The Apocalypse is Selective, Not Total: Geoffrey Pugen’s Disanthropic Moment
I clung to my ferocious habits, yet half despised them; I continued my war against civilization, and yet entertained a wish to belong to…
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Detective Stories about Feelings: The Driving Force of Peter Schjeldahl
Most of us have never known an art world without Peter Schjeldahl in it. We count on him being part of New York like…
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An Arch and a Gulf: When Public Art Falls Short of Social Reality
Today, iconic public artworks, both permanent and temporary, are defining visual elements of many urban landscapes – from the LOVE sculpture (1976) in Philadelphia…
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“There is a Tongue for This”: Aurora as Art Writing
The sky is called the firmament because it supposedly stays still. Abruptly, we saw this etymology break down: a thin vaporous green trail, like…
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Open Secrets: Gossip and the Reframing of a Canadian Painting Dynasty
The October 12, 2019, edition of CBC Radio’s “Weekend AM Newfoundland with Heather Barrett” begins with a Thanksgiving-themed story about Newfoundland’s love of the…
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After the Afterparty: Alan Belcher and Friends, in Retrospect
Alan Belcher’s Friends at Downs & Ross is an afterparty. The works in the exhibition are a series of mascot-like plush sculptures sitting in…
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The Art We Deserve: Luc Tuymans’s Exhausted Image
After days of historic high water and watching Venice’s warren of shops and restaurants struggle to survive, it was a relief to enter the…
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In the Waiting Room: The Sticky, Slippery Duration of “Sick Time”
It’s my last morning in Detroit, where I’ve come for two days to see an art exhibition. The wind’s picking up as I stand…
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Let Them Eat Crystal: Rodney Graham and the Bankruptcy of Ironic Art
The following words are angry. Their author has discarded the separation between emotion and analysis customary in his line of work. How else could…
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The Signs for Where We Meet: A Conversation Between Robert Fones and James Kirkpatrick
At the center of contemporary art, there is increasingly the absence of any center at all. We are flown wide, work digitally, and shuttle…
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