Category Archives: Reviews

Top Museum Exhibits: “Greco” At The Grand Palais, Paris On Oct 16

Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata (c. 1585), El Greco.Rediscovered in the late 19th century, celebrated by authors, acknowledged and embraced by the 20th century avant-garde, the artist has enjoyed the dual prestige of tradition and modernity, linking Titian to the Fauvists and Mannerism to Cubism, Expressionism, Vorticism and Abstraction up to the Action painting.

This retrospective is the first major exhibition in France ever to be dedicated to this artist.

Born in Crete in 1541, Domenico Theotokopoulos, known as El Greco, undertook his initial apprenticeship in the Byzantine tradition before refining his training in Venice and then Rome. However, it was in Spain that his art flourished, firmly taking root from the 1577s. Attracted by the incredible promise of the El Escorial site, the artist brought Titian’s colour, Tintoretto’s audacity and Michelangelo’s heroic style. This eloquent combination, original yet consistent with his own way, gave El Greco (who died four years after Caravaggio) a unique place in the history of painting, as the last grand master of the Renaissance and the first great painter of the Golden Age.

Website: https://www.grandpalais.fr/en/event/greco

New Books: Frank Lloyd Wright Bio “Plagued By Fire” By Paul Hendrickson

From a Wall Street Journal online review:

Plagued by Fire Paul HendrickonWhereas most Wright biographies build from one structure to the next, this one caroms from one digression to the next. Mr. Hendrickson spins miniature biographies of the people who commissioned Wright to build their homes and office buildings. An array of midcentury figures appears: e.g., Glenway Wescott, the novelist and poet who rubbed shoulders with Gertrude Stein in Paris and whose sister commissioned one of Wright’s homes; and Clarence Darrow, the renowned lawyer, who waded into the murk of Wright’s personal life when a disgruntled housekeeper attempted to use the Mann Act to have Wright arrested. We also meet the little-known residents of various structures. Seth Peterson, for instance, dreamed of living in a Wright home so powerfully that he camped out in the one he commissioned as it was being built. 

Even when you grant how exposed to the elements an architect’s work may be, Frank Lloyd Wright appears to have been an insurer’s nightmare. If a building could shake, burn or flood, time and again Wright’s structures did. Like the exquisite Rose Pauson House in Phoenix, which lasted a mere year before succumbing to fire. Or the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, with its gorgeous H-shaped guest wing, rocked by an earthquake on the day it opened. The Johnson Wax building in Racine, Wis., was so porous that office staff were known to keep buckets by their desk on rainy days.

To read more: https://www.wsj.com/articles/plagued-by-fire-review-the-spirit-in-the-form-11570806240?mod=ig_booksoctober12

Top Restaurants: “Miss Ada” Is “Mediterranean With A Twist” (Brooklyn, NY)

From a New Yorker online review:

Miss Ada Brooklyn RestaurantThe tantalizing combination of brown butter and fried sage may have its origin in Italy, but it turns out to work just as well with pita as it does with pasta. At Miss Ada, a restaurant in Fort Greene, it gets spooned, nutty and fragrant, over a sweet but earthy carrot hummus, and again over a bowl of fluffy whipped ricotta. The pita—warm, puffy, chewy—goes perfectly, too, with a rich, stretchy stracciatella cheese, its milky surface marbled with little golden ponds of olive oil and topped with, depending on the season, heirloom tomatoes, basil, cucumbers, and red onion, or snap peas, blood orange, ground-cherries, and kumquat.

“Mediterranean with a twist” is how the restaurant describes its food. The chef and owner, Tomer Blechman (late of Bar Bolonat, Gramercy Tavern, and Maialino), is originally from Israel, and the menu is rooted in the traditions and flavor profiles of the Middle East. Sometimes the twist is Italian, sometimes it’s Mexican—the sauce beneath the short-rib skewer is described as “Israeli mole” (made with Middle Eastern spices, chocolate, and harissa), and the Dead Sea #2 cocktail (guava, mezcal, mint, lime) is basically an Israeli margarita—and sometimes the za’atar-crusted salmon is accompanied by Japanese eggplant.

