Part of the intrigue has been which movement would run out of steam first: Trump’s MAGA, through its failures, or Obama’s liberalism, through its successes. By Benjamin Wallace-Wells
The Art of Taking It Slow
Contemporary cycling is all about spandex and personal bests. The bicycle designer Grant Petersen has amassed an ardent following by urging people to get comfortable bikes, and go easy. By Anna Wiener
The Anguish of Looking at a Monet
More than beauty, more than color, the artist reveals the doubts that bind us. By Jackson Arn
Gagosian Quarterly (Fall 2024) – The new issue features Jessica Beck discussing Andy Warhol’s Mao series, contextualizing Warhol’s return to painting in the early 1970s and his attraction to subjects of notoriety. We dig into the archives to honor the inimitable Richard Serra, who had over forty exhibitions at Gagosian since his first in 1983. Elsewhere in the issue, Salomé Gómez-Upegui examines the work of artists confronting the climate crisis, and Péjú Oshin speaks with Jayden Ali about his expansive view of architecture.
Andy Warhol’s Insiders at the Gagosian Shop in London’s historic Burlington Arcade is a group exhibition and shop takeover that feature works by Warhol and portraits of the artist by friends and collaborators including photographers Ronnie Cutrone, Michael Halsband, Christopher Makos, and Billy Name. To celebrate the occasion, Makos met with Gagosian director Jessica Beck to speak about his friendship with Warhol and the joy of the unexpected.
Against the backdrop of the 2020 US presidential election, historian Hal Wert takes us through the artistic and political evolution of American campaign posters, from their origin in 1844 to the present. In an interview with Quarterly editor Gillian Jakab, Wert highlights an array of landmark posters and the artists who made them.
“In the Dark” Reports on the Lack of Accountability for a U.S. War Crime
The podcast investigates the events in Haditha, Iraq, and compiles a database to show the inherent problem of the military judging its own members. By Willing Davidson
Are Your Morals Too Good to Be True?
Scientists have shattered our self-image as principled beings, motivated by moral truths. Some wonder whether our ideals can survive the blow to our vanity. By Manvir Singh
Russia’s Espionage War in the Arctic
For years, Russia has been using the Norwegian town of Kirkenes, which borders its nuclear stronghold, as a laboratory, testing intelligence operations there before replicating them across Europe. By Ben Taub
It’s hard to empirically determine whether they drive voters to the polls. But they might have less measurable effects.
The Magazine for Mercenaries Enters Polite Society
Susan Katz Keating, the editor and publisher of Soldier of Fortune, discusses how she’s changing the publication and assesses the threat of political violence.
How Machines Learned to Discover Drugs
The A.I. revolution is coming to a pharmacy near you.
At the Democratic National Convention, the sense of relief was as overwhelming as the general euphoria—but the campaign against Donald Trump has only just begun. By Jonathan Blitzer
The New Yorker (August 19, 2024): The latest issue featuresBarry Blitt’s “Roller Coaster” – The highs and lows of the campaigns for America’s highest office.
London Review of Books (LRB) – August 7 , 2024: The latest issue features ‘Henry James Hot-Air Balloon’ – “The Prefaces” by Henry James; Trivialized to Death – “Reading Genesis” by Marilynne Robinson; Different for Girls By Jean McNicol…
The first time the man heard God, he uprooted his entire life, though he was very old. Then God appeared to him in person, an event which would embarrass later thinkers. God made the man an impossible promise in the shape of a son. His wife was ninety, and she laughed. When the child arrived, it was hardly unreasonable to think it a miracle. They named the child after the laughter.
In 1904 Henry James’s agent negotiated with the American publisher Charles Scribner’s Sons to produce a collected edition of his works. The New York Edition of the Novels and Tales of Henry James duly appeared in 1907-9. It presented revised texts of both James’s shorter and longer fiction, with freshly written prefaces to each volume. It didn’t include everything: ‘I want to quietly disown a few things by not thus supremely adopting them,’ as James put it. The ‘disowned’ works included some early gems such as The Europeans. The labour of ‘supremely adopting’ the stuff he still thought worthy was grinding. He worked on the new prefaces, which he described as ‘freely colloquial and even, perhaps, as I may say, confidential’ (though James’s notion of the ‘freely colloquial’ is perhaps not everyone’s) during the years 1905 to 1909. In some respects, the venture was not a success. ‘Vulgarly speaking,’ James said of the New York Edition, ‘it doesn’t sell.’
A week before the start of the Paris Olympics, Shoko Miyata, the 19-year-old captain of the Japanese women’s gymnastics team, was forced to withdraw from the competition by her national association. She had been reported to the Japan Gymnastics Association for smoking and drinking (on separate occasions, once for each offence). The president of the JGA, Tadashi Fujita, announced that Miyata had been sent home, and bowed deeply.
President Biden has proposed radical changes to the Court. Reviewing them is a reminder of why reform is so hard, despite dissatisfaction and a wealth of ideas.
Julie Benko, who hit it big after going on in place of Beanie Feldstein in “Funny Girl,” has a lot of advice for the Vice-President, now that she’s done with waiting in the wings.
By Zach Helfand
What Does Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Actually Want?
The third-party Presidential candidate has a troubled past, a shambolic campaign, and some surprisingly good poll numbers.
By Clare Malone
News, Views and Reviews For The Intellectually Curious