Momus Best-Of Volume 3: 2016-17
I confess to experiencing regular doubt, lately, about what art criticism can contribute to the fray when the conversations we need to be having,…
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A Shattered Mirror: Geoffrey Farmer’s Disobedient Object in Venice
The Canadian Pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale has been partially destroyed. Its roof has been punctured, so it seems, by some inexplicable disaster….
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Free to Care Less: On the Cynicism of “Starting a Conversation”
This year’s spate of artworld controversies surrounding cultural appropriation and the ethics of representation suggests that we should sharpen our vocabulary, and find precise…
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Place, Space, or Backdrop: The Dilemma of Desert X, the “Coachella Biennial”
Against this summer’s alignment of Documenta 14, the Venice Biennale, and Skulptur Projekte Münster, the first edition of the Desert X biennial seemed to…
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Post-Confessional: The Aging Intimacies of Sophie Calle
In advance of Missing, French conceptual artist Sophie Calle’s first major retrospective in the United States, both New York Times Magazine and the Guardian…
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How to Act Ethically in Art
Don’t fuck the curator. Or the artist, the gallerist, the writer, or their editor. Unless, of course, you really want to. And, it almost…
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Art at the Border: Cutting for Signs in Pace Gallery’s “Border Cantos”
The phrase “cutting for sign” means searching a landscape for clues. This might refer to the search for a lost herd of cattle or…
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Mourning Jimmie Durham
In April, I wrote a review of an exhibition at the Hammer Museum at UCLA: “Jimmie Durham: At the Center of the World.” I…
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That’s the Way to Do It!: The Fairy Tale Life of Ydessa Hendeles
Let’s start with the premise that Ydessa Hendeles is an artist. And why shouldn’t we? Is it the fact that she started as a…
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Hélio Oiticica’s Journey From Art Visionary to Coke Dealer and Back Again
Hélio Oiticica, one of the most famous figures of Brazil’s mid-century surge of experimental art, once said that his goal was to strike “a…
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