Madeleine Schwartz

NYR DAILY

El Salvador: A Town Without Violence?

A soldier in San José Guayabal, El Salvador, August 21, 2016

January 27, 2017

In El Salvador, gangs dictate a significant part of the economy, while the government’s law-and-order strategy has failed to reduce one of the highest murder rates in the world. Turning citizens into informants, the town of San José Guayabal claims to have defied this trend, anticipating violence before it happens. But it’s unclear whether its approach can be replicated at the national level.

Dressing for the King

August 13, 2016

The Renaissance accountant Matthäus Schwarz often took note of the outfits in which he looked particularly fine. In 1520, at age twenty-three, he hired an artist to draw his most notable getups and collected these in a book that he continued to fill throughout the rest of his life.

Intrusive, Invasive, Inquisitive Calle

November 1, 2015

In The Address Book, the French artist Sophie Calle found an address book on a Paris street, photocopied its pages, and returned it to its owner. She then interviewed the people listed within and published the results in the French daily Liberation. Critics of Calle’s work often describe it as mere snooping. She may be a an excellent stalker, but in her pursuit of strangers, Calle presents a kind of artistic Zeno’s paradox: the closer you get to someone else, the more you realize the distance separating you.

They Once Touched Roman Lips

Detail of a cup by Ennion, first century AD

May 31, 2015

“Ennion: Master of Roman Glass” was the Metropolitan Museum’s first ancient glass exhibit. This lovely small show presented the work of Ennion, the best-known glassmaker of antiquity. During his career in the first century AD, Ennion’s wares decorated the homes of Rome’s upper and middle classes from Jerusalem to Venice. The show is a welcome reminder of just how keen the Romans were about precious glassware—easy to forget, since so little of it survives.