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November | 2025

The Fish in the New Pond
November 30th, 2025 | By Jorge Rodriguez

The Fish in the New Pond

I met Mark at Annex Gallery, where he is working as an intern. Before I knew he made photographs, and therefore counted as an artist, I thought of him simply as someone who always needed a drink bottle within reach. One of those insulated flasks used by athletes or hydration fanatics that seemed to follow him more faithfully than his own shadow. I also knew, before seeing a single picture, that he supported Barça.

Talia Chetrit as Skin and Surface
November 25th, 2025 | By Jorge Rodriguez

Talia Chetrit as Skin and Surface

Talia Chetrit’s presence on the contemporary map of photography is not defined solely by the dismantling of her own intimacy. Born in 1982, trained in the analog tradition and in a visual thinking acutely aware of its own mechanisms, she has turned the domestic sphere into a territory of suspicion, especially in the series where she grazes—without fully yielding—the experience of motherhood.

Formal Blindness and Sensations
November 25th, 2025 | By Jorge Rodriguez

Formal Blindness and Sensations

The fall edition of The Paris Review features the work of two artists. Martha Bonnie Diamond is one of them. Born in New York in 1944, she died just two years ago, in 2023. She was among the most singular pictorial voices of her generation. For more than six decades she explored the city as a perceptual register. Rendering it recognizable never interested her.

Art or Mathematics
November 18th, 2025 | By Jorge Rodriguez

Art or Mathematics

I have a rough idea of where New Zealand is on the map. And I’m quite pleased not to know it with any greater precision; in that vagueness, the place remains slightly mysterious, a little enigmatic. Even there —so far from what we consider the heart of the planet, which is our apartment— events unfold that feel uncannily familiar. My grandmother Jacinta used to say: En tolos sitios cuecen fabes… y dalgunes, hasta les quemen. (Everywhere, the same dramas simmer)

The Promised Land
November 17th, 2025 | By Jorge Rodriguez

The Promised Land

I have always been drawn to the biblical passage in which God asks Moses to stretch out his hand over the sea. He summons a powerful wind from the east, cleaving the waters and opening the path through which the people of Israel will advance.
I look at this image and, after a moment in which I enjoy the analogy, a distant sense of dread overtakes me. Very distant, to be clear; I want to be honest.

The Grace That Butoh Bestows Upon Tom Johnson
November 16th, 2025 | By Jorge Rodriguez

The Grace That Butoh Bestows Upon Tom Johnson

By the late nineteenth century, a group of Japanese statesmen had decided they’d had all the shogunate they could reasonably endure. However beautiful the swords and scabbards, it was time to catch up and tune themselves to the rest of the world. Japan had to modernize and find other uses for the wheel. Those visionaries from the domains of Satsuma, Chōshū, Tosa, and Hizen became the architects of the new state. The decisive figures, as I see them: Ōkubo Toshimichi (Satsuma)...

Of Gods, Marketing, and Extraterrestrials
November 15th, 2025 | By Jorge Rodriguez

Of Gods, Marketing, and Extraterrestrials

Many of us love stories about extraterrestrials. Enjoyable, measured, tinged with mystery. For some, though, they become a feverish fixation. They comb the internet the way people once prowled libraries, hunting for hidden messages, for the codes and arcana exchanged in some shadowy dimension—guardians of the secrets.

Wifredo Lam’s Impossible Return
November 14th, 2025 | By Jorge Rodriguez

Wifredo Lam’s Impossible Return

What could I possibly say today about Wifredo Lam and the exhibition the MoMA has devoted to him? Little that hasn’t already been uttered—successfully or not—by the hundreds of critics and journalists who have read, interpreted, or merely circled around the curatorship of Christophe Cherix (David Rockefeller Director) and Beverly Adams (Estrellita Brodsky Curator of Latin American Art).

What recognition has Evelyn Sosa received, and why does it matter?
November 13th, 2025 | By Jorge Rodriguez

What recognition has Evelyn Sosa received, and why does it matter?

Evelyn Sosa is a young Cuban photographer who has already left a subtle yet unmistakable imprint on the artistic ecosystem of the American Midwest. In 2024, she took part in Through a Stranger’s Eyes, an exhibition presented under the FotoFocus program. Coming from the Caribbean—and, more precisely, from Miami—she introduced a transnational conversation rarely encountered in these latitudes.