Chicago Welcomes Its First Art Book Fair
The inaugural Chicago Art Book Fair, dedicated to small press arts publishing, is set in an unexpected swanky setting.
The Mysterious Art of Belkis Ayón Daringly Sheds Light on One of Cuba’s Secret Societies
Belkis Ayón took her own life at the age of just 32, cutting short the Cuban artist’s promising career. Yet she left behind a prolific body of innovative prints, mostly in…
How Abandoned and Eroding Victorian Mansions of the Gilded Age Came to Symbolize Impending Doom
In a portentous video essay for Vox, producer Coleman Lowndes explains why the highly decorated, overly trimmed Victorian mansions (McMansions of their time) of the Gilded Age went from being…
Vintage Halloween Cards Are the Stuff of Nightmares
Anthropomorphic pumpkins, mirror divination, and space-traveling witches all appear in the curious collision of imagery on vintage Halloween cards. {read}
Inside Detroit’s merciless graffiti crackdown
Three years in, Mayor Mike Duggan's war on graffiti has yielded more than 50 arrests and $1.2 million in fines
Why knights fought snails in medieval art
Medieval Memes Look in the margins of medieval books and you’ll find an unusual theme: knights vs. snails. Follow Phil Edwards and Vox Almanac on Facebook for more: https://www.facebook.com/philedwardsi… Lillian…
Keeping ‘Insecure’ lit: HBO cinematographer Ava Berkofsky on properly lighting black faces
Any brown person who’s taken a selfie in the club can tell you cameras aren’t made for us. Yet in Insecure’s club scenes, dark-skinned protagonists like Yvonne Orji’s Molly continue…
Liz Larner: Distorting Form with Color | Art21 “Extended Play”
Episode #250: Strolling through the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Liz Larner discusses her interest in separating color from form in her sculptural work. Using Minimalist sculptor Tony Smith's…
The Artsy Podcast, No. 37: Why Good Artists Make “Bad” Paintings
The genre of “bad painting” is a slippery one. On this podcast, we discuss the label, which has been applied to a wide-ranging group of artists throughout the 20th and…
Gauguin’s Stirring First-Hand Account of What Actually Happened the Night Van Gogh Cut off His Own Ear
Certain relationships are charged with an intensity of feeling that incinerates the walls we habitually erect between platonic friendship, romantic attraction, and intellectual-creative infatuation. One of the most dramatic of…