June 2025
Featuring interviews with Rosa Barba, Jason Fox, Tom Otterness, and Takako Yamaguchi. Guest Critic Eana Kim: “Jack Whitten’s Abstract Becomings”
The “June 2025” Issue of the Brooklyn Rail was published on June 3, 2025.
Publisher's Message
Dear Friends and Readers
– By Phong H. Bui
Critics Page
Jack Whitten’s Abstract Becomings
– By Eana KimSMARTER
– By Richard ShiffA Bridge to Phenomenal Existence
– By Andrianna Campbell-LafleurJack Whitten and Byzantium: Mosaic, Memory, and the Material Language of Abstraction
– By Andrea Myers AchiA Haunting: Jack Whitten’s Spectral Abstraction
– By Allison K. YoungAn Abstract Crossing
– By Annissa MalvoisinHomage to Jack
– By Helina MetaferiaA Confusion of Images
– By Erich Kessel, Jr.The Evidence of Things Unseen
– By Ashanté KindleA Letter to Jack Whitten (Our Egún), Written from my Woodshed (In North Philly)
– By Adebunmi GbadeboAn Odyssey through Jack Whitten’s Use of Afro Picks
– By Drew ThompsonOn Lynching and Light
– By Darla MiganOn and Beyond the Canvas
– By TK Smith
ArtSeen
Algernon Miller: Afrofuturism and Beyond
– By Dan RocheIsaac “Drift” Wright: Coming Home
– By Lyle RexerNicolas Africano: Boy
– By William CorwinMichael Armitage: Crucible
– By Nicholas HeskesSanya Kantarovsky: Scarecrow
– By Elina AlterMalick Sidibé: Regardez-moi
– By Maggley VielotTeresa Baker: Twenty Minutes to Sunset
– By Elizabeth BuheAndy Warhol: Oxidation Paintings
– By Ekin ErkanFinding My Blue Sky
– By Sarah PerksDavid Goldblatt: No Ulterior Motive
– By Benjamin Cliffordqui dentro / in here
– By Carter RatcliffUrhobo + Abstraction
– By Hearne PardeeSalman Toor: Wish Maker
– By Meghaa Parvathy BallakrishnenExperimentum: Pál Nagy and his disciples
– By Chenoa BakerCarmen Herrera: The Paris Years, 1948–1953
– By Barbara A. MacAdamLeonor Fini
– By Ron HorningPierre Huyghe: In Imaginal
– By Ekin ErkanRachel Harrison: The Friedmann Equations
– By Tom McGlynnNordic Echoes — Tradition in Contemporary Art
– By Joe FyfeEwan Gibbs: TX/NY
– By Richard ShiffWilliam Kentridge: A Natural History of the Studio
– By Ann McCoyProust and the Arts
– By David CarrierOasa Duverney: Into the Shining Dark
– By Ann C. CollinsBrad Kahlhamer: Bowery Nation: Birds are Talking
– By Mána Taylor[See] [Saw] [Sound] [Wave]
– By Caitlin AnklamAleksandar Duravcevic: The Fold
– By David RhodesCorpi Moderni
– By David CarrierArtemisia Gentileschi: Heroine of Art
– By William DavieThe Surrealist Collage: Where Dreams and Reality Meet
– By Mary Ann CawsMartha Diamond: After Image
– By Ian CofréJoop Sanders: The Last Abstract Expressionist
– By Ekin ErkanTomma Abts
– By Amanda GluibizziPablo Picasso
– By Alfred Mac AdamLouise Fishman
– By Jessica HolmesMariel Capanna: Giornata
– By Gilles Heno-CoeNicole Wittenberg
– By Chris CrosmanRobert Morris: Seeing and Space
– By Alfred Mac AdamAli Banisadr: The Alchemist
– By Susan HarrisThomas J Price: Resilience of Scale
– By Amber Jamilla MusserFrida Kahlo’s Month in Paris: A Friendship with Mary Reynolds
– By Debra Riley ParrWillem de Kooning: Endless Painting
– By David RhodesRichard Hunt: Metamorphosis – A Retrospective
– By Charles MooreHeinz Mack: From ZERO until Today
– By David RhodesCollection View: Louise Nevelson
– By Jillian RussoBill Jensen: A Room of Wisdom
– By Joseph AkelBob Thompson and Candida Alvarez
