Art
In Conversation
AN-MY LÊ with Sara Christoph
Living through the Vietnam War as a child and immigrating to the United States as a teenager, An-My Lê’s life has been indelibly marked by international conflict. For over two decades, her work as a photographer has engaged the unseen facets within the theater of war.
In Conversation
SARAH LEWIS with Phong Bui
In reading Sarah Lewis’s The Rise I was at once reminded of how deeply appreciative I am of having read Freud, Jung, Marie-Louise von Franz, Karen Horney, Erik H. Erikson, Sir Anthony Storr, even Paul Tillich, among others. Just before the publication of the paperback edition of The Rise from Simon & Schuster, the writer/critic/curator paid a visit to the Rail HQ in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, to talk about her book with Rail publisher Phong Bui.
DEMYSTIFYING GERHARD RICHTER’S GESTURAL ABSTRACTION
Painting in the Gap between Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art
By Herbert R. Hartel, Jr.
In the mid-1970s, Gerhard Richter began making large, colorful, tactile abstract paintings whose sketchy, rough, and blurry effects make us aware of the tools and techniques used and the complicated pictorial thinking involved. These paintings have been described as “gestural” or “painterly,” although Richter refers to them as his “Abstracts,” and they now constitute the largest and most consistent portion of his enormous, erratic oeuvre.
In Conversation
TAL R with Phong Bui
The morning after the opening reception of his recent exhibit Tal R: Altstadt Girl at Cheim & Read (January 15 – February 14, 2015) the artist Tal R welcomed Rail Publisher Phong Bui to the lobby of Bowery Hotel (where he was staying, and just hours before returning to his home and studio in Copenhagen, Denmark) to talk about his life and work.
In Conversation
YAEL BARTANA with Sara Roffino
Yael Bartana’s current exhibition at Petzel Gallery presents two recent films: True Finn (2014) and Inferno (2013). Just before the exhibition opened to the public Bartana met with Rail managing editor Sara Roffino to discuss rising nationalism, utopic visions, and Avinu Malkeinu.
In Conversation
KRISTIN JONES with Ann McCoy
By Ann McCoyKristin Jones came by the Rail to discuss her collaborative project TEVERETERNO for the revival of Rome’s Tiber River with Ann McCoy. The artist has been working to adopt an 1,800-foot long stretch of the river, and turn it into a site for contemporary art, a first for Rome.
DREAMLAND
Coney Island and the 20th Century Avant-Garde
By Kurt Hollander
In the late 1980s I wrote my last short story, “Skinny Takes a Walk,” which I self-published at that time in my magazine The Portable Lower East Side. In the story I take the subway out to the last stop in Brooklyn, walk over to a residential building a few blocks away, ride an elevator up to the 12th floor and stand in front of a door behind which my father is living. In the end, though, I don’t ring the bell, but rather turn around and take the elevator back down and walk around the Coney Island amusement park, boardwalk, and beach. Instead of actually avoiding my father, all I think about that fictional day are the stories he used to tell me about hanging out here as a kid.