To read more: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/10/21/miss-ada-and-goldas-modern-spins-on-middle-eastern-cooking

Classic Brands: Savile Row Tailor “Cad & The Dandy” Rolls Out Limited Edition Silk Pocket Square

Cad & The Dandy Illustration

From an October email update:

CAD x LAND ROVER, SILK POCKET SQUARE

Our latest limited edition pocket square features one of the Cad Land Rover fleet – a 1981 Marine Blue, Series III, soft top Defender.

Designed by us and hand made in England, the 100% silk printed pocket features subtle hues of blue, grey and sand, classically finished with hand rolled edges.

Sitting equally well in a jacket top pocket or as a piece of art mounted in a simple frame, this pocket square is a guaranteed talking point.

The ideal gift for classic British design and motoring fans, available to pre order now.

https://www.cadandthedandy.co.uk/

Cultural Events: Museum Of Modern Art (MoMA) Reopens On October 21

From a New York Curbed.com online article:

MoMA Reopens Curbed NYThere’s also a special focus on architecture and design in this new approach to the collection: Several galleries are devoted to various aspects of those fields, including “The Vertical City,” an examination of skyscraper construction that includes photos by Berenice Abbott, Hugh Ferriss’s architectural drawings, and other ephemera. Elsewhere, building models of the Guggenheim and a spec design of MoMA by modernist master William Lescaze emphasize the importance of architecture to museums, and vice versa.

…the museum is about to reveal its most ambitious revamp yet: On October 21, MoMA will open its expanded headquarters, which now takes up most of the block on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues. The museum has pushed westward, opening more than 40,000 square feet of fresh galleries in both a ground-up building (which rose from the ashes of the Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects-designed American Folk Art Museum) and the base of Jean Nouvel’s supertall skyscraper next door.

The galleries aren’t all that’s been added, though: The museum has also opened a new, expansive lobby—which has two galleries that can be visited free of charge—as well as a spacious gift shop that has been relocated below street level. A wall of windows gives passersby a glimpse into the space, and is intended as a gesture of “increased transparency,” according to the museum.

To read more: https://ny.curbed.com/2019/10/11/20908427/museum-of-modern-art-expansion-open-photos

 

Interviews With Artists: Painter Eileen Hogan Talks About Her New Book “Personal Geographies”

From The Mayfair Musings:

Eileen Hogan Author of Personal GeographiesI describe myself as an urban-based painter who is interested in green spaces. Painting and drawing have been seen as profoundly unfashionable for most of my working life, and I have felt sometimes that it was quite eccentric to be a figurative painter with conventional subject matter. Looking back, my insistence on maintaining my practice as a figurative painter now seems more radical than conventional.

Browse & Darby have announced that Personal Geographies will arrive in October, the second solo exhibition by esteemed British painter, Eileen Hogan. Hogan’s principal subject is gardens, or more specifically, enclosed green spaces. The beautiful works that will be shown in Personal Geographies have travelled all the way from the US, where they formed part of the artist’s recent exhibition at the Yale Centre for British Art.

Eileen Hogan painting Prince Charles

Eileen Hogan Personal Geographies BookI was very blessed to have the opportunity to catch up with Hogan ahead of her Mayfair exhibition. I find myself entranced by her vibrant paintings that are dense with detail, filling the canvas from edge to edge with layers upon layers of paint. She has also established portraiture practice, her commissions including HRH The Prince of Wales. In a unique style, Hogan paints her sitters whilst they are deep in conversation, capturing unguarded gestures and expressions to create intricate portraits of both honesty and intimacy.

To read more: https://www.themayfairmusings.com/home/10-questions-with-eileen-hogan

Future Of Camping: FiftyTen And Goose Gear Roll Out Ultimate Off-Road Camper System

From a NewAtlas.com online review:

It all starts with Fiftyten’s “Tray,” the flat bed that serves as the stout foundation of the system and brings along aircraft tie-downs and under-bed storage drawers. Above that, the meat of the sandwich is the cavernous, gull-winged “Box” canopy that can serve purely for utility, hauling tools and equipment, or as the heart of a camper. The topper “Tent” completes the camper trio, adding sleeping space for two on a Froli spring mattress that lifts away to create standing room inside the canopy.

FiftyTen - Goose Gear Camper System

Ruggedized, tent-topped Jeep Wranglers have long been a staple of Overland Expo, so when the Jeep Gladiator debuted last year, it was obvious it’d only be a matter of time before another style of Rubicon-grade Jeep camper started showing up — without any need to chop the back off the cabin or add extra chassis length. Fiftyten becomes one of the first to drop a camper on the back of Jeep’s pickup, replacing the stock bed with a rugged tray and bolting on a versatile storage/living canopy and fast-popping hardshell tent. The German company creates a modular camper and utility truck for journeys of every style, size and destination.

