The New York Times Book Review – April 2, 2023:
“Birnam Wood,” by the Booker Prize winner Eleanor Catton, is a fast-moving ecological novel and a generational cri de coeur.
Edinburgh calls to readers, its pearl-grey skies urging them to curl up with a book. Maggie O’Farrell, the author of “Hamnet,” suggests reading that best reflects her city.
The Burlington Magazine – April 2023: Few paintings capture the exhilaration of the arrival of spring as powerfully as Vincent van Gogh’s ‘Orchard in blossom, bordered by cypresses’, a detail of which is on the cover of our newly published April issue.
The manifold collections of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, include rich holdings of the decorative arts, international in scope, with a natural bias towards the Netherlands. But unlike the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, the Museum für angewandte Kunst, Vienna, and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, products of the nineteenth-century campaign to improve design, the Rijksmuseum, a national museum of art and history, had no strong motive to collect design drawings (although the Rijksprentenkabinet, housed in the museum, contains one of the world’s great assemblages of engraved ornament).
An air of anticipation has greeted the fourth anniversary of the fire that broke out on 15th April 2019 and destroyed the medieval roof of Notre-Dame, Paris, together with its flèche, designed by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc in 1859. The main controversies surrounding the restoration having been settled – as reported in this Magazine, in July 2020 the French government announced that the roof and flèche will be rebuilt as they were, using the same materials as the original – attention has turned to the discoveries being made and to the restoration process.
The New Review (April 2, 2023) – How running helped me navigate the strange terrain of grief An extract from @drrachelhewitt’s memoir, In Her Nature @ChattoBooks.
An actor returns to Palestine and joins a local production of Hamlet in this richly layered and elegant examination of memories and oppression
The West Bank town of Jenin: ‘what could offer a more febrile union of the personal and the political than Palestine?’ Photograph: Jaafar Ashtiyeh/AFP/Getty Images
Aesthetica Magazine (April/May 2023) – Inside this issue, we consider identity, relationships and the impact of technology. We discuss the persistence of images and their ability to embed themselves in collective memory in Thomas Demand’s retrospective,
The Stutter of History. Refik Anadol speaks to us about the relationship between humans and machines, exploring the influence of art and creativity, as we rely more and more on AI to guide us through our lives. What does the future look like in this new world? Should we embrace it or fear it? Also, I am pleased to bring you an overview of this year’s shortlisted artists for the Aesthetica Art Prize 2023.
Thomas Demand highlights the fiction beneath attempts to document the truth, questioning the power and responsibility behind art and its maker.
Gareth Iwan Jones’ fascination with woodland ecocystems inspired enchanting scenes that document the beauty and mystery of forests.
Ranging from the lush rice terraces and forested mountains in the north to the picturesque valleys of the Central Highlands and the fertile delta and beautiful beaches of the south. Included in the mix are booming cities, colonial towns, traditional villages and otherworldly islands. Here’s a look at the best places to visit in Vietnam
March 31, 2023: The Art Newspaper’s annual report on museum visitor figures around the world has been published.
We talk to Lee Cheshire, who co-edited the report, and to Charles Saumarez Smith, a former director or chief executive of three London museums and galleries—the National Portrait Gallery, National Gallery and Royal Academy of Arts—about how important the figures are to museums and whether they are a valid gauge of institutions’ success.
The exhibition Manet/Degas opened at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris this week, before travelling later in the year to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Ben Luke visits the show in Paris and speaks to Laurence des Cars, the former director of the Musée d’Orsay and now president-director of the Musée du Louvre, and Stéphane Guégan, the co-curator of the exhibition.
And in London, a show of the paintings of Berthe Morisot, the pioneering Impressionist with artistic and familial connections to Manet and Degas, has opened at the Dulwich Picture Gallery.
This episode’s Work of the Week is Morisot’s Woman at Her Toilette (1875-80). Lois Oliver, the curator of the exhibition in Dulwich, tells us about this pivotal picture.Manet/Degas, Musée d’Orsay, Paris, until 23 July; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 24 September-7 January 2024Berthe Morisot: Shaping Impressionism, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, until 10 September, Musée Marmottan Monet later in 2023 (dates to be announced).
The New York Times Magazine – April 2, 2023: In this week’s issue: Jeneen Interlandi on the necessity of tallying every birth and death for a country’s public health, Jaeah Lee on the adults caring for both their parents and children, Devin Gordon on the fate of umpires under baseball’s new rules and more.
With replay cameras watching every call, it has become an increasingly stressful job — and baseball’s new rules will just make it harder.
Just like relationships between people, relationships between countries can all too easily be built on a foundation of unintentional misunderstandings, faulty assumptions and predigested truths. In her forthcoming, at times provocative and disquieting book, “The New China Playbook,” Keyu Jin, a professor at the London School of Economics and a board member at Credit Suisse, is trying to rework the foundation of what she sees as the West’s deeply flawed understanding of China’s economy, its economic ambitions and its attitude toward global competition.
Randi Schofield is the sole provider for an ailing father and, at the same time, for her own children — a situation now common among Americans in their 30s and 40s.
France-Amérique Magazine – April 2023 – Ahead of Earth Day, April 22, we profiled five Gallic startups based in the United States and helping biodiversity, fighting against food waste, and curbing global warming. We also sat down with Tristan Grimbert, the French CEO of EDF Renewables North America, one of the leaders on the green energy market in the United States and Canada. Also in this issue, read about the 15-Minute City, a model born in Paris and advocating for livable, sustainable urban centers; discover our profile of Gérard Araud, the former ambassador of France to the U.S. and a sharp observer of international relations; and read our interview with William Christie, the American conductor who has done more than anyone else for the revival of French baroque music.
American harpsichordist and conductor William Christie has arguably done more than anyone else for the global revival of French baroque music. He now lives in France, but on April 25-26, he will bring his ensemble Les Arts Florissants to Carnegie Hall.
France Rethinks, Once Again, Its Relationship with Africa. By Anthony Bulger
French Cultural Events in North America. By Tracy Kendrick
Wokeness Dividing the (French) People. By Guy Sorman
Julie Taymor: “The Lion King Makes People Laugh from Paris to New York.” By Guy Sorman
Why the 15-Minute City May Be Your Next Home. By Anthony Bulger
Five French Entrepreneurs Caring for the Planet. By Benoît Georges
A mesotrophic lake, Lake Hibara was formed as a result of the July 15, 1888 eruption of Mount Bandai. The resulting debris avalanche created a natural dam that then filled with water, submerging Hibara Village.The remains of Hibara Village still lie at the bottom of the lake.
March 31, 2023: Ex-President Trump is indicted by New York grand jury, Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez will meet with Xi Jinping in China and other top news.
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