Arts & Culture: The New Criterion -October 2024
Tag Archives: Arts & Literature
Art Reviews: Gagosian Quarterly – Fall 2023
In Conversation – Christopher Makos and Jessica Beck
Andy Warhol’s Insiders at the Gagosian Shop in London’s historic Burlington Arcade is a group exhibition and shop takeover that feature works by Warhol and portraits of the artist by friends and collaborators including photographers Ronnie Cutrone, Michael Halsband, Christopher Makos, and Billy Name. To celebrate the occasion, Makos met with Gagosian director Jessica Beck to speak about his friendship with Warhol and the joy of the unexpected.
The Art History of Presidential Campaign Posters
Against the backdrop of the 2020 US presidential election, historian Hal Wert takes us through the artistic and political evolution of American campaign posters, from their origin in 1844 to the present. In an interview with Quarterly editor Gillian Jakab, Wert highlights an array of landmark posters and the artists who made them.
Literary Previews: The Paris Review – Fall 2024
Not Enough about Frank: A Visit with James Schuyler
James Schuyler on Frank O’Hara: “I still can see Frank, standing on that street corner outside a pastry shop, holding a neatly tied-up box of God knows what—éclairs, perhaps.”
James Schuyler was born in Chicago in 1923, grew up in Washington, D.C., and East Aurora, New York, and spent most of his adult years in New York City and Southampton, Long Island. Although he is perhaps less widely known than the fellow New York School poets with whom he is associated, John Ashbery, Frank O’Hara, Barbara Guest, and Kenneth Koch, he published six full-length books of poetry during his lifetime—beginning with Freely Espousing, published by Doubleday and Paris Review Editions in 1969—as well as two novels, and a third written in collaboration with Ashbery. In 1981 he won the Pulitzer Prize for his collection The Morning of the Poem (1980). Mental illness plagued him intermittently, and there were times when his life threatened to veer out of control, but friends repeatedly rallied around him, and the years before his death in 1991 were happy and productive.
Javier Cercas on the Art of Fiction: “Hell, to me, is a literary party.”
Prose by Josephine Baker, Caleb Crain, Marlene Morgan, Morgan Thomas, and Fumio Yamamoto.
Poetry by Hannah Arendt, Matt Broaddus, Sara Gilmore, Benjamin Krusling, Mark Leidner, James Richardson, and Margaret Ross.
Art by Ayé Aton and Ron Veasey, and cover by Sterling Ruby.
Previews: Country Life Magazine – Sept. 11, 2024
Country Life Magazine (September 10, 2024): The latest issue features…
The summit of achievement
Charles Quest-Ritson marvels at Friar Park’s ‘Henley Matterhorn’ in the superb Oxfordshire garden created by the late Beatle George Harrison and his widow, Olivia
How to time travel to spring
Now is the time to plan next year’s colourful garden display. John Hoyland advises what to plant and where for best results
Put a smile on your garden
John Hoyland hails a welcome resurgence in the popularity of pelargoniums, a stalwart that lights up the summer garden
Sing on, sweet bird
The soothing notes of Britain’s thrushes have long provided a reassuring soundtrack to our lives. Mark Cocker tunes in
Bravery beyond belief
As the Royal Humane Society marks its 250th anniversary, Rupert Uloth recounts a host of incredible life-saving feats
‘Without fever there is no creation’
Henrietta Bredin examines how the colourful life of Puccini was reflected in the melodramatic plot lines of his greatest operas
Rachel Podger’s favourite painting
The leading violinist chooses an inspiring, uplifting masterpiece with a beautiful depth of colour
Happiness in small things
The challenges facing female farmers in Africa put life in perspective for Minette Batters
The great indoors
Amelia Thorpe has the pick of planters and accessories to make the most of your houseplants
Civic splendour
John Goodall is heartened by the restoration of St Mary’s Guildhall, a symbol of Coventry’s great 14th-century prosperity
The legacy
Kate Green applauds the work of Sir Arthur Hobhouse, founding father of our national parks
Let’s get to the bottom of this
Is it a blessing or a curse to find a well on your property? Deborah Nicholls-Lee tests the water
I was on fire for you, where did you go?
David Profumo is in his element as he teases Atlantic salmon from Iceland’s low, clear waters
The good stuff
Hetty Lintell turns over a new leaf with autumn-inspired jewellery
Interiors
It’s show time! Amelia Thorpe seeks Design Week inspiration
Get your cob on
Prepare to be amazed by maize as Tom Parker Bowles savours those golden corn kernels in mouth-watering Mexican style
Foraging
Do you know a damson from a bullace? John Wright revels in the plum job of explaining it all
The colour revolution
The 19th-century development of new paints was a green light for artists, finds Michael Prodger
Colour vision
Rob Crossan catches up with the most famous and enduring face of our television screens
Culture: The American Scholar – Autumn 2024
THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR (September 10, 2024): The latest issue features ‘Queen of the Night’ – Behold the wonders of a Carolina moonflower…
Moondance
Experience the marvel that is night-blooming tobacco By Leigh Ann Henion
In western North Carolina, the mountain growing season is short, and autumn is already tossing yellow-and-red confetti against my windshield as I drive the back roads to my friend Amy’s homestead. Curve after curve, I find locust trees that are a few shades lighter than they were last week. Buckeyes also seem well on their way to change. It is now hard to tell the difference between orange leaves falling and monarch butterfly wings rising. The signs of summer and fall, all intertwining.
Thoreau’s Pencils
How might a newly discovered connection to slavery change our understanding of an abolitionist hero and his writing?
