Essays charting the diverse works of renowned conceptual artist Dan Graham.

Finalist for the 2022 Plutarch Award Longlisted for the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography A Washington Post Best Book of 2021 “An elegant act of rehabilitation.”—New York Times Book Review, Editors’ Choice A "nuanced and insightful" (New Statesman) portrait of Britain’s most famous female poet, a woman who invented herself and defied her times. "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways." With these words, Elizabeth Barrett Browning has come down to us as a romantic heroine, a recluse controlled by a domineering father and often overshadowed by her husband, Robert Browning. But behind the melodrama lies a thoroughly modern figure whose extraordinary life is an electrifying study in self-invention. Born in 1806, Barrett Browning lived in an age when women could not attend a university, own property after marriage, or vote. And yet she seized control of her private income, defied chronic illness and disability, became an advocate for the revolutionary Italy to which she eloped, and changed the course of cultural history. Her late-in-life verse novel masterpiece, Aurora Leigh, reveals both the brilliance and originality of her mind, as well as the challenges of being a woman writer in the Victorian era. A feminist icon, high-profile activist for the abolition of slavery, and international literary superstar, Barrett Browning inspired writers as diverse as Emily Dickinson, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, Oscar Wilde, and Virginia Woolf. Two-Way Mirror is the first biography of Barrett Browning in more than three decades. With unique access to the poet’s abundant correspondence, “astute, thoughtful, and wide-ranging guide” (Times [UK]) Fiona Sampson holds up a mirror to the woman, her art, and the art of biography itself.

This video and publication are based on Dan Graham's (born 1942) Rooftop Urban Park Project, which opened as an extended exhibition at Dia Center for the Arts in 1991. Re-released as a DVD and packaged with the original 1992 publication, this title includes an essay by the artist and a 20-minute video.

Interview by Stacey D'Erasmo.

Shanduke McPhatter also known as Trife Gangsta is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of the 501(c)3 nonprofit Gangstas Making Astronomical Community Changes Inc. (G.-M.A.C.C.). This change agent has gained worldwide recognition for his admirable work as an anti-gun violence advocate and community leader/organizer. Recognized as a contributor to safer communities in New York City by People Magazine, McPhatter's organization has been credited with creating a 30 percent drop in shooting incidents from 2012 to 2017 in the precinct where it operates. From 2017 to 2018, that number dropped to a 65% decrease. Not only has G.-M.A.C.C. proven to decrease crime, but it is also credited with providing mental-health counseling, legal aid assistance, and job readiness training to several hundred community members in the East Flatbush area of Brooklyn. With the organization's success, in 2019 G.-M.A.C.C. has expanded its office to the Fort Greene section of Brooklyn. Although McPhatter's accomplishments as a community leader are many, he has equally experienced a fair share of obstacles that challenged his growth. Born and raised in the gritty streets of South Brooklyn, N.Y., McPhatter's life started off unstable. Growing up in the foster care system, and never being introduced to his biological father, he quickly fell victim to street life as a means of survival. Consequently, at the mere age of 16, McPhatter was incarcerated for robbery and sent to Rikers Island Correctional Facility. Tapping into his keen sense of leadership ability, he became one of the first five adolescents to join the Nine Trey Gangster Bloods, the first blood set on the East Coast then one of the first generations of the Gangsta Killer Bloods aka G-Shine, Quickly rising in rank as "Trife Gangsta" in the organization, gang life not only increased McPhatter's influence and notoriety, it also led to over 18 arrests and a total of 13 years of incarceration. After a spiritual journey during his last prison stint, McPhatter decided to turn his life around and many others followed his path. Today he is a well-respected Social Justice Activist & Community leader and holds many titles including author, motivational speaker & Big Homie!

