Category Archives: Arts & Literature

Art Videos: “Georgia O’Keeffe’s Century Of American Art” (Sotheby’s)

Sotheby's AuctionsIn the final years of Georgia O’Keeffe’s nearly century-long life, she employed and befriended the young sculptor Juan Hamilton. The two would become inseparable, and upon her death in 1986, Hamilton inherited fine art and personal affects from the artist’s estate, including rarely seen pieces from the estate of O’Keeffe’s late husband, Joseph Stieglitz.

This March, Sotheby’s is honored to present these works in Alfred Stieglitz, Georgia O’Keeffe, Juan Hamilton: Passage, a dedicated auction in New York on 5 March 2020. In this episode of Expert Voices, Head of American Art Kayla Carlsen explores the stories behind this remarkable collection while highlighting exceptional works, including O’Keeffe’s Nature Forms – Gaspé, Stieglitz’s Hand and Wheel and Hamilton’s Untitled (Red Form).

(New York | 5 March 2020)

New Photography Books: “The Rest Between Two Notes: Selected Works by Fran Forman” (Mar 2020)

THE REST BETWEEN TWO NOTES SELECTED WORKS BY FRAN FORMAN March 2020Forman’s photo-paintings explore those liminal and in-between moments – of coming and leaving, innocence and confidence, shadow and light, night and day, absence and connection, loss and longing, and not quite the past and not yet the future. Portals, both real and metaphorical, frequent her layered, complex and often dreamlike images.

“Each piece tells a thousand layered stories…”

Fran Forman Art Facebook Post 2020

By integrating her contemporary photography with historical periods and various settings around the world, Forman creates a world of illusion. Upon closer inspection, what appears ordinary suggests an underlying tension and an aura of mystery. Expressed in the diffused colors of twilight and chiaroscuro, her images blur the boundaries between photography, late Renaissance painting, and film noir.

Fran Forman Art Facebook post 2020Her work is recognized for imbuing harmonious compositions and for her explosive use of color, light, and shadow.Forman’s images elicit emotions of desire, vulnerability, and a desperate longing for connections.

Included with many of the images are texts submitted by thirty-three writers, poets, visual artists and others. Each person brings a specific specific frame of reference to an image, all reflecting who they are as individuals, and their words appear adjacent to their selected image.

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Podcast Interviews: 67-Year Old Actress And Author Isabella Rossellini On Her Love Of Animals

LARB Los Angeles Review of BooksThis week the legendary actress, model and filmmaker Isabella Rossellini joins co-hosts Kate and Medaya to discuss her new theatrical production, Link Link Circus, her studies into animal behavior, and her long career in film and TV. 

Isabella also discusses her most recent book, My Chickens and I; as well as her previous one, Green Porno, a hugely successful multi-media project that helped revive interest in one of Isabella’s other loves, the short film form.

Website

Isabella Fiorella Elettra Giovanna Rossellini (born 18 June 1952) is an Italian actress, filmmaker, author, philanthropist, and model. The daughter of Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman and Italian neorealist film director Roberto Rossellini, she is noted for her successful tenure as a Lancôme model, and for her roles in films such as Blue Velvet (1986) and Death Becomes Her (1992). Rossellini also received a Golden Globe Award nomination for her performance in Crime of the Century (1996).

Rossellini is involved in conservation efforts. She is the president and director of the Howard Gilman Foundation—a leading institution focused on the preservation of wildlife, arts, photography and dance—and she has been a board member of the Wildlife Conservation Network. She received US$100,000 from Disney to help with her conservation efforts in those two organizations. She has also helped with the Central Park Conservancy, and is a major benefactor of the Bellport-Brookhaven Historical Society of Bellport, Long Island, where she is a part-time resident.[39]

Rossellini is involved in training guide dogs for the blind. She is a former trustee of the George Eastman House and a 1997 George Eastman Award honoree for her support of film preservation. She is also a National Ambassador for the U.S. Fund for UNICEF.

From Wikipedia

 

Reading: New York Public Library Celebrates 125 Years With “125 Books List”

New York Public Library logoThe New York Public Library is marking its 125th birthday this year—in part with this list of their favorite books written for adults from the past 125 years, which they hope will “inspire a lifelong love of reading.” 

New York Public Library Celebrates 125 Years with 125 Favorite Books List

New York Public Library Celebrates 125 Years with 125 Favorite Books List

See the full list here

Podcast Interviews: 75-Year Old Travel Writer And Editor Pamela Fiori

Monocle 24 The Stack PodcastPamela Fiori’s career in magazine publishing spans more than forty years. She was editor In chief of Town & Count , America’s premier magazine for the affluent in America, for seventeen years. Before that, she was editor in chief of Travel + Leisure for fourteen years. 

An authority on luxury, travel, style, connoisseurship, and philanthropy, Flori writes and speaks frequently on these subjects. Her first book, Stolen M ents, Is a tribute to the photography of Ronny Jaques, a contemporary of Richard Avedon and Lillian Sassman. She has also written In the Sprit of Capri and in the spirit of St. Barths for Assoullne.

Tributes: Nobel Prize-Winning Philosopher And Writer Bertrand Russell (1872 – 1970)

Bertrand Russell Public IntellectualBertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, writer, essayist, social critic, political activist, and Nobel laureate. At various points in his life, Russell considered himself a liberal, a socialist and a pacifist, although he also confessed that his sceptical nature had led him to feel that he had “never been any of these things, in any profound sense.” Russell was born in Monmouthshire into one of the most prominent aristocratic families in the United Kingdom.