– By Charles MooreFeeding Our Demons
– By Natasha ChukChing Ho Cheng: Tracing Infinity
– By Christina ShenFrancis Picabia: Eternal Beginning
– By Francis M. NaumannRandy Wray: Prehistory
– By William CorwinJuan Uslé: CIEN DIAS DE ABRIL
– By David RhodesLotus L. Kang: Already
– By Min ParkN. Dash
– By Nicole WhiteJoiri Minaya: Geographic Bodies
– By Elizabeth WietChristian Krohg: The People of the North
– By William Davie
Field Notes
Higher Education in Retreat
– By Gary RothPlenum Power in the Balkans
– By Lucas GrimaldiBelgrade Diary
– By Rona Lorimer
Art Books
Ellen Levy’s A Book about Ray
– By Ann C. CollinsLonnie Holley: Sculptures, Paintings, Sandstones, Film, Works on Paper & Music
– By Marcus CivinJ&L Books: Pancakes and Placemats
– By Megan N. LibertyJohanna Drucker’s Affluvia: The toxic off-gassing of affluent culture
– By Adeena KarasickNaomi Falk’s The Surrender of Man
– By Chelsea DavisGeorge Trakas’s Head to Foot (Building Inside and Out)
– By Peter MalonePaul Thek’s Untitled Sketchbook
– By Selena ParnonBlake Little’s Construction Nudes 1981-1985
– By Jake RommMónica Amor’s Gego: Weaving the Space in Between
– By Silvia Benedetti
Books
OCEAN VUONG with Mandana Chaffa
Joe Westmoreland’s Tramps Like Us
– By Joel DanilewitzHarris Lahti’s Foreclosure Gothic
– By Melissa Holbrook PiersonXavier Le Clerc’s A Man With No Title
– By Erik NoonanJulia Alvarez’s The Cemetery of Untold Stories
– By Yvonne C. GarrettROSIE STOCKTON with Anahid Nersessian
MELISSA FEBOS with Hannah Burns
Music
RON HAWKINS with Suzanne Cope
Youssou N’Dour
– By Walker MimmsTerry Riley 90th Birthday Tribute
– By George GrellaSpiritual Emergencies
– By Scott Gutterman
Dance
We’re in This Together
– By Karen HildebrandSlip #1: 76th between Amsterdam and Columbus
– By Tess MichaelsonOut to Lunch
– By Chava Pearl LanskyBETTIE DE JONG with Matt Weinstock
Film
J. Hoberman’s Everything Is Now: The 1960s New York Avant-Garde—Primal Happenings, Underground Movies, Radical Pop
– By Conor WilliamsStephen Winter’s Chocolate Babies
– By Christopher Aaron BlackmonJohn Cazale’s Eternal Rediscovery
– By Susanna MaizeJane Weinstock’s Three Birthdays
– By Phong H. Bui
Theater
In Emmanuelle Mattana’s Trophy Boys, Feminism is Up for Debate
– By Leah AbramsSugar, Sugar!, Clown Car, Jane Jacobs: June 4 at Domino Square
– By Billy McEnteeLUCIEN ZAYAN with Shonni Enelow
The Other Shakespeares in the Parks
– By Dan Rubins
Fiction
Dounia
– By Mo Ogrodnikfrom The Most Unwanted Novel
– By Tom Comitta
Poetry
three poems
– By Reid Kurkerewiczthree poems
– By Jake MarmerUnder the Rubble
– By Dante MicheauxHere’s the Thing:
– By Samiya Bashir
Architecture
The Body Electric
– By Jessica NganWe Will Rest: Seeking Resistance and Recovery During Carlo Ratti’s Venice Biennale
– By Emily Conklin
Dispatches
Dispatch 76: Which Side Are You On?
– By David Levi StraussDispatch 75: Speed & Politics, Again
– By David Levi StraussDispatch 74: Autocrats at War and the Antichrist Revealed
– By David Levi StraussDispatch 73: The Conflict Between Public Opinion and Public Spirit
– By David Levi StraussDispatch 72: Very Big Force in the War of Images: We’re Not Going Away
– By David Levi StraussDispatch 71: Accelerate and Die
– By David Levi StraussDispatch 70: The Seeing Stones of Surveillance and Targeting
– By David Levi Strauss