corrupted institutions,…
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Dumb Material and Animate Belief: Sadie Benning Plays (with) God
Occasionally, a show hits the sweet spot so squarely, that critical faculties seem to evaporate on the tip of one’s tongue. In the case…
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The Renewed Focus and Acrid Targeting of Rachel Harrison at MoMA and Greene Naftali
Rachel Harrison’s acidic colors, faux-finish surfaces, and otherwise unseemly media screech like saboteurs of good taste. Unlike a certain nascent presidential candidate, however, they…
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Wresting the Work of Straub and Huillet from the Annals of Academia and Art History
How much homework should we expect to slog through, en route to art? One could surmise “A lot,” according to Jean Marie Straub and…
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Emerging Artist Neil Beloufa Turns Smug at MoMA
As subject matter, the debased utopia is low-hanging fruit. Every continent has a few, and they emanate intoxicating aromas of corrupted idealism. In making…
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The Unspecific (But Straining) Politics of Joan Jonas
Long an idiosyncratic priestess of the limbo between myth and art, Joan Jonas has moved into pagan revivalism. They Come to Us Without a…
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