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John Banville

His Own Worst Enemy

In Van Gogh’s letters, his tone is consistently that of a man still aflame after a violent argument.

May 13, 2021 issue

Ingrid D. Rowland

Light in the Palazzo

Hidden away and neglected for decades, works from the world’s greatest private collection of ancient sculptures are finally on public display in Rome.

May 13, 2021 issue

Hilton Als

Remembrance of Things Past

Catherine Opie is interested in where her subjects are on the inside at the moment she’s taking a photograph.

May 13, 2021 issue

Sanford Schwartz

Young and in Love

Salman Toor’s absorbing show at the Whitney depicts the pleasures, tensions, and small moments of gay life.

April 8, 2021 issue

Jacqueline Woodson

‘The Tools We Have’: A Photo History of African Women

A new book offers a striking visual history of African women from 1870 to 1970.

January 23, 2021

Leo Rubinfien

‘My Eyes Are Infamously Greedy’

Japan’s energetic culture of the photobook, from 1912 to today.

February 11, 2021 issue

Susan Tallman

Philip Guston’s Discomfort Zone

How is it that the artist, dead these forty years, is still pushing our buttons?

January 14, 2021 issue

Colin B. Bailey

Suffering, Unfaltering Manet

Even in ill health, the painter continued to shock his audience.

December 3, 2020 issue

The Latest

Sasha Frere-Jones

The Paranoid Style in Adam Curtis

His films choreograph archive footage, charismatic pop, and portentous commentary in pursuit of a dark, totalizing narrative—all the seduction of conspiracy theory without the substance.

May 8, 2021

Adam Shatz

A Blues Surrealist

Julius Hemphill’s music uses stark, lyrical abstraction and svelte dissonances to confront the vicissitudes of black American life.

May 27, 2021 issue

Mark Gevisser

‘Moffie’ and Me

South African filmmakers are confronting an aspect of the apartheid era that marked my generation: an abusive masculinity defined by its homophobia.

May 3, 2021

Ingrid D. Rowland

See Rome and Feel Alive

“The city itself is an artistic treasure, so there was always something to see even when museums were closed.”

May 1, 2021

Carole Naggar

Marc Riboud’s Roving Lens

A retrospective conveys the breadth and close attention of this Magnum photographer as he traveled the world.

May 1, 2021

Claudia Dreifus

‘Comic Terrorism Works’: An Interview with John Waters

The avant-garde filmmaker who wanted to be the filthiest person alive has ended up becoming a national treasure. How did that happen?

April 29, 2021

J. Hoberman

Fantastic Fixation in ‘Photo Brut’

Ingenuity and obsession characterize this disquieting and uplifting exhibition of self-taught photographers.

April 25, 2021

Willa Glickman

A Park Apart

In Irina Rozovsky’s In Plain Air, Brooklyn’s Prospect Park is an oasis of recreation.

April 23, 2021

Matthew Aucoin

A Dance to the Music of Death

Thomas Adès turns fleetingly recognizable musical elements into unstable, volatile substances tending toward evanescence and escape.

May 13, 2021 issue

Jed Perl

See More, Think More

The art historian Leo Steinberg tried in his writings to reconcile a passion that was inarguably subjective with a desire for something like objectivity.

May 13, 2021 issue