Needle on the Record
“You might say that a people or a movement must be constituted musically before it can be constituted politically.” This was one argument among many declared by Michael Denning
Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice
The artists Alex McQuilkin and Cindy Hinant and Kathy Battista, director of contemporary art at Sotheby’s Institute of Art in New York and senior research fellow at the Universit
Much Detachment, Very Labor, So Painting
A well-attended lecture by Isabelle Graw, a professor of art theory and a founding editor of the journal Texte zur Kunst, was titled “The Economy of Painting: Notes on t
A Better Everyday Life for the Many People
“IKEA is huge,” stated Sara Kristofferson, professor of design history and theory at Konstfack in Stockholm, Sweden. Who could argue with her? Founded in 1943, the immensely po
In Defense of Democracy
“People have lost faith in traditional democracy,” said the Belgian political theorist Chantal Mouffe. “They have a vote but not a voice.” But rather than call for revoluti
A Crisis of Critique
Lately I’ve thought about the difference between a work of art that is about a particular subject and one that is a critique of that same subject. Many in the a
Right Here, Right Now
The choruses to Billy Joel’s number-one single “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” released a couple months before the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989, and Jesus Jones’ spring