Theaster Gates Is Redefining What It Means to Be an Artist

O winged Lady,Like a birdYou scavenge the land.Like a charging stormYou charge,Like a roaring stormYou roar,You thunder in thunder,Snort in rampaging winds.Your feet are continually restless.Carrying your harp of sighs,You breathe out the music of mourning. — from “Hymn to Inanna” by Enheduanna,translated from the Sumerian by Jane Hirshfield PROPHETESS ONE RISKS ANGERING the gods…

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A Many-Splendored Self-Portrait of the Artist

For “Stab of Guilt,” the first, sprawling survey show of René Treviño’s 24-year practice at the Wellin Museum of Art in Clinton, N.Y., among his other work, the artist has installed 119 paintings, each 18 inches by 18 inches. These are disparate images, some historical, some contemporary, all variations on the circle: heraldry, Aztec symbols,…

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An Artist Whose Knits Are an Antidote to Loneliness

Four years ago, the writer and textile artist Patrick Carroll helped his father, who’d developed a neurodegenerative disorder, to arrange his physician-assisted suicide in California. “It completely changed how I operated,” he says, “having to step up and deliver my father’s death.” A month or so later, the pandemic lockdowns began; isolated and grieving, Carroll…

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The Mixed Martial Artist Who Became the King of Tidy Eating

In the comments, Lee’s followers try to prepare Juanderful Tacos for the torrent of business that restaurants face once they’ve received a Keith Lee tick of approval. (“Get ready tomorrow!”) Among the growing ranks of online food influencers — all the professional and semiprofessional eaters jawing straight into the camera on TikTok, YouTube and Instagram…

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How Do You Become an Artist?

Alice McDermott, 70, writer There are three kinds of novels I’ve never taken to heart: science fiction, murder mysteries and novels about novelists. So I’ve decided to try my hand at each. If I fail, they’re probably not books I’d want to read anyway. Thurston Moore, 65, musician and author I’m putting the final touches…

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Meet Frankey, the Street Artist Delighting Amsterdam

In the spring of 2020, at the height of the pandemic, the always bustling Dam Square in Amsterdam was deserted, silent and surrounded by concrete counterterrorism blocks. The Dutch street artist Frank de Ruwe, who goes by the name of Frankey, decided these daunting studded blocks resembled something more innocent — giant Lego blocks —…

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