A Closer Look

In A Closer Look, a writer annotates a piece of art or an archival object.

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A Closer Look

A Closer Look

An Unsettling Civil War Photograph

An image from the Battle of the Wilderness
Rachel Eisendrath
March 16, 2026
A Closer Look

Kafka's Double Portrait

What a pencil sketch reveals about the writer’s view of his mother
Lynne Tillman
March 25, 2025
A Closer Look

What Irony Makes Visible

Fifty years later, Stephen Shore's photographs reveal an impending crisis
Aaron Matz
December 10, 2024
A Closer Look

Terry Allen’s "Cross the Razor"

How one artist started a conversation across the US-Mexico border
Brendan Greaves
October 24, 2024
A Closer Look

Kurt Cobain and Jenny Holzer on 42nd Street

A chance decision made an iconic photograph. Thirty years later, what does it reveal?
Bob Nickas
June 19, 2024
A Closer Look

Rembrandt’s Reclining Female Nude

What the print reveals about a body at rest
Rachel Eisendrath
June 10, 2024
A Closer Look

Harold Cohen’s AARON

What a prescient work of computer art tells us about AI
Joanne McNeil
May 20, 2024
A Closer Look

Candy Darling’s “Newspaper” Centerfold

Encountering the infamous collage of a downtown legend
Lucy Sante
March 18, 2024
A Closer Look

Langston Hughes's "China"

Why the previously unpublished poem is a revelation
Selina Lai-Henderson
February 1, 2024
A Closer Look

Ed Ruscha's "Every Building on the Sunset Strip"

Why the artists' book is a reminder of freedom
Jim Lewis
December 18, 2023