This month editorial control of the Paris Review, a pre-eminent American literary magazine, changed hands from Philip Gourevitch to Lorin Stein, now a former senior editor at Farrar, Straus and Giroux (and an occasional contributor to this magazine). While at FSG, Stein made his name finding and refining such authors as Elif Batuman, Lydia Davis, [...]

Jessica Jackson Hutchins, Couch For a Long Time, 2009 Sleet spattered over VIPs queuing outside for the opening of the Whitney Biennial on February 23rd. We suffered in silence, in darkness, our conversations drowned by the monastic groaning of an outdoor installation that cast an eerie blue hue. Dumpling trucks prowled and rogue cameramen interviewed [...]

Right up until his recent death, Dash Snow’s very existence appeared to represent a lot of what’s wrong with contemporary art in New York City today. That was precisely his point. Depravity was Snow’s portal into a bohemian fantasy of downtown Manhattan life…[LINK]

In its 114 years, the Venice Biennale has grown from a small festival organised by a local city council into one of the most dense and most important agglomerations of contemporary art the world has ever seen. The 53rd Venice Biennale crams 77 national pavilions and 38 collateral shows into the traditional Giardini (gardens) and [...]