25.12.19

“The woman who commissioned it, oil heiress Aline Barnsdall, had already named it Hollyhock after her favourite flower. Wright had his own term for it: ‘California Romanza.’”

–

The Manual Review
At the Hollyhock House
journalism

25.12.19

“It’s commotion in the Persian Room, it’s Bob Fosse cutting loose and Ethel Merman warbling her old standards. It’s history vivified.”

–

The Manual Review
On the Plaza Hotel
journalism

25.12.19

“All this melancholy seems peculiar amidst the beauty of Dubrovnik’s sea and skies, but if there has ever been a key to the Balkan temperament it is that certain contemplative melancholy of theirs, that sense of circumspection.”

–

The Manual Review
On the art and history of Dubrovnik
journalism

25.12.19

“For those unaware of Brown’s off-court peregrinations, he remains, at first glance, nothing more than one of the most rhythmic, capricious, versatile players in the NBA.”

–

The Manual Review
In conversation with Jaylen Brown
journalism

25.12.06

“Was the ecstasy of being with the world’s greatest painter reward enough? In other words, why in God’s name did they put up with him?”

–

Air Mail
Review of Hidden Portraits: Six Women Who Shapes Picasso’s Life by Sue Roe
art criticism

25.07.18

“If it strikes you that 150 pages of labyrinthine enigmatics might get grating, I am here to confirm, of course, it does. This is not a book for low-scorers on the openness test.”

–

The Metropolitan Review
‘Better to Be a Ghost: On Giorgio de Chirico’s Hebdomeros’
art criticism

25.04.11

“Where early-70s Australian films leaned into the colourful, ribald and commercial, Picnic was the departure, a decisive charge towards art.”

–

The Guardian
‘Picnic at Hanging Rock at 50: how a low-budget whodunnit became a cultural juggernaut’
art criticism

25.03.17

“Jenkins has something of the great gemlike Tang poems or the Japanese concept of shibui: a beauty so refined it becomes almost silent.”

–

The New Criterion
Review of ‘Paul Jenkins’ at Timothy Taylor
art criticism

25.03.08

“When Raymond Chandler called black coffee ‘the life blood of tired men,’ was he thinking of something ‘earthy’ and ‘approachable’ with ‘notes of plum’?”

–

Financial Times
‘How a coffee snob fell in love with cheap bodega coffee’
journalism

25.02.24

“The Hotel Chelsea rarely welcomes one-timers; people tend to go back. They pass under the red-brick exterior, take a seat in the lobby bar, bask in the warm glow of the lamplight, and imagine how things used to be.”

–

The Manual Review
On the Hotel Chelsea & El Quijote Restaurant
journalism

25.02.24

“Los Angeles was his happiest hunting ground, though Neutra disapproved of the city’s architectural salmagundi, what he called an ‘array of pickings and tidbits’. The VDL House nevertheless demonstrates just how well he understood the unique possibilities inherent to LA’s sunny slopes.”

–

The Manual Review
On the Neutra VDL Studio, in conversation with Noam Saragosti
journalism

25.02.24

“His celebrity has gone from minor to major; he appears on Netflix shows, collaborates with Shake Shack, has lines out the door for his $5 tacos in Brooklyn, and, yes, gets his brain picked by editors in magazine interviews.”

–

The Manual Review
In conversation with Chef Enrique Olvera
journalism

25.02.24

“Saarinen’s design is rooted in an attitude towards travel that at once exalted, glamourised, and revered the airborne voyages we now can’t help but take for granted. The TWA Hotel, custodian of Saarinen’s spirit, wants to be fun in the way we all imagine air travel used to be.”

–

The Manual Review
At the TWA Hotel
journalism

25.02.24

“With James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown, we’ve condemned the man born Robert Zimmerman to a fate usually reserved for those already playing their great gig in the sky: becoming fodder for a few Golden Globes.”

–

The Metropolitan Review
‘When You Ain't Got Nothing: On Bob Dylan and A Complete Unknown’
art criticism

25.01.06

“In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Edward Zutrau epitomized a certain kind of New York School life, complete with fitful involvement in local exhibitions, difficulty selling pictures, and a SoHo studio with no hot water.”

–

The New Criterion
Review of ‘Edward Zutrau: Meditations in Hue’ at Lincoln Glenn
art criticism

Winter 2024

“Nowhere in this book will a cinephile, a Parkerphile, an enthusiast for twentieth-century literary history or a researcher on alcoholism find a single revelatory sentence.”

–

Cineaste
Review of Dorothy Parker in Hollywood by Gail Crowther
art criticism

24.11.21

“‘A portrait,’ as Sargent himself would put it, ‘is a painting with a little something wrong about the mouth.’ The excellence of Sargent is in the imperfections.”

