We are an arts quarterly and nonprofit, founded in 1981. Interviews, fiction, poetry, photography, readings, parties, concerts, contests & more.
Named after Wyndham Lewis’s BLAST, a 1914 journal edited by artists and writers, BOMB Magazine, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, launched in 1981 as an artists’ and writers’ quarterly because its founders saw a disparity between the way artists talked about their work among themselves and the way it was described by critics. As a result, BOMB has made the artist’s voice an essential component of cultural discourse. BOMB reveals artists’ ideas, thoughts and creative processes by producing in-depth interviews between visual artists, writers, musicians, actors, directors, choreographers, performers and architects across multiple platforms-in print, online, and at live events. Publishing carefully developed dialogues that delve deep into theory and practice, BOMB has re-invented the question-and-answer format, allowing for complex discussions about art to emerge. BOMB’s interviews are legendary. Because in the pages of BOMB, artists get to be the authors of their own tales. Over the last 30 years, BOMB has grown to become an international magazine with an editorial board of over 80 professional artists, writers, actors, directors, architects, and musicians serving as our Contributing Editors. The BOMB Digital Archive, available online for free worldwide, contains over 1,000 interviews from the last quarter century—that’s more than 2,000 voices comprising an ongoing conversation that has changed the nature of cultural discourse. Considered primary documents of American cultural history, BOMB’s archives have twice been awarded NEA Heritage and Preservation Grants for Excellence and have been acquired by Columbia University’s Rare Book & Manuscript Library in 2004. In addition to our Interviews, BOMB features "Artists on Artists" essays and First Proof, BOMB's literary supplement, featuring original fiction and poetry, excerpts of novels, and first-time translations into English. In addition to the magazine, BOMB produces the audio and video series BOMBLive!, which pairs artists and writers in lively and intimate conversations about the creative process. BOMB also hosts a variety of events around the country, including launch parties; readings, panels, and performances; an Annual Gala & Silent Auction fundraiser; and participates in such fairs and conventions as AWP, CAA, BEA, ALA, among others. Visit BOMBsite.com for extras and continuations from the print edition, as well as web-exclusives like streaming videos, podcasts, web-only interviews, audio and video clips from artist's works. Check out BOMBlog for original content such as reviews, poems, event listings, video, and discussion boards. BOMB-outspoken and timeless-interviews that change the way we think about the arts, by the people who make the arts.
Mission: To support and spread the artist's voice.
Operating as usual
Starting in one hour! Smooth will lead a virtual tour of Odita’s iconic work and chart his life, process, and artistic career. Their conversation will be followed by a Q&A.
Join us in celebration of Odili Donald Odita’s forthcoming Oral History interview.
"The films of Small Axe remind us that these conflicts are nothing new, and reaffirm the power and vitality of family, community, protest, and culture."
Power and Vitality: #SteveMcQueen's Small Axe by #KenFoster
Celebrating little-known stories of Black pride and resilience in London's West Indian community.
SNEAK PEAK from BOMB #154: #MattildaBernsteinSycamore by #AmyGall
http://bombmagazine.org/articles/issue-154-mattilda-bernstein-sycamore/
"To improve my social skills, what I do is I buy pancake mix. Every stranger is an opportunity to get mugged or host a sing-along."
From the archive: Two Poems by #MikeYoung
America Is America’s Most Prominent Homosexual Sci-Fi Author
Check out our Fall/Winter 2020–21 Fellowships and Residencies list featuring many funding opportunities with December and January deadlines!
https://bombmagazine.org/articles/fellowships-and-residencies-fall-winter-2020-2021/
"...I didn’t write this book to be likable and I think that if you try to write something for everyone, it ends up being for no one."
—Jean Kyoung Frazier
Loneliness, Longing, and Inherited Grief: #JeanKyoungFrazier Interviewed by #KaylaMaiuri
A slacker novel that fights against the philosophy of brokenness, one Hot Cheetos bag at a time.
