Art
James Beck, Gadfly
(1930-2007)
By Thomas Micchelli
James Beck, the art historian and longtime Columbia University professor, died at the age of 77 over the Memorial Day weekend.
Letter from London
By Sherman SamUnlike Ireland, where there seems to be a sympathy towards both the painterly and the abstract, Britain has long maintained a figurative tradition and held abstraction at arm’s length.
In Conversation
Letter from Germany:It's Not About Representation, It’s About Production Interview with Roger Buergel and Ruth Noack
By Clare CarolinDocumenta is widely regarded as the most important international exhibition of contemporary art, and its twelfth edition opens in Kassel this June.
Letter from Iran
By Robert C. MorganHaving recently traveled to Iran to jury an “international” sculpture symposium, it was difficult to match what I saw and felt with the kinds of reports being generated by the corporate “entertainment” media back home.
In Conversation
Robert Ryman with Phong Bui
After his last show, No Title Required, at Pace Gallery uptown, painter Robert Ryman welcomed Rail Publisher Phong Bui to his West Village studio to talk about his recent paintings and other related work.
In Conversation
Brian O’ Doherty with Phong Bui
On the occasion of his retrospective, Beyond the White Cube at Grey Art Gallery, which will be on view till July 14th, the artist Brian O’Doherty—also known as Patrick Ireland—came to visit the Rail’s Headquarters to discuss his life and work.
Letter from China
By Ellen Pearlman“In Beijing they shit ice cream and piss lemonade,” says Robert Bernell, one of the founders of the Dashanzi Art District, also known as the 798 Art Zone, and of Timezone 8, a bookstore and publishing company.
Brooklyn Dispatches
By James KalmAt a jam-packed lecture delivered at the New School in 2000, Dave Hickey, the bad boy of contemporary criticism, presented an idea, profound in its breadth, that it’s memory—not taste, not fashion, not even aesthetics—that determines the “staying power” of a work of art.
