Permademic And Art History

If America’s So Rich, How’d It Get So Sad?

Derek Thompson | 23rd April 2026

“The United States was a reasonably happy country for a long time. It is not happy now.” The pandemic has left a “permademic” in its wake. These “tragic twenties” are characterised by years of above-average inflation, a news tone that is “more surprisingly negative than at any period of news on record” and the “breaking apart of social trust”. The last one has historically been an effect of pandemics (3,900 words)

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Ignorant Art Historian: View Of Notre Dame

Hal Foster | Paris Review | 28th April 2026

Art critic demystifies the act of seeing an artwork. “As we approach this painting, we have little idea of what it depicts, or whether it depicts anything at all. The title offers a kind of lifeline: View of Notre Dame. But what kind of view and from where? Neither abstract nor representational, the painting requires a shift in our way of looking: its elements are less images of things than signs for them” (800 words)