Journalism
The Apocalypse is a Dance Party / by Sena Başöz, translated from Turkish by Alicia Kismet Eler
The metaphor of the magnolia and the advent of the apocalypse meld in a Turkish artist’s imaginary. By Sena Başöz Translated from the Turkish by Alicia Kismet Eler I first encountered a reproduction of magnolias by painter İbrahim Çallı at my grandma Muazzez’s house...
The Native Journalists Fighting for a Free Press / HYPERALLERGIC
Bad Press follows a Muscogee publication’s struggle against local government censorship and corruption. The new documentary Bad Press (2023) takes a deep dive into the trials and tribulations of freedom of press laws for the Muscogee (Creek) Nation in Oklahoma...
Beautiful Ghosts, or We’ll Always Have Istanbul / THE MARKAZ REVIEW
Looking for love and her father’s past, a Turkish American journalist haunts the streets of Istanbul before and after Covid. The sticky summer air sank into my skin as seagulls dove into the wavy blue waters of the Bosphorus Strait, the waterway that separates the...
The Haunting History of America’s Largest Confederate Monument / Hyperallergic
A new documentary investigates the racist origins of the Stone Mountain monument near Atlanta, Georgia — the Mount Rushmore of white supremacy. You’ve heard of Mount Rushmore, but do you know of Stone Mountain? If you answered no, here’s a fun fact: Though they lost...
Miami, Chonga Girls, and Claiming an Aesthetics of Excess / Hyperallergic
I reviewed Jillian Hernandez's stellar book Aesthetics of Excess: The Art and Politics of Black and Latina Embodiment for Hyperallergic. Author Jillian Hernandez theorizes the intersecting formations of gender, class, and race in relation to the...
30 Art History Memes That Are Hilariously Relatable, As Shared On This Instagram Page / BoredPanda.com
The middle ages were definitely a different time, which we can clearly see reflected in their artwork. But even though we might not be able to relate to wielding swords, wearing fabulous dresses or having our villages pillaged, human nature stays the same, and some...
What Makes Medieval Art So Meme-able? / HYPERALLERGIC
What Makes Medieval Art So Meme-able? All over Instagram, medieval imagery has been remixed, captioned, and somehow reads as peak hilarious, depending on your sense of humor. Medieval imagery wasn’t meant to be funny when it was made hundreds of years ago, but all...
To Vaccine Selfie or Not to Vaccine Selfie? / Hyperallergic
The coronavirus pandemic isn’t over, but on social media it might feel like it is. In the United States, the happy, smiling faces of recently vaccinated friends and family members offer a slice of hope, but the vaccine selfie can elicit a mix of reactions. It’s...
How Animals Communicate / GIZMODO
Published on Gizmodo, May 25, 2020: Caribbean reef squid (Sepioteuthis sepioidea), Curacao, Netherlands Antilles. Photo: Getty Humans and other animals are quite alike—we all just speak different languages. For humans, it’s about the spoken word. With animals, the...
Nickelback’s ‘The Devil Went Down to Georgia’ is how they remind you of what they really are – NBC THINK
From NBC Think, published Aug. 15 2020. They’re not really country, but they’re not rock 'n' roll either. They’re barely even a band that can still attract critical attention, yet their continually commercially successful songs still incite waves of anger from their...
100 Women We Love: Class of 2019 / GO Magazine
From GO Magazine, June 30, 2019 S.E. Jackson, JD Glass, Robin Kish, Alicia Eler, Che Landon, and Dayna Troisi We are thrilled to present this year’s 100 Women We Love—a diverse group of out entertainers, athletes, artists, activists, business leaders, and elected...
For Turkish Women Artists and Advocates, #challengeaccepted Is About More Than Just Selfies – HYPERALLERGIC
The oddly phrased message popped into my inbox on a Sunday afternoon in late July. It read more like a chain mail text than a note from my friend in Istanbul with whom I usually chat with in a mixture of Turkish and English. “I was careful to choose who I think will...
The Year That Was and Wasn’t: 2018
From The Morning News, Dec. 28, 2018, by Alicia Eler We asked more than two dozen of our favorite journalists, writers, and thinkers: What were the most important events of 2018, and what were the least? Alicia Eler SLOTUS’s book is pure Pence propaganda under the...
For Queer Millennials Who Hate Their ******* Job, This Show Is For You
From Them., April 27, 2018, by Alicia Eler: Work in Progress is a hilarious, heartfelt show about queer women, finding meaning as a millennial, and more. They say that “if you love what you do, you never work a day in your life.” But what if the idea of loving what...
Nationally-renowned critics have eyes on northwest Louisiana
From Shreveport Times,February 21, 2018, by Tiana Kennell: Artspace gallery will become the home of more than 200 original artworks created by regional talent for its annual art competition and exhibition. Critical Mass 6 will inhabit a multi-dimensional and...
