December/January 2025–26
Featuring interviews with Anselm Kiefer, Jeff Koons, Alex Strada, and Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum. Guest Critic Pamela Kort: “Subversion in the Arts”
The “December/January 2025–26” Issue of the Brooklyn Rail was published on December 9, 2025.
Publisher’s Message
Dear Friends and Readers
– By Phong H. Bui
Art and Technology
From 0 to 10, Then and Now, Light at the End of the Tunnel
– By Charlotte Kent
Critics Page
Subversion in the Arts—Where Art Thou?
– By Pamela KortLittle Too Much is Enough For Me
– By Rita AckermannUpheaval by Resignation: Subversive Gestures and Their Limits
– By Tobia BezzolaWho Is Really Being Subversive Now?
– By Peter JelavichSubversion that Remains
– By Johannes M. HedingerThe High and Low Heels of Subversion
– By David Nolan
ArtSeen
Like Cotyledons Buckled with Loam
– By Jason RosenfeldFra Angelico
– By Christian K. KleinbubEric N. Mack: Fishers of Men
– By Killian Wright-JacksonSteve Joy: Recent Paintings
– By Charles SchultzJustin Bradshaw & Maria Robledo: Materia: Memoria
– By Andrew Paul WoolbrightWhy Look at Animals? A Case for the Rights of Non-Human Lives
– By Jurriaan BenschopEndless Limits: The Work of James Howell, 1962–2014
– By Tom McGlynnFaktura 10
– By Dan RocheHelen Frankenthaler: A Grand Sweep
– By Amanda GluibizziFranz Gertsch: Presence
– By Saul OstrowMary Bauermeister: St.one-d
– By Ekin ErkanGyula Kosice: Intergalactic
– By Rosa Boshier GonzálezRon Norsworthy: American Dream
– By Killian Wright-JacksonFall Show
– By Steven PollockRobert Storr: Fits and Starts
– By Raphy SarkissianRobert Storr: Fits and Starts
– By Ekin ErkanDavid Wojnarowicz: Arthur Rimbaud in New York
– By Natalie PrizelWayne Thiebaud: American Still Life
– By William DavieJoe Overstreet: To the North Star
– By Saul OstrowLloyd Foster: Height and Soil
– By Maggley VielotJulian Schnabel: Plate Paintings, 1978–2025
– By Alfred Mac AdamVoice of Space: UFOs and Paranormal Phenomena
– By Amanda GluibizziSean Scully
– By David CarrierDon Porcaro: Lost Stories
– By William CorwinTo the Holy Sepulcher: Treasures from the Terra Sancta Museum
– By Ann McCoyRuth Asawa: A Retrospective
– By Laura ValenzaGeoffrey Holder: Saturday Night
– By Joseph AkelDarren Bader: Youth
– By Selena ParnonMarlene Dumas: Cycladic Blues
– By Joe FyfeIsaiah Davis: Confessions of Fire
– By Lily KwakJack Howard-Potter: Body Part Bouquets
– By Killian Wright-JacksonThe God of the Bay of Roses
– By Hovey BrockDreamworld: Surrealism at 100
– By Jonathan FinebergJenny Saville: The Anatomy of Painting
– By Madison FordMaren Hassinger and Senga Nengudi: Las Vegas Ikebana
– By Silvia BenedettiMan Ray: Shapes of Light
– By Lyle RexerBlack Photojournalism
– By Stephen FraileyRichard Long: FULL MOON
– By Alfred Mac AdamHenri Rousseau: A Painter’s Secrets
– By Rebecca SchiffmanJacob Lawrence: African American Modernist
– By Charles MooreSpectrum of Desire
– By Natalie PrizelLuc Tuymans: Fruit Basket
– By Donatien GrauThe Magical City: George Morrison’s New York
– By Robert McKenzieNigerian Modernism
– By Bartolomeo SalaPegan Brooke: Into absence, MIST
– By Mark Van ProyenTopographies of Dissent: Armenian Art from the Dodge Collection
– By Choghakate KazarianIn Practice: Coco Klockner
– By Selena ParnonBetween Distance and Desire: African Diasporic Perspectives
– By Lee Ann NormanAgnes Martin: Innocent Love
– By Alfred Mac AdamDowntown/Uptown: New York in the Eighties
– By Matilda Lin BerkeKader Attia: Shattering and Gathering our Traces
– By Leah Triplett HarringtonSigrid Sandström: Penumbra
– By Elizabeth BuheMing Fay: Midnite Porridge
– By Ryan SteadmanArchie Rand: Sons
– By Andrew Paul WoolbrightAli Banisadr: Noble/Savage
– By Patricia L LewyDorothea Rockburne and Hanna Hur
– By Eana KimAnish Kapoor: Early Works
– By Neil BaldwinPhoebe Helander: Paintings from the Orange Room
– By Matt MomentRuby Sky Stiler: Long Pose
– By Ann C. CollinsTina Braegger: The Dream Relatives
– By Patrick HillRichard Prince: Folk Songs
– By Ekin ErkanPiero Manzoni: Total Space
– By Ron HorningI hold it towards you
– By Sarah Fritchey
Dispatches
Dispatch 101: Homicide and Iconicide Coincide in Minneapolis
– By David Levi StraussDispatch 100. The Work Continues
– By David Levi StraussDispatch 99: This Is Our Time.
