What’s Become of the “Curator”?
After a decade or more in which soi-disant curators bestrode the earth like canapé-guzzling colossi, a subtle schism is underway, led by a number…
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A Culture War is Coming
Very early on November 9 – about a minute after permanent midnight – the stunned responses started rolling in. “WTF are you doing over…
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Towards the Profane: Mierle Laderman Ukeles Exercises Her “Maintenance” at Queens Museum
The Queens Museum is devoting more space than it has ever given over to a single artist to survey the career of Mierle Laderman…
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After Brexit, Art Must Break Out of Its Bubble
In the early days of 2009, to celebrate its ascendancy to the presidency of the European Union, the Czech Republic commissioned a special artwork…
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Evasion and Euphemism: The Guggenheim Underintellectualizes and Depoliticizes László Moholy-Nagy
In 1921, the Hungarian expat László Moholy-Nagy (1895-1946), then in Berlin, signed a “Call for Elementarist Art,” alongside Theo van Doesburg, Hans Arp, and…
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The Pantomimed Fellowship of Nicole Eisenman’s “Al-ugh-ories”
Nicole Eisenman – beloved New York painter, now MacArthur-certified “Genius” – has just opened a show at the New Museum with the jokey title, “Al-ugh-ories.” The single-floor showing…
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“I Wanted to Find a Way to Respond”: Artist Ben Quilty on Working with Refugees
How do you conceive of the human cost of the largest refugee crisis since World War II? Though images of the overcrowded boats crossing…
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The State of the Artworld, Explained
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan is opening its new contemporary art initiative, taking over the old Whitney Museum of American Art’s building…
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The Hermetic Lyricism of Anri Sala
“When I first showed the city footage in Poughkeepsie, [artist] Liam Gillick said to me, ‘Anri, tell me the truth. Tell me that this…
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Do You Have to Be Rich to Make It as an Artist?
On my end-of-the-year “Best Shows” list, I nominated Rachel Rose’s hypnotic Everything and More video at the Whitney Museum of American Art. In response,…
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