Artist Gerhard Richter works in his studio in 1984. Gerhard Richter took a pronouncedly dead medium and brought it back to life. To be fair, painting had been claimed to be on its last legs time and time again, onlyRead more…
Hamilton: Who Lives Who Dies Who Tells Your Story
The Interested Story-Teller Alexander Hamilton walked down the ladder carrying a book in one arm and a sac in the other, curious and thrilled. He just finished the journey from an obscure Caribbean island to New York. He walkedRead more…
Telling a Story Through Abstract Expressionism
Any experience at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City begins the moment its unique exterior comes into view–once you cross the street and are faced with the circling levels of architecture in front of you. Standing in line andRead more…
What Happened to J. Hoberman?
James Lewis Hoberman, more commonly referred to as J. Hoberman, was laid off as senior film critic of the Village Voice in 2012. Hoberman is unquestionably one of the most influential critics of the last forty years. Once the newsRead more…
“To Listen to change–listen in order to change–listen for change:”
Sonic Meditations XIII (1974) By Pauline Oliveros Read more…
The Work of Contemporalaties (Or, say contemporaneity 5 times fast)
One would think answering a question as simple as “what does contemporary mean” could be answered in a few words. It is now, it is of the moment, it is the zeitgeist. Right? Well, sort of. Some, like Claire Bishop,Read more…
Treblemakers: the Meaning of “Friendsgiving”
Treblemakers A Cappella, Harris Hall, Northwestern University, 10PM, November 19th, 2016. I left the concert with warmth and comfort. I arrived at Harris Hall around 9:45 pm, picked up a free milk tea (which was quite good) at the lobby,Read more…
Princess Nokia and the Emancipated Spectator
When Princess Nokia entered, the lights went dark and the audience cheered as they rushed towards her. But for the hours of other performances before that, the expansive room was bright. From my place in the crowd, I could turnRead more…
German Requiem: An Inquiry into Life Through Death
To Accept Death as Part of Life When Grandpa passed away, the family took out the battery from the clock, and sat at the table in front of it for twenty-four hours until they restarted it. To me, it wasRead more…
The Contemporary as “The Present in Drag”
On the sidewalk outside of the KW museum in Berlin, my friend Justin and I walked past two girls that looked familiar. “I think those were the girls we saw on the train,” he said. One day earlier, during aRead more…
Musings on the Contemporary from the Heart of the Past
I have been thinking a lot about the concept of a “dialectical contemporary” since reading Radical Museology by Claire Bishop. After following her on a flighty journey through three “contemporary” museums and discussing the benefits and drawbacks of their methods,Read more…
No Contemporary Art, Only Contemporary Interpretation
Con: together with Tempus: time Three years ago when I was a freshman taking my first history course, Professor Melissa Macauley talked about one moment she recalled from 1989, China, when she was a visiting student at Beijing: “IRead more…
Common and the Contemporary
Defining the contemporary could be really simple. If someone broke into my house, shook me awake and asked what it meant, I would probably just tell them it means belonging to or occurring in the present. If that same personRead more…
Can we define the contemporary?
Often when I tell people I’m applying to Ph.D. programs in contemporary art I get one of two responses. Either they say with vague congratulations, “Wow,” or the more pesky ones ask: “What’s the difference between contemporary and modern art?”Read more…
A Critic’s Role in the Golden Age
“TV is a problem only if you’ve forgotten how to look and listen,” claims a university professor in Don DeLillo’s novel White Noise. He complains that his students are no longer open to the medium; they find television “worse thanRead more…
How to Praise “Moonlight”
“It’s perfect,” remarked a friend of mine, a 21-year-old who identifies as a black and queer man, just after seeing Barry Jenkins’s new film “Moonlight.” He had trouble even putting into words one core tenant that made the filmRead more…