"With subtlety and verve, Kim’s art models ways humans can assume more responsibility for their capacity to remake the built world." —Louis Bury
Studio Visit: Woomin Kim by Louis Bury
The difference between studio materials and life materials.
"hello. i would love to meet with you as soon as possible. the room may or may not be burning...i’ve worked hard to get this far. i was born in a toyota."
From the archive: i am writing to inform you of what i am doing by #ChristianHawkey
hello. i am writing to inform you of what i am currently doing.
Tania Cypriano's film "Born to Be" (@borntobemovie) opens online today!
https://filmforum.org/film/born-to-be
Read her interview with Amy Jenkins from our spring issue here:
Cypriano’s documentary Born to Be follows the profound journeys of several patients and doctors at the Mount Sinai Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery.
!["[An] underline-every-sentence compendium of queer desire."—Michelle Hart, Oprah Magazine, on Mattilda Bernstein Sycamor...](https://external-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/safe_image.php?d=AQBRQj9zqbE04K92&url=https%3A%2F%2Fimg.evbuc.com%2Fhttps%253A%252F%252Fcdn.evbuc.com%252Fimages%252F117300271%252F468472440503%252F1%252Foriginal.20201110-164858%3Fw%3D1000%26auto%3Dformat%252Ccompress%26q%3D75%26sharp%3D10%26rect%3D0%252C30%252C2400%252C1200%26s%3Dfe553c6865e60ce39bab12ba9523af08&_nc_cb=1&_nc_hash=AQBF7OcxNZX5D6L-)
"[An] underline-every-sentence compendium of queer desire."
—Michelle Hart, Oprah Magazine, on Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore's THE FREEZER DOOR
On December 1, we're hosting our FINAL A Room with a View for the year with author Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore in celebration of the release of their new book, THE FREEZER DOOR. The evening will be hosted by Jordy Rosenberg, author of CONFESSIONS OF THE FOX.
RSVP here:
Join us as we celebrate the forthcoming release of Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore’s new book.
"I’m interested in the kind of love in which you do lie to one another, you do keep secrets, you try to protect yourself from being hurt." —Simon Han
Perfect Strangers: #SimonHan Interviewed by #CarissaChesanek
A novel that explores how a family can hide inside itself.
Check out BOMB's own Mary-Ann Monforton and her new exhibit, Sanctuary, at High Noon Gallery. The installation, described as "a fantasy playroom in transition to something else," is on view until December 27.
Mary-Ann Monforton is the long time Associate Publisher of BOMB Magazine. She has been a curator involved in the downtown New York art scene and has since 2013 re-engaged with her own studio practice and was recently shown at the 2019 Spring Break Art Fair as well as featured in and co-curator of...
This Friday, join us for Oral History Live! featuring visual artist Odili Donald Odita & MOMA Curator Ugochukwu-Smooth C. Nzewi. RSVP here: https://bit.ly/Odili-Live
"In my practice, making connections between seemingly unrelated realms of experience can provide me with new insights about empathy." —Virginia Lee Montgomery
A New Empathetic Lens: #VirginiaLeeMontgomery by #MarthaTuttle
A hybrid art aims to reveal interconnection.
Happy birthday to #ClaudeMonet.
"I began to obsessively tour Monet’s house and the gift shop..."
—Sean Mellyn
Revisit #SeanMellyn's conversation with #LaurieSimmons about his 2008 residency in Giverny.
What better way to luncheon in the garden than on Sean Mellyn’s subversive/commemorative Monet-inspired Chinette? Laurie Simmons speaks with Mellyn about his residency in Giverny and the work that sprung forth from the lily pond.
"You fill a house with precious things; they break. You fill a heart with precious things; it breaks. In the end it all breaks. All night long I hear bones snapping."
From the archive:
Excerpt from Netsuke: A Novel by #RikkiDucornet
A psychoanalyst interacts with three people: his wife, Akiko, and two patients: Kat, whom he also calls The Cutter, and David Swancourt. He receives these patients in his new office, Spells.
