Museum of the Future? 
By any comparison with the old Whitney, the new museum is a triumph. But can the interest shown by the wealthy in paying for museums be shifted elsewhere?
Winter 2025
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Museum of the Future?
The Beautification Bureau
On the vacant, vertical concrete walls of Tehran, street artists fight for free expression, and with each other.
The Fictions of Finance
As the divide between finance and everyday life yawns ever wider, fiction has stepped into the gap.
Narcos Anonymous
In a twisted parallel to the country’s long tradition of masked luchadors, Mexico’s cartel leaders have carved out their own traditions of anonymity.
The Eco-Optimists
An optimistic environmentalist may sound like an oxymoron (or perhaps just a moron). Yet a growing number of greens are putting a positive spin on our planetary emergency. Should more of us start thinking like them?
China’s Dream Parks
Since 1989, thousands of theme parks have been built across China, in an uncanny reflection of the country’s economic liberalization.
The People’s Flag is Palest Pink
The popular 2014 film Pride neatly dramatizes how queer–labor solidarity during the miners’ strike pushed back against Margaret Thatcher’s combination of social conservatism and market nihilism.
Passports for Sale
Until recently, becoming a citizen of a country has largely been regarded as priceless—a rare intangible privilege that can’t be bought or sold. This perception is starting to fade.
Whose Moon Is It Anyway?
Managing the commons is fraught enough here on Earth, but decisions will be all the more complicated when dealing with the great commons of the sky.
Bad Feminists
Women may be writing their own fantasies now, but these are still fantasies of conventionality.
The Radical Ellen Willis
For Willis, rock was sex, which was Freud, which was Marx, which was labor, which was politics and therefore a reason to vote or protest.
1% Museum: The Guggenheim Goes Global
This year Gulf Labor’s newly formed direct-action wing—the Global Ultra Luxury Faction—has created a PR nightmare for the Guggenheim.
Pussy Riot in Translation
Did Pussy Riot’s protest change the course of Russian history, or merely make its members famous abroad?
The Voice of a Generation Yawns
The Another Self Portrait reissue comes as a vindication of the appropriateness of a “great artist” throwing off as much “product” as the market can bear. No longer a cynic for churning out releases, Bob Dylan is widely seen as wise and generous for sharing more.
Over Our Dead Bodies
What intellectual obituaries reveal about our times. “When the attention to intellectual production goes, so too does our ability to understand the equally fraught process of intellectual reception. And what goes missing is the story of intellectual labor as labor and how that labor has been a force in history.”
