Art Archives - Public Books https://www.publicbooks.org/section/art/ a magazine of ideas, arts, and scholarship Sat, 17 Jan 2026 02:16:54 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 https://www.publicbooks.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/cropped-favicon-2-300x300.png Art Archives - Public Books https://www.publicbooks.org/section/art/ 32 32 “Why Do We Go On Pretending?”: Theater at the End of the World https://www.publicbooks.org/why-do-we-go-on-pretending-theater-at-the-end-of-the-world/ Mon, 22 Jan 2024 16:00:44 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=54828 The theatre is where we go to remind ourselves that we are all dying together, and to live better for it.

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]]> How to Lose a Library https://www.publicbooks.org/how-to-lose-a-library/ Thu, 14 Dec 2023 16:00:54 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=54594 On October 31, 2023, the British Library suffered a massive cyberattack. Since then, what has been lost?

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]]> There Is No Such Thing as a Good Book: On “The Art of Libromancy” https://www.publicbooks.org/there-is-no-such-thing-as-a-good-book/ Tue, 12 Dec 2023 16:00:15 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=54585 "I do not think bookselling is an art. I think it is a job."

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]]> Escape from Earth: Raquel Forner’s Space Paintings https://www.publicbooks.org/escape-from-earth-raquel-forners-space-paintings/ Thu, 20 Jul 2023 15:00:26 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=52954 If the iconic NASA astronaut is a confident (male) neo-colonist, Forner’s Astronauts are infantile, unprotected, vulnerable.

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]]> Long Cons: The Tragicomedy of Prestige TV https://www.publicbooks.org/long-cons-the-tragicomedy-of-prestige-tv/ Wed, 03 May 2023 15:00:09 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=52114 Shows like “The White Lotus” distract us with progressive politics, while stealing our eyeballs for the very people the shows lambaste.

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]]> Finding Your “Voice”: Author-Read Audiobooks https://www.publicbooks.org/finding-your-voice-author-read-audiobooks/ Thu, 06 Apr 2023 15:00:58 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=51745 Does the author-read audiobook offer a perfect confluence between person, authorial persona, voice, and aesthetic form?

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]]> “We Plot to Undo the World” https://www.publicbooks.org/we-plot-to-undo-the-world/ Thu, 08 Dec 2022 16:00:10 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=51108 Artist Simone Leigh curated a series of intellectual sermons directed by Black women who grieved, strategized, loved, and yearned for community.

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]]> Andrea Hornick and Timothy Ingold: Designs for the Anthropocene https://www.publicbooks.org/andrea-hornick-and-timothy-ingold-designs-for-the-anthropocene/ Tue, 06 Sep 2022 15:00:25 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=49925 “We bring our own creativity into what we see—the seams get filled in, smoothed over, by our looking.”

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]]> The Art We Do Together: “Art Worlds” 40th Anniversary https://www.publicbooks.org/sociology-of-art-howard-becker-art-worlds/ Wed, 17 Aug 2022 15:00:24 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=49711 Howard Becker pointed out that critics, curators, suppliers, and administrators are as important to the creation of art as artists themselves.

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]]> “The War Conquers You Not Only Physically”: Darya Tsymbalyuk on Plants and Humans in Ukraine https://www.publicbooks.org/darya-tsymbalyuk-plants-and-humans-in-ukraine/ Thu, 04 Aug 2022 15:00:03 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=49480 For several years, Darya Tsymbalyuk has been drafting a new history of Ukraine’s Donbas that overturns our assumptions. Rather than focus on the industrialization and war that have dominated the region, she interviews locals and asks them to draw maps of their hometowns, based on their memories and emotional connections. The resulting maps—which emerge in […]

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