Culture in the Year of Permacrisis – 2022 in Review

Our critics on the year in art, film, fashion, games, design and much more |

View this email in your browser Chaotic Energy How did culture respond to the year of 'permacrisis'? That's the question our critics turn to this week, as they look back on 2022 from across an array of disciplines and genres. 'I felt like I was witnessing a new stage of cinema: chaotic, wild, vibrantly unstable', Rebecca Liu writes of Everything Everywhere All At Once and a weird-and-wonderful year in film; Amber Butchart casts a critical eye over the fashion industry's attempts to speak to a world slipping further into apocalypse (by way of indoor snowstorms, designer trash bags and destroyed sneakers); Lewis Gordon looks at the videogame designers imagining the nightmare of interstellar late-stage capitalism; Martin Herbert charts contemporary art's intermingling with high-end lifestyle; and Danielle Thom assesses the forces of change within the design world. (We'll be bringing you more such pieces in the weeks to come.) Plus: Edie Miller on the politics of Christmas windows; Louise Darblay on the world of Tove Jansson; reviews of Walter Price in Berlin and Out of the Margins at London's Whitechapel Gallery; and much more on artreview.com to peruse over the festive period. This newsletter will be taking a brief break over the holidays too, returning to your inboxes in January. Season's greetings and a happy new year to you all. En Liang Khong, Director of Digital Get Weird There were films of the multiverse, multiple doppelgängers and identical offspring, and Nicolas Cage in a meta-crime-caper – for Rebecca Liu, this year saw the centre of cinema being pulled apart. read now Style Crisis How did fashion designers respond to the year of 'permacrisis'? From 'trash pouches' to destroyed sneakers, Amber Butchart wonders why the fashion world can't stop commodifying poverty. read now Designer Fantasies With the world in a renewed sense of crisis, it was harder for design to indulge in escapism in 2022 – 'a desire for glamour', Danielle Thom writes, 'tempered by the grit of economic and political realism'. read now Final Frontier From Citizen Sleeper and Signalis to Hardspace Shipbreaker, the cosmic dystopias of 2022's videogames provided timely meditations on stinging economic hardship. Some, for Lewis Gordon, also shone a light through the gloom. read now A Festive Tableau From RH Macys in 1874 New York to Fenwick in 2022 Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Christmas windows have become a peculiar flagship of the commercial festive season. Edie Miller wonders what this postmodern form of advertising means today. read now High End From 'NGO aesthetics' and OKish painting to the increasingly blurred lines between culture and exorbitant lifestyle. Reflecting on 2022 in the artworld, Martin Herbert asks: what happens when art becomes a luxury accessory? read now Look Outside Yourself Artist Kim Bohie speaks with Mark Rappolt about her paintings – of plant life and seascape that oscillate between flatness and three-dimensionality, obscurity and precision, monotones and fabulous colour – and a worldview rooted in nature. read now Open the Trapdoor In Pearl Lines by Walter Price at Galerie Barbara Wien, Berlin, Martin Herbert finds a dark and sanguine rendering of inequality and conflict emerging along gendered and racial lines. read now Partial Framing In her review of Out of the Margins: Performance in London's Institutions 1990s – 2010s at London's Whitechapel Gallery, Bryony White considers ways in which we might conserve ephemeral performance art for the future. read now Everything Natural and Benign A new survey by Paul Gravett of Tove Jansson's work, reviewed by Louise Darblay, revives the urge to revisit the world of the Moomins and the Finnish artist's revolutionary storytelling. read now Not subscribed yet? Sign up to ArtReview's newsletters © 2022 ArtReview Ltd. All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you opted in at www.artreview.com or the previous digital magazine website Our mailing address is: ArtReview Ltd. 1 Honduras Street London, England EC1Y 0TH United Kingdom Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.