Long-form Research Essays
by Fatema Tasmia In the early nineteenth century, a striking episode of global commerce unfolded that connected the frozen ponds of New England to the tropical expanses of colonial India. At the center of this unlikely connection was Frederic Tudor, the so-called “Ice King,” who transformed a seasonal, local product into a global commodity. By […]
by Carolyn Hauk Submersion is at the center of Renee Royale’s photographic series Landscapes of Matter. In November 2021, Royale photographed landscapes and waterscapes with a Polaroid camera around Venice, Louisiana, the last stretch of walkable and drivable land before the Mississippi River plunges into the Gulf of Mexico. After each image developed, Royale submerged […]
by Melody Hsu What if the sea is a genius artist? The Taipei National Palace Museum houses an enigmatic object of display: a Southern Song dynasty (1127–1278) celadon bowl fused within an oyster shell (fig. 1). The porcelain, with its flared rim and bluish-green glaze, sits perfectly within the oyster’s opening, framed rather than concealed. […]
by Madison Clyburn A classically inspired bronze incense burner from a Paduan workshop, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, speaks to the multi-sensory meditations that once occurred in an early modern Italian home (fig. 1).1 This particular incense burner measures just over a foot tall, is pyramidal in shape, and […]
by Sunmin Cha Albert van Ouwater’s The Raising of Lazarus (ca. 1460–1475) is a spectacle in every sense of the word. This rare surviving work by the pioneering Haarlem painter is not only a visual feast for the viewer but also a profound meditation on the act of seeing itself.1 The painting is populated with carefully […]
by Gillian Yee When Peter Hujar died from AIDS-related complications on November 26th, 1987, David Wojnarowicz’s first inclination was to photograph his mentor and former lover’s body in excruciating detail. In the chapter “Living Close to the Knives,” from his memoir Close to the Knives, he recounts his experience with Hujar’s death: the rapid decline […]
by Hamin Kim As part of its New Year’s event, Hyundai Artlab commissioned artist Maia Ruth Lee to create a set of symbols predicting fortunes for 2024. This virtual project, titled Glyphoscope 2024, invited participants to select three cards from a set of twenty, each resembling ancient hieroglyphs (fig. 1). The experience, similar to drawing […]
by William Chaudoin Carlo Gesualdo, Conte da Venosa (c. 1566-1614)—composer, murderer, and patron of the arts—commissioned the Florentine painter Giovanni Balducci to create the altarpiece, Il Perdono di Gesualdo (fig. 1), in an attempt to alter his own fate. Gesualdo’s plan of intricate, multidimensional patronage is central to his desire to exercise control over what […]
by Gilda Posada Amalia Mesa-Bains was one of the first Chicana artists to work with digital print. I interpret Mesa-Bains’s printmaking process as a contemporary Chicana/o/x amoxtli, or manuscript. Reading Mesa-Bain’s printworks as an amoxtli that holds sacred memory and knowledge speaks to how Chicana/o/x artists like Mesa-Bains are rebuilding and rewriting the sacred books […]
by Iakoiehwahtha Patton Erotic imagery comprised a significant portion of artistic production in Renaissance Italy. It is within this cultural context that the reclining nude became an archetype and a contested site where censorship could be enacted. The nude was particularly criticized for its sinfulness, so much that in the late fifteenth century, the Dominican […]