Author Archives: Jennifer Kabat

About Jennifer Kabat

A recent finalist for Notting Hill Editions’ Essay Prize, Jennifer Kabat (@jenkabat) is working on a book called Growing Up Modern, exploring art, ideology and the landscape from the modernist suburb where she grew up to the Western Catskills where she lives now. She’s been awarded a Creative Capital/Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant for her criticism and teaches at NYU. She contributes to BOMB, The Believer and Frieze and was once an editor at the legendary style magazine The Face in London.

The Worst People in America: Barack Obama, Bringer of Drones

Posted on July 8, 2015 by Jennifer Kabat

What is the difference between West Baltimore and Western Pakistan? Drones and American policing at home? Jennifer Kabat on Obama and his “signature strike.” Continue reading →

Posted in Worst People in America | Tagged Barach Obama, Claudia Rankine, drone strikes, John O Brennan, Marilynne Robinson, signature strikes | Leave a comment

The Small Often Vague Things – Kate Newby’s Radically Slight Art

Posted on June 12, 2014 by Jennifer Kabat

What happens when language fails us? When words are just poor approximations, and they smooth over the weird and wonderful. Meet Kate Newby, whose art can be radically slight, and is failed by trying too hard to describe it. Continue reading →

Posted in The Arts | Tagged Fogo Island, Kate Newby, La Loge, Masonic Lodge, Masons | 2 Comments

Lynne Tillman Will Save Your Life

Posted on May 11, 2014 by Jennifer Kabat

Over the next two Sundays, we’ll be running pieces by the great Lynne Tillman. This is Jennifer Kabat’s introduction to one of the finest essay writers of our age. Continue reading →

Posted in Literature | Tagged art, expat writing, Frieze, Jane Bowles, Lynne Tillman, Paul Bowles | Leave a comment

The Plagiarist is Present: Thoughts on Art, Theft, Shia, Marina and Jay-Z

Posted on March 27, 2014 by Jennifer Kabat

What do Shia LaBeouf, Marina Abramovic and Jay-Z have in common? Or, Jennifer Kabat asks, when does a copy become a theft? Plus Big Foot and China and abstract painting… Continue reading →

Posted in The Arts | Tagged abstract painting, Adam Lerner, Big Foot, feminism, Han van Meegeren, James Franco, jay z, lady gaga, Marina Abramovic, MCA Denver, MoMA, performance art, Rochelle Feinstein, Shia LaBeouf, the art world, The Whitney Biennial, Vermeer | 1 Comment

I Love New York, Crazy City: The Triumph of Isa Genzken

Posted on January 9, 2014 by Jennifer Kabat

Tragedy and triumph in New York about New York – Jennifer Kabat on Isa Genzken’s hallucinatory take on the city and the world at MoMA. Continue reading →

Posted in The Arts | Tagged Andreas Baader, Benjamin Buchloh, feminism, Gerhard Richter, Germany, Isa Genzken, minimalism, MoMA, New York City, sculpture, the Red Army Faction | Leave a comment

Auctioning Off Utopia

Posted on December 5, 2013 by Jennifer Kabat

From Christie’s to Chandigarh in India, Jennifer Kabat traces the trafficking of chairs as art in Amie Siegel’s film Provenance. Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, The Arts | Tagged Amie Siegel, Chandigarh, Christie's, contemporary art, Corbusier, Sothebys | Leave a comment

I Sell The Shadow: Civil Wars at the Met

Posted on August 15, 2013 by Jennifer Kabat

Two Civil War shows at the Met make Jennifer Kabat wonder how the unspeakable nature of war gets translated into art. And what we gain and lose. Continue reading →

Posted in Politics, The Arts | Tagged civil rights, John Reekie, kevin powers, kim jones, laylah ali, metropolitan museum of art, Sojourner Truth, the civil war, The Yellow Birds, Walt Whitman, Winslow Homer | 1 Comment