Art and Culture - Quillette

S: a man in his 40s, with brown hair and round glasses, in his studio.

Death of a Repentant Iconoclast

Steve Albini and the new problem with music.

Ari Gandsman

4 Oct 2024 · 25 min read

Nick Cave, a striking man in his 50s with black hair , eyes closed, wearing a blue jacket and light blue shirt.

Talking Nick Cave Blues

As the Bad Seeds begin touring their acclaimed new album, ‘Wild God,’ Quillette chatted with Australian academic and “Caveologist” Tanya Dalziell about the artist’s music, ideas, and enduring appeal.

David Cohen

27 Sep 2024 · 13 min read

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

Bruce Springsteen, black and white photograph, head and shoulders, in a striped shirt

Born to Boss

Springsteen and the rock critics.

David Cohen

12 Sep 2024 · 14 min read

Alice Munro, an elderly woman, walks along the foreshore in Canada.

Monstrous Things

Dostoevsky, Alice Munro, and the nature of fiction—what does our inability to forgive do to our ability to confess?

Allan Stratton

1 Sep 2024 · 11 min read

Sacha Guitry as Jean Lécuyer in Ils étaient neuf célibataires (1939), seated at a table, with a polka dot tie

A Filmmaker in Spite of Himself

Sacha Guitry disdained cinema as an art form, but with a slew of recent Blu-ray releases, his acidic comedies are finally receiving the attention they deserve.

Jaspreet Singh Boparai

28 Aug 2024 · 22 min read

Elvis Costello, black and white photograph, in glasses, a shirt, jacket and tie, fingers on the neck of a guitar.

Seventy Years of Spite and Sophistication

Elvis Costello at three score and ten.

Dave Thompson

25 Aug 2024 · 20 min read

Killing for a Quiet Life

John Krasinski’s dystopian horror trilogy imagines a biblical plague visited on the din of modernity.

Thomas Larson

15 Aug 2024 · 7 min read

America’s Last Great Political Novel

In anticipation of the Democrats’ Convention in Chicago, a look back at Joe Klein’s splendid 1996 novel ‘Primary Colors’—a fascinating snapshot of Democratic Party politics at the end of the 20th century.

Kevin Mims

6 Aug 2024 · 22 min read

Composite portrait of Mia Goth's face in her three roles in the trilogy.

Texas Porn Star Massacres

Ti West’s clever and original ‘X’ trilogy is elevated postmodern horror at its finest and its director’s best work to date.

Allan Stratton

24 Jul 2024 · 12 min read

Philip Roth, seated, hands behind head. He's in a suit. Dark hair and thick eyebrows.

Rereading Philip Roth Today

Roth’s early works portray Jewish characters who are fearful of antisemitism in America as paranoid. He later changed his mind—and so have I.

Peter C. Herman

23 Jul 2024 · 12 min read

Map detail of the Hudson River Valley, showing natives in a canoe, as well as beavers, turkeys and a mink

Dutchmen on the Hudson

In the 21st instalment of ‘Nations of Canada,’ Greg Koabel describes how the arrival of Dutch fur traders sparked an upheaval in regional Indigenous geopolitics.