This Is Not My World: Art and Public Spaces in Socialist Zagreb (U Minnesota Press, 2024) examines the Group of Six Authors—a collective of young artists who staged provocative art events in the public spaces of socialist Yugoslavia during the 1970s and early 1980s. The book analyses how these spaces, which had long been forums of state ideological control, ... Show More
Today
Honoree Fanonne Jeffers, "The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois" (HarperCollins, 2021)
In 2021, the NAACP Image Award-winning poet Honorée Fanonne Jeffers made her fiction debut with The Love Songs of W.E.B. DuBois, a magisterial epic of African American historical fiction—an intimate yet sweeping novel with all the luminescence and force of Homegoing; Sing, Unburi ... Show More
1h 1m
Yesterday
Edward Goldring, "Purges: How Dictators Fight to Survive" (Cornell UP, 2026)
Purges: How Dictators Fight to Survive (Cornell University Press, 2026) by Dr. Edward Goldring delves into one of the key tactics that autocrats deploy to maintain power: the removal of individuals from within the regime. From Kim Jong Un's execution of his uncle to Recep Tayyip ... Show More
39m 48s
Aug 23
Steve Feldstein, "Bytes and Bullets: Global Rivalries, Private Tech, and the New Shape of Modern Warfare" (St. Martin's Press, 2026)
Steve Feldstein's Bytes and Bullets: Global Rivalries, Private Tech, and the New Shape of Modern Warfare (St. Martin's Press, 2026) opens with a juxtaposition: China spending vast sums to reach the far side of the moon, and Ukraine using cheap drones to blunt a far larger militar ... Show More
45m 24s
Mar 2022
The Art World: Hope & Dread, Westward Ho!
The series heads north by northwest to Portland, Oregon to uncover a surprisingly hideous history: could it be that this hipster mecca was founded as a whites-only utopia? Answer: hell, yeah. When a curator has to rub shoulders with Neo-Nazis during the installation of her exhibi ... Show More
41m 53s
Aug 2024
Building a People's Art: Vietnam, Socialist Realism and Cultural Revolution
Ruehl Muller joins Breht to discuss his upcoming book, put out by Iskra Books, titled "Building a People's Art: Selected Works of Trường Chinh and Tố Hữu". Together, they discuss Vietnamese Socialist Realism, Maoist China, Cultural Revolution, dialectics, the death drive, fascism ... Show More
1h 44m
Nov 2023
Vid Simoniti, "Artists Remake the World: A Contemporary Art Manifesto" (Yale UP, 2023)
Artists Remake the World: A Contemporary Art Manifesto (Yale UP, 2023) puts forward an account of contemporary art’s political ambitions and potential. Surveying such innovations as evidence-driven art, socially engaged art, and ecological art, the book explores how artists have ... Show More
58m 51s
Feb 2022
Peggy Wang, "The Future History of Contemporary Chinese Art" (U Minnesota Press, 2021)
In this episode, I had the pleasure of speaking to Peggy Wang about her new book, The Future History of Contemporary Chinese Art (Minnesota University Press, 2021). In the book, Wang asks readers to reconsider the term “global” and “world” in relation to the (often simplistically ... Show More
1h 8m
Jun 2021
07 Suprematism: Not All Modern Art was Made in Paris
Suprematist art appears simple and non-controversial at first glance, but these geometric paintings by Kazimir Malevich, Olga Rozanova, and El Lissitzky were revolutionary. Listen as Klaire Lockheart examines Russian avant-garde artwork and art forgeries. Artists and Artwork: Mar ... Show More
32m 4s