Review
Artist to artist: Dara Birnbaum on Marisa Merz
The video artist takes us on a tour of Merz’s Met Breuer retrospective and explains why her smaller work is best
Instrumental versus ideal art
Art for art’s sake, or for the sake of socioeconomic benefits? Two writers reach very different conclusions
Very varied, inquisitive, lively and wide-ranging
On the eve of his 100th birthday, James Ackerman shows no signs of slowing down in this collection of essays
A proposal on attribution: Jonathan Brown on Velázquez portraits at the Metropolitan
The art historian suggests that Velázquez's former slave may have painted two works in the show
A hard act to follow: on Caravaggio's followers
A group of books looks at the artists Caravaggio influenced—more or less
Cosmic collectors: how the Guggenheim family came into its art
An exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in New York looks at how the collection was shaped
Influential then, forgotten since, remembered again: on Nino Costa
The influential “Etruscan” painter and Risorgimento patriot deserves our recognition
Beautifully and thoughtfully presented: on the Nicolas Poussin catalogue raisonné
The first volume of a long-awaited work of scholarship
Wrong in the right way: Kenneth Goldsmith on why Picabia’s false Modernism feels so true
The French avant-garde artist’s work was prescient about our era of “post-truth” politics and culture
The Howards under scrutiny
Science is the key to the story of the 16th-century aristocratic tombs in a Suffolk parish church
A bridge to something better: on artist-run galleries in mid-century New York
A show at the Grey Gallery looks at a time when artists could afford to run their own spaces
What a vivid imagination: on Sergei Eisenstein's erotic work
A group of "sex drawings" by the Soviet filmmaker are on show in New York
What they do and how they do it: why museums matter
A new books makes a passionate argument for museums
A translator from east to west: Kenneth Baker on John McLaughlin in Los Angeles
A survey of the painter’s work at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art reveals his affinities for Asian cultures
Life is changed, not ended: how the Medieval English dealt with death
Not everyone could afford their own mortuary churches or chapels
Credence and credulity: on Islamic art and the supernatural
This small book is ground-breaking, bringing to light Islamic beliefs and superstitions
Shine a light: ICA Boston examines ten years of collecting
By turns successful and unsuccessful, the show presents a retrospective of the museum
A bright spot in an otherwise darkened Egypt
Mohamed Abla's show of new works in Cairo is on amid a moment of prolonged political agony in the country
Blockbuster on a manageable scale: on Richard Dorment
A farewell collection of reviews by the American-born, British art critic
A uniquely powerful force: Kenneth Baker on Bruce Conner at SFMoMA
The critic examines a bracing and brilliant survey of the artist's work
The radiant future that never came: on Communist art from the 1930s to today
A show at Galerie St. Etienne in New York looks at how left-wing politics once animated culture—and how they no longer do
Glocal dynamics versus the R-word
Roman art shared a common visual repertory throughout the Empire, but there were significant variations in local styles
Tracey the Tory: on the YBAs
A new history of Britart is long on anecdote but short on critical insight
Many strategies for survival: Barbara Rose on painting after Postmodernism
Rumors of the death of painting have been greatly exaggerated
