Introduction

What is The New Yorker? I know it’s a great magazine and that it’s a tremendous source of pleasure in my life. But what exactly is it? This blog’s premise is that The New Yorker is a work of art, as worthy of comment and analysis as, say, Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” Each week I review one or more aspects of the magazine’s latest issue. I suppose it’s possible to describe and analyze an entire issue, but I prefer to keep my reviews brief, and so I usually focus on just one or two pieces, to explore in each the signature style of its author. A piece by Nick Paumgarten is not like a piece by Jill Lepore, and neither is like a piece by Ian Frazier. One could not mistake Collins for Seabrook, or Bilger for Goldfield, or Mogelson for Kolbert. Each has found a style, and it is that style that I respond to as I read, and want to understand and describe.

Saturday, October 7, 2023

October 2, 2023 Issue

Jackson Arn, in this week’s "Goings On," reviews Wolfgang Tillmans’s new exhibition at Zwirner gallery. He describes it as “hypnotically glum.” After visiting the online version of the show at davidzwirner.com, I have to agree. One image caught my eye – a still life titled Lagos still life II (2022), which shows exotic fruit in yellows and greens with, among other things, a yellow-and-black plastic bag and an exotic red flower. You can see it here. It might not seem like much, but its odd combination of shapes, colors, and textures strikes me as beautiful. 

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