A new retrospective of Hamid Zénati is also an important record of an interconnected North African modernism.
Reviews
Posted inArt Review
The Intense Intimacy of Caravaggio
He seems to speak to us directly and clearly, given his love of striking light and shadow. We experience him personally.
Posted inBook Review
Alice Austen’s Pioneering Lesbian Gaze
Her intimate photographs of women include humor and playfulness, and speak to her closeness to her subjects.
Posted inArt Review
An LA Show Breathes New Life Into Fire-Damaged Art
Burn Me! at The Box examines how fire has shaped art and life west of the San Bernardino Mountains — in the last six months and far earlier.
Posted inArt Review
For Glenn Ligon, Language Is Material
An exhibition of Ligon’s well-known works at the Brant Foundation shows how language fails us and confronts us with silence.
Posted inBook Review
Henri Matisse Never Really Left Morocco
Inspired by the colors and textiles around him, the artist’s two trips to Tangier became an impetus for growth and exploration.
Posted inArt Review
Marisol Was Nobody’s It Girl
A retrospective rescues aspects of her career from her long-running reputation as “glamorous girl artist,” including her politics, humor, and sense of self.
Posted inArt Review
Ali Banisadr Paints a World in Calamity
Banisadr makes images that are relentless in their toiling motion — he paints as if bedlam is foundational to the world.
Posted inBook Review
If the US-Mexico Border Could Talk
Echoes from the Borderlands, which transcribes a sound installation tracing the border, insists on the land’s inextricability from the history to which it bears witness.
Posted inBook Review
How Painting Saved One of Our Most Iconic Designers
A visit to Michaels craft store helped restore book jacket designer Peter Mendelsund during a deep bout of depression.
Posted inArt Review
John Wilson Spent a Lifetime Making Blackness Visible
His social realism style was well suited to the difficult subjects, including racism and other forms of oppression, he took on in his art.
Posted inArt Review
Edvard Munch Was a Magician of Light
A show at London’s National Portrait Gallery reveals the artist’s astonishing technical skills, but the wall texts are laugh-out-loud amusing at best and art historically dangerous at worst.