Arts

If You Can’t See the Stage, Turn to the Page 

With theaters shut during the pandemic, reading plays has shed surprising light on works both familiar and strange

by Wendy Smith | Tuesday, September 07, 2021

The Inheritance of Nations

To what extent does a work of art belong to the people of the world?

by Hannah Barbosa Cesnik | Monday, June 14, 2021

Raising Mank

The Academy Award–winning film about the making of Citizen Kane is really a window into the tumultuous, brutal side of Hollywood’s golden age

by Jerome Charyn | Saturday, June 05, 2021

Obscura No More

How photography rose from the margins of the art world to occupy its vital center

by Andy Grundberg | Thursday, April 29, 2021

The Baddest Man in Town

On the trail of a historical figure immortalized in African-American folklore

by Eric McHenry | Saturday, March 13, 2021

The Annotated “Stacka Lee”

Comments on the famous murder ballad’s oldest known lyrics

by Eric McHenry | Saturday, March 13, 2021

Swinging Into the Future 

Kansas City of the 1930s witnessed a style of American music inspired by the wonders of the industrial age

by Joel Dinerstein | Monday, December 07, 2020

Long-Distance Punishment

Could a landmark work of conceptual art be an emblem for the Covid era?

by Sierra Bellows | Thursday, December 03, 2020

The Poet Who Painted

Max Jacob, who helped introduce Picasso to the French, was a talented artist in his own right

by Rosanna Warren | Wednesday, September 23, 2020

What a Great Talker She Was

by Willard Spiegelman | Wednesday, September 23, 2020