"I have built my life so that I am in constant transit between two languages—two hearts—two ventricles. The poem performs systole and diastole..."
—Ricardo Alberto Maldonado
Love as a Redeeming Force: #RicardoAlbertoMaldonado Interviewed by @sarahmsala
A poetry collection by a poet in constant transit between languages.
We're thrilled to announce Mary-Ann Monforton's solo debut, SANCTUARY, now on view through December 27 at High Noon Gallery! Mary-Ann is an artist, curator, and BOMB's long time Associate Publisher.
View the exhibition: https://www.highnoongallery.com/sanctuary
Watch mixed media and performance artist Kalup Linzy in conversation with Legacy Russell, Associate Curator, Exhibitions at @studiomuseum as part of the Studio Museum’s online series #StudioLIVE! Using fashion, pop culture, and melodrama to critique ideas of race, sexuality, class, and gender, Linzy challenges not only how we see the world, but how we move through it.
Visit @studiomuseum at 6:00 PM EST tonight on Instagram to hear Linzy and Russell discuss Linzy’s groundbreaking contributions across the practice of performance as well as the artist’s current and upcoming projects.
“I’m definitely not thinking about futurism; it’s more about looking to the past and how we can present ourselves in the present." —@dominiquefung
Studio Visit: Dominique Fung by Danni Shen
Blending traditional Chinese ceramics and figures.
Visual artist Odili Donald Odita and MOMA Curator Ugochukwu-Smooth C. Nzewi are both Igbo, and in Odita's forthcoming oral history, they discuss how their shared Nigerian background shaped their experiences in America.
Join us on 11/20 for Oral History Live!, where Smooth will guide us on a virtual tour of Odita's life and artistic career.
RSVP here: http://bit.ly/Odili-Live
Our final A Room with a View of 2020 is coming soon! Join us on 12/1 with authors Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore and Jordy Rosenberg as we celebrate Sycamore’s new book, THE FREEZER DOOR, published by Semiotext(e).
RSVP here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/125792802659
Join us as we celebrate the forthcoming release of Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore’s new book.
"It is a political project in and of itself to insist upon artmaking as, one, a collective practice amid late capitalism and, two, an embrace of revision, contradiction, and fallibility in a culture that prizes singular genius." —Alex Strada
Probing the Finished Work: #AlexStrada Interviewed by #SimonWu
The filmmaker embraces revision, contradiction, and fallibility in a culture that prizes singular genius.
"...photographs serve as both a reminder of war and a medium that re-enlivens or resuscitates it...They embody history as artifacts but can also elicit painful memories in the present."
This Veterans Day, revisit Don Mee Choi’s poetry collection, Hardly War, reviewed by Lizzie Tribone.
Disobeying history in Don Mee Choi’s Hardly War.
“I grew up having to sing along to very patriarchal, male, straight viewpoints—lyrics that had nothing to do with me.”
—Peaches
Happy birthday to artist and BOMB contributor, @officialpeaches!
Read her BOMB interview here:
"I grew up having to sing along to very patriarchal, male, straight viewpoints—lyrics that had nothing to do with me."
After last week's results, we're revisiting Episode 3 of FUSE: A BOMB Podcast with writers Mira Jacob and Scott Cheshire. In their episode, they talk frankly about race in the era of Trump.
Listen to their full conversation here: https://bit.ly/Mira-Scott
Tonight! Join authors Teresa Carmody and Sarah Gerard at A Room with a View to celebrate the launch of Carmody's new novel, THE RECONCEPTION OF MARIE. The event starts at 6:30PM ET.
RSVP here for the link:
Join us as we celebrate the launch of Teresa Carmody’s new novel. The evening will be hosted by Sarah Gerard.
"To start a poem at the anus or the gag reflex, may seem to a reader like a slanted point of view. As a writer, I feel this is a queer origin point." —Roy Guzmán
A Queer Origin Point: #RoyGuzmán Interviewed by #AegorRay
@GraywolfPress
A poetry collection about how to handle unfinished business.
