Category: Biography
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The Reel Argument: John Cassavetes
By Bergotte Before John Cassavetes, American cinema had a settled understanding of what feelings were for: they were the fuel that drove stories toward resolution. After Cassavetes, a different possibility existed — the possibility that feeling itself was the subject, that the camera could be pointed at a human being in the grip of emotion…
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The Human Condition According to Turgenev
By Bergotte Ivan Turgenev is the poet of the moment that has already passed. His novels and stories are pervaded by a melancholy so precise and so gracefully carried that it takes time to recognise it as a philosophical position rather than a temperamental one. But it is a position: the claim that the human…
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Rei Kawakubo – Comme des Garçons
Rei Kawakubo did not arrive in Paris in 1981 to show clothes. She arrived to make an argument — about the body, about beauty, about what a woman was and was not obliged to be. The argument has not stopped since.
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What’s So Special About Nick Drake
Nick Drake made three albums between 1969 and 1972, sold almost none of them, and died at twenty-six of an antidepressant overdose in the bedroom of his parents’ house in rural Warwickshire.
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Paris in September: Vincent Beaurin at Galerie Poggi
Vincent Beaurin trained as a silversmith, worked as a designer, blew paint at canvases, and eventually found his way to the disc — the simplest form available, saturated with the colour of the last light before the sun disappears. A retrospective profile ahead of his show at Galerie Poggi.
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Yayoi Kusama
Encounters · No. 15 – This was written before Kusama’s passing, and originally scheduled for a November release. Due to current events, we have moved things around. You can read her obituary here. Infinity, One Dot at a Time Yayoi Kusama has been covering every surface she can reach with dots and nets and flowers…
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Sliman Mansour 1947-2026
Obituary He Painted Palestine from the Ground Up — Literally Sliman Mansour, 1947–2026. When the occupation cut off his art supplies, he turned to the earth beneath his feet. What he made from mud and henna and olive wood became the visual language of a people. By Bergotte · August 28, 2026 Sliman Mansour ·…
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Yayoi Kusama 1929-2026
Obituary She Painted to Stay Alive. She Stayed Alive for Ninety-Seven Years. Yayoi Kusama, 1929–2026. She covered the world in dots because the world was already covered in them and she was the only one honest enough to show it. By Bergotte · August 27, 2026 Yayoi Kusama · born March 22, 1929, Matsumoto, Japan…
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The Reel Argument: Whit Stillman
By Bergotte Whit Stillman has made only five feature films in thirty-five years, yet they constitute one of the most coherent bodies of work in contemporary American cinema. They take place in worlds that either barely exist or have already disappeared: Manhattan débutante society, Americans abroad in the final years of the Cold War,…
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The Reel Argument: Andrei Tarkovsky
By Bergotte Andrei Tarkovsky is the filmmaker most often recommended and least often watched, and the reason for this is a lie — a well-intentioned, widely repeated lie that has done more damage to his reputation than any honest criticism could. The lie is that his films are difficult. They are not difficult. They are…