To read more: https://newatlas.com/outdoors/fiftytens-modular-jeep-gladiator-camper/

Innovative Homeware: The Noori “Rocket Stove” BBQ Fuses “Design & Ecology”

From a Dezeen.com online review article:

Noori StovesThe creators of Noori based the product on the traditional rocket stove design, which burns small-diameter wood fuel in a combustion chamber linked to an insulated vertical chimney.

It was developed by three friends who studied together on the Permaculture Design Course at the IPEMA university in Ubatuba, Brazil. Permaculture focuses on working with, rather than against nature, with the goal of integrating design and ecology.

Brazilian brand Noori aims to transport users to a time when “cooking with fire was at the core of our rituals” with its multipurpose stove, which can be used as a barbecue, a pizza oven or a fire pit.

The Noori stove comprises a curved body made from heat-resistant refractory concrete that is split into two sections. Within the stove an L-shaped enamelled pipe contains the fuel and directs heat up through the centre of the stove towards a grill surface.

To read more: https://www.dezeen.com/2019/09/28/noori-stove-modular-design-multipurpose-burner-barbecue/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Dezeen%20Weekly%20641&utm_content=Dezeen%20Weekly%20641+CID_618a7d7ae18dedf9c7d7ca66b31d52c6&utm_source=Dezeen%20Mail&utm_term=Read%20more

Art Of The Cocktail: How To Make Musso & Frank’s “Legendary Martini”

From a Los Angeles Magazine online article:

Musso and Franks Legendary Martini“The most important thing that we do is we never shake the martini. James Bond had it all wrong,” says Scuto. Shaking it incorporates too much ice, making for a watery drink, and, if it’s a gin martini, it potentially bruises the delicate aromatics. Instead, the drink is stirred roughly 12 times—bartenders use careful discretion—with ice, which is made with filtered water and a top-of-the-line Japanese Hoshizaki ice machine. The liquor is then carefully strained into a glass. It’s “all in the hand of the masters,” says Scuto.

Perhaps more than any other cocktail, a perfect martini demands a perfect venue. It’s not for drinking on beaches or cafè patios; it’s too easy to spill if you’re not sitting down; and it should be consumed somewhere with history and grit and texture. In short, it’s best at Musso & Frank Grill. This fall the storied Hollywood steakhouse celebrates its 100th anniversary and, with it, hundreds of thousands of servings of the classic cocktail. “The whole room, the whole setup, really, makes our martini special,” says Andrea Scuto, the restaurant’s general manager and beverage director. Here, Scuto shares just what goes into Musso & Frank’s signature cocktail.

To read more: https://www.lamag.com/article/musso-frank-martini/?utm_campaign=Food%20News&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=77888263&_hsenc=p2ANqtz–SiksvfxDxU5VRkqIAkrguE4gnlSqHs5BhJz-5Z7u26rd_POHEVtseT-UhTlR4H3d8FFNS_tXSsGSiD8-s3w0XVlUTNg&_hsmi=77888263

 

Thoughts On Aging: Should Some Older People Be Allowed To Change Their Legal Age?

From an Aeon.co online article by Bioethicist Joona Räsänen:

BioEthicsAge change should be allowed when the following three conditions are met. First, the person is at risk of being discriminated against because of age. Second, the person’s body and mind are in better shape than would be expected based on the person’s chronological age (that is, the person is biologically younger than he is chronologically). Third, the person does not feel that his legal age is befitting.

Let’s say that on average you are in better shape than other people of your age. You are more able than them: quicker, sprightlier, livelier. You feel and identify as younger than your official age. However, despite all your youthful energy, you are also discriminated against because of your greater age. You cannot get a job – or, if you do, you might earn less than some of your younger coworkers simply due to your advanced years. The question is, should you be allowed to change your ‘official’ age in order to avoid this discrimination and to better match how you identify and feel?

To read more: https://aeon.co/ideas/older-people-should-be-allowed-to-change-their-legal-age?utm_source=Aeon+Newsletter&utm_campaign=ae6b281c0d-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_10_07_04_28&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_411a82e59d-ae6b281c0d-70852327