Innocents Abroad Innocents Abroad
When people label a film "great," the usual effect is to close off a discussion that ought to be opening.
Nov 11, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans
Fighting the Art Bullies Fighting the Art Bullies
New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani has created enormous consternation and publicity in his attempts to censor an exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum of Art.
Nov 11, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Tony Kushner
A Shark in the Mind of One Contemplating Wilderness A Shark in the Mind of One Contemplating Wilderness
A shark swims past me in a kelp forest that sways back and forth with the current. It is deliberate and focused.
Nov 11, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Terry Tempest Williams
Bland Art in Every Pot Bland Art in Every Pot
In 1989, after several years of controversy, legal wrangling and numerous public forums, Richard Serra's sculptural installation Tilted Arc was removed from a federal plaza in Ne...
Nov 11, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Daniel Grant
Flag-Waving at the Whitney Flag-Waving at the Whitney
The Triumph of the New York School, a deeply ironic painting by the American artist Mark Tansey, looks at first sight like a rotogravure depiction of a military surrender that to...
Nov 11, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Arthur C. Danto
Just a Cannes Job? Just a Cannes Job?
Ever since Rosetta won the top prize at this year's Cannes festival, American journalists have puzzled over the jury's decision, or written it off as mere insolence.
Nov 4, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans
A Dialectical Humanism A Dialectical Humanism
To my distress and perhaps to my delight, I order things in accordance with my passions.... I put in my pictures everything I like.
Nov 4, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Andy Merrifield
A Son’s Own Story A Son’s Own Story
If you are looking for a piece of new evidence that will finally vindicate or convict Alger Hiss with certainty, you won't find it in Tony Hiss's poignant father-son memoir, A Vi...
Nov 4, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Jack Gelber
Mr. Debs, My Darling Mr. Debs, My Darling
In offhand, birdsong passing, Marguerite Young observes: "As for the nineteenth century, it may be said that it was probably the leakiest century there ever was and so would rema...
Oct 28, 1999 / Books & the Arts / John Leonard
Slouching to the Ouija Board Slouching to the Ouija Board
"Does the imagination dwell the most/Upon a woman won or woman lost?" Yeats asked. For most of his readers and biographers, the answer has been clear: a woman lost.
Oct 28, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Benjamin Kunkel