The Picture of Terror: Contemporary Art and the Islamic State
In January of 2015, Hito Steyerl ventured to the border between Turkey and Syria while the battle for Kobanê – a harrowing struggle between…
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Bad Faith in MOCA Toronto’s Inaugural Show, “Believe”
I’ve spent the better part of five months trying to write a review of a show that’s now closed: MOCA Toronto’s inaugural exhibition, Believe….
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What’s Wrong with a Fairly Good Biennial?
What’s not to like about good art, hung well – not too packed, not too sparse – across venues of many scales and vintages,…
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Signal and Noise: Sara Eliassen and the Visual Roots of Fascism
During an October campaign event leading up to the 2018 midterm elections, President Trump declared himself openly as a “nationalist,” but not a “white…
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The 57th Carnegie International Wanders in Search of “Museum Joy”
Ingrid Schaffner, curator of the 57th Carnegie International, announces in the exhibition’s accompanying book that “The aim of this International is simply to inspire…
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Shannon Bool Traces the Women of Algiers
The symbolism of ornament has long founded Shannon Bool’s practice, and that’s lucky. It’s lucky that something so alluring could be both legitimating and…
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Conspiracy, Discounted Histories, and Nostalgia at the Met Breuer
A common analogy for a sprawling, hypnotic, and potentially fruitless search on the Internet is the rabbit hole: dark, long, and terminating in a…
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How a Dynasty Defines Taste: The Deep Roots of Middle Eastern Abstraction
The Nicolas Ibrahim Sursock Museum opened its grand stairway entrance to the public on November 18, 1961, nine years after the death of its…
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The Bold Refusal of lauren woods’s “American Monument”
There is a room for reflection with plush fuchsia carpeting outside of American Monument, an exhibition by lauren woods (she always uses lower-case letters)…
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Marilyn Minter’s Co-opted Desire
“The internet wouldn’t exist without pornography,” Marilyn Minter quipped on at least two occasions while in Hong Kong for the opening of her summer…
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