The otherworldly singer performed this weekend for the first time in NYC since she departed the city in 2008, and we can only hope that it is the first of…
What are we trying to signal to potential readers when we call a work or its author “avant-garde?” The term is lately used to foreground a studied and even exclusionary…
Can one speak about suffering if one hasn’t experienced it? Kenneth Goldsmith has long been a figure of tension in the literary community: at once a savior for the conceptual…
I think that’s avant-garde—the meeting of need and language. Over at Lit Hub, contemporary poetic hero Ben Lerner sits down with contemporary poetic heroine Eileen Myles to talk about vernacular, supercilious…
…our Franzen problems, these days, are pretty minor. We don’t have to worry that Chip Lambert’s hand-wringing is going to reinforce the old, realist modes of romantic reaction. But we…
In a provocative piece for the latest issue of Lana Turner, Cathy Park Hong takes the self-appointed avant-garde movement to task for its all-too-traditional track record on race and identity…
The Believer blog has a great interview with avant-garde filmmaker Nina Menkes. Menkes provides some insight into her creative process, as well as her take on being a feminist filmmaker:…
You can read Part 1 here. Speaking of clothes, one standout opportunity for the heralded “blockage” or disruption of capital that seems to have been missed occurred at the site…