The Brooklyn Rail

I first met Leilah Babirye through Instagram in 2018, which led to a studio visit that started an ongoing conversation. I was struck by her ability to transform trash into treasure, using found materials to reflect on the adversities she had faced and to envision a brighter future.

This fall, the polymathic artist Robert Longo will see four different solo exhibitions open within a month of each other. Longo and I spoke in his studio in August 2024 before he traveled to Europe, in a conversation that ranged from his current shows to his beginnings as an artist, from how he finds and uses images gleaned from the internet to his desire to make work that is immediate—that “happens every time you see it.”

Pepón Osorio is known for his provocative, large scale multimedia installations that merge conceptual art and community dynamics. Osorio has worked with over twenty-five communities across the United States and internationally, creating installations based on their real-life experiences. The artist spoke with Dan Cameron on the occasion of Osorio’s exhibition, Convalescence, at the Thomas Jefferson University medical campus in Philadelphia.

The paintings of Walter Price have breath. They are nuanced. They are fluid, and they freely associate. Sometimes this fluidity breaks. It staggers, it stops, it snaps, only to give way to new formation. The paintings transcend even the simplest of polemics. They are nimble and difficult worlds. Michelle Grabner spoke with Price on the occasion of Pearl Lines, his exhibition at the Walker Art Center.

The word “tombarolo” rings in the ear like an ancient ritornello, like a musicalized refrain that carries within it, and in this way protects, a popular wisdom that belongs to everyone and no one. The word’s multiplicity reflects the many roles of tombaroli, from thieves to collectors, from lovers of archaeology to criminal looters, from folk heroes to unscrupulous looters, from misfits to magicians and tricksters.