IDAF'25 and PersonA: Five Days of Entangled Faces at AKM
Reflecting on the 5th Istanbul Digital Art Festival (IDAF'25) at AKM: Muzaffer Malkoç's interactive biometric installation PersonA, facial recognition subversion, and collective portraiture.
Sebastião Salgado (1944–2025): The Black-and-White Witness of the Human Figure
Appraising Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado (1944–2025): monumental black-and-white humanism, Serra Pelada, and the critique of aestheticizing tragedy.
Koyo Kouoh (1967–2025): A Biennale Left Without Its Curator
Appraising Cameroonian-Swiss curator Koyo Kouoh (1967–2025): her institutional legacy at RAW Material Company, Zeitz MOCAA, and the posthumous 2026 Venice Biennale.
"Sargent and Paris": Madame X and the Cost of a Portrait
Examining 'Sargent and Paris' at the Met (April–August 2025): John Singer Sargent's 'Madame X', the 1884 Salon scandal, and the societal peril of painted intimacy.
"David Hockney 25": The Currency of an Eighty-Seven-Year-Old Painter
Reviewing 'David Hockney 25' at Fondation Louis Vuitton (April–August 2025): iPad drawings in Normandy, empirical observation, and painting at age eighty-seven.
Everyone Became Ghibli: How a Style Became a Filter
Critiquing the viral March 2025 GPT-4o Studio Ghibli visual filter craze: automated pastiche, intellectual property theft, and the flattening of human portraiture.
Christie's "Augmented Intelligence": Artificial Intelligence in the Auction Room
Examining Christie's February–March 2025 'Augmented Intelligence' auction: generative AI, the 6,500-signature artist boycott, and the ambiguous status of digital portraiture.
Jack Vettriano (1951–2025): Scorned by Critics, Beloved by the Public
Remembering Scottish painter Jack Vettriano (1951–2025): 'The Singing Butler', the hostility of the institutional art establishment, and the sociologies of taste.
Walter Robinson (1950–2025): The Critic's Pen, the Painter's Brush
Reflecting on painter and critic Walter Robinson (1950–2025): coining 'Zombie Formalism', the East Village pulp aesthetic, and the double life of the critic-practitioner.
A Room of Her Own for the Mona Lisa: Protecting a Portrait from the Crowd
Analyzing the Louvre's January 2025 'Nouvelle Renaissance' plan to isolate the Mona Lisa in an underground chamber: crowd control, spectacle, and the death of contemplative looking.