Next week on 11/20, join us as MOMA Curator Ugochukwu-Smooth C. Nzewi guides us on a tour of Odili Donald Odita's life and artistic career at Oral History Live!
RSVP here: http://bit.ly/Odili-Live
Free and printable.
Project by Garrett Bradley
Garrett Bradley's "Project" is a protest sign, commissioned for BOMB Magazine and created for public use. To create the piece, Bradley worked with archival footage featuring activist Stacey Abrams.
“Project”(a poster included in issue #153) features a double-sided image, a hand-lettered slogan on one side and an archival film montage of activist and politician Stacey Abrams on the other.
"The characters around this table are helpless and fragile in the face of chaotic uncertainty." —@willrymanartist
Reflecting Uncertainty: #WillRyman Interviewed by #OsmanCanYerebakan
Rendering an absurdist dinner party in stainless steel sculpture.
Need some inspiration? Check out our Fall/Winter 2020–21 Fellowships and Residencies list, featuring opportunities from @KirklandArtsCenter, @millaycolony, @nesres, @CenterforBalletandtheArts, @CreativeCapital, @BucknellU, @myVMFA, @CFEVA, @stanford, and more.
Our quarterly roundup of fellowships, residencies, and prizes accepting applications.
BOMB contributor #karawalker saying it best.
#karawalker #oralhistoryproject #artispower #heyheygoodbye #kamalaharris
"The most practical thing you can do with your life is something that you’re passionate about." —Kenya (Robinson)
From the archive: #KenyaRobinson by #LeeAnnNorman
Kenya (Robinson) reflects on the end of her MFA program and becoming a professional artist.
"You need strength to leave the place you call home, and then strength to survive and excel in a new place."
—Odili Donald Odita
Join Odili Donald Odita and curator Ugochukwu-Smooth C. Nzewi on 11/20 for Oral History Live!
Experience a guided tour of Odita’s work as Smooth charts his life, process, and artistic career. Their conversation will be followed by a Q&A.
RSVP here:
Join us in celebration of Odili Donald Odita’s forthcoming Oral History interview.
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After last week's results, we're revisiting Episode 3 of FUSE: A BOMB Podcast with writers Mira Jacob and Scott Cheshire. In their episode, they talk frankly about race in the era of Trump. Listen to their full conversation here: https://bit.ly/Mira-Scott
Join us on 11/20 for Oral History Live! An evening with visual artist Odili Donald Odita and curator Ugochukwu-Smooth C. Nzewi. The audience will experience a guided tour of Odita’s iconic work as Smooth charts Odita’s life, process, and artistic career. Their conversation will be followed by a Q&A. RSVP here: http://bit.ly/Odili-Live
#KatherineBernhardt wants you to join us tonight for the #BOMB2020Gala and bid on her painting—"It's a pink panther with a Nike stripe." Browse and bid: https://bit.ly/Katherine-Bernhardt RSVP: https://bit.ly/3ijfbAo
This Friday, we'll present an incredible line-up of performances recorded exclusively for the BOMB community. Join us at 6:30PM ET to celebrate 39 years of BOMB Magazine! Free and open to the public. RSVP: https://fb.me/e/1wiYbetcc #2020BOMBGala #BOMBReenvisioned
Becca Blackwell & Okwui Okpokwasili on gender-defiant performance. Listen on FUSE: A BOMB Podcast. https://bit.ly/FUSE-Becca-Okwui
BOMB Gala & Auction: Reenvisioned October 2, 2020. More info coming soon. #2020BOMBGala #BOMBReenvisioned
Process, epiphany, and race in the era of Trump. How does one write unflinchingly about the realities of contemporary American life—with horror and humor? With fellow novelist Scott Cheshire, Mira Jacob reflects on writing during such a critical political moment on Episode 3 of FUSE: A BOMB Podcast. Listen to their full conversation here: https://bombmagazine.org/podcast
For episode two of FUSE, Grammy-winning composer Maria Schneider joins writer Nick Hornby to discuss how musical compositions can recall and mimic the experiences of our lives. Listen to their full conversation on FUSE: A BOMB Podcast. https://bit.ly/FUSE-Hornby-Schneider
What does it mean to be a "race woman" for Simone Leigh? In her conversation with artist, filmmaker, and collaborator Madeleine Hunt Ehrlich, Leigh meditates on her relationship with her audience, the genesis of the Be Black Baby Party, and the importance of failure. Listen to their full conversation on FUSE: A BOMB Podcast. https://bit.ly/FUSE-Simone-Madeleine
