4Columns

4Columns is an arts criticism website designed for everyone. The name reflects its weekly offering of four fresh columns, each showcasing a unique voice and viewpoint. These columns collectively provide an insightful and engaging look at modern culture, covering a range of topics from film and literature to theater and the visual arts.

National

English

Online/Digital

Outlet metrics

Domain Authority

Ranking

Global

#650890

United States

#257414

Arts and Entertainment/Visual Arts and Design

#285

Traffic sources

Monthly visitors

Articles

Pierre Huyghe

1 week ago | 4columns.org | Margaret Sundell

Pierre Huyghe Margaret Sundell An artist in pursuit of unpredictable outcomes. Pierre Huyghe: In Imaginal, installation view. Courtesy the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery. Photo: Alex Yudzon. Pictured: Annlee – UUmwelt, 2018–2024. Pierre Huyghe: In Imaginal, Marian Goodman Gallery, 385 Broadway, New York City, through June 21, 2025• • •Enter Marian Goodman’s hushed, darkened space and turn left into its north gallery.
Christiane F.

1 week ago | 4columns.org | Melissa Anderson

Christiane F. Melissa Anderson Drugs, desperation, degradation, David Bowie: Uli Edel’s 1981 cult film portrays the downward spiral of a young girl who falls in with teenage street addicts in West Berlin. Natja Brunckhorst as Christiane in Christiane F. Courtesy Janus Films.
Materialists

2 weeks ago | 4columns.org | Melissa Anderson

Materialists Melissa Anderson A matchmaker girl living in a matrimonial world: Celine Song’s forgettable new rom-com. Dakota Johnson as Lucy and Pedro Pascal as Harry in Materialists. Courtesy A24. Photo: Atsushi Nishijima. Materialists, written and directed by Celine Song, now in theaters• • •“The world of the heterosexual is a sick and boring life,” declares Edith Massey’s Aunt Ida—horrified to learn that her nephew is about to marry a woman—in John Waters’s Female Trouble (1974).
Alien Roots: Éliane Radigue

2 weeks ago | 4columns.org | Sasha Frere-Jones

Alien Roots: Éliane Radigue Sasha Frere-Jones Never the same experience twice for the ninety-three-year-old French composer. Alien Roots: EĢliane Radigue, edited by Charles Curtis and Lawrence Kumpf, Blank Forms, $25• • •In his introduction to Alien Roots, a collection of interviews with and texts by and about the ninety-three-year-old composer Éliane Radigue, coeditor Lawrence Kumpf makes an important point.
Rashid Johnson

2 weeks ago | 4columns.org | Aruna D’Souza

Rashid Johnson Aruna D’Souza Through plants, books, multimedia and multimodal works, a primer for Black survival, liberation, and love. Rashid Johnson: A Poem for Deep Thinkers, installation view. Courtesy Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Photo: David Heald. © Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation.
I’ll Tell You When I’m Home

3 weeks ago | 4columns.org | Leslie Camhi

I’ll Tell You When I’m Home Leslie Camhi In Hala Alyan’s memoir, themes of exile, loss, and cultural heritage emerge alongside preparations for the arrival of a baby via surrogacy.
Lili Is Crying

3 weeks ago | 4columns.org | Jennifer Kabat

Lili Is Crying Jennifer Kabat Beauty and brutality, repression and rage: Hélène Bessette’s 1953 roman poétique is a work in defiance of novelistic time. Lili Is Crying, by Hélène Bessette, translated by Kate Briggs, New Directions, 183 pages, $16.95• • •Never show a character crying. It’s not sympathetic, I was told by a man—a white man. He was my professor and talking of realist fiction. Tears aren’t realistic; readers can’t feel them.
Tramps Like Us

1 month ago | 4columns.org | Jeremy Lybarger

Tramps Like Us Jeremy Lybarger Joe Westmoreland’s 2001 picaresque road novel chronicles a young man’s zigzagging search for queer belonging. Tramps Like Us, by Joe Westmoreland, MCD, 361 pages, $19• • •Queer life finds itself in crowds. Growing up amid the pesticidal greenery and Biblical first names of my little town in the Midwest, I dreamed of New York, a city I knew only from sitcoms.
It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, but the Society in Which He Lives

1 month ago | 4columns.org | Melissa Anderson

It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, but the Society in Which He Lives Melissa Anderson In Rosa von Praunheim’s 1971 insurrectionist cine-essay, an early—and ever-pertinent—excoriation of homonormativity. Beryt Bohlen as Clemens and Bernd Feuerhelm as Daniel in It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, but the Society in Which He Lives. Courtesy Rosa von Praunheim Filmproduktion.
Love

1 month ago | 4columns.org | Melissa Anderson

Love Melissa Anderson Lust for listening: Dag Johan Haugerud’s latest film demonstrates the amorous potency of attentive conversation. Andrea Bræin Hovig as Marianne and Tayo Cittadella Jacobsen as Tor in Love. Courtesy CMPR. © Motlys K1. Love, written and directed by Dag Johan Haugerud, now playing at Film Forum, 209 West Houston Street, New York City• • •In amorous matters, the most important organ is the tongue; the most significant orifice, the ear.