Sir David’s broadcasting career spans over 50 years. It began in 1952 when he joined BBC Television as a trainee and then became a producer working in the studios of Alexandra Palace in north London, from which the world’s first television service was broadcast.
Correspondent Kelefa Sanneh talks with an anonymous Michelin restaurant inspector, and with chefs at a restaurant with a coveted Michelin star.
Among the earliest monumental iterations of Bourgeois’ Spiders, the present work represents the absolute zenith of her artistic practice and the most ambitious embodiment of her signature motif; decades later, her towering Spiders stand among the most iconic sculptures of the twentieth century.
In its elegant yet otherworldly presence, Bourgeois’ spellbinding Spider speaks to the conceptual concerns at the very heart of her oeuvre: an unflinching confrontation of her own emotions and psyche, translated into sculptural form.
It was during this period of time, from 1887 to 1890, that Van Gogh’s greatest masterpieces were created, forever changing in the history of modern art. Surrounded by artists, dancers, musicians, actors and writers in Montmartre, Van Gogh abandoned the dark palette that dominated many of his early paintings in Holland and replaced it with a newfound love of color.
The drying up of the Dead Sea is causing widespread damage, from huge sinkholes to abandoned beaches and collapsed roads. This is not an act of nature. It is the result of overconsumption and poor water management. If something is not done soon, very little of the Dead Sea will remain. In a region marked by ongoing conflict, natural resources are being depleted. To save the Dead Sea, surrounding countries must work together.
Three individuals — a Jordanian, an Israeli and a Palestinian — feel they can’t just sit idly by. They decide to draw the world’s attention to the problem with a heroic act. In an unprecedented and extremely dangerous undertaking, the three decide to swim across the Dead Sea, from Jordan to Israel, to highlight the plight of the dying waters.
That unusual triangular shape has captured the eyes of photographers, tourists and directors for decades.
But in recent years, this world-famous structure has sat empty and under scaffolding only for a New York court to then order it be put up for grabs at auction in early 2023 – an auction that seems to have turned into a bit of a farce.
It’s the latest uncertain chapter in the long story of this building – a building that’s seen so much of New York’s history unfold and endured so much already.
This is how one of the city’s strangest towers came to be, how it went on to become iconic and why the current struggles around its sale will probably only make it more famous.
The Burlington Magazine – May 2023: Anxiety about the future of the two great photographic libraries housed in the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, can be traced back at least thirty years. In October 1992 we published an Editorial, ‘The Witt and Conway libraries under threat’, which was prompted by a demand from the University of London that the Courtauld – not yet a self-governing and self-financing entity – produce a business plan that would show how the libraries could develop commercial opportunities to offset a threatened reduction in university funding.
Mey Rahola: Desire for Horizons
Although Mey Rahola (1897–1959) was one of the first women to become renowned for art photography in Spain, she remains a little-known figure today. Two linked exhibitions with a single catalogue dedicated to the Catalan photographer set out to rectify this and liberate an overlooked artist from the shadow of anonymity. Working with Rahola’s family, the curators, Lluís Bertran Xirau and Roser Martínez Garcia, have assembled 550 items from her collection, including 250 negatives and a number of photograph albums. That this material had been handed down and divided between the artist’s friends and family is testimony to her interest in her posterity. The fact that, nonetheless, Rahola has remained largely unknown, one is reminded in the exhibition catalogue, is a result partly of her status as a female photographer operating in the early twentieth century and partly of the events of the Spanish Civil War, which ruptured her burgeoning career.
The Bayeux Tapestry photographed
Scientists still know astonishingly little about these freak waves. For centuries, many people dismissed them as the stuff of legend. The first scientific proof of their existence didn’t come until 1995. A laser on the Draupner oil rig in the North Sea measured a wave almost 26 meters high. Wave models in use at the time deemed this to be an impossibility.
But the data, captured by chance, changed the course of research forever. Scientists have focused on three theories in their bid to explain the emergence of freak waves. The first is the current model: currents flowing in opposite directions reduce the length of the waves, pushing them together to create a monster surge. But freak waves are also a phenomenon in regions where currents aren’t particularly strong.
That’s why researchers came up with a second theory: superposition. In this linear process, faster, longer waves catch up with short, slower waves. They overlap and form monster waves. But in some places, freak waves occur with a frequency that can’t be explained by this linear theory, either.
For several years now, scientists have been considering a third possibility: when non-linear wave trains are unstable, they can develop into monster waves through a highly complex energy “theft”. Research is divided over whether it’s the linear or non-linear effects that form freak waves out at sea – a question that’s crucial for shipping!
The 1947 partition of the Indian subcontinent into India and Pakistan was devastating for those living in the Sindh region. Most were Hindus and fled to India, as the area was completely assigned to Pakistan. Many Muslims from India then resettled in Sindh and changed the face of this region, whose cultural heritage had been formed over centuries.
Suddenly, the Hindus who remained found themselves in the minority. Many members of the Sindhi community are now scattered across the globe. They’re making every effort to preserve the old stories and traditions and are proud of their legacy as descendants of one of the oldest human civilizations.
Boomers Daily 