Summer Reading: The New Issue of “The Highlights”

by Whitney Kimball on July 11, 2012 Blurb

Another shtreimel hat ad from 2009 (Photo courtesy of Robert Hult).

Boo-yah. This week christens a brand-new issue of The Highlights, one of the more freewheeling online arts journals. A few highlights so far include Carmen Winant’s refreshingly breezy critical essay on the film Personal Best and analytical translations of Yiddish Brooklyn street posters by Robert Hult. A sample: “Another shtreimel hat ad from 2009, this one placing a hat between a blue sky and a computer generated sunburst, suggesting movement.” Shazam.

The looser narrative and visual essays beget more art experience than argument. John Houck’s “Pine Ridge” and Sidney Russell’s “Kuna Yala Swag” remind me of the kinds of conversations that happen in studio visits but don’t often make it to print. Philip-Lorca diCorcia’s “Red Bull Snake” and Brian Zegeer’s “Dragoman of Little Syria” offer time for the sort of text work that never gets fully read on a gallery wall. Boo-yah.

Their archives are worth browsing, too, with essays by the likes of Kevin Zucker and Dushko Petrovich and Roger White.

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