–

Tablet
Review of Family Romance: John Singer Sargent and the Wertheimers by Jean Strouse
art criticism

24.10.18

“Yektai is today considered a New York School artist because he lived and painted in New York in the Fifties, because he played poker with Jackson Pollock, and because his work lends itself to having words like ‘gesturality’ and ‘object-ness’ ladled over the top of it.”

–

The New Criterion
Review of ‘Manoucher Yektai: Landscapes’ at Karma Gallery
art criticism

24.10.07

“The curious experience of ‘Femmes’ is that of engaging with an artist who mistrusts and is devoid of ideals, one who paints women in order to deconstruct the concept of an ‘artist’ who ‘paints’ ‘women.’”

–

The New Criterion
Review of ‘Francis Picabia: Femmes’ at Michael Werner Gallery
art criticism

24.07.28

“Now, in 2024, we’ve replaced Betty Friedan with Judith Butler and Shirley Chisholm with Kirsten Gillibrand. It’s fair to say we’re a long way from where we might like to be.”

–

Spiked
Review of The Movement by Clara Bingham (ed)
cultural criticism

24.07.25

“Having discovered the hypnotic patterns of Iranian silk sheets, the simple formalism of Japanese Inrō boxes, and the grace of Venetian chalcedony glass, how could he ever design the same way again?”

–

The New Criterion
Review of ‘Collecting Inspiration: Edward C. Moore at Tiffany & Co.’ at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
art criticism

24.07.03

“As clamorous voices decry the pitiful state of things on the silver screen, what artifacts show us that the cinema is never really beyond redemption? All signs point to the picnic.”

–

Document Journal
‘Wedding veils, pan flutes, and the perfect day for a picnic: the making of Peter Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock’
journalism

24.05.20

“That editors edit, which would seem to go without saying, turns out to be a pretty facile summary of a role whose essential ambiguities make it best suited to confidence men or obsessives.”

–

Tablet
Review of The Editor by Sara B. Franklin
art criticism

24.04.19

“Lim captures the visual flavor of an area which, having once housed a General Motors factory and, until recently, Sweden’s oldest fishmonger, is now the purview of heterotrophs and adolescent aesthetes alike.”

–

Document Journal
‘Danny Lim takes us into the unseen heart of Stockholm’
journalism

24.04.16

“It took, for example, a closer inspection to see that a 1934 letter from F. Scott Fitzgerald discussing his main literary influences was sent not from 1307 Park Avenue, New York, but from 1307 Park Avenue . . . Baltimore.”

–

The New Criterion
‘What’s the story?: On the 64th annual New York International Antiquarian Book Fair’
journalism

24.04.15

“Adams may have seemed a worthy Greenberg acolyte, bustling intellect and all, but she was too single-minded, too idiosyncratic, too discrepant to ever cohere in that category — or any such category, for that matter.”

–

The New Criterion
Review of ‘Pat Adams: Work from the 1950s and 60s’ at Alexandre Gallery
art criticism

24.04.11

“Glazer’s camera obsesses over its lead talent, whose technical sophistication is matched only by her sheer no-fuss watchability.”

–

Document Journal
‘Scarlett Johannson delivers Shakespearian lines in the latest campaign for the Prada Galleria handbag’
journalism

24.03.21

“This was a man, after all, who came back to New York in 1908 wearing the same suit he’d left in three years earlier. Who would have, indeed who could have guessed it would be such a momentous landing?”

–

The New Criterion
Review of ‘Max Weber: Art and Life Are Not Apart’ at Schoelkopf Gallery
art criticism

24.03.20

“The archives, kept intact, have finally been excavated, the designs have been photographed, the essays have been written – and Berger’s work has proven, indeed, to be worth it.”

–

Document Journal
‘The Singular Vision of Otti Berger’
art criticism

24.03.13

“Like the bird-and-flower paintings of the Tang Dynasty, their strength lies in their terseness, opening the viewer up to the glories of texture and fluidity produced when pigment mixes with water.”

–

Document Journal
Review of ‘Russell Sharon’s Wildflowers’ at Hal Bromm Gallery
art criticism

24.03.12

“Spectators took one look at the great orb suspended from the ceiling and knew they weren’t here for cutesy little pleasantries.”

–

Document Journal
‘Best in show: PFW Fall/Winter 2024’
journalism

24.03.01

“This particular kind of billowing elegance also had a couple of unusual bedfellows: British ’80s workwear and aristocratic selleria.”

–

Document Journal
‘Best in show: MFW Fall/Winter 2024’
journalism

24.02.28

“This latest collection recalled Rothko with its layering: a contrast of colored horizons, with the drama localized at those points where the blurred edges inevitably meet.”

–

Document Journal
‘Best in show: LFW Fall/Winter 2024’
journalism

24.02.20

“It was a touch just subtle enough to be charming but not mannered; in Altuzarra’s latest collection, nostalgia perfumes every look.”

