THIS TIME OF YEAR, I WANT TO GO TO PARTIES. I love conviviality, but that’s not what I crave, because let’s face it, all winter people here are ready to get drunk and, once drunk, happy. I’m not wild for any particular holiday food. I like to sing off-key, sure, but that’s not the real draw either. What I really want is to get dressed up and go where other people are dressed up, too. And I don’t mean…

Two factors are contributing to a boom in “rural” art: the trend of art students moving to “art cities” to embark on careers seems to be dissipating, and artists connecting with each other, and with buyers, online. A show in St. Peter, Minn., showcases some of these artists, including Gregory Euclide (whose art graces the cover of Bon Iver’s Grammy-nominated album), David Hamlow, and Liz Miller.

MAGGIE RYAN SANDFORD: So thanks for meeting me here in the internet, guys. I thought it would be “fun” if we all introduced one another, so our readers can figure out why the hell to read a transcript of us chatting with each other. I’ll start: Brian Beatty’s work makes me laugh the way a person laughs when she’s looking down the barrel of a gun. There’s fear there, and deep, deep sadness, but also…

I SHOULD HAVE BEEN EXCITED TO SEE !WOMEN ART REVOLUTION, Lynn Hershman Leeson’s new documentary on feminist art movements from the 1960s-‘80s. Watch the trailer, and it’s clear the film celebrates bold women and fearless artistic experiments, two things I like a lot. I should also have been excited when mnartists and the Walker invited me to watch and discuss !WAR with an accomplished…

IT’S TAKEN ME A LONG TIME TO FIGURE OUT WHAT TO SAY about Big Dance Theater’s Supernatural Wife (based on Anne Carson’s translation of Euripides’s Alkestis), a new commission recently on stage at the Walker. The show’s well-crafted, fast-paced, hipper than we knew we could be and yet never difficult to follow — in short, so deafeningly contemporary it’s hard to see ‘round it. But I think I can make…

Since human beings began to make art before they even called it “art”, they’ve been using earth as material. As “civilization” has progressed, though, creative use of such elemental materials has transitioned to more man-made stuff, to the…

Listen, there’s something unsavory pooling in my joints. I am tired, in a deep way. And I have been thinking about it for some time; I believe I am beginning to know what this weariness is about: I am weary of the pressure to fill my life with new…

When Merce Cunningham died there was no one left to observe the world in quite his way. Like a biologist or physicist, he looked into the wilderness of forces and organisms and random collisions that constitute our universe. He never lost faith in…

I overhead a conversation on Merce Cunningham the other day. It went something like this: “great innovator… Merce Cunningham [said with reverence]… don’t really enjoy it… appreciate… appreciate… chance… Cunningham [said with reverence]…