The 2019 Culture Issue

The art, books and music that matter right now.

View in browser|nytimes.com October 11, 2019

In 2019, culture is a worthy foil to the news. The political climate, and the earth's climate, might feel entrapping, but art is still imaginative, expansive and restless.

The surreality that we're all living in — the sense of waking up each day, reading the news and feeling unmoored — is producing a parallel surrealism and experimentation in our imaginative worlds.

The stories in our 2019 Culture Issue explore how art right now is often ugly, spiky and confrontational, designed to make us question our place in the order of things.

OUR COVER STORY: Christopher Anderson/Magnum, for The New York Times   The Culture Issue Rosalía's Incredible Journey From Flamenco to Megastardom Before her videos were racking up millions of views on YouTube, the artist spent more than a decade training in one of the world's oldest and most complex musical art forms. By Marcela Valdes

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MORE FROM OUR CULTURE SPECIAL ISSUE: Adrienne Raquel for The New York Times   The Culture Issue 'I Want to Explore the Wonder of What It Is to Be a Black American' Simone Leigh, Amy Sherald and Lorna Simpson talk about the expectations faced by black women in an art world obsessed with identity. By A conversation with Jenna Wortham Emily Shur for The New York Times   The Culture Issue Kathryn Hahn's Funny, Sensual Portrayals of Female Desire At 46, the actress has become the go-to Hollywood star for a certain kind of candid sex scene. By Rachel Syme Gareth McConnell for The New York Times   The Culture Issue What Does PewDiePie Really Believe? The biggest YouTuber in the world has been accused of being a closet white nationalist and even inspiring mass shootings. He says it's all a misunderstanding. By Kevin Roose Illustration by Ryan Melgar   The Culture Issue Black Theater Is Having a Moment. Thank Tyler Perry. (Seriously.) A circle of young black playwrights is doing some of the most vital work in American theater. And Perry is at its center. By Wesley Morris Photograph by Diane Arbus   The Culture Issue How Susan Sontag Taught Me to Think The critic A.O. Scott reflects on the outsize influence Sontag has had on his life as a critic. By A.O. Scott Elinor Carucci for The New York Times   The Culture Issue To Decode White Male Rage, First He Had to Write in His Mother's Voice How Ben Lerner reinvented the social novel for a hyper-self-obsessed age. By Giles Harvey Mamadi Doumbouya for The New York Times   Talk The Disruptive World of Edward Norton The actor on why he has (mostly) ditched Hollywood for the tech world. By David Marchese     The Culture Issue Backstage at the Modern Behind the scenes of the Museum of Modern Art's reinvention. Photographs by Penn Chan

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