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This month in Artforum:
Best of 2018: A renowned group of critics, artists, and curators from around the world—Kerry James Marshall, Johanna Fateman, Helen Molesworth, Douglas Crimp, Eungie Joo, Jack Bankowsky, David Rimanelli, Catherine Wood, Caroline Busta, Lanka Tattersall, Harry Cooper, Pauline Yao, and Claire Tancons—take stock of the year in art.
“What to make of a Nation whose version of the truth had at its origin, in the very mouth of its founding father, the unspeakable?”
–Helen Molesworth
Elizabeth Schambelan, Tobi Haslett, and Emil Ferris assess “The Year in Monsters”:
“In an era marked by hyperbolic grotesquerie, naturalism is normalization.”
–Elizabeth Schambelan
Film: Six celebrated cineasts—John Waters, Amy Taubin, Ed Halter, J. Hoberman, Melissa Anderson, and James Quandt—select the top films of the year:
“The actors themselves seem like they might burst out laughing, but this is no joke. It’s the best movie of the year. You’ll hate it.”
–John Waters
Music: Four musicians and critics—Sasha Geffen, Vivien Goldman, Polly Watson, and Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste—name their highlights of the year:
“TWOBBID gives me visions. Really. It’s intensely optically engaging; an all-in-my-head performance of known knowns and unknown unknowns.”
–Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste
Books: Ten writers, artists, scholars, and curators—Ralph Lemon, Heike Geißler, Dodie Bellamy, Sukhdev Sandhu, Momtaza Mehri, Charlie Fox, Omar Kholeif, Vaginal Davis, Gayle Salamon, and Simone White—choose the year’s outstanding titles:
“Sad, joyous, funny, heart-cracking: I can’t remember the last time I read a book that rendered such raw feeling with such intricate intelligence.”
–Gayle Salamon
And: The Artists’ Artists: Virgil Abloh, Heather Benjamin, Dawoud Bey, Nayland Blake, Kathe Burkhart, A.K. Burns, Kim Brandt, Alex Carver, Jonathan Lyndon Chase, Tony Cokes, DeVonn Francis, Liz Glynn, Valerie Hegarty, Ho Rui An, Hsu Chia-Wei, Every Ocean Hughes, Mette Ingvartsen, Maryam Jafri, Suki Seokyeong Kang, Barbara Kruger, Jac Leirner, Paulina Olowska, Paul P., Paul Pfeiffer, Joyce Pensato, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, John Riepenhoff, Marianna Simnett, Nancy Shaver, Amy Sherald, Erin Shirreff, Shirley Tse, Banks Violette, Jon Wang, Michael Wang, Brittney Leeanne Williams, Xu Zhen, and Samson Young
Plus: Kaitlin Phillips on Sarah Lucas, Johanna Fateman on Ree Morton, and Rachel Haidu on Amy Sillman.
