Contributed by Laurie Fendrich / What a mess. And today was doomsday. Eliza Netsua couldn’t get back to sleep, so she dragged herself out of bed at five a.m. Her loft, long ago a sewing sweatshop renovated only insofar as the splintery floors had been sanded and the walls slapped with multiple coats of white paint, was already hot and stuffy. A full-on August heat wave in New York. The gallery was closed for the month and, moreover, it was Monday, a day even she, the assistant director, wouldn’t ordinarily be working….
Fiction
Art and Books: Kate Russo, Balzac, and the uncertainties of art
All three tales in Super Host are witty, moving, and beautifully written, but its Emma Eastons that raises the most provocative questions about the often torturous relationship between an artist and her work
Fiction: Consummate Saturday [Paul D’Agostino]
“Consummate Saturday” A short story by Paul Da’Agostino Mina�s fourth and final bout of existence-racking pre-febrile dry heaves terminated at 4:37 on Saturday morning amid the mildew stains, strewn magazines and pubic squalor that adorned Davis�s loathsomely uncivil shared bathroom in a three-bedroom flat. Her supposedly latent and as-yet-undefined illness […]
Fiction: The Unknown Masterpiece [Honore De Balzac]
Today marks the beginning of the Two Coats of Paint fiction column, a special summer section featuring short stories about artists, collectors, galleries, and other matters centered in the art world. To kick the series off, we present Balzac’s classic, “The Unknown Masterpiece.” Originally published in 1837 and set in the 1600s, the story is about an […]