November 2025
Featuring interviews with El Anatsui, Katherine Bradford, Guerrilla Girls, and Paul Sietsema. Guest Critic Lisa Farrington: “The World Before Racism: An Art Story”
The “November 2025” Issue of the Brooklyn Rail was published on November 4, 2025.
Publisher's Message
Dear Friends and Readers
– By Phong H. Bui
Critics Page
The World Before Racism: An Art Story
– By Lisa E. FarringtonThe World Before Racism: An Art Story in Context
– By Jack FlamHonoring Truth Through Art: A Tribute to My Sister
– By Duane FarringtonThe World Before Racism—A Sister’s Legacy
– By Leslie FarringtonStrategic Dualities, Messy Experiences
– By Cyriaco LopesOn the Word “Race”
– By Susanne KesslerHidden Memories: Mary Turner
– By Freida High Wasikhongo TesfagiorgisEnslavement and Identity
– By Roberto VisaniRace, Contemporary Art, and Historical Memory
– By Abby EronRace in the Museum
– By Erin L. ThompsonActing Up/Out: Being and Beyond ‘Racist-Isms’
– By Leslie King-Hammond
ArtSeen
Joost Elffers: Off Planet Perspective
– By William CorwinJodie Manasevit: Cathected
– By Louis BlockMilton Avery: The Figure
– By Andrew L. SheaLafleur & Bogaert in New York
– By Elizabeth JohnsonJennifer Packer: Dead Letter
– By Tony BluestoneRichard Bosman: SHIPPING
– By David WhelanOrdinary Permanence
– By Joshua Chee SanfordAlex Katz
– By Hearne PardeeSreshta Rit Premnath: Overbody
– By Sara Farrell OkamuraStephen Shore: Early Work
– By Tom McGlynnBay Area Then
– By Mark Van ProyenHenri Rousseau: A Painter's Secrets
– By Jonathan FinebergJameson Magrogan: During an Eternity
– By Katy Diamond HamerKarin Davie: It Comes In Waves
– By Alfred Mac AdamMaureen McQuillan: Coloratura
– By Alex GrimleyCarol Szymanski’s to forget and begin again
– By Alex ColesLucy Skaer: Stacks and Ledgers
– By Ann McCoyGarnets on the Boulder: Jay DeFeo Paintings of the 1980s
– By Erik LindmanWomen’s History Museum: Grisette à l’enfer
– By Priya GandhiJoan Bofill’s Double Portrait
– By Mary Ann CawsMaterial Resistance
– By Matthew Lawson GarrettGround/work 2025
– By Chenoa BakerHeather Bause Rubinstein: Out of the Woods
– By Ekin ErkanRichard Serra: Running Arcs (For John Cage) (1992)
– By David CarrierMan Ray: When Objects Dream
– By Emily Chun50: The View from Tribeca
– By Ekin ErkanCalder Gardens
– By Jessica HolmesTeddy Sandoval and the Butch Gardens School of Art
– By Madison FordMetamorphosis
– By Jonathan GoodmanLOOK HERE
– By Annabel KeenanClare Grill: Parlance
– By Patrick HillLee Yong Deok: Form in Absence
– By Eana KimPostures
– By Minh LeAi Weiwei: Camouflage
– By Jesse LeCavalierBuilding Models: The Shape of Painting
– By Alfred Mac AdamSeen/Scene
– By Ara H. MerjianMaria Lassnig: Living with art stops one wilting!
– By Charles MooreTom McGlynn: This Here
– By Saul OstrowEthan Kramer: Second Thought Best Thought
– By Patrick HillData Consciousness
– By Margot YaleJudy Pfaff: Light Years
– By David EbonyUtopia: Three Centuries of Sexuality in American Cults and Communes
– By Ann McCoy
Field Notes
Letter from Paris: Political Cancan in a Time of World Sickness
– By Charles ReeveHowls for Sanguinetti
– By Erick Corrêa
Art Books
Barkley L. Hendricks: Piles of Inspiration Everywhere
– By Sarah MorozEnsnaring the Moment: On the Intersection of Poetry and Photography
– By Tara Anne DalbowKris Cohen’s The Human in Bits
– By Tung ChauFirespitter: The Collected Poems of Jayne Cortez
– By Macaella GrayThe Scores Project
– By Nicole KaackHelen Chadwick: Life Pleasures
– By Divya Mehra
Books
JONATHAN LETHEM with Claire Phillips
ON THE AVENUE: VINCENT KATZ’S DAFFODIL
– By Paul VangelistiBRYAN WASHINGTON with Henry Hicks IV
Kevin Killian’s Padam Padam
– By Daniel Allen CoxZadie Smith’s Dead and Alive
– By Michael ShorrisMarilyn Aronberg Lavin with Suzaan Boettger
Thomas Pynchon’s Shadow Ticket
– By Jon UdelsonClaire-Louise Bennett’s Big Kiss, Bye-Bye
– By Madeleine CrumLYNN HERSHMAN LEESON with Michelle Handelman
Music
Horror Arias
– By Sydney MinorPer Aspera, Ad Astra
– By George GrellaNils Petter Molvær/Soheil Shayesteh/Sinfonietta Cracovia
– By Martin LongleyMeditational Heights
– By Scott Gutterman
Dance
Eiko Otake & Wen Hui: What Is War
– By Lauren O’Neill-ButlerStreet to Stage
– By Karen HildebrandContaining Emergency
– By Jen C. GeorgeOptimistic Voices
– By Amit Noy and Juliana F. MayKeeping Time
– By Emma Fiona Jones
Film
Julian Schnabel’s In the Hand of Dante
– By Weiting LiuPaolo Sorrentino’s La Grazia
– By Laura ValenzaRevisiting Nicolás Echevarría’s María Sabina, mujer espíritu
– By Maya HanRaoul Peck’s Orwell: 2+2=5 and Radu Jude’s Dracula
– By Laura ValenzaGianfranco Rosi’s Below the Clouds
– By Damiano PanattoniDana Ben-Ari’s The Guy Who Got Cut Wrong
– By Phong H. Bui
Theater
In Practice, The Need to Be Chosen Gets Dark
– By Daniella Brito“Five years?” “Ten years.” Longer: On Circle Mirror Transformation’s Enduring Legacy
– By Billy McEnteeTheater for the People: On Queens, The Brothers Size, and Working Theater
– By Emily ChackerianDAVE OSMUNDSEN with Harmon dot aut
Architecture
Tselinny Center of Contemporary Culture
– By Brad IsnardThe Collision…
– By Marko MilovanovicFRIDA ESCOBEDO with Nile Greenberg
Dispatches
Dispatch 96: A Sickening Moral Slum of an Administration
– By David Levi StraussDispatch 95: Turn the Volume Up!
– By David Levi StraussDispatch 94: If You Don’t Eat Food, You Don’t Need to Worry about Farmers
– By David Levi Strauss
Art and Technology
“Making Art Was My Reason To Breathe”
– By Mark Amerika