The Bundists’ Promise

Plus: New York’s Sixties Avant-Garde; Scottish Poetry; Fred Astaire ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

Today in The New York Review of Books: Adam Hochschild remembers the Bundists; Prudence Peiffer advances New York’s 1960s avant-garde; David Wheatley reads contemporary Scottish poetry; a poem by Dan Chiasson; and, from the archives, Arlene Croce on Fred Astaire.   Adam Hochschild A Dream of a Socialist Commonwealth Molly Crabapple’s history of the Bund recovers an egalitarian, secular, cosmopolitan vision of Jewish identity and political life that was lost in the horrors of the twentieth century.   Prudence Peiffer Don’t Call It Entertainment In Everthing Is Now, J. Hoberman chronicles a radical avant-garde’s attempts to jostle New York City out of its postwar complacency and moral retrenchment.   David Wheatley Against Nostalgia In their poems and essays, Kathleen Jamie and Peter Davidson transcend Scottish sentimentalism and find new points of entry into their shared past.   The Peepers a poem by Dan Chiasson Easter morning Hungry to gain on quiet and night and cold and rain we pixelate we complicate our veins are antifreeze…   Free from the Archives Fred Astaire was born 127 years ago today. In the Review’s April 5, 2012, issue, Arlene Croce wrote about his more than seventy-year career. From some of the earliest sound films to one of his final public performances, on The Dick Cavett Show, Astaire was an innovator in dance, film, and music. As Croce argues, “any way he cared to entertain us was the right way” Arlene Croce They’re the Top As with all great dancers, Astaire’s technique was an expression of his imagination. It was the braiding of swing rhythms together with his personal tap technique (which had to have been an extension of his drumming, or vice versa) that made him the great and unique dancer that he was. But as a film phenomenon he was twice as great.   Recently in the Review Jane Bayard Curley His Moo Was Refined What can explain The Story of Ferdinand’s remarkable appeal in its own moment—and its enduring popularity today? Mark O’Connell London’s Brutal Underground In Patrick Radden Keefe’s London Falling, an ordinary boy’s deadly obsession with the ultrarich reveals deeper corruption at the heart of modern London.   New Subscriber Benefit! Subscribers are now able to share unlocked versions of our articles with friends, family, and social media channels. When signed in to your account, look for this gift box icon in any of our articles.   Special Offer Subscribe for just $1 an issue Get the deal Politics   Literature   Arts   Ideas You are receiving this message because you signed up for email newsletters from The New York Review. Update your address or preferences View this newsletter online The New York Review of Books 207 East 32nd Street, New York, NY 10016-6305       Preferences  |  Unsubscribe

Last Chance: Marilynne Robinson on the New Testament

Join us for a four-session seminar starting tomorrow! ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

Marilynne Robinson on the New Testament   Four weekly sessions, starting tomorrow evening! Each week will focus on a book from the New Testament: Luke, Acts, First Corinthians, and John. The course as a whole is intended to draw attention to the fact that the Scriptures are, whatever else, a very great literature. Considering their importance to Western Civilization, it is remarkable how vulnerable they are now to misuse and ridicule.  Over centuries writers returned to these texts, confident of finding a high order of meaning in them, as great writers have done for centuries after the canon was closed. This is far too extraordinary a phenomenon to be left to cynical use or to neglect. —Marilynne Robinson Four one-hour sessions: May 6, 13, 20, and 27. All sessions will start at 7 PM EDT.  Register for The New Testament   Politics   Literature   Arts   Ideas You are receiving this message because you signed up for e-mail newsletters from The New York Review. Update your preferences View in browser The New York Review of Books 207 East 32nd Street, New York, NY 10016-6305   Preferences  |  Unsubscribe

Just Looking…

The Art Criticism Digest ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

Welcome to “Just Looking,” the Review’s new newsletter dedicated exclusively to visual art.  Our annual Art Issue is now arriving on newsstands and in mailboxes, and on the very last page you’ll find “At the Galleries,” our brand-new column. At a rocky moment for art criticism, “At the Galleries” will focus on the most thought-provoking exhibitions of the moment, with a particular emphasis on contemporary art. Since the Review’s first issue, in 1963, when James Ackerman wrote about The Eternal Present Volume I: The Beginning of Art—“to confront Miro and Klee with cave painting is no more revealing than to confront Picasso’s classicizing figures with the Parthenon pediments”—the magazine has made art one of its primary concerns. Contributors initially covered books about art (here’s Clement Greenberg, under the guise of reviewing four photo books, on the art of the photograph), but soon enough they ventured into museums and galleries as well (here’s Francis Haskell in 1965 traipsing about the Hermitage in “Leningrad”). In our pages and on our website, distinguished art historians rub shoulders with critics, poets, and artists. Today they include David Salle, Susan Tallman, Ben Lerner, Jenny Uglow, Jarrett Earnest, Ingrid D. Rowland, and dozens more. Here in “Just Looking,” every month we’ll collect the magazine’s reviews of gallery and museum shows alongside in-depth writing about artists and art history. This April, we are pleased to bring you the inaugural installment of “At the Galleries,” as well as some of the most exciting essays we’ve published this year, including, from our Art Issue, Jed Perl on the Whitney Biennial and “New Humans: Memories of the Future” at the reopened New Museum; Coco Fusco on “Wifredo Lam: When I Don’t Sleep, I Dream” at MoMA; and Elaine Blair on “How to Be a Guerrilla Girl” at the Getty Center in Los Angeles. We hope you enjoy just looking…    David Teniers the Younger: Archduke Leopold Wilhelm in his Painting Gallery in Brussels, 1651 (detail)   At the Galleries Dawn Chan Inflatable Life On Paul Chan at Greene Naftali Ben Davis Visions of Depravity On Ceija Stojka at the Drawing Center   From the Art Issue Jed Perl Art for Our Age of Chaos The 2026 Whitney Biennial and the New Museum’s exhibition “New Humans: Memories of the Future” are attempts to respond to a world full of darkness, trauma, and strife. Coco Fusco A Vital Unconscious Wifredo Lam’s paintings spring from a unique synthesis of European modernism and Afro-Cuban consciousness. Elaine Blair The Masked Avengers The Guerrilla Girls used indisputable data and a dry, polished style to show that the art world, contrary to its self-conception, was deeply retrograde.   Recent Essays on Art from the Review Carolina Miranda Poisonous Objects Two exhibitions in Los Angeles respond to the racist monuments to Confederate soldiers that have been erected all over the United States. Jed Perl The Painter’s Shadow World Morgan Meis’s Three Paintings Trilogy is the most exciting new writing about the visual arts to appear in a generation.   Recent Essays on Art from the NYR Online Walker Mimms Dead Ringers The sculptor Tatiana Trouvé makes dispassionate, ironic anti-monuments using profoundly inconvenient methods of a distant past. Jeremy Lybarger A Workingman’s Surrealist The artist H. C. Westermann cribbed from science fiction, pulp novels, and comic strips to make impeccable constructions from utilitarian stock.       Special Offer Subscribe for just $1 an issue and receive a FREE 2026 calendar Get the deal Politics   Literature   Arts   Ideas You are receiving this message because you signed up for e-mail newsletters from The New York Review. Update your address or preferences View this newsletter online The New York Review of Books 207 East 32nd Street, New York, NY 10016-6305     Preferences  |  Unsubscribe