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “From The New Yorker’s beloved cultural critic comes a bold, unflinching collection of essays about self-deception, examining everything from scammer culture to reality television.”—Esquire Book Club Pick for Now Read This, from PBS NewsHour and The New York Times • “A whip-smart, challenging book.”—Zadie Smith • “Jia Tolentino could be the Joan Didion of our time.”—Vulture FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE’S JOHN LEONARD PRIZE FOR BEST FIRST BOOK • NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY AND HARVARD CRIMSON AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • Time • Chicago Tribune • The Washington Post • NPR • Variety • Esquire • Vox • Elle • Glamour • GQ • Good Housekeeping • The Paris Review • Paste • Town & Country • BookPage • Kirkus Reviews • BookRiot • Shelf Awareness Jia Tolentino is a peerless voice of her generation, tackling the conflicts, contradictions, and sea changes that define us and our time. Now, in this dazzling collection of nine entirely original essays, written with a rare combination of give and sharpness, wit and fearlessness, she delves into the forces that warp our vision, demonstrating an unparalleled stylistic potency and critical dexterity. Trick Mirror is an enlightening, unforgettable trip through the river of self-delusion that surges just beneath the surface of our lives. This is a book about the incentives that shape us, and about how hard it is to see ourselves clearly through a culture that revolves around the self. In each essay, Tolentino writes about a cultural prism: the rise of the nightmare social internet; the advent of scamming as the definitive millennial ethos; the literary heroine’s journey from brave to blank to bitter; the punitive dream of optimization, which insists that everything, including our bodies, should become more efficient and beautiful until we die. Gleaming with Tolentino’s sense of humor and capacity to elucidate the impossibly complex in an instant, and marked by her desire to treat the reader with profound honesty, Trick Mirror is an instant classic of the worst decade yet. FINALIST FOR THE PEN/DIAMONSTEIN-SPIELVOGEL AWARD FOR THE ART OF THE ESSAY

How constructions of home in contemporary art reveal new ways of staying in place

Discover the power of mirror meditation to help you awaken self-compassion, increase self-awareness, and gain the confidence needed to thrive. Seeing ourselves clearly isn’t always easy—especially in the age of social media. Technology has eroded our capacity for authentic self-reflection. As a result, we feel more anxious and depressed, have shorter attention spans, and have become more estranged from ourselves and each other. We’ve also become more critical of our physical appearance, and this self-criticism can damage our confidence and stand in the way of our happiness. In order to heal, we must come face to face with our true selves—not the images of ourselves that we alter and post online. If you're ready for self-reflection that has nothing to do with selfies, this book will reveal the way. Based in cutting-edge neuroscience, Mirror Meditation offers mindful practices for increasing your self-awareness, managing stress and emotions, developing self-compassion, and increasing your confidence and personal presence. Using the three principles of mindfulness meditation—attention to the present moment, open awareness, and kind intention toward oneself—you’ll realize just how much your self-criticisms are affecting you. Then you’ll have a choice—and a practice—to treat yourself with more self-acceptance. Self-awareness can help you break free from both your inner critic and the external world that stokes the fears and anxieties that we are never good enough, never have enough, and are never safe enough. The simple self-mirroring technique in this unique guide isn’t grounded in technology—just a commitment to be present with yourself.

A collection of essays on a key figure in postminimalist art, with texts spanning thirty years. Since the 1960s, Dan Graham's heterogeneous practice has touched on such disparate subjects as tract housing, the Shakers, punk music, and architectural theory; he has made videos, architectural models, closed-circuit installations, and glass pavilions. Graham, who came of age during the emergence of earth art, minimalism, and conceptualism, has situated his work on the borders between these different strains of contemporary practice. Although varying widely in subject and medium, Graham's artwork and writings display a consistent interest in spectatorship, public-private relationships, and the constructed environment. Graham's extensive writings on his own work (collected in Rock My Religion and Two-Way Mirror Power, both published by the MIT Press) have made him, by default, the primary interpreter of his own art. This October Files volume provides a counterweight, gathering key texts by critics and theorists that offer alternative accounts of Graham's art. The essays span thirty years and include hard-to-find texts from exhibition catalogs and journals. The authors include such distinguished theorists, critics, and artists as Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, Beatriz Colomina, Thierry de Duve, and Jeff Wall.

Media screens—film, video, and computer screens—have increasingly pervaded both artistic production and everyday life since the 1960s. Yet the nature of viewing artworks made from these media, along with their subjective effects, remains largely unexplored. Screens addresses this gap, offering a historical and theoretical framework for understanding screen-reliant installation art and the spectatorship it evokes. Examining a range of installations created over the past fifty years that investigate the rich terrain between the sculptural and the cinematic, including works by artists such as Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Doug Aitken, Peter Campus, Dan Graham, VALIE EXPORT, Bruce Nauman, and Michael Snow, Kate Mondloch traces the construction of screen spectatorship in art from the seminal film and video installations of the 1960s and 1970s to the new media artworks of today’s digital culture. Mondloch identifies a momentous shift in contemporary art that challenges key premises of spectatorship brought about by technological objects that literally and metaphorically filter the subject’s field of vision. As a result she proposes that contemporary viewers are, quite literally, screen subjects and offers the unique critical leverage of art as an alternative way to understand media culture and contemporary visuality.