By Augustine Sedgewick
Look Out!
Why did it take so long to protect spectators of America’s favorite pastime?
By Debra Spark
Teach the Conflicts
It’s natural—and right—to foster disagreement in the classroom
By Mark Edmundson
Preview: The New Yorker Magazine – Sept. 16, 2024
“In the Dark” Reports on the Lack of Accountability for a U.S. War Crime
The podcast investigates the events in Haditha, Iraq, and compiles a database to show the inherent problem of the military judging its own members. By Willing Davidson
Are Your Morals Too Good to Be True?
Scientists have shattered our self-image as principled beings, motivated by moral truths. Some wonder whether our ideals can survive the blow to our vanity. By Manvir Singh
Russia’s Espionage War in the Arctic
For years, Russia has been using the Norwegian town of Kirkenes, which borders its nuclear stronghold, as a laboratory, testing intelligence operations there before replicating them across Europe. By Ben Taub
Previews: Country Life Magazine – Sept. 4, 2024
Country Life Magazine (September 3, 2024): The latest issue features ‘Otterly Wonderful’ – How Otters reconquered our rivers…
Building blocks
A sensible framework on land use must be in place before we embark on a ‘build, build, build’ crusade, argues Fiona Reynolds
‘Neither fish nor flesh’
Laura Parker charts the lore and legends attached to Lutra lutra, that bewhiskered, bright-eyed beacon of conservation
Interiors
Amelia Thorpe luxuriates in an array of elegant tubs, tiles and accessories for the bathroom
London Life
- A fresh vision of the city’s future
- Tom Parker Bowles lauds the capital’s most fêted restaurateurs
- Jo Rodgers marvels at a pop-up stationery shop
Travel
News of islands and ice
Jane Wheatley cruises the waters of Indonesia and Australia
Rosie Paterson is on a slippery slope in St Moritz
Pamela Goodman relives the ups and downs of walking on Paxos
Talk of the ton
Susan Jenkins examines the high fashion of the Regency period, from low-cut necklines to trussed-up regal sausages
Claire Booth’s favourite painting
The soprano is moved by an emotional Expressionist work that hits you between the eyes
What’s next?
Carla Carlisle is growing weary of damaging family feuds as she charts a positive way forward
Building nationhood
The meticulous restoration of Villa Golescu in Romania is a tribute to the country’s Revival style, suggests Jeremy Musson
The legacy
Kate Green celebrates the 16th-century life of William Cecil, the man who left us Burghley House
By the light of the harvest moon
How do onion skins reveal what the winter holds in store? Lia Leendertz explores the weather lore for September
The best seat in the house
Chairmaker Finn Koefoed-Nielsen tells Nick Hammond how he met his ‘national treasure’ mentor Jim Steele thanks to Country Life
Friends in low places
Mark Cocker gives us the low-down on the miracle of moss, a wonder of the natural world that lives right under our feet
The good stuff
Hetty Lintell selects elegant bags that are bound to work for you
It started with a blank canvas
A painterly eye has transformed the gardens at Patthana in Co Wicklow into an artistic delight, reveals Jane Powers
Kitchen garden cook
Melanie Johnson revels in the soft and squishy joy of figs
Foraging
Humans have been harvesting hazelnuts for millennia and long may it continue, says John Wright
Books: Literary Review Magazine – September 2024
Literary Review – September 3, 2024: The latest issue features @claire_harman on female detectives; @WomackPhilip on childhood reading; Georgina Adam on art market scandal; @dannykellywords on ageing rockstars and @mathewparris3 on the Queen
Handbags & Handcuffs: “The Mysterious Case of the Victorian Female Detective” By Sara Lodge
‘If there is an occupation for which women are utterly unfitted, it is that of the detective,’ claimed the Manchester Weekly Times in 1888 – already behind the times, it seems, as women had been acting the part for years, albeit invisibly. They had started to feature in detective fiction too. It was studying the burgeoning market in ‘lady detective’ stories post-1860 that led Sara Lodge to wonder who the fantasy sleuths were modelled on, and why the Victorians found them so disturbing and alluring.
Forging Ahead: “Rogues and Scholars: Boom and Bust in the London Art Market, 1945–2000” By James Stourton
It is hard to think of a person more qualified to write this book. In addition to being an art historian, a prolific writer, a lecturer and a broadcaster, James Stourton is also a former chairman of Sotheby’s UK. He joined the auction house in 1979 and left in 2012 to become a senior fellow at the Institute of Historical Research.
International Art: Apollo Magazine – September 2024
• Bringing Pompeii back to life
• The surreal films of Jan Švankmajer
• The cat ladies of contemporary art
• Carlo Scarpa’s cult designs
Plus:
Apollo celebrates 40 artists, patrons, thinkers and business-people blurring the line between art and craft; the Italian museum memorialising an unsolved plane crash; reviews of Paula Modersohn-Becker in New York, Elisabeth Frink’s menagerie, and Eileen Agar’s memoir of an unconventional life – and Jonathan Lethem remembers meeting a feather-brained friend in Maine
Preview: The New Yorker Magazine – Sept 9, 2024
Do Celebrity Presidential Endorsements Matter?
It’s hard to empirically determine whether they drive voters to the polls. But they might have less measurable effects.
The Magazine for Mercenaries Enters Polite Society
Susan Katz Keating, the editor and publisher of Soldier of Fortune, discusses how she’s changing the publication and assesses the threat of political violence.
How Machines Learned to Discover Drugs
The A.I. revolution is coming to a pharmacy near you.
By Dhruv Khullar
Boomers Daily 