Mourning at the Museum: Montreal’s Post-Sincere Send-Off for Leonard Cohen
The impulse to grieve publicly is a measure of our turbulent times. We know, lately, the need to share a collective sadness. However, before…
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Crocodile Tears: Ed Atkins and the Crisis of Pathetic Masculinity
Type “Ed Atkins” into Google, and you’ll shortly come face to face with an asshole: not the artist himself – though his smiling visage…
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Does the Sublime Know Change? Updating Landscape for the Anthropocene
The notion that we live in the Anthropocene, an era defined by human influence on our planet, bestows a new gravity upon representations of…
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Darkling Futures and Desert Hangover at the New SITE Sante Fe
Two brand-new, chunky metal triangles jut out and join above the glassy entrance of the black cinderblock edifice that houses the recently-renovated SITE Santa…
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Against Tidy Memory: Anti-Fascist Memorials and the Horror of Kitsch
Like a catchy Schlager tune, rightwing populism in Germany has matured into a countrywide plague. Historical guilt, which had until recently stalled the nationalism…
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Everybody Knows: Prada Foundation’s Stylish Cynicism
The last time Leonard Cohen appeared on her radio show in 2006, Fresh Air host Terry Gross told him she wanted to play “one…
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Privilege as Political Tool: Tania Bruguera on the Usefulness of Art
Because the question of art’s utility isn’t new, Tania Bruguera, the Cuban artist who’s often been referred to as a “dissident” and “political activist,”…
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Palpable Urgency and Understated Ecology: Latvia’s “Survival Kit 9”
Remember that chunk of the Antarctic that fell into the sea, earlier this year? How big was it? Three trillion tons? Three hundred miles?…
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Joseph Tisiga Unsettles Exoticism with Mythic Force at Parisian Laundry
Joseph Tisiga paints people in odd situations, and I keep wondering, how do they feel? The Yukon artist’s characters rarely show much emotion, even…
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“Pacific Standard Time” Writes Overlooked Chicano Artists Back Into Art History
On a Monday morning in May 2015, artist David Avalos stood on the stage of a packed auditorium at the Getty Center in Los…
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