“She Comes in Colors”: A Portrait of Sarah Cain, Painter
This is the first entry in a new series titled “Portraits,” by Momus contributing editor Andrew Berardini. The project is an experiment: Berardini sits…
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Gallerist Virginia Dwan, the Reluctant Legend
“Any ideas of art history or significance were forgotten,” wrote gallerist Virginia Dwan in 1990, remembering the first time she saw one of Yves…
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Modernist Frederick Kiesler is “Rediscovered” Between Abstraction and Compromise
In 1990, Berlin’s Potsdamer Platz was a wasteland. German partition had sent the square back in time, making space for “The City of the…
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“The Only Things That are Unchangeable are Tombstones”: Vito Acconci (1940-2017)
Vito Acconci, a towering figure in the history of performance art, and more recently known for his experimental architecture, has died at the age…
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The Tonal Ambivalence of Feminist Land Art Retreat
In 2005, at the Canadian Pavilion for the Venice Biennale, Indigenous artist Rebecca Belmore projected a video installation called Fountain onto a wall of…
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The Inevitable Cannibalization of Institutional Critique: Surveying Michael Asher and Christopher D’Arcangelo in L.A.
Emma Goldman described anarchism as “a living force in the affairs of our life, constantly creating new conditions,” refusing a “theory of the future…
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The Enduring Popularity of Fictional Critic “Madame Realism”
Even self-assured egos have their sensitive spots. This was certainly true of Madame Realism, a fictional critic who, from 1984 until 2007, analyzed art…
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Hannah Black Transcends the Dana Schutz Controversy with a Slow-Burn MoMA PS1 Performance
The beautiful weather and the Spring Open House invitation – highlighting some new and promising exhibitions featuring works by Ian Cheng, Maureen Gallace, and Tomáš…
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What Kind of Criticism Do We Need Now? Coming to Terms with Teju Cole’s “Known and Strange Things”
“We look at them for the way they cooperate with the imagination, the way they contain what cannot otherwise be accommodated, and the…
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An Elegy for Beau Dick (1955–2017)
Beau Dick was given the name “Walis Gwy Um,” which means “big, great whale” in the Kwak’wala language. His carvings tap into the supernatural,…
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