The Arts Archives - Page 2 of 37

Disability

What Does Disabled Dance Look Like?

Choreographers like Brian Golden wrestle with the NEA’s attempt to define and delimit disability aesthetics

April 30, 2026 • by Liana Zhen-ai

Early last year, I brought a friend along to a Trisha Brown performance at Sadler’s Wells in London. The friend, new to postmodern dance, listened patiently as I droned on about its principles: “It’s a lot of holding strange shapes and multi-tasking with different parts of the body,” I summarized. ...

Philosophy

What Is a Beagle?

In Lab Dog, Brad Bolman probes how the beagle became such a popular subject of American science and such a potent symbol of American patriotism

April 30, 2026 • by Aaron Neber

In recent months, activists against animal testing in scientific experiments have had a few moments of important success. In December, the National Defense Authorization Act included a provision that military funding will not be spent on projects that require painful research on dogs or cats (unless they are military service ...

Literature

Did You Raise Something Monstrous?

In Night Night Fawn, Jordy Rosenberg turns a mother’s opioid-fueled narration into a study of gender, nationalism, and ideological inheritance

April 21, 2026 • by Gil Bittner

Jordy Rosenberg’s new novel, Night Night Fawn (One World, 2026), is narrated by Barbara Rosenberg, a dying Manhattan mother delivering a torrent of OxyContin-fueled recollections about her life and her estranged trans child, who now goes by “J.” The names are not subtle. Rosenberg’s second novel is a radical form ...

Music

The Frivolous Mystique of Rosalía’s Lux

The critically acclaimed pop album, sung in 13 languages, uses classical compositions to its disadvantage

April 20, 2026 • by Megan Robinson

Rosalía released her fourth studio album, Lux, in November 2025. Inspired by “feminine mystique,” according to its press release, the album narrates the lives of several female mystics and saints. Rosalía worked with collaborators including Björk, Yves Tumor, and producer Noah Goldstein (from Kanye West’s Yeezus, another acclaimed God concept album), ...

Middle East & North Africa

The Political Perimeter

Francesca Albanese and the limits of international humanitarian law

April 15, 2026 • by Coleson Smith

In the wake of the Gaza War, a place in time that has become its own world-historical moment, the invocation of international law as a means of remedying Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians rings hollow. After all, did bombs not continue to fall on Gaza even after South Africa brought ...

Literature

Secrecy as a Form of Extremism

In Stephanie LaCava’s new spy novel, Nymph, the twenty-first-century flaneuse plays a high-stakes game

April 6, 2026 • by Iman Sultan

With her sharp, minimalistic prose and unsparing insights into the female psyche, author Stephanie LaCava is something of a Jean Rhys for the new millennium. In her novels I Fear My Pain Interests You and The Superrationals, LaCava examines complex antiheroines navigating the culture industry, living independently in urban settings, ...

Literature

The Garden of Wrath

An excerpt from The Oyster Diaries

March 31, 2026 • by Nancy Lemann

Maybe all families are alike on annual beach vacations. Tense. We used to go on an annual vacation with the in-laws to the Southern coast in August. Our destination was an island off the coast of South Carolina. I-95 was horrendous driving down from Washington on a Friday after work, the ...

Interviews

Writing With One Eye Squinting at Doom

A conversation with Nancy Lemann on releasing her first novel in twenty years—and why she never stopped writing

March 31, 2026 • by Nancy Lemann and Coleson Smith

Nancy Lemann’s forthcoming novel, The Oyster Diaries (New York Review Books, 2026) is her first publication in over twenty years—and not for lack of trying. Despite the enduring appeal of her first two books—both set in New Orleans—The Lives of the Saints (1985) and The Ritz of the Bayou (1985), ...

Music

Hold Onto This

Why young queer artists and music lovers are turning again to physical media like zines and tapes

March 25, 2026 • by Eva Szilardi-Tierney

For Rox Eckroth and August Simon, the idea of putting together a tape compilation of songs from trans artists came as much from their interest in the history of cassettes as it did from a desire to collate trans art. “You put a tape in the machine, you hit play. It ...

Art & Design

The Gaza Biennale

A global exhibition shaped by Palestinian artists

March 3, 2026 • by Nate Masso

The walls of Recess, a quiet Brooklyn studio space, held more than art this winter—they held testimony. The Gaza Biennale is a global exhibition shaped by Palestinian artists working under a genocidal siege that places creative expression at the forefront of collective witnessing. Presented worldwide across decentralized partner sites, last ...

Climate & Ecology

Solar Express

In Here Comes the Sun, climate activist and author Bill McKibben experiments with the power of positive thinking

February 26, 2026 • by Shea Dean

What motivates people to work for social change—and work for it fast? In his most recent book, Here Comes the Sun (W. W. Norton & Company, 2025), the veteran climate reporter Bill McKibben tries to answer that question by presenting two truths. The first is that we are now in ...

Reviews

Untranslating Lemebel

A Last Supper of Queer Apostles refuses to domesticate the Chilean author’s queer vernacular

February 18, 2026 • by Mariana Giacobbe Goldberg

The cover of A Last Supper of Queer Apostles (Penguin Classics, 2024) features a collage centered around an edited photograph of a man dressed as a saint, crowned with a halo of syringes, each one filled with a watery red substance that looks like blood. This punk Virgin Mary impersonator ...

The Arts

What Does Disabled Dance Look Like?

Choreographers like Brian Golden wrestle with the NEA’s attempt to define and delimit disability aesthetics

What Is a Beagle?

In Lab Dog, Brad Bolman probes how the beagle became such a popular subject of American science and such a potent symbol of American patriotism

Did You Raise Something Monstrous?

In Night Night Fawn, Jordy Rosenberg turns a mother’s opioid-fueled narration into a study of gender, nationalism, and ideological inheritance

The Frivolous Mystique of Rosalía’s Lux

The critically acclaimed pop album, sung in 13 languages, uses classical compositions to its disadvantage

The Political Perimeter

Francesca Albanese and the limits of international humanitarian law

Secrecy as a Form of Extremism

In Stephanie LaCava’s new spy novel, Nymph, the twenty-first-century flaneuse plays a high-stakes game

The Garden of Wrath

An excerpt from The Oyster Diaries

Writing With One Eye Squinting at Doom

A conversation with Nancy Lemann on releasing her first novel in twenty years—and why she never stopped writing

Hold Onto This

Why young queer artists and music lovers are turning again to physical media like zines and tapes

The Gaza Biennale

A global exhibition shaped by Palestinian artists

Solar Express

In Here Comes the Sun, climate activist and author Bill McKibben experiments with the power of positive thinking

Untranslating Lemebel

A Last Supper of Queer Apostles refuses to domesticate the Chilean author’s queer vernacular

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