Category: feature essays

Crystal Currents: The Indo-American Ice Trade and Colonial Comfort in Tropical Nineteenth-Century India

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Submerged Histories: Watery Archival Practice in Renee Royale’s Landscapes of Matter

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An Oceanic and Imperial Treasure: The Southern Song Oyster-Mountain Celadon Bowl

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From Perfume to Smoke: Transforming Salubrious Scents in a Renaissance Perfume Burner

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 […]

The Allure of Vision: The Act of Seeing in Albert van Ouwater’s The Raising of Lazarus

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 […]

David Wojnarowicz, Peter Hujar, and (Other) Worlds Past a “Pre-Invented Existence”

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 […]

Echoes of Shamanism: Reimagining Tradition and Chance in South Korea

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 […]

Il Perdono di Gesualdo: Art, Sin, and Salvation

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 […]

Chicana/o/x Spiritual Memories: Layering in the Digital Print Work of Amalia Mesa-Bains

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 […]

Dangers of Response: “I modi” and its Censorship

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 […]