In the early 20th century, Russell led the British “revolt against idealism”. He is considered one of the founders of analytic philosophy along with his predecessor Gottlob Frege, colleague G. E. Moore and protégé Ludwig Wittgenstein. He is widely held to be one of the 20th century’s premier logicians. With A. N. Whitehead he wrote Principia Mathematica, an attempt to create a logical basis for mathematics, the quintessential work of classical logic. His philosophical essay “On Denoting” has been considered a “paradigm of philosophy”. His work has had a considerable influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, linguistics, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, computer science (see type theory and type system) and philosophy, especially the philosophy of language, epistemology and metaphysics.

Russell was a prominent anti-war activist and he championed anti-imperialism.  Occasionally, he advocated preventive nuclear war, before the opportunity provided by the atomic monopoly had passed and he decided he would “welcome with enthusiasm” world government. He went to prison for his pacifism during World War I.[75] Later, Russell concluded that war against Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany was a necessary “lesser of two evils” and criticised Stalinist totalitarianism, attacked the involvement of the United States in the Vietnam War and was an outspoken proponent of nuclear disarmament. In 1950, Russell was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature “in recognition of his varied and significant writings in which he champions humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought”.

From Wikipedia

Movie Soundtracks: “James Bond Theme” For “Dr. No” By Monty Norman, Now 91 (1928, London)

Monty Norman
Monty Norman

Soundtrack/theme music from the 1962 Terence Young film “Dr. No,” with Sean Connery, Ursula Andress, Joseph Wiseman, Jack Lord, John Kitzmiller, Lois Maxwell & Bernard Lee.

Monty Norman (born 4 April 1928) is a singer and film composer best known for composing the “James Bond Theme”.

Norman is famous for writing the music to the first James Bond movie, Dr. No, including the “James Bond Theme”, the signature theme of the James Bond franchise. Norman has received royalties since 1962 for the theme. However, as the producers were dissatisfied with Norman’s arrangement, John Barry re-arranged the theme. Barry later claimed that it was actually he who wrote the theme, but Norman won two libel actions against publishers for claiming that Barry was the composer, most recently against The Sunday Times in 2001. In the made-for-DVD documentary Inside Dr. No, Norman performs a music piece which he wrote for the stage several years earlier entitled “Bad Sign, Good Sign”, that resembles the melody of the “James Bond Theme” in several places.

Norman collected around £600,000 in royalties between the years 1976 and 1999 for the use of the theme since Dr. No.

From Wikipedia

Art: “What Is A Japanese Living National Treasure?” (British Museum Video)

The British Museum has been collecting artworks made by Japanese Living National Treasures since 2007, but what is a Living National treasure and why are they so important to Japanese Cultural Heritage? In this film Nicole Rousmaniere, research director of SISJAC and Hayashida Hiyaki of the Japan Kōgei Association talk all about the Living National treasures programme and highlight some of the most beautiful pieces of Japanese craftsmanship collected by the Museum.

Interviews: 77-Year Old Actor Harrison Ford On Reprising “Indiana Jones”

In this preview of a conversation with correspondent Lee Cowan to be broadcast on “CBS Sunday Morning” on February 16, Harrison Ford, the actor who has played iconic characters in the “Star Wars” and Indiana Jones franchises, talks about returning to familiar roles.

Harrison Ford (born July 13, 1942) is an American actor, aviator, and environmental activist. He gained worldwide fame for his starring role as Han Solo in the original Star Wars Trilogy (1977–1983), eventually reprising the role decades later in the sequel trilogy (2015–2019). Ford is also widely known for his portrayal of Indiana Jones in the Indiana Jones film franchise and as Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan in the spy thrillers Patriot Games (1992) and Clear and Present Danger (1994).

Film critic Roger Ebert described Ford as “the great modern movie everyman”. His career spans six decades and includes roles in many highly successful Hollywood films. Some of his most popular films include Apocalypse Now (1979), Witness (1985), Presumed Innocent (1990), The Fugitive (1993), Air Force One (1997), What Lies Beneath (2000), and (2013). Seven of his films have been inducted into the National Film Registry: American Graffiti (1973), The Conversation (1974), Star Wars (1977), Apocalypse Now (1979), The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), and Blade Runner (1982).

As of 2019, the U.S. domestic box-office grosses of Ford’s films total over $5.1 billion, with worldwide grosses surpassing $9.3 billion, making him the fourth highest-grossing domestic box-office star of all time.

From Wikipedia

Profiles: 71-Year Old Physicist And Author Alan Lightman’s “Creative Life”

From a New York Times online article (February 13, 2020):

“I love physics, but what was even more important to me was leading a creative life,” Dr. Lightman said. “And I knew that writers could continue doing their best work later in life.”

Alan Lightman Books

Lightman is best known in literary circles for his 1992 novel, “Einstein’s Dreams,” which is all about the vicissitudes – romantic, physical and otherwise – of time. It recounts the nightly visions of a young patent clerk in Bern, Switzerland, as he struggles to finish his theory of relativity.

But before that, Dr. Lightman was an astrophysicist, a card-carrying wizard of space and time, with a Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology and subsequent posts at Cornell and Harvard In 1989, at the peak of his prowess as a physicist, he began to walk away from the world of black holes to enter the world of black ink and the uncertain, lonely life of the writer.

Recently he was in New York for the opening of “Einstein’s Dreams,” an off-Broadway play based on his book. There have been dozens of such stage adaptations over the last 30 years.

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