One Decade In Brooklyn...

Local

What persists, what remains vivid, are the spaces, the rooms in which I’ve worked. And in my case, with the exception of the first, my books have been made in Brooklyn.

Peacetime Soldier

Express

It’s been 10 years since the post-9/11 wars began. Both Iraq and Afghanistan are miserable failures—over there and at home.

The Beauty of a Social Problem

Art

Unemployment is both a problem and a solution. It’s a problem for the unemployed, who want work, a solution for employers who not only want workers but also want the cheapest ones they can get.

SILVIA KOLBOWSKI with Emily Apter

Art

Following the recent experimental TV broadcast of Silvia Kolbowski’s video project, critic and theorist Emily Apter spoke with the artist about her two works After Hiroshima Mon Amour and A Few Howls Again?

KATIA SANTIBAÑEZ with Phong Bui

Art

In the midst of trying to finish several paintings and drawings to be included in her forthcoming solo exhibit, Journey of a Solitary Painter, at Morgan Lehman (October 20 – December 10, 2011), the painter Katia Santibañez spoke with Rail publisher Phong Bui about her life and work.

PHYLLIDA BARLOW with John Yau

Art

Shortly after RIG, Phyllida Barlow’s debut installation with Hauser & Wirth (September 2 – October 22, 2011) opened in London, artseen Editor John Yau and the artist talked on the phone about her exhibition.

LAWRENCE WESCHLER with Jed Lipinski

Art

Lawrence Weschler, the director of the New York Institute for the Humanities at New York University and the author of many mind-altering books, including the newly released Uncanny Valley: Adventures in the Narrative, braved the elements on a monsoon-like evening to pay a visit to the Brooklyn Rail headquarters, where Rail contributor Jed Lipinski spoke with him about his life and work.

CITY NOTES: Thanks, Banks?

More than a few observers sympathetic to the Occupy Wall Street protests have criticized the movement for a lacking a traditional organizational structure and a clear agenda. But not doing so may be precisely the gathering’s most salient message.

Make Way For DE KOONING

ArtSeen

Willem de Kooning couldn’t have been more clear about what he thought of retrospectives, despite his reluctant agreement to a mid-career survey in the late 1960s: “They treat the artist like a sausage, tie him up at both ends, and stamp on the center ‘Museum of Modern Art,’ as if you’re dead and they own you.”

BILLY BRAGG: Content Over Style

Music

“The irony is that somehow I’ve built an entire career on working to change the world,” states Billy Bragg. Irony? That thankless job is what Bragg is known for.

ONE IMAGE DOESN’T TAKE THE PLACE OF THE PREVIOUS ONE
Harun Farocki’s Images of War (at a Distance) at MoMA

Film

The centerpiece of Harun Farocki’s Images of War (at a Distance), on view at the Museum of Modern Art through January 2, 2012, is a four-screen installation entitled “Serious Games I-IV” (2009-10) that documents the use of video game technology in the imaging and imagining of war.

MAC WELLMAN Explains, Or Doesn’t Explain, What Is Near And What Is Far

Theater

Mac Wellman drinks Amstel Light because, in his words, it’s “the best light beer.” He’s less choosy about the tequila—neat—that accompanies it, demanding only that it’s present. When we were compiling questions to ask Wellman about his new play opening at Dixon Place in October, there was a certain fear that he would answer none of them.

For the Voice, For the Fragile Echo

Fiction

When we sat scattered around the yard, which we secured with this old iron bolt, as we did each lunar month, it was easy to miss her arrival, which she dissimulated and wished to cache in an atmosphere that she caressed affectionately with her constant motion, because she valued a beautiful surprise or the possibility of a hush-hush entrance veiled in tranquility.