Mailing List


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...

Listen to the silence, let it ring on (Joy Division, Transmission) I It is not yet dawn The city is a distant murmur Laid out on the desk before him are the tools of his nightly excursions, boxed in metal, wired together, patiently waiting He places the headphones over his ears, flicks the switch at the side of the machine Outside, through the window, he can see no people, no passing cars It is raining Clouds turn queasily in the sky A bird begins singing, somewhere out of sight   The first rush of sound welcomes him back; that familiar fuzz of static that sluices through his ears, engulfs his brain, and plunges him into the flux He reaches for the dial and brushes its ridged edge with his fingertips, letting his ears adjust to the nuances of the night Hiss Crackle Warmth Wondering briefly what he is about to discover, if anything, he closes his eyes Sometimes the nights are barren, sometimes not   Rain falls more heavily, patters against the window with a sound like soft applause A quick bite of his lip, a scratch of his neck Everything is ready He turns on the tape machine, presses Record The heads spin in their plastic window     2   Lightning whitens the road for an epileptic second Pavements, cars, gutters and shops: everything’s bleached by the light ‘That’s what, the hundredth time this hour?   Jimmy smiles   The café is the only place open along this long, dark, featureless road, and it’s packed People are loitering among the tables in clothes so wet that liquid shadows are gathering around their feet None of them wants to be marooned in this low-lit, white-tiled little place on a Friday night But here they are, imprisoned by falling water   ‘Is your phone still fucked?’ I ask   Everything stopped working once the storm began Mobiles, the internet, the wall-mounted TV: all of them paralysed The only means of communication with the outside world – albeit one-way

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...

READ NEXT

feature

April 2017

Symbols Made Me Hardcore

Joe Bucciero

feature

April 2017

‘A Sound System, like the property of any system, is the interaction of the sum of its parts.’ —...

Interview

October 2014

Interview with Jem Cohen

Steve Macfarlane

Interview

October 2014

Jem Cohen may be one of the quintessential New York filmmakers of our era. Peerless in his knack for...

feature

Issue No. 7

On a Decline in British Fiction

Jennifer Hodgson

Patricia Waugh

feature

Issue No. 7

‘The special fate of the novel,’ Frank Kermode has written, ‘is always to be dying.’ In Britain, the terminal...

 

Get our newsletter

 

* indicates required