July/August 2025
Featuring interviews with Diana Al-Hadid, Marcel Dzama, Takashi Murakami, Dustin Yellin, and Dorothy Kosinski. Guest Critic Bob Nickas: “Has Contemporary Art Run Its Course?”
The “July/August 2025” Issue of the Brooklyn Rail was published on July 8, 2025.
Publisher's Message
Dear Friends and Readers
– By Phong H. Bui
Critics Page
Has Contemporary Art Run Its Course?
– By Bob NickasRhea Anastas
Darby English
Barry X Ball
Anna Conway
A Gallery Is A Time Machine
– By Alexander Meurice“Wo es war, soll ich werden”
– By Olivier MossetHuma Bhabha
Jason Saager
Philip Taaffe
ArtSeen
Caravaggio 2025
– By Phong H. BuiSuperbloom
– By Amanda RoPurvai Rai: Gestures of Infinity
– By Valyn MogensenThe Rose
– By Chloe StagamanMedardo Rosso: Inventing Modern Sculpture
– By Ara H. MerjianJanet Biggs: Eclipse (Amazon, September 7, 1858)
– By Lilly WeiMaurice Freedman: In the Eye of the Beholder, the New York to Maine Connection
– By David WhelanWayne Thiebaud: Art Comes from Art
– By Hearne PardeeMaury Colton: Variations
– By Chris CrosmanAaron Fowler: RELEASE
– By Andrew Paul WoolbrightEthan Ryman: Four Years Built
– By Ekin ErkanEmily Sundblad: The Adolescent Ocean
– By Maisie MolotChaïm Soutine: Soutine and British Painting
– By William DavieGrace Hartigan: The Gift of Attention
– By Dore BowenStill Burning: Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Ant Farm’s Media Burn
– By Mark Van ProyenSean Nash: Acid Base
– By Alfred Mac AdamCarol Rhodes: Sites
– By Kate BrockAmie Siegel: Vues/Views
– By Meredith MartinFive Friends: John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly
– By Benjamin PaulDiane Arbus: Constellation
– By Jillian RussoJulien Ceccaldi: Adult Theater
– By Osman Can YerebakanMildred Howard: Collaborating With the Muses: Part Two
– By Mark Van ProyenDaniel Johnston: I Think, I Draw, I Am
– By Elizabeth WietFaktura / Tektonika
– By Saul OstrowDani and Sheilah ReStack: Return of the Triumphal Mother
– By Sommer BrowningThe Ark
– By Joyce BeckensteinThe Campus 2025 Annual Exhibition
– By Killian Wright-JacksonRoaring: Art, Fashion, and the Automobile in France, 1918–1939
– By Bradley BaileySky High Farm Biennial: Trees Never End and Houses Never End
– By David EbonyNeil Welliver
– By Faye HirschHank Willis Thomas & Liu Shiming: People Everyday
– By Ekin ErkanJacqueline Gourevitch: Paintings 1965–2018
– By William CorwinRyoji Ikeda: data-verse
– By Joanna SeifterJack Whitten: The Messenger
– By Lee Ann NormanLeiko Ikemura: Talk to the sky, seeking light
– By David EbonyHubba Hideout
– By Joseph AkelRodolfo Abularach: A Cosmic Vision
– By Farren Fei YuanRosemarie Trockel: Material and The Kiss
– By Jessica HolmesJenny Calivas: Self-Portraits While Buried
– By Jane Weinstock and James WellingGeumhyung Jeong: Toys, Selected
– By Ho Won KimKlára Hosnedlová: embrace
– By Natalia GierowskaTomas Vu: Blackstar 16/25/60
– By Douglas MarkowitzAlicja Kwade: Telos Tales
– By Charles MooreEduardo’s birthday party on Ave. Gabriel
– By Ekin ErkanGiuseppe Penone: Thoughts in the Roots
– By Bartolomeo SalaFrancis Picabia: Femmes
– By Terry R. MyersGottlieb/Rothko: The Realist Years
– By Rebecca SchiffmanRichard Pousette-Dart: Poetry of Light
– By Toby KampsSusan Weil: About Time
– By Natalie PrizelRobert Mangold: Pentagons and Folded Space
– By Alex GrimleyBoom: Art and Design in the 1940s
– By Jonathan FinebergOdili Donald Odita: Songs from Life
– By Joe FyfeAlexis Ralaivao: Éloge de l’ombre (In Praise of Shadows)
– By Alfred Mac AdamMarc Handelman: West After West
– By Annabel KeenanOut of focus: Another vision of art, from 1945 to nowadays
– By Richard KalinaRashid Johnson: A Poem for Deep Thinkers
– By Charles MooreGerda Taro
– By Carter RatcliffYoung Joon Kwak: RESISTERHOOD
– By Elle GordonBeverly Fishman: Geometries of Hope (and Fear)
– By Nadja RottnerIn the Medium of Life: The Drawings of Beauford Delaney
– By Ekin ErkanLina McGinn: Dear John
– By Quinn SchoenTypologien: Photography in 20th-Century Germany
– By Bartolomeo SalaDavid Hockney: In the Mood for Love: Hockney in London, 1960-1963
– By Jason RosenfeldThe New American West: Photography in Conversation
– By Ekin Erkan
Field Notes
The One-Man Plague
– By Paul MattickAnything in Turkey
– By A.B.Working on the Other Side: My Factory Jobs
– By Elizabeth HensonWhat Does Wokeness Do?
