Critic and editor Susan Snodgrass writes about contemporary art, new commemorative and spatial art practices, architecture, and the built environment
Recent Articles
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Artforum
Monumental Ambition: On Chicago’s Obama Presidential Center Museum
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Artforum
After the Flood: Alison Ruttan’s Ceramics Translate Ecological Tragedy into Resonant Materiality
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Artforum
Marshall Brown: Palaces and Prisons
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Artforum
Sturtevant: L’abécédaire de Deleuze
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Artforum
Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle: A Want for Nothing
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Artforum
Alberto Aguilar: a factual account
News
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Critic-in-Residence at Art Omi
From June 18-July 13, 2026, I was a Critic-in-Residence at Art Omi, in beautiful Ghent, NY, as part of their Artists Residency Program. Each session, two dozen international artists are invited to the program, along with two critics/curators who conduct studio visits and facilitate discussions throughout the residency. This year’s cohort was truly remarkable; their creativity and communion made my time there unforgettable. Thank you Art Omi for the opportunity!
My book Inside the Matrix: The Radical Designs of Ken Isaacs published by Half Letter Press is currently out of stock. It is my hope to print a second edition and I will keep you updated here.
The French edition Dans la matrice : le design radical de Ken Isaacs is still available at Sombres torrents.
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Ken Isaacs’s Knowledge Box: An Experiential Model for Learning
My writing and research on the environmental practice of American architect and designer Ken Isaacs continues. In a new article published for “Schools of Departure,” a project of the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation, I discuss his Knowledge Box (1962/2009), an immersive educational environment.
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Ken Isaacs Interviews
A dialogue with curator and scholar Alexandra Midal on Ken Isaacs’s Knowledge Box and his search for an experiential model for education.
Here I talk with Maria Kruglyak about my curatorial work and writing on Ken Isaacs, occasioned by the multiplatform mapping project Visual Natures: The Politics and Culture of Environmentalism in the 20th and 21st Centuries, organized by the Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology in Lisbon, which featured Isaacs’s Knowledge Box.
In this two-part interview, Paul Krainak and I discuss my research and writing on Isaacs, my role as an editor at ARTMargins Online, and my critical writing on public art and spatial art practices. Published in Sub-rural at Bad@Sports.
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Reviews of Inside the Matrix: The Radical Designs of Ken Isaacs
Metropolis | Ken Isaacs Wanted to Retool the Way We Live by Justin Kamp • February 18, 2020
New City | Before the Tiny House: Inside the Matrix Dives Into the Design Legacy of Ken Isaacs by Michael Workman • April 14, 2020
Inland Art | Inside the Matrix: The Radical Designs of Ken Isaacs by Paul Krainak • December 28, 2019
In/Site: Reflections on the art of place
In/Site: Reflections on the Art of Place is my award-winning blog devoted to art, architecture and urbanism, using Chicago as a vantage point for reflections on the work of contemporary artists, public art and urban projects that reinvent the spatial environment of the city. Look for future posts soon, but in the meantime explore the archive.