Thief, 1981

Thief, 1981
Michael Mann
122 Minutes 

At a time when thrillers have been devalued by the routine repetition of the same dumb chases, sex scenes, and gunfights, Thief is completely out of the ordinary. Roger Ebert

Sonatine, 1993

Sonatine, 1993
Takeshi Kitano, 
94 minutes

Sonatine may be the purest example of Kitano's singularity as a cult filmmaker, a fresh take on the age-old yakuza genre that's infused by odd flourishes of style and playfulness, and jarring outbursts of humor and violence. Scott Tobias, A.V. Club

Jellyfish Eyes, 2013

Jellyfish Eyes, 2013
Takashi Murakami
101 minutes, Japanese with English subtitles

Jellyfish Eyes is engrossing on many levels, one of which is an ambience that recalls Japanese kaijū (monster) movies from the 1950s. Some of the Friends could have been inspired by Godzilla or Mothra — only scaled down and child-friendly. Kaori Shoji, Japan Times

Jeff Shore and Jon Fisher

I think you and I both fell hard for Jeff Shore and Jon Fisher’s room, which is motion-activated, and the sound aspect of it is crucial. Though they’re also the ones who completely obliterated their cylinder by building a square video projection room inside it. Those guys are so, so good. Christina Rees in “A Conversation About Art and the Silos on Sawyer,” Rainey Knudson and Christina Rees, Glasstire, October 30, 2017

Katherine Bradford

Bradford’s figures are all generically human yet singular in their execution, as if they tripped out of the brush and landed in unpredictable ways. As a fulcrum to build and drive her storylines, she uses the goofy little things that paint and accidental shapes can do. And hidden in her cavalier brushwork are wise and focused decisions.

Michael Frank Blair, “Katherine Bradford at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth,” Glasstire, December 9, 2017

Courtney J. Martin

“The work’s a combination of radicalism and humanism,” she says. “When I stand in front of these paintings, it forces me to be there in a way I recognize as essential to my well-being.” Artist Roni Horn quoted in Howie Kahn, “Home Is Where the Art Is: The Ryman Family,” Wall Street Journal, November 17, 2015

Kamrooz Aram

Over the last few years, Kamrooz Aram’s paintings have sought to rehabilitate the status of ornament and pattern within modernist aesthetics. Challenging the epithet ‘decorative’, Aram uses ornament conceptually.
Murtaza Vali, “Kamrooz Aram: Recollections for a Room,” ArtReview Asia

Michael Lobel

Soon after Roy Lichtenstein’s Pop paintings exploded on the art scene in the 1960s, observers grew curious about the popular roots of his work. Critics, curators, and scholars began to trace his borrowed imagery back to the comic books, newspapers, and other commercial printed media from which it came. Michael Lobel

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