Interventions
1.When I walked into “Gazing Ball,” Jeff Koons’s new show at David Zwirner, my first reaction was… pleasant surprise.The show, advertised as the opening shot in a Year of Koons leading up to his Whitney retrospective in 2014, consists of a number of...
What to make of Gutai? The Guggenheim’s survey of the mid-century Japanese avant-garde group, which closes today, is dazzling but also perplexing. There are iconic works like Tanaka Atsuko’s famous fashion-sculpture-technology hybrid “...
With over 50 paintings, “museum-quality” is probably the term you'd use to describe Gagosian’s Jean-Michel Basquiat show, which has been drawing rock-star crowds to West 24th street since it opened. But really, it might be better to...
Imagine yourself cracking open one of those terrible essays about “how young people talk today.” The author makes a big deal about how the kids are tossing around slangy abbreviations like “LOL” and “OMG.” But you are baffled to discover that in explaining...
You probably don’t want to read another article on art and money. I don’t really want to write one. But then again, I don’t really want to read another article about how humans are destroying the planet. But it's a fact that they are, and until it is not, I...
About one half hour before it goes up, the 40-foot-tall wooden sculpture at the center of Burning Man raises its hands to salute the sky. Summoned by the gesture, a vast crowd of revelers comes swarming in across the desert, lit up with glowsticks or...
President Obama’s reelection last week has put a blazing spotlight on the “emerging majority” thesis, thrusting it into the center of political discussion. Some pundits, including prominent Republicans, even question the party's future if they don't change...
Frankenstorm Sandy has shaken the city, from the aeries of its postmodern penthouses to the obscure reaches of its still-flooded subways. Many thousands remain without power, and the return to normalcy will be long and trying. Truth be told, the...
Today is S17. That’s the alphanumeric shorthand, for those who don’t know, for the one-year anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, the chaotic and inspiring anti-corporate/anti-capitalist movement that sprang up in Zuccotti Park last year, holding the center...
Six months ago, the artist Mike Kelley took his own life, at the age of 57. Everything the great abjectionist made is now lit by the terrible mystery of his suicide — you can't help but return to it looking for clues. Numerous tributes have...
