Casi al final del prefacio de su Atlas de islas remotas, Judith Schalansky escribe: Los cartógrafos deberían reivindicar su oficio como un verdadero arte poético y los atlas como un género literario de belleza máxima; en definitiva, su arte es digno merecedor de la primera denominación que recibieron los mapas: Theatrum orbis terrarum [Teatro del mundo]. Si hubiera un atlas del mundo en la fotografía cubana, sería la obra de Sarah Bejerano. Si hubiera un atlas de la poesía en la fotografía cubana, sería la obra de Sarah Bejerano:
—¿Hay música en tus fotos?
—Hay música en mi cabeza, todo el tiempo. No puedo vivir sin música. Normalmente organizo mi vida por canciones, y mis fotos son lo mismo. Todas las series que hago tienen bandas sonoras, que muchas veces se conforman a la hora de realizarlas y otras viene cuando las visualizo posteriormente. No podría enmarcarlas en un género musical u otro, porque mis listas de reproducciones van desde Irakere hasta Rammstein, desde Vivaldi hasta Elvis Manuel.
“Of course, I am not K, but I find myself uncannily identified with his predicament. For in the letter you have sent you and your offices have informed me only that you have sent “a file or report related to alleged antisemitic incidents” that includes my name. Two aspects of this communication stand out to anyone who has read Kafka’s work. The first is that you imply, without stating it, that I have been accused of antisemitism or that my name is associated with an incident of that kind. But you are also actually more careful since you say that the incident of antisemitic harassment or discrimination is “alleged,” which means simply that the allegation was neither reviewed nor adjudicated but left to stand on its own.”
Judith Butler to David Robinson, in response to the University of California, Berkeley informing 160 students, faculty, and staff that files containing their names were forwarded to the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights in connection to its investigation of antisemitism on college and university campuses. via The Nation.
Aquí confluimos hacia la única estrella.
Volquémonos amado mío,
dejemos caer los remos
hasta donde la noche no existe.
Here we converge toward the only star.
Let’s fall in, love of mine,
let’s drop our oars
down to where night doesn’t exist.
Lacao, Rosabetty Muñoz, translated By Claudia Nuñez de Ibieta
ECHO DELAY REVERB. Art américain et pensées francophones, Naomi Beckwith et Elvan Zabunyan (dir.), coéd. Palais de Tokyo (17 octobre 2025) Editions B42.
[Arundhati Roy] writes … on a paper napkin for her friend to hold on to, formulating with that rare and exultant combination of passion and rigor what success really means:
To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.
Whatever I care for, someone else loves it more, deserves it more: the doe with her whole mouth crushing the phlox or the seer who adores my future, whereas I could take it or leave it. I know I’ll disappear. It won’t be glamorous. It won’t be like when the Mona Lisa was stolen and the tourists all lined up to pay their respects at the empty spot on the wall of the Louvre. I’ve never actually even seen the sky. I’ve only ever seen effluents, seen wattage. The only night I remember is the dinner of neighbors at which a man I never had met before said I don’t fear dying— look at the past, people have been dying forever, and— then he stopped and shook his head— I drank too much. I was almost saying that people have died forever and all of them survived, but of course—he made a hard laugh—God, of course they didn’t survive.
Some people say the devil is beating his wife. Some people say the devil is pawing his wife. Some people say the devil is doubling down on an overall attitude of entitlement toward the body of his wife. Some people say the devil won’t need to be sorry, as the devil believes that nothing comes after this life. Some people say that in spite of the devil’s public, long-standing, and meticulously logged disdain for the health and wholeness of his wife, the devil spends all day, every day, insisting grandly and gleefully on his general pro-woman ethos, that the devil truly considers himself to be an unswayed crusader: effortlessly magnetic, scrupulous, gracious, and, in spite of the devil’s several advanced degrees, a luminous autodidact. Some people say calm down; this is commonplace. Some people say calm down; this is very rare. Some people say the sun is washing her face. Some people say in Hell, they’re having a fair.
Monuments, [c]o-organized and co-presented by MOCA and The Brick, MONUMENTS marks the recent wave of monument removals as a historic moment. The exhibition reflects on the histories and legacies of post-Civil War America as they continue to resonate today, bringing together a selection of decommissioned monuments, many of which are Confederate, with contemporary artworks borrowed and newly created for the occasion. Removed from their original outdoor public context, the monuments in the exhibition will be shown in their varying states of transformation, from unmarred to heavily vandalized.Co-curated by Hamza Walker, Director of The Brick; Bennett Simpson, Senior Curator at MOCA; and Kara Walker, artist; with Hannah Burstein, Curatorial Associate at The Brick; and Paula Kroll, Curatorial Assistant at MOCA, MONUMENTS considers the ways public monuments have shaped national identity, historical memory, and current events. Following the racially motivated mass shooting at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC (2015) and the deadly ‘Unite the Right’ rally organized by white nationalists in Charlottesville, VA (2017), alongside Bree Newsome’s powerful removal of the Confederate flag at the South Carolina Statehouse (2015), the United States witnessed the decommissioning of nearly 200 monuments. These removals prompted a national debate that remains ongoing. MONUMENTS aims to historicize these discussions in our current moment and provide a space for crucial discourse and active engagements about challenging topics. MONUMENTS features newly commissioned artworks by contemporary artists Bethany Collins, Abigail DeVille, Karon Davis, Stan Douglas, Kahlil Robert Irving, Cauleen Smith, Kevin Jerome Everson, Walter Price, Monument Lab, Davóne Tines and Julie Dash, and Kara Walker. Additional artworks by Leonardo Drew, Torkwase Dyson, Nona Faustine, Jon Henry, Hugh Mangum, Martin Puryear, Andres Serrano, and Hank Willis Thomas, are borrowed from private collectors and institutions. The exhibition presents decommissioned monuments borrowed from the City of Baltimore, Maryland; the City of Montgomery, Alabama; The Jefferson School for African American Heritage, Charlottesville, Virginia; the Black History Museum & Cultural Center of Virginia, Richmond; the Valentine, Richmond, Virginia; and The Daniels Family Charitable Foundation, Raleigh, North Carolina. By juxtaposing these objects with contemporary works, the exhibition expands the context in which they are understood and highlights the gaps and omissions in popular narratives of American history. MONUMENTS will be accompanied by a scholarly publication and a robust slate of public and educational programming.