Globalization’s Underside: Sex Trafficking in Brooklyn

Local

The sordid business of human trafficking, which includes enslavement in agricultural work, sweatshops, domestic labor, and prostitution, is rapidly expanding. And with its growing immigrant population, experts say, parts of New York City, including Brooklyn and Queens, have become hot spots in a trade that the International Labor Organization has described as the “underside of globalization.”

Tehching Hsieh

Art

Tehching Hsieh is a pioneer of Performance Art. He has been called a "master" by Marina Abramovic and appears in almost every book written on the subject. He did six extraordinary one-year performances.

The Man Who Carried His Art in His Pocket

Art

Having written about Minimal and Conceptual art over the years, I became aware, shortly after discovering the news of Fred Sandback’s recent passing, that I had never actually written about his work. There are certain artists who are highly respected and whose art has an original and persistent quality, yet who miss the critical attention they deserve.

James Siena Gorney, Bravin + Lee

ArtSeen

James Siena’s third solo exhibition at Gorney Bravin + Lee features seventy-eight works on paper that emanate with life and expressive individuality. Among these innovative abstractions in graphite, ink, and colored pencil are thirty notational drawings assembled in the gallery’s small back room.

The American Effect

ArtSeen

There is no question that American policies and globalization have oppressed citizens in Second and Third World countries. The riots waged against the WTO convention in Seattle in 1999 protested the use of corporate sweatshops, where low-wage laborers have literally worked their lives away while creating commodities for Western capitalist markets.

Two Men Named Davis

Out of the torrent of news reports about the recent tragedy at City Hall emerged a portrait of City Councilman James Davis as a charismatic, streetwise and principled progressive politician—responsive to his local constituents, and, perhaps, accessible to a fault.

Paul Auster

Books

Paul Auster’s 10 novels include, most recently, The Book of Illusions, which comes out in paperback from Picador this August. He has also written several books of poetry, as well as screenplays including Smoke and Blue in the Face (both 1995).