–

Document Journal
‘Best in show: NYFW Fall/Winter 2024’
journalism

24.02.12

“Capaciousness abounds, both in his generous silhouettes and rich materials, which coalesce in downward-flowing garments that, along with a certain playful tone, are textbook Chavarria.”

–

Document Journal
‘Backstage at Willy Chavarria’s last supper’
journalism

24.02.12

“Wesley’s paintings are funny, sexy, sometimes profound, and always pleasurable. Any adult with a libido and an eye for color can enjoy them.”

–

The New Criterion
Review of ‘John Wesley: WesleyWorld – Works on Paper and Objects 1961-2004’ at Pace Gallery
art criticism

23.10.26

“If the members of Generation Z (this reviewer included) were bearable for more than ninety minutes at a time, then Matthew Gasda’s new play Zoomers would be a knockout.”

–

The New Criterion
Review of Zoomers by Matthew Gasda (Brooklyn Centre for Theatre Research)
art criticism

23.09.10

“... the exhibition itself is compelling for the way it narrativizes the painter’s common struggle: that of incorporating, over a lifetime of work, one’s many influences into a clarified approach to the canvas.”

–

The New Criterion
Review of ‘Ruth Miller’s Enduring View’ at the New York Studio School
art criticism

23.05.29

“Rajan, though clearly opinionated on her subject matter, isn’t a skilled enough a dramatist to build the story to a moment of meaningful conflict or catharsis.”

–

ArtsHub
Review of Crocodiles by Vidya Rajan (Northcote Town Hall Arts Centre)
art criticism

23.05.19

“... a poor facsimile of West Side Story cloaked in contemporary language, with politics inoffensive enough to bore you senseless and shallow enough to insult your intelligence.”

–

ArtsHub
Review of I Wanna Be Yours by Zia Ahmed (Southbank Theatre)
art criticism

23.05.15

“If the show can at times feel a little anachronistic, it stems only from the fact that the ragged, scummy, morally ambiguous club scene of the early 1990s no longer exists in Melbourne, a town rampaged by relentless urban renewal and moral absolutes.”

–

ArtsHub
Review of Loaded by Christos Tsiolkas and Dan Giovannoni (Malthouse Theatre)
art criticism

22.11.16

“To understand Oskar Kokoschka, and indeed Expressionism as a whole, we must understand sight. ‘My role is to see,’ he would say, and ‘to make others see.’”

–

The New Criterion
Review of ‘Oskar Kokoschka: un fauve à Vienne’ at the Musée d’art Moderne de Paris
art criticism

22.08.22

“But there are many impressionable outsiders who, refusing to believe in any distinction between a life imagined and a life enacted, find the self-evident superficiality of the myth to be scarcely a problem at all.”

–

Astra Magazine
‘I Hate Summer’
personal essay

22.01.31

“Frankel, while accurately laying out the great figures behind the film’s production, can never really unlock what exactly makes it a classic. He can only draw out what makes it dark, and this does not require a book to do.”

–

Senses of Cinema
Review of Shooting Midnight Cowboy by Glenn Frankel
art criticism

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Publication

ArtsHub AU

ArtsHub AU

Bright Lights Film

ArtsHub AU

Independent Australia

Independent Australia

Antithesis

Rough Cut

Fashion Journal

3:AM

Independent Australia

Centrethought

3:AM

Agora

Agora

Agora

Rough Cut Film

Interior Journal

Vague Visages

Grattan Street Press

Rough Cut Film

The Dog Door Cultural

Turn It In

Name of article

Review of Bodies of Light by Jennifer Down

Review of let bleeding girls lie by Olivia Satchell (La Mama Courthouse)

Review of Shooting Columbo: The Lives and Deaths of TV's Rumpled Detective by David Koenig

Review of Prayer Machine by Eric Gardiner (Red Stitch Actors' Theatre)

‘LNP turmoil illuminates the power of institutional narratives’

‘Richard Pusey: The ‘most hated man in Australia’ walks free’

‘How far can nostalgia go?: Notes on Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, the novel’

‘The Most Beautiful Boy in the World is a pornography of suffering’

‘The ongoing appeal of TikTok’s dark academia aesthetic, and how to wear it right’

Review of Let Me Tell You What I Mean by Joan Didion

‘Melbourne architecture won’t benefit from group thinking’

‘FriendlyJordies and the War of New Media’

‘The Trapdoor of Dark Academia’

‘Still Minimalist After All These Years’

‘Bathing Express’

‘Those Smoke Rings I Love’

‘The Joys of Not Understanding Tenet’

‘Heavy Sleeves #9: Verge’

‘Easy Riders, Paper Moons: The Trouble with Classifying Peter Bogdanovich’

‘Escape from New York’

‘What Scorsese’s The Irishman Tells Us About Film in 2019’

‘Things We Find in the Book Section’

‘Winter Sweeps Across the Land’

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