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This month in Artforum:
hannah baer and Monica Huerta on the Year in Hell:
“The rave teaches me about revolution because it’s durational. You are invited to keep going, keep dancing, perhaps past when you are sore or want to sleep.” —hannah baer
“What if we took seriously what our bodies knew this year: that we might no longer know how to tell time, which is also how to orient ourselves in space, which is also how to tell stories, which is also how to mark a sense of scale.” —Monica Huerta
Best of 2021: A renowned group of critics, artists, and curators from around the world—Lynne Cooke, Cecilia Alemani, David Joselit, Erin Christovale, Miguel A. López, Malik Gaines, Johanna Fateman, Amy Sillman, Jack Bankowsky, Darby English, Sky Hopinka, Caroline Busta and Lil Internet, Susanne Pfeffer, John Kelsey—take stock of the year in art.
“The twenty-seven artists and groups in ‘Illiberal Arts’ each explore, in quite distinct ways, how to make art while avoiding wielding one’s own identity—or anyone else’s—as property.” —David Joselit
“Anne Imhof’s monumental ‘Natures Mortes’ exhibition was a requiem for twentieth-century subculture—if not for the twentieth century, full stop.” —Caroline Busta
Film: Five celebrated cineastes—John Waters, Amy Taubin, J. Hoberman, James Quandt, and Cassie da Costa—select the top films of the year:
“The stupidest art film of the year, directed by a Gallic auteur who specializes in one-joke dumbbell comedies, about a giant fly and two French stooges, is also one of the funniest and most charming.” —John Waters
Music: Five musicians and critics—Alan Licht, JJJJJerome Ellis, Sasha Geffen, and Harmony Holiday—name their highlights of the year:
“Posting in nine one-minute segments on Instagram, Flemmer literally unpacks a staggeringly lavish compendium of archival work by the long-running free-improv collective. In the age of streaming, I’m cheered to see the continued existence of album releases that constitute art objects unto themselves.” —Alan Licht
Books: Nine writers, artists, scholars, and curators—Bruce Hainley, Joan Kee, Negar Azimi, Dennis Cooper, Molly Warnock, Dodie Bellamy, Colby Chamberlain, Thomas (T.) Jean Lax, Jackie Ess—choose the year’s outstanding titles:
“More an experiment in art writing than an artist’s biography as conventionally understood, Alexander Nemerov’s Fierce Poise: Helen Frankenthaler and 1950s New York is notable in part for what it does not cover.” —Molly Warnock
“A heaping pile of life detritus, what it reveals and, maybe more crucially, what it obscures, is a point of departure for Maria Stepanova’s breathtaking zigzag meditation on memory.” —Negar Azimi
And: The Artists’ Artists: Darren Bader, Kevin Beasley, Chris Bogia, Diedrick Brackens, Katherine Bradford, Ian Faden, Hadi Fallahpisheh, Genieve Figgis, Miles Greenberg, Heidi Lau, Cannupa Hanska Luger, Lia Clay Miller, Tyler Mitchell, Erin Jane Nelson, Frida Orupabo, Jimmy Robert, Tracey Rose, Mira Schor, Fin Simonetti, Paul Soileau/Christeene, Gili Tal, Anna Uddenberg, and Claude Wampler.
Plus: More than 35 exhibition reviews from around the globe.
