Sean Tatol is an art critic based in New York City. He writes primarily on his website, The Manhattan Art Review.
Articles
Biennialese Blues: Review of Whitney Biennial 2026
ARTISTS: Basel Abbas & Ruanne Abou-Rahme, Kelly Akashi, Kamrooz Aram, Ash Arder, Teresa Baker, Sula Bermudez-Silverman, Zach Blas, Enzo Camacho & Ami Lien, Leo Castañeda, CFGNY, Nanibah Chacon, Maia Chao, Joshua Citarella, Mo Costello, Taína H. Cruz, Carmen de Monteflores, Ali Eyal, Andrea Fraser, Mariah Garnett, Ignacio Gatica, Jonathan González, Emilie Louise Gossiaux, Kainoa Gruspe,… Read More »
Hard Habit to Break: On Political Readings of Art & Marxist Citationalism
I want to talk about a habit in contemporary art writing that I keep running into, especially in Marxist-inflected theory, where interpretation is substituted with citation and judgment is treated as an embarrassment. The pattern is familiar: the artwork becomes an occasion to rehearse a framework, the framework becomes a moral sorting machine, and the… Read More »
Postcards from Mitteleuropa: Reviews from Sean Tatol’s European Tour*
Chris Sharp, Los Angeles slop-gallerist extraordinare, once scolded me on Instagram for comparing Raoul de Keyser to Peter Shear, evidently because he thinks it’s wrong to see connections between artists if they’re not from the same generation, which is a novel opinion if I’ve ever heard one. When I asked why that would be a… Read More »
After the End of the World
The world is about to end. The sole reason it might continue on is that it exists. How feeble a reason, compared to all those that point to the contrary, particularly the following: where, under heaven, is the earth now heading? — For, even supposing that it might continue to exist materially, would this be… Read More »
Cornering the Critics
Editor’s Note: This text was previously published on December 13th 2024 @ Manhattan Art Review. It’s funny, if not surprising, that whenever I’ve had a twinge of anxiety about missing out on shows lately, I check SeeSaw and find I’m not missing anything at all. Downtown is a particular pile of shit, where there’s somehow… Read More »
A Note on the Catastrophe of Late Art
“The maturity of the late works of significant artists does not resemble the kind one finds in fruit. They are, for the most part, not round, but furrowed, even ravaged. Devoid of sweetness, bitter and spiny, they do not surrender themselves to mere delectation.” – Theodor Adorno, “Late Style in Beethoven” The effects of senescence… Read More »