LaBier merges cultural iconography, modern mundanity
Alumnus Peter LaBier ’03 has described his work as assemblage, as “a body of flotsam and jetsam,” “the disjointed refuse of our material culture.” Even his single-medium paintings give the…
Taylor Stewart
Bishop lecturer Mark Doty contemplates cosmic, atomic
Mark Doty’s manner is almost as lively as his poetry. As he recites, he performs a series of poses: clutching the podium with both hands, balling his fists, crossing his…
Dead Funny Records rides the waves of tradition, neo-indie
In the neighborhood Shimokitazawa in the Setagaya Ward of Tokyo, there is a Y-junction, the confluence of two narrow streets, with a little Shinto shrine. Despite the surrounding streetlights, solitary…
Japanese re-militarization: I want planes to anger me
When a man threatened the exhibition with a container of gasoline, I felt the flames; when the mayor of Nagoya condemned the sculpture, my cheeks burned with anger. I saw…
Dezaki film confronts comfort women issue
Nobukatsu Fujioka is a bespectacled and neat-looking man. He is also a purveyor of Japan’s history wars. As a graduate student at Sophia University in Tokyo, Miki Dezaki interviewed Nobukatsu…
Khabeer lectures at the nexus of faith, art, academia
Dr. Su’ad Abdul Khabeer sat poised, legs crossed, at the front of the lecture hall. Even before she introduced herself, the audience thrummed, more lively than the hushed and severe…
Alt-manga artist illustrates beauty of the grotesque
When I sat down with the comic illustrator Suzy Amakane, the first thing he did was pull a postcard out of his backpack and contemplate being blacklisted by Disney. On…
Precise, revered, vital: Tallon’s work may save Notre-Dame
“Nice to have an apartment across the street there, to watch the building as it changes,” muttered Andrew Tallon in a 2017 video, guiding a camera along the roof of…
Cartoons constitute clear, creative social commentary
As students and capitalist consumers, readers, creators and computer-owners, we consume an excess of visual media. Every glance at our phones brings an inundation of advertisements, tweets and stories (whether…
Photojournalist Shahidul Alam spreads truth in images
In his resolve and intensity of presence, with his furrowed brow and wide eyes, Shahidul Alam resembles a lot of his photography subjects, making it sometimes difficult to distinguish between…