Alexander Kauffman has worked for the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, and Harper’s magazine. He writes on contemporary art and lives in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, and New York City. He can be reached at alexander.kauffman@gmail.com.

• November/December 2007: “Destruction, New Construction, and Then Again Destruction”
  How art that intentionally destroys things—and takes great pleasure in their destruction—is the greatest tribute to the American city.