July 4, 2022 • View in browser
Good morning. ☀️ I hope you're enjoying your day off work. I also hope you'll read the stories we prepared for you today. These include a heated debate over Beyoncé's new album cover, guerrilla posters against the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, a visit to the world's largest NFT conference, and more.
Also, I highly recommend checking out Noah Fischer's comics diary from the Venice Biennale.
Oh, and Juliette Binoche can't decide who to be with in Claire Denis’s new romantic drama Both Sides of the Blade. Have fun!
— Hakim Bishara, interim editor-in-chief
Reflecting on Nationalism at the Venice Biennale
There are 30 nations represented in the international exhibition. Some aren’t in their best moment today. A comics diary. | Noah Fischer
LATEST NEWS
Marika Wagle putting up Robbie Conal’s “Supreme Injustices” posters on June 24 (photo courtesy Marika Wagle)
Hundreds of copies of the LA-based guerrilla poster artist Robbie Conal’s “Supreme Injustices” are pasted up from Venice to Los Feliz.
“When I realized what the Supreme Court was gonna do for women’s freedom of choice, I got really mad,” the artist recalls. “I ripped through six portraits in a week and a half.” Working with his wife, the film title designer Deborah Ross, the pair designed a poster based on the six paintings and overlaid text and printed 1,500 copies.
ART & FILM
hyperallergic.comUsing Her Mouth and Feet, Lorenza Böttner Created an Immense Body of Work
A childhood accident took her arms away but the transgender artist survived to create paintings, photography, and performances focused on depicting the body. | Julia Curl
Juliette Binoche Is Torn Between Two Lovers in Claire Denis’s Both Sides of the Blade
Fans of director Claire Denis should check the film out, but as an agnostic, I find it one of her few truly awful pictures. | Sam Bodrojan
OPINION
Maybe Beyoncé’s Album Cover Isn’t Based on a White Man’s Painting
Some have compared her album art to John Collier’s 19th-century portrait of Lady Godiva, but Beyoncé can channel her radical spirit without evoking Western art history. | Sarah Rose Sharp
Crypto Believers Look for “Utility” at NFT.NYC
With a fresh Ethereum wallet ready to scoop up freebies, I attended the world's largest conference dedicated to that controversial wart on the Zeitgeist, the "non-fungible token." | Todd Fine
Become a member today to support our independent journalism.
Your support helps keep our reporting and criticism free and accessible to all.
FROM THE ARCHIVE
Visions of the US Flag that Could Have Been
A book revisits a selection of 50 previously unseen suggested redesigns of the American flag made between 1958 and 1959. | Claire Voon
