October 2025
Featuring interviews with Sophie Calle, Lisa Corinne Davis, Ann Hamilton, and Roman Ondak. Guest Critic Erroll McDonald: “The Tyranny of Certainty”
The “October 2025” Issue of the Brooklyn Rail was published on September 30, 2025.
Publisher's Message
Dear Friends and Readers
– By Phong H. Bui
Critics Page
The Tyranny of Certainty
– By Erroll McDonaldAn Outside Man
– By André AcimanOn Peripheral Cyberpunk and the Politics of Technological Refuse
– By Orlando BentancorRomancing Breast Milk: “Just Like Mom Used to Make”
– By Cat BohannonAre We There Yet?
– By Klara GlowczewskaThe Unbearable Burden of Fashion
– By Anne HigonnetThe Secret Radicalism of Anti-Procreationists
– By Laura KipnisPainting As Translation: Elise Ansel, James Hyde, and Alexis Ralaivao
– By Alfred Mac AdamThe Case for—and of—a “Saint Oedipa”: Reflections on Some Un-generic Echoes in Thomas Pynchon’s Novella The Crying of Lot 49
– By James NohrnbergOn Teresa Pągowska
– By Agnieszka SzewczykOrder Out
– By Henry Threadgill and Brent Hayes Edwards
ArtSeen
Sasha Gordon: Haze
– By Charles MooreJudy Ledgerwood: Twilight in the Wilderness
– By Ekin ErkanJulian Bell: England Road
– By David CarrierAndrew Woolbright: Baldanders
– By Jacob BrooksStephen Westfall: Ornithology
– By David EbonyReggie Uluru
– By Zoe AriyamaSequences Biennial XII: Pása / Pause
– By Eana KimRebecca Allan: Groundcovered (A Survey)
– By Madeline PittelAnne Buckwalter: Lover’s Knot
– By Lee Ann NormanSoren Hope: Two Time
– By Parker FieldJacob Littlejohn: What the Thunder Said
– By Amanda Millet-SorsaMire Lee: Faces
– By Hannah Sage KayMorris Hirshfield: Brooklyn Tailor
– By Mark BlochLisa Oppenheim: Ourselves and the Expression of Ourselves
– By James WellingTan Ping: The Unruly Verge of Flame
– By David A BrubakerFlora Yukhnovich: Four Seasons
– By Natalie PrizelErik Lindman & Augustus Thompson: Slabs and Boards
– By Ekin ErkanHayv Kahraman: Ghost Fires
– By Joseph AkelAmbera Wellmann
– By Meeka WalshJune Leaf: Shooting From the Heart
– By Andrew L. SheaCaroline Monnet: Where the Sky Begins
– By Annette An-Jen LiuJohn Zurier: Pink Dust
– By Alex GrimleyLeonardo Meoni: I used to be a Mountain
– By Nicholas HeskesChloe Wise: Myth Information
– By Alfred Mac AdamSperone Westwater: 50 Years
– By William CorwinCarole Caroompas
– By Buzz SpectorJéronimo Rüedi: Preaesns
– By Natalie GinsbergMan Ray: When Objects Dream
– By Neil BaldwinPaolo Roversi: Along the Way
– By Killian Wright-JacksonTechnologies of Survival: Theaster Gates and the Land School
– By Killian Wright-JacksonRebecca Morris: #34
– By Suzanne HudsonNancy Holt: Echoes & Evolutions
– By Jessica HolmesCaleb Hahne Quintana: A Boy That Don’t Bleed
– By Annabel KeenanPatricia Cronin: Army of Love
– By Rebecca AllanWang Ye: Legume Blossoms in Blue
– By Ryan SteadmanGabriel Orozco: Partituras
– By Hearne PardeeHarriet Korman: Housing Developments
– By Tom McGlynnDouglas Gordon: Pretty much every film and video work from about 1992 until now’ish…
– By William CorwinSantiago Yahuarcani: The Beginning of Knowledge
– By Horacio RamosDionne Lee: Outlooks
– By Elizabeth BuheNorthern Lights
– By Annabel KeenanMaría Berrío: Soliloquy of the Wounded Earth
– By Charles MooreWanda Koop: Magnetic Field
– By Sarah BochicchioAshley Garrett: Psyche
– By Matt MomentEsteban Vicente
– By Ekin ErkanSusan Rothenberg: The Weather
– By Allison CareyWillie Birch: Up on the Roof
– By Allison K. YoungLiliane Tomasko: Poem Things
– By Maisie MolotLiz Larner: MAYBE NOT
– By Patricia L LewyFifteen
– By Josephine ZarkovichCora Cohen: A Decade: 2012–22
– By Rebecca SchiffmanBen Shahn: On Nonconformity
– By David CarrierJoel Shapiro
– By Barbara A. MacAdamAlex Sewell: Diorama
– By Ekin ErkanTiona Nekkia McClodden: PURE GAZE
– By Christina ShenPaul Feeley: The Shape of Things
– By Alex GrimleyGabriel Chaile: Esto es América, o qual é o limite?
