BY SEAN EGAN | Although she never achieved name recognition among mainstream audiences, Chantal Akerman (1950-2015) cuts a fascinating figure worthy of both study and praise — and leaves a body of work that will endure. Over the course of her decades-spanning career, the prolific Belgian filmmaker produced dozens of features, shorts, and documentaries, often read more here »

BY STEPHANIE BUHMANN | “Everywhere I looked, everything I saw became something to be made, and it had to be made exactly as it was, with nothing added. It was a new freedom; there was no longer the need to compose.” When the revered American abstract artist Ellsworth Kelly died on Dec. 27, 2015 at the age of read more here »

BY REV. JEN MILLER | Every column I write has a theme. Sometimes it’s tough to come up with one, given that I’m not a war correspondent, political correspondent, or even a sane person. I’m just a human being lying on a dirty mattress trying to figure out what to say about being human. Yet, read more here »

BY MAX BURBANK | Visualize this: by moonlight, corpses dug from fresh graves; the abnormal brains of psychopaths stolen from a medical school. In his shadowy laboratory, Dr. Frankenstein stitches dismembered parts into a single grotesque form. The chain hoist clanks, slowly lifting the monstrous body up, up into the gathering storm! Lightning strikes, thunder read more here »

BENEFIT FOR NO LONGER EMPTY | Founded in 2009 as a (literally) creative response to the still-familiar sight of businesses shuttered by rising rents and shifting consumer dynamics, one of the first projects from No Longer Empty (NLE) filled two vacant storefronts at the infamous W. 23rd St. Chelsea Hotel building with work from several of read more here »

“THE MOSQUITO” AT DIXON PLACE | A familiar face on the nighttime tube (“China Beach,” “Law & Order”) and, more recently, as a cultural commentator on “CBS News Sunday Morning,” Nancy Giles excels at dishing out droll observations whose spice and bite don’t come with the unpleasant aftertaste left by cynicism. The woman knows how to read more here »

BY NORMAN BORDEN | Yes, “Steve McCurry: India” is a spectacular exhibition — but then again, Steve McCurry is a spectacular photographer. Best known for his iconic “Afghan Girl” image, which appeared on the cover of June 1985’s National Geographic, McCurry’s first exhibition at the Rubin Museum of Art (RMA) is an eye-opening retrospective of read more here »

BY MAX BURBANK | My, but it’s been an exciting month since the Iowa caucuses! Once-inevitable Republican nominee Jeb! Bush had to turn in his exclamation point and have his mom walk him home. Ultra-conservative wet dream supervillain Antonin Scalia took an all-expense-paid bribe/hunting vacation with his secret society Illuminati pals and decided to multitask read more here »

BY TRAV S.D. | Audiences at the Metropolitan Room are about to be treated to a spectacle that is increasingly rare, and destined to become more so. On March 7 and 8, the legendary Fyvush Finkel, 93, will perform a solo show chronicling 84 years in show business — including his beginnings in the Yiddish read more here »