Selected Essays and Reviews

“Everything Everywhere: The Contradictory and Global Nature of Surrealism,” a review of the exhibition Surréalisme at the Centre Pompidou, TLS [print], 21 November 2024.

“The Last of the Bohemians: A new translation of an enduring tale of art and adventure,” a review of Guillaume Apollinaire’s Seated Woman, translated by Timothy Mathews, TLS [print], 25 October 2024. 

Stephen Shore’s American Beauty,” a review of Stephen Shore’s exhibition Vehicular & Vernacular at the Fondation Henri Cartier Bresson, Aperture [online], 1 August 2024.

‘The Zone’ Reveals Images of Paris Beyond its Clichés,” a review of Justinien Tribillon’s The Zone: An Alternate History of Paris, Frieze magazine [online], 23 July 2024.

A Moral History of a Generation: Sentimental Education is a Misunderstood Classic,” a review of Raymond MacKenzie’s translation of Gustave Flaubert’s Sentimental Education, The TLS [print], 28 June 2024. 

At the Garden of Cosmic Speculation,” Read Me [online], 25 June 2024.

Dispatch: Aaron Peck on the future of Vancouver as an artist’s city,” Aperture [print] No. 254, Spring 2024.

Mid-Ocean Swimming,” a review of Mariette Navarro’s Ultramarine, translated by Cory Stockwell, The TLS [print], 14 September 2023.

Rineke Dijkstra’s Captivating Videos Portray the Gestures of Youth,” a review of Rineke Dijkstra’s exhibition I See You at MEP, Aperture [online], 18 July 2023.

“Joanna Piotrowska Visualizes the Power of Small Gestures”, a review of Joanna Piotrowska’s Entre-Nous at Le Bal, Aperture [online], 5 May 2023.

Dead Ringer: A symbolist novel that inspired an opera and a Hitchcock film,” a review of Will Stone’s translation of Georges Rodenbach’s Bruges-la-morte, The TLS [print], 21 April 2023. 

“Christian Marclay,” review of Christian Marcaly’s exhibition at the Centre Pompidou, The Wire [print] Issue: 470, April 2023.

“How a Group of Young Italians Redefined Avant-Garde Photography,” a review of “Reversing the Eyes: Arte Povera and Beyond: 1960–75: Photography, Film, Video” at Jeu de Paume and Le Bal, Aperture [online], 18 January 2023.

Remembering Rodney Graham (1949-2022),” Frieze [online], 2 November, 2022.

“August Sander and the Disquieting Facts of Modern Life,” a review of “Germany / the 1920s / New Objectivity / August Sander” at the Centre Pompidou, Aperture [online], 24 October, 2022.

“Nightmare Logic: A Psychoanalytic Fable about Abandonment,” a review of Jeanne Benameur’s The Child Who, translated by Bill Johnston, The Times Literary Supplement [print], 7 October 2022.

“Mind-Boggling Lyrical Complexity: On Daniel Levin Becker’s What’s Good: Notes on Rap and Language, Los Angeles Review of Books [online], 8 August 2022. 

“The Narrative Artist: Sophie Calle’s Art of Games and Chance”, Aperture magazine [print], No. 247. Summer 2022.

“Blame it on the Belgians: Charles Baudelaire’s Dyspeptic Final Act”, a review of Richard Sieburth’s translations of Baudelaire’s Late Fragments, The TLS [print], 10 June 2022.

“On Grids and Landscape,” preface to Arranging Furniture, a book of letterpress prints inspired by the work of Agnes Martin. Arranging Furniture (Vernon: Greenboathouse Press, 2021).

“Offloading Our Memories to the Internet”, an essay on Mael Renouard’s Fragments of an Infinite Memory and how we experience moments of historical change online, The Believer [print], Feb 2021.

“The Abyss Echoes Back: Judith Schalansky’s Inventory of Losses The White Review [online], January 2021.

“Albert Camus, Patron Saint of the Sticks,” Los Angeles Review of Books [online], 10 September 2020.

“Distancing #31: Don of Diamond Dreams,” a reflection on listening to Shabazz Palaces during lockdown, The Believer [online], 3 August 2020.

“Jeff Wall’s New Look,” Walrus Magazine, November issue 2019 [print], posted online as “One Photographer’s Artistic Encounter with the Selfie Generation,” 14 November 2019.

“Reframing the Black Model at the Musée d’Orsay,” New York Review [online], 22 June 2019.

“Souvankham Thammavongsa’s Cluster,” Music & Literature [online], 28 May 2019.

“The Burning of Paris,” a first-hand account of watching Notre-Dame burn, frieze [online], 16 April 2019.

“The Wit of Their Strange Appearance: On Sylvia Legris,” Music & Literature [print], No. 9., 2019.

On W. G. Sebald’s Austerlitz” frieze magazine [print], Issue 200 Jan-Feb 2019.

“Two-Step: A Boolean Comedrama by Jacques Jouet and Oliver Salon,” The Quarterly Conversation [online]. Issue 54., 2018.

“Curfew,” The Halloween Review [online], October 2018, Issue 1.

“Mural Murder Mystery,” an essay about the graphically violent political graffiti of Brussels, The Happy Reader [print], Summer 2018, Issue no. 11.

“Foujita: Imperial Japan meets Bohemian Paris,” New York Review [online], 27 May 2018.

“Harry Mathews’s The Solitary Twin,” The White Review [online], 8 May 2018.

“Craig Owens: Portrait of a Young Critic,” frieze [online], 14 March 2018.

“Gus Bofa’s Low-Life Art,” New York Review [online], a reprint of an afterword that appeared in Chris Clarke’s translation of Pierre Mac Orlan’s Mademoiselle Bambu, published by Wakefield Press, 23 January 2018.

“On Nuts and Other Editions: The Books in George Bowering’s Study,” TCR [print], Fall 2014, Vol. 3, No. 24.

On Ian Wallace,” Artforum [print], February 2013. (For all seven years of my contributions to Artfourm, you can click here.)

“The Door Is Open: For Peter Quartermain”, Golden Handcuffs Review [print], Fall/Winter 2013-2014, Vol. 1, No. 17.

“Found Manuscripts,” Bookforum [online], October 21, 2012.

“Notes on Music and Evil,” a preface to a special edition of Herman Melville’s Billy Budd, Sailor, published by Publication Studio, Portland, and Deck Towel, NY, in 2010, in an edition of twenty.

“Too Many Words,” Weekday Magazine [print], 2010, Vol. 1, No. 1.