At Critical Mass 6, a community celebration despite lack of curatorial direction
From Shreveport Times, March 14, 2018, by Alicia Eler: Critical Mass 6 at Shreveport Regional Art Council’s (SRAC) Artspace offered any artist who submitted their artwork a chance to see it on the walls of this vast white-walled, wood-floored, two-story gallery. There...
How the Rise of Instagrammable Art Changes the Experience of Art
From KCET Artbound, March 14, 2018, by Alicia Eler: I searched for the hashtag #desertX on Instagram, found it, and then followed. When I have the Instagram app on my phone, I probably check it at least once an hour, randomly, like most of us who have it do, in those...
Amalia Ulman’s Instagram performance exposed the flaws in selfie culture
From CNN Style, March 29, 2018, by Alicia Eler: Credit: Courtesy Amalia Ulman/Arcadia Missa, London Argentinian-born artist Amalia Ulman's "Excellences and Perfections" performance happened only four years ago, but in the digital age, it feels like much longer. On...
TO BE BAD IS NOT TO BE GOOD: KATYA GROKHOVSKY’S PERFORMANCE ART
From ARTSLANT, by Alicia Eler, March 5, 2018: TO BE BAD IS NOT TO BE GOOD: KATYA GROKHOVSKY’S PERFORMANCE ART BY ALICIA ELER This essay is published on the occasion of the ArtSlant Prize IX Winners Exhibition at SPRING/BREAK Art Show, March 6–12, 2018. Katya...
Miranda July on Killing Somebody
From Artsy Magazine, October 30, 2015, by Alicia Eler: Portrait of Miranda July by Elizabeth Weinberg. For the past year, Miranda July’s app Somebody has facilitated the transmission of messages to people you know via strangers. Type a note into the app—with...
Steve Martin on Celebrity, Collecting Art, and Curating His First Show
From Artsy Magazine, October 13, 2015, by Alicia Eler: Portrait of Steve Martin by Danny Clinch. While he’s no stranger to the art world, legendary comedian Steve Martin has only just cut his teeth as a museum curator. His first foray into the field is “The Idea of...
Mirabelle Jones Fights For Women’s Rights One Catcall at a Time
From KCET Artbound L.A., December 16, 2015, by Alicia Eler: Mirabelle Jones, "To Skin a Catcaller" performance at ATA gallery in San Francisco, November 2015. Catcalling can happen randomly. As a woman, you might start to even expect it. Over time, some women...
A History of Hysteria in Art, Film, and Literature
From KCET Artbound L.A., December 1, 2016, by Alicia Eler: Representation of the Salem witch trials. Lithograph from 1892 by Joseph E. Baker. | Source: Wikimedia Commons Witches. Wisdom. Wonder. Vireo, the groundbreaking made-for-TV opera, is now available for...
The Year That Was and Wasn’t: 2017
From "The Morning News", December 27, 2017, by Alicia Eler: https://themorningnews.org/article/2017-the-year-that-was-and-wasnt Alicia Eler We need legislation protecting the environment, not your freakin’ tears and prayers. Most Important: This single horrifying...
The Year That Was and Wasn’t: 2016
From "The Morning News", December 26, 2016, by Alicia Eler: https://themorningnews.org/article/2016-the-year-that-was-and-wasnt Alicia Eler The Electoral College was set up to ensure the free North would not outnumber the slaveholding South. Most Important: Hillary...
Artforum Critic’s Pick: “Abigail DeVille”
From Artforum, April 13, 2013, by Alicia Eler: If “X” marks the spot, and three Xs mean “poison, do not drink,” the seven Xs that make up the title of Abigail DeVille’s exhibition suggest a marking of double the poison, plus one drop for location. The socioeconomics...
Artforum Critic’s Pick: “Dutes Miller”
From Artforum, December 12, 2012, by Alicia Eler: Dutes Miller’s queer utopia is a romp through Adam and Steve’s Garden of Eden. “In the Garden” presents the gallery-as-landscape peppered with clusters of oddly sexualized finger-fungi outgrowths harvesting on patches...
No, Garrison Keillor, Women Who Take Selfies Aren’t “Asking For It” // Harper’s Bazaar
I was supposed to have a reading of my book, The Selfie Generation, at Garrison Keillor’s bookstore last week, in St. Paul, Minnesota. I canceled the talk after Keillor was accused of alleged inappropriate behavior with a co-worker. Ironically, Keillor couched some of...
President Obama Pens Personal Apology to an Art Historian
From Hyperallergic, February 18, 2014: Professor Ann Collins Johns at the University of Texas at Austin was just as peeved as many people were about President Barack Obama’s knock on art history majors. So she did what any self-assured art historian would do and wrote...
Artforum Critic’s Pick: “We’ll All Make Out Better Than Okay”
From Artforum, September 2017: A giant white gym sock covering a robotic arm that once functioned in a Detroit auto-manufacturing plant speaks in a deadening monotone to passersby. He talks about what it’s like to become useless and rambles about other topics as well:...