Contributors

Corporate Fascism And The Aesthetics of Politics

by Johanna Drucker Corporate fascism. We know the term. Now we will see the full ugly face of its wrath in the vengeful fury of Trump. Trump, like all opportunistic social phenomena, is an expression of a trending wave of collective sentiment and will. He is neither sole cause (autonomous agent) nor simple effect (isolated […]

The Unbound Promise Of The Full Five-Hour Masterwork Until The End Of The World

by Henry Cherry Until the End of the World is a film, like the best of them, that stands outside of genre. Part sci-fi epoch, part love story, part road movie, it begins and ends with an image of the Earth’s curvature. Made by director Wim Wenders, it is the culmination of his most successful […]

The Exploratory Instincts Of Shabaka And The Ancestors’ We Are Sent Here By History

on Impulse! Records Reviewed by Henry Cherry Shabaka Hutchings, the London based musician behind The Comet is Coming and Sons of Kemet, had just released a second recording with his South African based project, Shabaka & the Ancestors when Covid-19 canceled the promotional tour along with everything else in the world. Hutchings spoke with NPR […]

The Coronation, The Relinquishing Of Fear And The Way As A Species Forward

The Coronation by Charles Eisenstein For years, normality has been stretched nearly to its breaking point, a rope pulled tighter and tighter, waiting for a nip of the black swan’s beak to snap it in two. Now that the rope has snapped, do we tie its ends back together, or shall we undo its dangling […]

Charles Eisenstein On “The Coronation” And An Epidemic of Control

Interview by David Fuller

The Painter and The Thief Offers The Best Kind Of True-Crime Bait-And-Switch

Reviewed by Kristy Puchko Is there a word for cinema that lures you in with a dark promise, then delivers something profound, surprising, and humane instead? When I first saw the trailer for The Painter and The Thief, I thought I had its number, having seen myriad of true-crime docs. The tantalizing trailer teased a […]

Quentin Tarantino Pure Cinema Podcast

Elric, Brian, Phil and Jules are joined remotely by Quentin Tarantino himself for an epic discussion about a great feature on the New Beverly website called “Tarantino’s Reviews” where QT has been writing his own articles on movies and TV episodes. He also offers five of his own picks in response to our “Ripoffs” from […]

John Bradford: By Land And By Sea

at Anna Zorina Gallery, NYC (through 25 April — view this exhibition online at annazorinagallery.com) Reviewed by Arabella Hutter von Arx “For there is no folly of the beast of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men.” — Herman Melville, from Moby Dick The latest John Bradford exhibit at Zorina Gallery […]

Moving Room To Room, Tentacle By Tentacle: Michael McCall’s Long Strange Trip

By Peter Frank Forward to: Captain Squid & The Tentacle Room: Adventures in Life, Love & Art by Michael McCall Fabrik Press, 260 pp., $35.00 Michael McCall came of age at a time when it was cool to live your art. That time may be coming back (no little thanks to McCall’s example, I’ll wager), […]

Gerhard Richter’s Solemn Yet Miraculous Retrospective, Painting After All

at Met Breuer, NYC (through 5 July 2020) Reviewed by Peter Schjeldahl The New Yorker “Birkenau.” The dread name—of the main death facilities at Auschwitz—entitles four large abstract paintings and four full-sized digital reproductions of them in the last gallery of Painting After All, a peculiarly solemn Gerhard Richter retrospective at the Met Breuer. The […]

Cinema Disordinaire: A List Of Infectiously Strange Must-See Films For The End Times

Cinema Disordinaire, aka Riot Cinema, is a uniquely selective entry of films that showcase the singular in all of cinema, the seminal, and the utterly sublime come to screen this past half century. For these particularly disordinary times, where self-isolation is our newly mandated norm, we offer up a distilled list from Cinema Disordinaire’s five-decade accounting. […]

The LA Times And The Question Of Crisis Deliverance

by C von Hassett The LA Times, once a towering, globally respected newspaper, has become a click-bait web of invasive ads and circus-style barking for subscription servicing that, though intolerable even when things in our city were on the norm, now come across as shark-like and ravenous, a dubious entity profiteering its wares much in […]

On Lessons From August Wilson’s Jitney

at the Mark Taper Forum, Los Angeles By Seren Sensei Jitney ran for a limited revival at the Mark Taper Forum prior to the quarantines that recently swept through L.A. County. A protective measure against global pandemic COVID-19, the lockdown effectively shut down bars, restaurants, movie theaters, plays and gatherings; while leaders felt this was […]

Dr. Cornel West Speaks Black Prophetic Fire

An always-welcomed dose of Cornel West, who is the focus of Arturo O’Farrill’s The Cornel West Concerto, a timely recording to be released this week. O’Farrill is onstage tonight with Jacques Lesure and His Soulful Cohorts here in Los Angeles, at Los Balcones, 9pm. Meantime, below is the Professor’s speech that inspired O’Farrill’s composition, which […]

Storytime With David Lynch

Today’s Topic: Accessing the Unified Field

In Memory of Genesis P-Orridge: “Hamburger Lady”

From Throbbing Gristle’s D.o.A: The Third and Final Report Hamburger Lady ♠ Genesis Breyer P-Orridge 1950 – 2020 Godspeed!

The Beguiling Desolations Of Trisha Donnelly

at Matthew Marks Gallery, NYC by Brian Block In this era of pervasive promotional storytelling, Trisha Donnelly consistently chooses to go the other way and expunge. Her works carry no titles, her exhibitions no names, and her press releases only a few facts. This calculated act of liberalizing the viewing field works to intensify the […]

Organized Anarchy in OOIOO’s Nijimusi

on Thrill Jockey Reviewed by John Payne What are we looking for when we listen to new music? What is most important? It’s not so much that each and every musical experience has to be formally groundbreaking and utterly unlike anything that has come before, though that rare occurrence certainly does help. Really, we’re talking about […]

Abandoned To The Voice In My Head: King Krule’s Man Alive!

on XL Recordings/Matador Records Reviewed by Henry Cherry Archy Ivan Marshall is a 25-year-old musician who performs under the nom de guerre King Krule. As Krule, he has delivered a stunning portrait of demonic exorcism across three full length releases and as many extended plays. As Archy Marshall, he’s added a book and another album, […]

In This Moment Of Collective Anxiety, New Images of Man Ponders The Human Condition, And Further Disquiets The Sense

at Blum & Poe, Los Angeles Reviewed by Genie Davis Curated by Alison M. Gingeras, the expansive exhibition New Images of Man is a both a revisiting of and expansion on a 1959 exhibition of the same name at MoMA in New York City. A tribute and comment on the human condition, the original exhibition, curated by […]

Plagued by Fire: The Dreams and Furies of Frank Lloyd Wright

Reviewed by Christopher Benfey Plagued by Fire: The Dreams and Furies of Frank Lloyd Wright Paul Hendrickson Knopf, 624 pp., $35.00 Harper’s Magazine Frank Lloyd Wright isn’t just the greatest of all American architects. He has so eclipsed the competition that he can sometimes seem the only one. Who are his potential rivals? Henry Hobson […]

Dust My Broom: Southern Vernacular From The Permanent Collection

at California African American Museum, Los Angeles (through 15 March) Reviewed by Seren Sensei Folk art and folk artists tend to be an underserved discipline in the contemporary American art world. We gravitate towards fine artists with prestigious arts degrees over the more commonplace culture of folk art, and when we do discuss the importance […]

Authors