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I’m thinking in particular of the series Luxury and Degradation, which features exact reproductions, in oil on canvas, of liquor advertisements that were contemporary when Koons made them, in 1986. The paintings pair well-known slogans—“I could go for something Gordon’s” and “I assume you drink Mar…

The year before the Costa Concordia fell on its side and killed thirty-two people, it starred in a movie. Jean-Luc Godard’s Film socialisme has gambling and a brunch buffet, frantic disco, the banter of history, vanished gold, Palestine. Shot in HD, the footage transforms the enormous cruise liner …

The “green translucence in the yards” is high-flown, and yet I do not doubt that it was the salient vision to share. Every sentiment and gesture in Jesus’ Son feels true, and not all writers approach anything true in what they write, but instead have other types of gifts, and skills, for braiding i…

Mira, who had been transferred from her wheelchair to the couch, sat and fidgeted. She understood no English but was forced to quietly pretend she was listening. I kept smiling at her, and she smiled back. I was desperate to give her something, to promise something. It’s very difficult to see a chi…

[...] The mechanic, older than I was by ten years, and with a stronger personality, turned out to be domineering and manipulative, a bit like Alain Delon is toward Marianne Faithfull. And unfortunately, like Faithfull’s character in the film, I was under his influence, even if my interest in bikes—…