The Totalitarian Artist: Politics vs Beauty After Duchamp, the art world came to view the pursuit of beauty as naïve and gravitated toward political art in their search for meaning. But this is a Faustian bargain: you can have meaning, but you do not get to make it for yourself. Megan Gafford 20 Sep 2024 · 27 min read
Faking Hope: AI Art as Propaganda There is a new contender for the most effective weapon in the propaganda wars: photorealistic, generative AI art. Julia Friedman 3 Nov 2023 · 8 min read
A Treasure Trove of Priceless Pornography One might be skeptical about Pornhub’s claim that their interactive guide is a way to raise museum attendance in the wake of the pandemic-induced hiatus. Julia Friedman 31 Jul 2021 · 11 min read
The Artist and the Censor An embrace of the art for art’s sake ideal is the greatest defense for artists against self-censorship. Those who defend art from moralizing or censure—who accept the reality of art’s autonomy—are those who see art for what it is. Alice Gribbin 5 Jun 2021 · 8 min read
Emotional Realism and The Enduring Art of Caravaggio At a small auction house in Madrid there briefly appeared a very dark, very brown painting of Christ being presented to the people before his crucifixion: “ecce homo”, says Pilate—behold the man. A dirty old varnish obscures many of the painting’s finer details; but even so, art dealers Jacob Willer 1 May 2021 · 9 min read