In May, BOMB asked our contributors how COVID-19 and quarantine were affecting their creative process. How were they producing now? Artist Jimbo Blachly shares his daily tree drawing ritual, which he began in the face of the pandemic. BOMB asked Blachly to name a fund of his choice, and he selected the Wild Yards Project: https://www.wildyardsproject.com/inspiration. --------------- We hope that, by artists sharing their personal experiences, we can support our community at large and inspire those who are creating or struggle to create at this time—in ways provisional and uncertain. (BOMB has an extensive list of Artist Resources that we encourage you to visit: https://bombmagazine.org/articles/artists-resources/.) At the end of each video, contributors name a nonprofit they believe in. BOMB has provided links to those organizations so that you can show your support if you're able.
UPCOMING: A Room with a View, August 4, 6:30PM ET Join us as we celebrate the launch of #AkwaekeEmezi's The Death of Vivek Oji (Riverhead Books), a novel of family and friendship. The evening will be hosted by writer and editor #JenniferBaker.
TOMORROW at 6:30PM ET! We're celebrating the launch of Laura van den Berg's I Hold a Wolf by the Ears and Karolina Waclawiak's novel Life Events (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). The evening, hosted by novelist R.O Kwon will begin with a reading by poet Jay Deshpande. Register here: https://bit.ly/BOMB-RWAV
#KaitlynGreenidge discusses fiction, accessibility, and consciousness with #JaToviaGary in their new episode of #FUSE. Listen now: https://bit.ly/jatovia-kaitlyn
#FrancineProse's shares her candid take on the word "process" with #DeborahEisenberg in their new episode of #FUSE. Listen now: https://bit.ly/francine-deborah.
Register now for A Room with a View! https://bit.ly/BOMB-RWAV We're celebrating the launch of Laura van den Berg's I Hold a Wolf by the Ears and Karolina Waclawiak's novel Life Events (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). The evening, hosted by novelist R.O Kwon will begin with a reading by poet Jay Deshpande.
“My work was just like art history; it was all Velázquez, Goya, Cézanne, and Soutine. But when I saw Morris Louis I saw a way into the present.” —Stanley Whitney Revisiting the archives, The Oral History Project: #StanleyWhitney by #AlteronceGumby https://bombmagazine.org/articles/stanley-whitney/
Subscribe or renew your subscription to BOMB today for nearly 50% off the cover price! https://bit.ly/BOMB-Subscribe Read our summer issue here: https://bombmagazine.org/issues/152/
"For me, singing in my own language was more a matter of pride than anything else...what mattered was the fact that it was contributing to the continued use and appreciation of the language." —Andy Palacio From the archives, Winter 2006: #AndyPalacio by #ChristopherCozier https://bombmagazine.org/articles/andy-palacio
"Like her photos, Thomas’s paintings signal nostalgia for that transitional moment when desire, individuation, and upward mobility press against Blaxploitation." —Kara Walker Spring 2009: Mickalene Thomas by #KaraWalker https://bombmagazine.org/articles/mickalene-thomas
TONIGHT! Join us at 5PM ET on Instagram Live for EOD. The author of THRESHOLES (Coffee House Press), #LaraMimosaMontes will be presenting a brief reading and Q&A. Read her BOMB interview with #LucyIves here: https://bit.ly/Lara-Mimosa-Montes
Join us this Friday at 5PM ET on Instagram Live for EOD. The author of THRESHOLES (Coffee House Press), #LaraMimosaMontes, will be presenting a brief reading and Q&A. Read her BOMB interview with #LucyIves here: https://bit.ly/Lara-Mimosa-Montes
Join us on July 28 as we celebrate the launch of two summer books: #LauravendenBerg’s short story collection I Hold a Wolf by the Ears (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) and #KarolinaWaclawiak's novel Life Events (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), hosted by R.O. Kwon. Register today: https://bit.ly/RWAV-Laura-Karolina
#ArtistDispatch: Catherine Opie In May, BOMB asked artists how COVID-19 and quarantine were affecting their creative process. How were they making art now? Artist and photographer catherine opie shares her perspective on how art is necessary for change. BOMB asked Opie to name an artist fund of her choice, and she selected the Art Students Emergency Support Fund, which you can find via the Women's Center for Creative Work, Los Angeles.
