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Raphael’s Portrait of Lorenzo de’Medici
The Metabunker summarizes the problems of attribution surrounding the Raphael portrait sold at Christie’s in 2007
Interview: El-P & Aesop Rock
Click here to read our 2003 in-depth interview with two of New York’s finest.
Continuous Creation — Titian’s Nuova Natura
On Titian’s aesthetic of the unfinished and Renaissance notions of the subjective.
Bleed Runner
On Blade Runner: The Final Cut. Also, read producer Charles de Lauzirika’s comments here.
Hergé and the Order of Things
Hooded Utilitarian column on Hergé’s vision and the necessity of comics criticism that engages deep form
Bruegel, Rembrandt, Crumb and Cartooning
Extended Hooded Utilitarian piece on R. Crumb’s Genesis and the cartoon tradition.
New Yorker Cartoons: A Legacy of Mediocrity
A deadening force at the heart of the art form, smothering the field in bourgeois mediocrity
Hogarth’s Chicken Fat
An analysis of Hogarth’s rich imagery as both support and counterpoint to his storytelling
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Still at large
Today, and on Saturday, it happened a year ago. In some ways it wasn’t all that new, nor unexpected — jihadist terrorist attacks have happened all over Europe with increasing frequency for the last 10-15 years, and several lower key attempts had been made to silence Charlie Hebdo. In fact, it remains scandalous that they weren’t protected better — the attack on their offices could have been prevented.
Anyway, it seems like a watershed in Europe, creating a “before and after” in many people’s minds. The even more horrible attack in Paris on 13 November, while certainly shocking, only confirmed that everyone is at risk, not only cartoonists or Jews. Beyond that, there is a creeping, dangerous sense of “business as usual.” Probably because that is what it has become to us. Jihadist terrorism is surely here to stay for the foreseeable future, because its root causes are not going to disappear any time soon. And sadly, the influx of refugees from various Muslim majority countries probably isn’t going to help that particular problem. While we should clearly be doing more to help refugees — it is the only right thing to do — the challenges of integration are hard to deny, just like the prospects of peace in the Middle East and Afghanistan remain depressingly bleak. Continue reading ‘Still at large’