“A Sturtevant work is as instantly and uncannily recognizable as a Warhol silk-screen, say, or a Johns flag. But, at the same time, each in its own way is a deliberately inexact likeness of its more famous progenitor.”
Tag: 05.16.14
Kenneth Clark: Art-World Snob, Savior Of Art, Or Both?
“Above all, perhaps, Clark was a brilliant wordsmith, the most seductive writer on art since Ruskin and Pater, whom he greatly admired. Today, when most art historians write as joylessly as lawyers and accountants, such verve is sorely needed.”
When Your Friends Die All Around You, How Do You Keep Writing?
“‘I am trying to bring together all of the elements of the Iraqi experience,’ Mr. Saadawi said. ‘There are many messages. One of them is that with this war and violence, no one is innocent.'”
When The Composer Is Religious But The Audience Is (Mostly) Secular
“Historical distance has tempered the explicit Lutheran message of Bach’s cantatas or the Roman Catholicism of Palestrina’s Masses. Disregarding the scriptural details of Mr. Pärt’s music, though, might mean ignoring an aspect integral to a living composer, even if he is vague about it.”
The Royal Phil May Drop Dorchester Hotel Over Anti-Gay Ownership
“This comes after the Sultan of Brunei, who owns the Dorchester Collection of luxury hotels, unveiled a strict sharia (Islamic law) penal code last month. This will include death by stoning for offences such as homosexuality and adultery from next year, with other offences punished by flogging and severing limbs.”
Life In The Largest Artist Colony In The U.S. (And Maybe The World)
“There are very few rules for those hoping to nab a coveted loft space at The Brewery. Namely, no dogs or musical instruments.”
Can Action Movies Kill You?
Watch out: While test subjects watched an action film clip, “blood pressure increased, the pace of breathing became faster and the heart’s natural rhythm began to shift.”
Why “Franchise” Fiction Gets Dissed By The Literary World
“The parochial world of literary fiction tends to deal with mass-media franchises in the same way it deals with genre fiction, comics and the other narrative arts that eclipse it by magnitudes for size, influence and profit margins: by giving them the silent treatment. This isn’t an entirely stupid strategy.”
Incoming La Scala Boss: “I Am Not A Dunce!”
“Alexander Pereira, the incoming director general of La Scala has vowed to show the world’s most famous opera house he is “not a dunce” after a humiliating controversy between Milan and his current employers, the Salzburg festival, resulted in his original five-year contract being torn up before he had even begun.”
Why A New Production Of “Miss Saigon” Is Breaking Records
“It turned out that the return of this ambitious, sung-through musical, which tells the story of Puccini’s Madame Butterfly transposed to the Vietnam War, with its melodious, some might say soupy, love songs, and its bitter depiction of an urban underworld where desperate West meets impoverished East, was the most eagerly anticipated in theatreland. If this is a surprise, it shouldn’t be.”