The Close-Up Reveals Nothing: How Deborah-Joyce Holman Complicates Interiority
A soft, warm light morphs into a shadow of a woman’s braided hair on the back of her neck. There is the sound of…
Read MoreFred Moten
As Flight or Escape: Ralph Lemon at MoMA PS1
Ralph Lemon has described choreography as “a daily event appropriate to uncontrolled circumstances.” If the traditional role of the choreographer is to determine the…
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Rearrange: Torkwase Dyson and Black Feminist Breathing
Spending time in a museum after it closes to the public holds a certain wonder. There is something invigorating about turning up where you…
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Wayne Salmon’s Portraits of Black Belonging in Kensington Market
In Kensington Market: Meditations on Home, photographer Wayne Salmon continues his decades-long rumination on the beauty of Black life within the wake of slavery….
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“As a Matter of Survival”: Dark Study on Making Art School a Radical Refuge
When I reached out to the directors of the “virtually-rooted” Dark Study, a recently-launched free experimental art school, I had envisioned writing a piece…
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Lifesaving and Abolitionism: Shifting the Frame on Prison Art
In March 2008, Ojore Lutalo received official denial of his request for release from solitary confinement at Trenton State Prison. In its appraisal of…
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Nick Mauss’s Continental Divide
Nick Mauss is a fan of verre eglomisé, or “distressed hand-gilded mirror,” a phrase that sounds very European, and very gay. The artist takes…
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Wu Tsang, Eileen Myles, and Me: Reading Zoe Leonard’s “I Want a President”
Recent art writing has been marked by a compulsion to cast every subject against an unfolding political crisis. Press releases, reviews, and essays implore…
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