– By David Levi StraussDispatch 98: This Is Not a Hoax
– By David Levi StraussDispatch 97: TDS: The Uneven Application of the Law and Language
– By David Levi Strauss
Field Notes
Editor’s Note
– By Paul MattickThe Siege of Chicago
– By Amy AbelnArgentina: Milei, Trump, and the Limits of Nationalism
– By Rolando Astarita
Art Books
The Best Art Books of 2025
Coreen Simpson: A Monograph
– By Naomi EliasClaude Cahun: Cancelled Confessions (or Disavowals)
– By Daniella SanaderJoe Brainard’s The Complete C Comics
– By Madelyn DawsonGendertrash From Hell
– By Dallas FelliniDouble: Carol Newhouse & Carmen Winant
– By Victoria HorrocksSusan Brockman: Soft Network 01
– By Megan N. LibertyEwa Monika Zebrowski and Anne Michaels’s ABLAZE
– By Dean RaderJohn Walker
– By Charles Duncan
Books
JORDAN CASTRO with Tadhg Hoey
JOE SACCO with Tadhg Hoey
SAM HEAPS with Jorja Rae Willis
Peter Cornell’s The Ways of Paradise
– By Joseph AlbernazCharlie Porter’s Nova Scotia House
– By Joel DanilewitzLauren Rothery’s Television
– By Anson TongMichelle Gurule’s Thank You, John
– By Jennifer Tubbs
Music
Stephen Prina: A Lick and a Promise
– By George GrellaOslo World
– By Martin LongleyThe Mirror of Minimalism
– By Scott Gutterman
Dance
Parable of Portals
– By Steven VargasSafety First
– By Miya ShafferTIMES FOUR / David Gordon: 1975/2025
– By Lucy KudlinskiWhen the Dance Takes Over
– By Anh VoBattles and a Hymn
– By Candice ThompsonSilence is imagined, not perceived
– By Noa Rui-Piin WeissSugar High
– By Quinn Schoen
Film
The Greatest Films You’ll Never See, Vol. IV
–Jim Jarmusch’s Father Mother Sister Brother
– By Emily ConklinThe Revolution, Documented: On the Newsreel Group
– By Justin KampA.S. Hamrah’s Algorithm of the Night and Last Week in End Times Cinema
– By Carlos Valladares
Theater
What to Wear Ends Singing “Nothing Changes.” Twenty Years After its Debut, What Has?
– By Billy McEnteeNURIT CHINN & BAILEY WILLIAMS with Haruna Lee
– By Haruna LeeAt The Nativity, Holy Wine for an Unholy Interpretation
– By Billy McEnteeNARCISSUS AS PLOT FORM: A TRANSSEXUAL RAGE(R)
–PETER NEWELL with Jim Bracchitta
DAS BESTIES with Matthew Antoci
– By Matthew Antoci
Poetry
Ditmas Park
– By Andrew E. ColarussoWhat you dare to open at the threshold
– By Donika KellyBop Bag
– By Daisy Friedfrom Párodos
– By Jay Wrightescape from unit_7
– By makalani bandeleof blackness
– By N/A OparahReading Edmond Jabès
– By Pierre JorisThe Giraffe Titan (I)
– By Brandon Kilbournefrom I Imagine I Been Science Fiction Always
– By Douglas Kearney
Architecture
Phase Change
– By Stephen ZimmererAlmost Something
– By Edgar Rodriguez