From vaporwave-inflected exhibition-making to the recurring debates around Diane Arbus’ work, the latest instalment of What We’re Reading gathers texts that follow the circulation of style, ethics, politics, and power through curation, criticism and photography – exploring, by turns, where art is made palatable and where it speaks with urgency. Ariella Aïsha Azoulay considers how photographs from Gaza might resist their conscription into state propaganda, while Mariam Barghouti’s Eye...| 1000 Words
Is the art world willing to take real political risks, or does it perform radicality within safe limits? What to make of aesthetic gestures of dissent without institutional accountability and without any attempts at broader movement building? Peter Watkins probes these questions and more in the context of Les Rencontres d’Arles 2025, arguing that a familiar absence remains despite this year’s theme of ‘disobedient’ images. Elsewhere, festival highlights include Nan Goldin’s recurrin...| 1000 Words