FRANCE 24 Films (November 13, 2023) – Nestled at an altitude of 400 metres in the heart of the Alps, France’s Lake Annecy is considered the purest lake in Europe. On its shores, the medieval old town of Annecy is nicknamed the “Venice of the Alps” for its picturesque canals.
Out on the lake, fishermen catch féra, a delicate fish that Michelin-starred chef Jean Sulpice is particularly fond of working with. The forests that surround the lake are also a source of inspiration for the chef, who never misses an opportunity to stroll through them in search of new flavours.
Eater Films (November 13, 2023) – Nels Leader is the CEO of Bread Alone, an upstate New York bakery founded by his father in 1983. Today, the bakery is committed to the idea that everyone should have access to good bread — a goal it tries to achieve by baking 150,000 loaves every week.
Sotheby’s (November 13, 2023) – This month, we’re taking a tour of the world’s most exciting and innovative museum exhibitions with Tim Marlow, CEO and Director of the Design Museum, London.
Africa & Byzantium Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 19 November 2023 – 3 March 2024 Bringing together the art and culture of Byzantium and Africa, this ambitious New York exhibition looks in a new way at their importance to the development of the premodern world.
Africa & Byzantium comprises over 200 objects, from frescoes and mosaics to jewelry and manuscripts borrowed from many of the great collections, spanning over ten centuries of complex cultural exchange and influence.
Modigliani: Modern Gazes Staatsgalerie Stuttgart 24 November 2023 – 17 March 2024 Modigliani: Modern Gazes focuses on the 20th-century Italian artist’s portraits of modern women From bohemian Paris who stare unapologetically at the viewer, defiant and – as the director of the Staatsgalerie, Christiane Lange puts it – “emancipated”.
Works by German-speaking contemporaries Paula Modersohn-Becker, Jeanne Mammen, Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt and Wilhelm Lehmbruck also feature, in a show that places Modigliani in the wider cultural context of the young European avant-garde.
Mark Rothko: Paintings on Paper. National Gallery of Art, Washington DC 19 November 2023 – 31 March 2024 Rothko exhibitions have always focused on his canvases but the artist drew no distinction between them and his paintings on paper – some of which were up to seven feet tall.
Forming the basis of Mark Rothko: Paintings on Paper, a ground-breaking show at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, many of the watercolors, acrylics and oil paintings on paper have never been seen before.
Botticelli Drawings 19 November 2023 – 11 February 2024 Legion of Honor, San Francisco Although his reputation dwindled until the Pre-Raphaelites rediscovered his work in the 19th century, Sandro Botticelli is now one of the most revered of the Renaissance masters.
There has, however, never been a significant exhibition of his drawings so Botticelli Drawings – an admirable and important project – will give us the chance to trace his artistic journey in a more intimate way than ever before.
An Atlas of Es Devlin Cooper Hewitt, New York 18 November 2023 – 11 August 2024 Devlin is a polymath and then some, with a wide ranging practice that incorporates stage design from La Scala in Milan to the Super Bowl. She is utterly compelling but hard to classify, which is why it is appropriate that Devlin herself will install her 30 year archive.
An Atlas of Es Devlin – featuring over 300 sketches, paintings, cutouts, and maquettes – will also stage a replica of her London studio along with giant film installations, a library programme including collective readings and the chance to participate in a cumulative artwork.
The New Yorker – November 20, 2023 issue: The new issue features The A.I. Issue – Joshua Rothman on the godfather of A.I., Eyal Press on facial-recognition technology, Anna Wiener on Holly Herndon, and more…
In your brain, neurons are arranged in networks big and small. With every action, with every thought, the networks change: neurons are included or excluded, and the connections between them strengthen or fade. This process goes on all the time—it’s happening now, as you read these words—and its scale is beyond imagining. You have some eighty billion neurons sharing a hundred trillion connections or more. Your skull contains a galaxy’s worth of constellations, always shifting.
On March 26, 2022, at around 8:20 a.m., a man in light-blue Nike sweatpants boarded a bus near a shopping plaza in Timonium, outside Baltimore. After the bus driver ordered him to observe a rule requiring passengers to wear face masks, he approached the fare box and began arguing with her. “I hit bitches,” he said, leaning over a plastic shield that the driver was sitting behind. When she pulled out her iPhone to call the police, he reached around the shield, snatched the device, and raced off. The bus driver followed the man outside, where he punched her in the face repeatedly. He then stood by the curb, laughing, as his victim wiped blood from her nose.
CBS Sunday Morning (November 12, 2023) – The largest exhibition ever of works by Ed Ruscha, one of the most celebrated American artists of the postwar era, is now on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
Ruscha, now 85, talks with correspondent David Pogue about collecting much of his life’s work into one retrospective; the cryptic nature of many of his paintings; and his use of unusual materials (like chocolate and axle grease).
