Read the first part of this series, here. What I am calling Debt Aesthetics—how financial speculation and economic bifurcation have flattened art into a new form—are not limited to Zombie Formalism.

What was Zombie Formalism? If you’re not an avid follower of art-world trends, you may have no idea. Don’t worry: From an aesthetic standpoint, you didn’t miss much. In an economic sense, though, ...

The problem of “formalism” (形式主义) in the Chinese bureaucracy is certainly in the mind of Xi Jinping. The July 30, 2024 Politburo meeting, the first meeting after the Third Plenum, discussed ...

A major factor in the nation’s current constitutional crisis is getting only minor attention. Presently some of the most significant legal questions of our time are depending solely on temporary ...

Purchase this and other timeless New Criterion essays in our hard-copy reprint series. The book’s uselessness is manifold. For readers interested in versification, there are a number of excellent ...

Leaning heavily upon a long history of Congress and presidents finding ways — sometimes clumsy — to make the federal government work, and perhaps silently wishing for a day when they might do so again ...

The December 10 “Zombie Formalism” panel at SVA featuring, from left: Amy Wilson, Walter Robinson, Todd Levin, and Ryan Steadman (all images courtesy Amy Wilson/SVA) Since the artist and critic Walter ...

Accident site of a collapsed hotel in Quanzhou, East China's Fujian Province, March 8, 2020. Photo: Xinhua The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) of the Communist Party of China (CPC) ...