Category Archives: Arts & Literature
The New York Times Book Review – February 5, 2023
The New York Times Book Review – February 5, 2023:
Salman Rushdie’s Miracle City
His new novel is about a kingdom that is founded on pluralism but fails to live up to its ideals.
What Does It Mean to Be Liberal?
In his new book, “The Struggle for a Decent Politics,” the political philosopher Michael Walzer grapples with a definition.
Storming Normandy in 1346
“Essex Dogs,” the first novel in a projected trilogy by the historian Dan Jones, imagines a hard-bitten band of mercenaries hired to invade France on behalf of their English king.
Inside Art: ‘Abstraktes Bild, 1986’ By Gerhard Richter
It is a masterpiece created during the critical year of 1986, which saw the artist’s first large-scale touring retrospective and was also the year in which Richter first took up the squeegee as his principal compositional tool. He has only ever produced 24 Abstraktes Bild of this magnitude (with a width greater than 380 cm), of which half of these reside in museum collections across the globe.
Gerhard Richter was born in 1932 in Dresden, Germany. Throughout his career, Richter has negotiated the frontier between photography and painting, captivated by the way in which these two seemingly opposing practices speak to and challenge one another. From exuberant canvases rendered with a squeegee and acerbic color charts to paintings of photographic detail and close-ups of a single brushstroke, Richter moves effortlessly between the two mediums, reveling in the complexity of their relationship, while never asserting one above the other.
Reviews: ‘The Week In Art’
February 3, 2023: As we approach the first anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, The Art Newspaper has published an investigation that raises serious concerns that works of art taken by Russian troops from a museum in Kherson, Ukraine, in November 2022 may not be repatriated once the fighting ends.
Our London correspondent Martin Bailey tells us about his story. Plus, the Sharjah Biennial opens next week, and is the final biennial curated by Okwui Enwezor, who died in 2019, but set the blueprint for the show, entitled Thinking Historically in the Present. We talk to Nadine Khalil about the biennial and Sharjah’s place in the Middle Eastern art ecosystem.
And this episode’s Work of the Week is Invisible Man, Somewhere, Everywhere (1991) by the American photographer Ming Smith, a key piece in a new exhibition of Smith’s work at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Oluremi Onabanjo, the curator of the show, tells us about the work.The Sharjah Biennial runs from 7 February to 11 June.Projects: Ming Smith, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 4 February-29 May. Ming Smith: Invisible Man, Somewhere, Everywhere, by Oluremi C. Onabanjo, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 48pp, $14.95/£17 (pb)
The New York Review Of Books – February 23, 2023
The New York Review of Books February 23, 2023 issue:
Buildings Come to Life
In Edward Hopper’s paintings of New York, human figures often seem outgrowths of their architectural surroundings.
Edward Hopper’s New York an exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City, October 19, 2022–March 5, 2023
Brazil at the Crossroads
Lula’s election comes as a relief to many Brazilians, but in this historically violent and unequal country, a void in the democratic field endures.
Very Free and Indirect
The intensity of experience that Katherine Mansfield sought in her short life is matched by the formal obliqueness she discovered in her stories.
All Sorts of Lives: Katherine Mansfield and the Art of Risking Everything by Claire Harman
Books: TLS/Times Literary Supplement – Feb 3, 2023
This week’s @TheTLS , featuring Ferdinand Mount on fair play; @ScurrRuth on Janet Malcolm; @sophieolive on Mina Loy; @mjohnharrison on László Krasznahorkai; @pratinavanil on Nehru; @jamesamarcus on Melville and Mumford; @eliza_dearnley on pagan goddesses – and more.
Previews: The New Yorker Magazine- February 6, 2023
When Law Enforcement Alone Can’t Stop the Violence
Amid a murder crisis in America, community-based solutions have received a flood of funding. How effective are they?
Hildegard of Bingen Composes the Cosmos
How a visionary medieval nun became a towering figure in early musical history.
The Hunt for Russian Collaborators in Ukraine
As occupied territories are liberated, some residents face accusations that they sided with the enemy.
Malika Favre’s “Connected”
The artist discusses seeking inspiration from her surroundings and experiencing new ways of living.
International Art: Apollo Magazine – February 2023
Apollo Magazine – February 2023:
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- How Christopher Wren built his reputation
- The changing face of Silicon Valley
- An interview with Zineb Sedira
- The tiger who smoked a pipe
- Plus: the uncertain market for Old Masters, the Cambridge colleges that have turned to wood, the artists who have taken young women seriously, and reviews of Guido Reni, Edward Hopper and the new museum at the Bibliothèque nationale
Books: The New York Times Book Review – Jan 29, 2023
The New York Times Book Review – January 29, 2023:
Fleeing Slavery in a Top Hat and Cravat
“Master Slave Husband Wife,” by Ilyon Woo, relates the daring escape from bondage in Georgia to freedom in the North by an enslaved couple disguised as a wealthy planter and his property.
Think Screens Stole Our Attention? Medieval Monks Were Distracted Too.
In “The Wandering Mind,” the historian Jamie Kreiner shows that the struggle to focus is not just a digital-age blight but afflicted even those who spent their lives in seclusion and prayer.
‘Age of Vice’: A Lush Thriller Dives Into New Delhi’s Underworld
In Deepti Kapoor’s cinematic novel, a young man from the provinces falls in with a powerful crime syndicate.
Reviews: ‘The Week In Art’
January 27, 2023: This week: as robotic figures of the Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama appear in windows of Louis Vuitton stores in New York, London and Tokyo, Ben Luke talks to Federica Carlotto, a specialist in art and luxury, about the latest collaboration between Kusama and the LVMH brand.
What does it tell us about what the former creative director of Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs, called the “monumental marriage between art and commerce”? Also this week, the artist Michael Rakowitz hopes to give a public sculpture he made for Trafalgar Square in London to Tate Modern and an Iraqi institution. He explains how it prompted Iraq to request the return of one of the lamassu, the ancient Assyrian sculptures that inspired Rakowitz’s work, from the British Museum to its country of origin.
And this episode’s Work of the Week is I didn’t put myself down for sainthood (2018), a piece made by Rosy Martin in collaboration with Verity Welstead. The photographic ensemble is in the opening displays of the new Centre of British Photography in London. We speak to James Hyman, the art dealer, collector and co-founder of the centre, about the work.
You can hear our interview with Michael Rakowitz when he unveiled the sculpture in Trafalgar Square in the episode from 22 March 2018 and an in-depth conversation with Michael in the episode of the A brush with… podcast from 9 June 2021.Headstrong: Women and Empowerment, Centre for British Photography, London, until 23 April.
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