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Philippa Snow
Philippa Snow is a critic and essayist. Her work has appeared in publications including ArtforumThe Los Angeles Review of BooksArtReviewFriezeVogueThe NationThe New Statesman, and The New Republic. Her first book, Which As You Know Means Violence, is out now with Repeater, and she is currently working on an essay collection about famous women.  

Articles Available Online


You Don’t Think God Is Sexy?

Film Review

January 2023

Philippa Snow

Film Review

January 2023

On the most literal level, Pier Paolo Pasolini’s elliptical, spiritual-cum-sensual movie Teorema (1968) is about an entire family being driven to distraction by their...

Essay

Issue No. 31

It's Terrible The Things I Have To Do To Be Me

Philippa Snow

Essay

Issue No. 31

Here was a woman who had modelled her life so closely on Marilyn Monroe’s that doing so eventually helped...

1   A mural with a soldier and a worker at its centre Broken tiles on the floor A red star, peeling Angles from the ground, from up high Angles that require crouching and climbing, dirt under fingernails     2   He loves nothing more than a derelict GDR factory, an abandoned asylum An amusement park left to the elements   The weekend comes around and he sets off with his bag of provisions Snacks, a pre-rolled zoot His DSLR with a wide-angle lens, a macro for close-ups     3   I called it ruin porn   That was a mistake   We were sat in a café in Schillerkiez when I said it    First time we’d met    I was flicking through his photos of something abandoned Military hospital? Cement factory?   He grabbed the camera from my hands   Told me, Don’t call it that    I said, What should I call it then?   It’s the thing I love most about this place, about Berlin, he said, eyes fixed on the camera’s LCD screen    The waiter came by, and we watched in silence as he set down our order Two Americanos and a thick slice of mohnkuchen We exchanged dankes and bittes, waited for him to retreat   Aren’t you scared? I asked   Scared of what?   Glass, debris… needles The polizei picking you up?   You go running in Görlitzer park, no?    He paused Looked down at his camera, then back at me, asked: Come with me some time?     4   We got chatting on the app   A late summer evening, Hasenheide park   A sarong for a picnic blanket, a portable speaker on top There was a spliff going round, a bottle of Sekt warmed by the sun   I thought I’d meet him in the bushes once I was tipsy enough But he wanted to chat, exchange pics – not nudes Not just yet   He said he was from Holon, Israel And from the pics that he sent I could tell he was of Yemeni descent   How’d you guess?   Those cheekbones, I typed in response My dad is from Aden Jewish   He’s from Yemen?   From Aden    Haha I thought that was a stereotype    What is?   That the Adenim think that they’re separate    Aden was a country   Was, he replied, with the eye-roll emoji     5   Rollies Negronis Weserstrasse   We met at the bar

Contributor

November 2018

Philippa Snow

Contributor

November 2018

Philippa Snow is a critic and essayist. Her work has appeared in publications including Artforum, The Los Angeles Review of Books, ArtReview, Frieze, Vogue, The...

Essay

January 2021

An Uneasy Girl

Philippa Snow

Essay

January 2021

Even before Lucie arrives holding a shotgun, we know that the perfect family in this huge suburban house are...

Brilliant Muscles

Essay

December 2019

Philippa Snow

Essay

December 2019

‘Lindsay Lohan’s new film,’ I told almost everyone I spoke to for about two months earlier this year, ‘is about werewolf detectives.’ Nobody seemed...
Evita Vasiljeva, POSTCRETE

Art Review

February 2019

Philippa Snow

Art Review

February 2019

Lower.Green is situated in the unlikely surroundings of a near-dead mall in Norwich. It is not just any mall, but Anglia Square Shopping Centre:...
Gabriele Beveridge, Live Dead World

Art Review

November 2018

Philippa Snow

Art Review

November 2018

Several months ago, I went to a salon so small and so identikit that I do not recall the name, and against every sane...

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poetry

Issue No. 17

Winter Diary

Galina Rymbu

TR. Joan Brooks

poetry

Issue No. 17

who bravely blasts their breath through the horn flares of gloomy streets, into dripping construction trailers, dropped by the...

poetry

May 2014

Two Poems from Grun-tu-molani

Vidyan Ravinthiran

poetry

May 2014

The Sky there was a uniform inactive grey, except when stared at through a chainlink fence; those who could...

feature

May 2015

In the Light of Ras Tafari

Anna Della Subin

feature

May 2015

‘A STRANGE NEW FISH EMITS A BLINDING GREEN LIGHT’, the article in National Geographic announced. Off the coast of...

 

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