Affixed to the cover of the December/January issue of the Believer is a stack of art-cards by (excellent New York painter) Kehinde Wiley. Inside the issue are essays about guerrilla museums in people's bedrooms, ghost museums that haunt real ones from across the gorge, Abstract Expressionist fiction, and Ralph Eugene Meatyard. There are mighty interviews, as well, including Matthew Barney, Shelley Jackson, & Vito Acconci. Plus several mighty fistfulls of additional material that is too righteous to be enumerated in this blurb.
A removable stack of paintings by KEHINDE WILEY, AFFIXED TO THE COVER
The Long-Goodbye Man by PORTER FOX
Fielding Dawson’s abstract expressionist writing style came from his training with legendary painters like Franz Kline and Philip Guston.
The Dark Rockwell by ED PARK
Unsettling forces dwell in the most innocuous of Norman’s scenes.
Homelessness Begins at Home by SAMANTHA TOPOL
With a taxidermied coyote for a PR director and the membership department in the freezer, HoMu is not your average arts organization.
The Family Albums of Ralph Eugene Meatyard by THEODORE MCDERMOTT
Meatyard took the average family snapshot, put a freakish mask on it, and then set it in front of a decaying Southern mansion.
Like Dylan in the Movies by ANDREW LEWIS CONN
Schema: Rube Goldberg Breakfast Machines JENNIE GRUBER & BRIAN MCMULLEN
Ten Contemporary Artists selected by JENELLE PORTER
Each one underrecognized, female, and ineffably awesome.
One-Page Reviews
Aimee Kelley on Ingeborg Bachmann, Ross Simonini on Jason, Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow on Yashar Kemal, Thomas March on ParaSpheres, and Stephen Burt on Tracy Philpot.
Castle Nowhere by JEN GRAVES
The world’s most isolated art museum didn’t want its portrait made, but this summer, across the gorge, it had a feisty, translucent double.
Sedaratives by comedian MARC MARON
Matthew Barney interviewed by BRANDON STOSUY
Talking with a sculptor primarily working in Vaseline, football stadiums, hardcore bands, film, Celtic islands, and Norman Mailer.
Vito Acconci in conversation with SHELLEY JACKSON
Chronicling the natural progression from poet to performance artist to installation artist to working architect.
Steven Heller in conversation with SUSAN CHOI
A collection—and interrogation—of artifacts from the “golden age” of pictorial racism.
On Duty by JOHN GLASSIE
The best kind of unintentional art is that which depicts tableau images of Swiss policemen pretending to do the things they do every day.
