Art Writer Robin Cembalest
has produced everything from investigative journalism to profiles, trend stories, hard news, reviews, and early listicles and blog posts. She’s published in the the Village Voice, New York Observer, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, El País, most of the major art magazines, design publications, and many other places.
Working at ARTnews, Robin covered the major cultural events and controversies of the 1990s and 2000s— government funding and the Mapplethorpe obscenity trial, the ecological art boom, the growth of the Guggenheim, censorship cases, multiculturalism, diversity, Native American art, the rise of social practice, and the transformation of the art museum, among other topics. She’s also written extensively on Spanish art and culture for publications in Spain and the U.S.
Following is a non-chronological sampling from Robin’s hundreds of publications.
The Art That Made Peru Peru
Three millennia, 350 objects, and one national identity are featured in an ambitious show at Montreal’s Museum of Fine Arts.
Detouring to Peru’s Past
There are reasons that the Chachapoyas region of northern Peru—where orchids seem to pop from every crevice, and spectacular cliffside tombs reign over verdant valley—is one of its least visited