Slate

Trading Places: Cultural property disputes are reshaping the art world – but how?
July 28, 2003
Everything you ever wanted to know about the laws pertaining to the repatriation of cultural property

"Today, trying to make sense of all the different international laws is enough to set anyone but a lawyer wailing like the tortured figure in Edvard Munch's 'The Scream.' "

Brush With Death: There's a terrific art world novel out this season, and it isn't Updike's.
November 22, 2002
Two books about the art world – Jonathan Updike's tendentious Seek My Face vs. Jonathan Santlofer's appealing potboiler The Death Artist

Diary: A Weeklong Journal of a New York Art Critic
November 11 through 15, 2002
Observations on contemporary auction week – one year after 9/11

"This is contemporary auction week in New York, and the art world is collectively holding its breath. Here's how Art & Auction, one of the magazines I write for, put it on this month's cover: 'Will There Be Smiles – Or Will There Be Tears?' "

Paint Job: Does "Frida" nail Kahlo's life – or her art?
October 29, 2002
What's wrong – and right – about this flawed but impressive artist biopic

Bum Rap: The Brooklyn Museum's tame nudie show.
October 1, 2002
A story about the "Victorian Nude" show, and the heated responses it provoked among male art critics in New York

Eastern Standards: Why do so many Arabs love Orientalist art?
May 8, 2002
Nineteenth century Orientalism is back, and some of its most avid devotees are Middle Eastern collectors

Ceci N'est Pas Surrealism: Even if you don't know Surrealism, it knows you.
February 19, 2002
A discussion of Surrealism, as presented in several major shows around the U.S., plus Slate's first slideshow
Ceci n'est pas Surrealism: A Surrealism Slideshow

"The truly fascinating thing about Surrealism is that American cultural life as we know it today would not be possible without it. Most of our visual culture, including music videos, television, and advertising, remains permeated by its typically disjunctive imagery, its knee-jerk desire to shock, and its fixation upon sexuality and the subconscious."