– By William Corwin
Field Notes
The Syrian State and the Specter of the Proletariat
– By E. MinassianThe New Fascism
– By Gary RothVictory From the Margins: Artists Building Worker Power
– By David FriendCommercial Vehicle Idling Is Social Murder
– By Chris Hartmann
Art Books
Stephen Kaltenbach: Portrait of My Father
– By Nate MickelsonHenry Martin’s Selected Writings, Conversations, and Correspondences
– By Mark BlochDenise Scott Brown’s Encounters
– By Karen GuSérgio Ferro’s Design and the Building Site
– By Thomas WallerLizzy Mercier Descloux’s Desiderata
– By Elizabeth WietMarion Greenwood: Portrait and Self-Portrait
– By Karen Chernick
Books
George Franklin’s A Man Made of Stories
– By Peter MladinicCAROLINE MACON FLEISCHER with Kathleen Rooney
– By Kathleen RooneyPatrick Nathan’s The Future Was Color
– By Chris CampanioniIVY POCHODA with Jackie Corley
– By Jackie CorleyDONIKA KELLY with Mandana Chaffa
MATTHEW KRESSEL with Amy Goldschlager
DEENA ELGENAIDI with Nina St. Pierre
AMBER SPARKS with Kurt Baumeister
MICHAEL ROBERT LISKA with Valerie Stivers
Ilana Masad’s Beings
– By Sara PolskyJordan Castro’s Muscle Man
– By Max SchlenkerBrandon Taylor’s Minor Black Figures
– By Henry Hicks IVLeonora Carrington’s The Stone Door
– By Iman Sultan
Music
BRIAN HARNETTY with John P. Hastings
Ostrava Days
– By Martin LongleyTIME:SPANS
– By George GrellaBy Popular Demand
– By Scott Gutterman
Dance
Not Changing the Subject
– By Mev LunaRICHARD MOVE & LISA KRON with Karen Hildebrand
EVAN RAY SUZUKI with Miya Shaffer
Marooning Bodies
– By Sophie BressDown to Earth
– By Jim McDermottTrue Love’s Distraction
– By A. Cerisse Cohen
Film
Elizabeth Lo’s Mistress Dispeller
– By Kathy OuPaul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another
– By Edward MendezKelly Reichardt’s The Mastermind
– By Laura ValenzaROBERT KAPLOW & RICHARD LINKLATER with D.Z. Stone
The Geological Turn in Cinema
– By Cici Peng
Fiction
EVEN ELON ON HUMAN MEAT
– By Mark Doten
Poetry
Alice, Passing by the Visitations
– By Anne WaldmanLaying Eyes on Alice Notley
– By Eleni Sikelianosfor Alice Notley
– By Eileen MylesA Few of the Things I Love About Alice
– By Brenda CoultasOn Alice Notley’s Achievement
– By Rachel Blau DuPlessisNotley Belatedly
– By Evelyn ReillyOn Alice Notley
– By The FriendLyric Disjunct Alice Palace
– By Lee Ann Brown
Architecture
Margherita Moscardini’s The Stairway
– By Dan RocheKarolina Czeczek and Anna Morgowicz: Public Pools
– By Emily ConklinJEAN NOUVEL with Francesca Pietropaolo
Dispatches
Dispatch 93: The Everything Machine
– By David Levi StraussDispatch 92: Time to Bunker Down?
– By David Levi StraussDispatch 91:The Demolition of The People’s House
– By David Levi StraussDispatch 90: “The Antifa People”
– By David Levi StraussDispatch 89: Lying in Wait
– By David Levi StraussDispatch 88: MAGA Military & Media vs. Enduring Epstein
– By David Levi StraussDispatch 87: FAFO with the Enemy from Within
– By David Levi Strauss
Special Report
June Leaf: Shooting From the Heart
– By Joe FyfeWolfgang Tillmans: Nothing could have prepared us—Everything could have prepared us
– By Natalia GierowskaPicasso and the Garden of Eden
– By David R. Baum