Category Culture

Barry Blitt’s “Low Tide”

In the weeks leading up to the 2022 midterms, many pundits predicted that a “red wave” of Republican victories would sweep across the country. There was precedent for this: historically, the President’s party tends to lose seats in midterm contests.…

Bantering Through Disability and Dislocation

The Benaim family dynamic—dark humor, frank talk, Teflon love—never ceased to delight Poler. “Growing up with them, I always thought, I wish I could document this,” he said. About a decade ago, the filmmaker Daniel Poler was living in his…

Annie Ernaux’s Justly Deserved Nobel

The news of a new Nobel Prize in Literature tends to divide amateur readers into two camps: those who have never heard of the author and those who have, vaguely. There are, of course, more familiar names that sometimes arise…

Alex Katz’s Conversations with Friends

“Gathering” is the title of the Guggenheim’s triumphant Alex Katz retrospective (on view through Feb. 20), but it might easily have been “Conversations with Friends”—and not just because a stylish detail of a Katz double portrait graces the cover of…