– By Adam Theron-Lee RenschHail to the Chief!
– By Andrew HolterHeat Map
– By Jason E. Smith
Art Books
Genesis Báez’s Blue Sun / Sol azul
– By Lucy SternbachPepo Moreno’s GAY THOUGHTS
– By Nick DaoustJoan E. Biren’s Making A Way: Lesbians Out Front
– By Zoe RodenMoshtari Hilal’s Ugliness
– By Divya MehraAfter Words: Visual and Experimental Poetry in Little Magazines and Small Presses
– By Megan N. LibertyYoko: A Biography
– By Jennie WaldowKandis Williams: A Surface
– By Joel Danilewitz
Books
MATTHEW GAVIN FRANK with Kathleen Rooney
TOM McALLISTER with Matthew Vollmer
Caroline Fraser’s Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers
– By Yvonne C. GarrettJaime Gil de Biedma’s If Only for a Moment (I’ll Never Be Young Again)
– By Chris CampanioniCourtney Bush’s A Movie
– By Chris CampanioniROD KESSLER with Tony Leuzzi
TED GENOWAYS with J.C. Hallman
Keith McNally’s I Regret Almost Everything
– By Tadhg HoeyAYŞEGÜL SAVAŞ with Mandana Chaffa
Lara Mimosa Montes’s The Time of the Novel
– By Mary KarmelekDaniel Saldaña París’s The Dance and the Fire
– By Meghan RacklinAnthony Borruso’s Splice
– By Chris CampanioniLauren K. Watel’s Book of Potions
– By Heidi KasaBenedict Nguyễn’s Hot Girls With Balls
– By Max SchlenkerChloé Caldwell’s Trying
– By Valerie StiversCarol Becker’s George’s Daughter
– By William CorwinPAULA BOMER with Jackie Corley
JOE PAN with J.C. Hallman
– By J. C. Hallman
Music
ELLEN ARKBRO with Ben Gambuzza
Alien Roots: Éliane Radigue
– By James GuiJazzfest Budapest
– By Martin LongleyVernacular Spectacular
– By Scott Gutterman
Dance
MATTY DAVIS with NiNi Dongnier
– By NiNi DongnierLight Layers Form a Critical Mass
– By Susan YungA Recipe Refined
– By Hannah LipmanBallerina
– By Kyle McCarthyCan Carmen Be Truly Contemporary?
– By Candice ThompsonPossessed by Possession
– By Ethan Philbrick
Film
Hong Sang-soo’s By the Stream
– By Jawni HanAlex Ross Perry’s Videoheaven
– By Jim McDermottMichael Angelo Covino’s Splitsville
– By Alexandra Jhamb BurnsAlyssa Lopez with Edward Mendez
Seeing in the Dark, Vol. I
Ross Lipman’s The Archival Impermanence Project
– By Jadie Stillwell
Fiction
from The Stone Door
– By Leonora Carringtonfrom Dwelling
– By Emily Hunt Kivel
Poetry
five poems
– By Soham Patelthree poems
– By Terrance Hayes
Architecture
Serpentine Pavilion 2025
– By Oluwatobiloba AjayiE-1027
– By Lucy WeisnerPaul Pfeiffer: Prologue to the Story of the Birth of Freedom
– By Alex SerbanescuFrom Bèton Brut to Brick: A Review of The Tuskegee Chapel at Yale
– By Kurt HuckleberryWhen Does Something Become Something Else?
– By Matt Olson
Special Report
Picasso and the Legend of Mary Magdalene
– By David R. BaumThinking about Deborah Kass’s “The Art History Paintings,” 1989-1992
– By Norman L KleeblattFLORENTINA HOLZINGER with Steven Pollock
Divine Reclamation: Sean Scully on Long Island
– By Rebecca Allan
Dispatches
Dispatch 82: “Which Way, American Man?”
– By David Levi StraussDispatch 81: Don’t Tell Me What the Law Is
– By David Levi StraussDispatch 80: There Is No “Undo” Button Here
– By David Levi StraussDispatch 79: The Big Lie, Too
– By David Levi StraussDispatch 78: Capitulation in a World Running Out of Ideas on The Too Late Show
– By David Levi StraussDispatch 77. Seismic Political Problems within the Tangled Web
– By David Levi Strauss