Our cover features a photograph from Joan Jonas’s Mirror Piece 1, a groundbreaking performance from the late 1960s. For Jonas the mirror was “a metaphor, a device to alter the image and to include the audience as a reflection, making them uneasy as they viewed themselves in public.” Reflection, the gaze, and discomfort: the present moment reveals the work’s prescience.

Inside the issue, we launch a new series, Leaders in the Arts, with a focus on Los Angeles. Joanne Heyler of the Broad invited Kristin Sakoda and Bettina Korek to discuss their personal journeys, the social responsibility of commissioning public art, the evolution of their city’s landscape, and more. Luc Sante writes on the enduring appeal of the cowboy and the resonance of that archetype in the work of Richard Prince. Carlos Valladares contemplates the history and evolution of gangster films. Jed Perl composes an abecedarium of Alexander Calder’s lifelong engagements with theater and dance. And Gillian Jakab reads the love poems of Frank O’Hara, revealing the inspiration behind some of his most celebrated poetry.

Our Building a Legacy article in this issue, featuring Glenn Wharton, focuses on the complexities involved in the preservation of time-based media. And Flavin Judd talks to Kara Vander Weg about the responsibility of maintaining the legacy of a great artist—in his case that of his father, Donald Judd—while passing along insights that only a son could have. Building on another legacy, Adriano Pedrosa speaks with Louise Neri about the radical history of the Museu de Arte de São Paulo and how it has influenced his vision for the museum’s future.

Elsewhere in the issue, Richard Calvocoressi writes on Georg Baselitz’s latest series of paintings; Christine Kondoleon and Kate Nesin speak with Mark Francis about an exhibition pairing artwork by Cy Twombly with works from the collection of ancient Greek, Roman, and Egyptian objects at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Anne Baldassari reflects on her time working with Simon Hantaï; Raymond Foye offers a window into his long-standing friendship with Graham Nash; Sarah Sze takes us into the studio to describe the making of an intricate collage as the seed for a new public art commission; and Anne Boyer continues “The Iconoclasts,” in the second installment of our 2020 fiction series.

For all of this and more, order your copy or subscribe at the Gagosien Shop, or read the issue online.