"How do you make a form that forces a painting to be an experience that is not necessarily easy to see, handle, or look at?” —William T. Williams The Oral History Project: #WilliamTWilliams by #MonaHadler #BOMBOHP https://bit.ly/2Ofqa1e
"I do not seek to establish an encyclopedic truth. I want to develop a cosmography that documents my relationship to history in a poetic way." —Ramiro Chaves Spring 2014: No. #########X by #RamiroChaves https://bombmagazine.org/articles/no-#########x/
"We have to tell the truth in the image." —#JeanneMoutoussamyAshe BOMB Oral History Project, Revisiting the archives: Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe by Kalia Brooks #BOMBOHP https://bombmagazine.org/articles/jeanne-moutoussamy-ashe/
"That’s the moment you pray for. When the character reveals that human life you didn’t know about." —Francine Prose, 1993 In a new episode of #FUSE, #DeborahEisenberg and #FrancineProse revisit the state of fiction years after their first BOMB interview: https://apple.co/2Bpqyrh
"The weird radiance and minor music produced by the collapse of the order, by the catastrophe, will offer the promise of black life uncontested." The End of White Supremacy, An American Romance by Saidiya Hartman: https://bit.ly/2NGEdfV Images courtesy of #ArthurJafa and Gavin Brown's enterprise
We are proud to announce three new FUSE episodes featuring conversations with #JaToviaGary & #KaitlynGreenidge, #BeccaBlackwell & #OkwuiOkpokwasili, and #DeborahEisenberg & #FrancineProse. Listen now: https://apple.co/3dJZ8JN
A Room with a View features BOMB contributors past and present. In celebration of Tracy O’Neill’s new novel, Quotients (Soho Press, 2020), join us for an evening of conversation with the author of Interior Chinatown (Pantheon, 2020), Charles Yu. Tracy O'Neill is the author of Quotients (Soho Press, 2020) and The Hopeful (Ig Publishing, 2015). Her writing has appeared in Granta, Rolling Stone, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, LitHub, BOMB, Guernica, Bookforum, Electric Literature, The Guardian, Catapult, and elsewhere. She attended the MFA program at the City College of New York and the PhD program in communications at Columbia University. While editor-in-chief of the literary journal Epiphany, she established the Breakout 8 Writers Prize with the Authors Guild. Charles Yu is the author of four books, including the novel How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe and most recently, Interior Chinatown (Pantheon, 2020). He received the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 Award and was nominated for two WGA awards for his work on the HBO series, Westworld. He has also written for upcoming shows on AMC and HBO. His fiction and non-fiction have appeared in a number of publications including The New Yorker, The New York Times, Slate and Wired.
The Brooklyn Region of the New York City Chur
88 Hanson PlaceThe Salvation Army Adult Rehabilitation Cente
62 Hanson Pl
Pitkin Avenue Business Improvement District
1572 Pitkin Ave
Ember Charter School for Mindful Education -
616 Quincy St, Fl 3rd
NYU Tandon School of Engineering
6 Metrotech Ctr
