Black and White Ben: A Review of Adrian Tomine’s Shortcomings
by Alex Paternostro • July 31, 2021
Shortcomings pulls no punches as it broaches the idea of a racialized image. Starting with the title page, which profiles the upcoming cast of characters—name, age, height, born, occupation—with side views to match, Tomine urges us to consider how general impressions, artistic representations, and visual media, that is, different definitions of an “image,” craft how one views and is viewed as of a certain racial identity. His take is unique and especially uninviting to any feel-good-read crowd. How fitting for an artist whose recent works include Killing and Dying (2015) and The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist (2020).
We Love You, Super H Mart! (or) H Mart as Heterotopian Question
by Alex Paternostro • July 19, 2021
With so many stories in H Mart’s rows of aisles—of movement, difference, and belonging—of which each new, potentially racing shopper also adds a part, what does the store itself say behind that veil? Even the products themselves possess backgrounds and tales of labor and change, so for a place that for some is like a “piece of home,” and for others like me, a means to widen the palate, how can we think about the store’s position as an ethnic yet expansively American supermarket?