editorial

critiques, profiles, interviews, and essays for independent magazines in the arts and culture sphere

WRITER-IN-RESIDENCE WORK: SPIKE MAGAZINE & SALZBURGER KUNSTVEREIN

"...Amid this sprawl of references, Mangione’s presence, still hot in the cycle of TikToks and TV news segments, feels like temporal whiplash. Just weeks earlier, the fashion Instagram account, Diet Prada, made a post to their nearly 3.5 million followers calling his trial outfit, “very Prada Spring 2013–coded!” It referenced his crimson red sweater, slacks, and sockless loafers, which do in fact hold a close resemblance to the Milanese fashion house’s earlier runway look. Through viral posts and online discourse, Mangione’s identity has expanded beyond that of political dissident; he’s become a fashion icon, a meme, a media spectacle. And now here he is, center stage in Sobczak’s painting, in a cape torn from Clark Kent mid-flight, colored in a red recalling his courtroom sweater. Still shackled by chains on wrists and ankles, he somehow defies their restraint – possibly with the bulging muscles that show from under his tattered rags.."

NOVEMBRE: Movie Magic: "A Kind of Language" at Fondazione Prada

"In A Kind of Language, early storyboards from Terry Gilliam's similarly journalistic adventure Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas are drawn in the same bulging perspective that has become iconic of Hunter S. Thompson's odyssey through the desert. While I lack the stamina or tolerance to step into the shoes of Raoul Duke or Dr. Gonzo, I do find it flattering how, on the silver screen, journalism is granted such multitudes and sex appeal. What a waste of budget it would have been to show Johnny Depp hunched over, line-editing his work. Through the beautifying lens of film, work can — and should — be psychedelic, an adventure, a perversion of its very banality...."

IMPULSE: The Fish that Plays the Reed Organ

"...Entanglements has a noticeable abundance of stuff—knick-knacks, doodads, gadgets—scattered around the space. The accumulation of things places the artist somewhere between Temu victim and MacGyver genius, arranged ever so carefully with a bit of Calder panache. Surrounded by her cabinet of curiosities, Mohri’s work contemplates our relationship to quotidian objects. It challenges the notion that they are mere extensions of ourselves, tools that augment human capabilities. Instead, there’s a humility in it that suggests we are no bigger than a speck of dust, no more powerful than a feather. ..."

Courtesy the artist and Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan. Photo by Agostino Osio

LAMPOON: Chinese Espresso: how migration from China changed the face of Italian bars

"In conversation with Grazia Ting Deng, author of Chinese Espresso: Contested Race and Convivial Space in Contemporary Italy

In Milan, if you go to a pasticceria in Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, customers will undoubtably be greeted by an Italian hostess waiting, not only to bring them a brioche, but to give them a taste of the dolce vita. But go to a bar in Porta Venezia’s queer neighborhood, pay bills at a local tobacco shop, or find the one bar in Milan that still sells a five euro spritz in 2025 and the truth of a more complex, racially-diverse Italy rears its head."

FROM IMPULSE

The Fish that Plays the Reed Organ: Yuko Mohri at Pirelli HangarBicocca

FROM LAMPOON

FROM NOVEMBRE

FROM NR MAGAZINE

Mesura and architecture that returns to genius loci

From prototyping in France to wooden structures in Jakarta, ciguë’s practice embodies a growing world

Meriem Bennani: For My Best Family: An interview with the artists @ Fondazione Prada, Milano

FROM L'ESSENZIALE

Anodised Wicker and Creating Tensions: Tino Seubert

FROM FRENCH FRIES

The Ribbon Drawn Across Bridges: An Interview with Curator Marta Papini