“I don’t have any Seine River like Monet,” Ed Ruscha once said. “I’ve just got US 66 between Oklahoma and Los Angeles.” ED RUSCHA / NOW THEN will feature over 200 works—in mediums including painting, drawing, prints, photography, artist’s books, film, and installation—that make use of everything from gunpowder to chocolate. Exploring Ruscha’s landmark contributions to postwar American art as well as lesser-known aspects of his more than six-decade career, the exhibition will offer new perspectives on a body of work that has influenced generations of artists, architects, designers, and writers.
In 1956, Ruscha left his hometown of Oklahoma City and drove along interstate highway 66 to study commercial art in Los Angeles, where he drew inspiration from the city’s architecture, colloquial speech, and popular culture. Ruscha has recorded and transformed familiar subjects—whether roadside gasoline stations or the 20th Century Fox logo—often revisiting motifs, sites, or words years later. Tracing shifts in the artist’s means and methods over time, ED RUSCHA / NOW THEN underscores the continuous reinvention that has defined his work.
Gagosian Quarterly (Winter 2023) – The new issue features Annie Cohen-Solal who writes about the exhibition A Foreigner Called Picasso, at Gagosian, New York, detailing the genesis of the project, her commitment to the figure of the outsider, and Picasso’s enduring relevance to matters geopolitical and sociological. Connecting the dots among the Surrealist milieu, including Picasso, a conversation on the underrecognized photographer Lee Miller sets the stage for a New York show about her work, friendships, and collaborations with fellow artists.
Cocurator of the exhibition A Foreigner Called Picasso, at Gagosian, New York, Annie Cohen-Solal writes about the genesis of the project, her commitment to the figure of the outsider, and Picasso’s enduring relevance to matters geopolitical and sociological.
By Annie Cohen-Solal
I have been interested in the issue of immigration ever since I entered the art world. I began my career as an intellectual historian: I was a scholar of Jean-Paul Sartre and wrote his first biography. It was quite unexpected that I would fall into the orbit of the art world, let alone so fast, but two days after I arrived in New York City, in 1989—I had just been nominated cultural counselor to the French Embassy in the United States—I met Leo Castelli at a dinner. Out of the blue, Leo told me, “You don’t look like your predecessors.” (I was the first woman in the position.) “You’ll take New York city by storm and I’ll teach you American art. Come to the gallery tomorrow, I have a show with Roy [Lichtenstein]. Come for the opening and stay for the dinner.”
The American Surrealist photographer Lee Miller is the subject of the exhibition Seeing Is Believing at Gagosian, New York. Here we present a conversation on the stewardship of Miller’s legacy, her photography and writing from the frontlines of war to the pages of Vogue, and the intertwined lives of her friends, lovers, and the many artists she knew.
At 60 years old, Doctor Who, the BBC show following the adventures of the regenerating Time Lord, continues to be highly enjoyable fiction. But it’s science fiction. The Gallifreyan takes science seriously… so we take a closer look at some of the science of Doctor Who, from time travel and the TARDIS to invading Cybermen and rogue planets.
How to make the Moon on Earth
The expense and prestige involved in sending landers and rovers to the Moon means you can’t afford for them not to work when they get there. But the lunar landscape is like nothing here on Earth. So how, and where do you test equipment that’s bound for the Moon?
THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW (November 12, 2023): This week’s issue features ‘Fear of Flying’ turns 50 – With its feminist take on sexual pleasure, Erica Jong’s novel caused a sensation in 1973; The 2023 New York Times/New York Public Library Best Illustrated Children’s Books, and more…
With its feminist take on sexual pleasure, Erica Jong’s novel caused a sensation in 1973. But the revolution Jong promoted never came to pass.
By Jane Kamensky
Fifty years ago last month, Erica Jong published a debut novel that went on to sell more than 20 million copies. “Fear of Flying,” a book so sexually frank that you may have found it hidden in your mother’s underwear drawer, broke new ground in the explicitness of writing by and for women. Jong’s heroine, Isadora Wing, was a live wire. She was also a dead end, certainly for Jong, and maybe for feminism, too.
THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE (November 10, 2023): The latest issue features A Beginner’s Guide to Looking at the Universe; What Does the U.S. Space Force Actually Do? – Inside the highly secretive military branch responsible for protecting American interests in a vulnerable new domain; Their Final Wish? A Burial in Space. – Why some people decide to send their remains into orbit.
A stunning advancement in a long history of stargazing, the James Webb telescope reveals light where once we saw only darkness. Our view of the universe will never be the same.
By KATE LARUE
News, Views and Reviews For The Intellectually Curious