Tag Archives: Arts & Literature

Reviews: ‘The Week In Art’

The Week In Art Podcast (May 31, 2024): The publication in April of Stanford University’s Artificial Intelligence Index Annual Report has provided the art world with much food for thought.

We look at the implications for artists and institutions with Louis Jebb, the managing editor of The Art Newspaper and our technology specialist. As the Centre Pompidou in Paris is taken over on all its floors by what it calls the “ninth art”—graphic novels and comics—we talk to Joel Meadows, the editor-in-chief of Tripwire magazine and a comics aficionado, about the rise of this subculture in museums and the market. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Edgar Degas’ Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando (1879), which depicts a Black circus performer, Anna Albertine Olga Brown, who was briefly known as Miss La La.

She and the painting are the subject of a new exhibition at the National Gallery in London opening next week. We talk to Anne Robbins, the curator of paintings at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, and external curator of the exhibition, and Sterre Overmars, the curatorial fellow for post-1800 paintings at the National Gallery, about the painting.

Comics on Every Floor, Centre Pompidou, Paris, until 4 November.

Discover Degas & Miss La La, National Gallery, London, 6 June-1 September.

Previews: The New Yorker Magazine – June 10, 2024

Donald Trumps small hands reach toward outstretched handcuffs.

The New Yorker (May 30, 2024): The new issue‘s cover features John Cuneo’s “A Man of Conviction” – The former President is found guilty on all thirty-four counts.

Trump Is Guilty, but Voters Will Be the Final Judge

The jury has convicted the former President of thirty-four felony counts in his New York hush-money trial. Now the American people will decide to what extent they care.

When the Verdict Came In, Donald Trump’s Eyes Were Wide Open

In the courtroom with the former President at the moment he became a convicted felon.

London Review Of Books – June 6, 2024 Preview

London Review of Books (LRB) – May 29 , 2024: The latest issue features Daniel Trilling – Trouble with the Troubles Act; Primordial Black Holes; The Village Voice….

Solve, Struggle, Invent

By Rachel Nolan

How Things Fall Apart: What Happened to the Cuban Revolution 
by Elizabeth Dore.

The Tribe: Portraits of Cuba 
by Carlos Manuel Álvarez, translated by Frank Wynne and Rahul Bery.

In​ 1968, Fidel Castro invited an American anthropologist called Oscar Lewis to interview Cubans about their lives. Lewis was famous for an oral history project, conducted in a Mexico City slum, which he had turned into a book called The Children of Sánchez (1961). By recounting a poor family’s struggles and hustles, legal and otherwise, Lewis angered the country’s ruling party, which still described itself as ‘revolutionary’. The Mexican Revolution, like the Cuban Revolution after it, wasn’t supposed to have an end date. But after major gains, including redistributing land to landless farmers, it had been ‘interrupted’, as the historian Adolfo Gilly later put it. Lewis exposed the revolution’s unfinished business, and didn’t shy away from discussing the sexual peccadilloes of the poor. The Spanish-language edition of Children of Sánchez was published in 1964, but thanks to a lawsuit claiming the material was ‘obscene and denigrating’, the book wasn’t freely available in Mexico for several years.

Orgasm isn’t my bag

By Vivian Gornick

The Freaks Came out to Write: The Definitive History of the ‘Village Voice’, the Radical Paper That Changed American Culture 
by Tricia Romano.

In the​ mid-1960s, the Village Vanguard jazz club in Greenwich Village held Monday night speak-outs. At one of them – an evening billed as ‘Art and Politics’ – the Black poet and playwright LeRoi Jones (soon to become Amiri Baraka) held forth, along with the Black saxophonist Archie Shepp and the white painter Larry Rivers. The audience was composed almost entirely of people like me and my friends: white middle-class liberals and radicals, many of whom were veteran civil rights activists. We had trooped into the Vanguard expecting to make common cause with the speakers, but Jones did not look kindly on us. In fact, he quickly told us we weren’t wanted in the civil rights movement, that we were just an interference, only there to make ourselves feel good. Then he pointed his finger and roared: ‘Blood is going to run in the seats of the theatre of revolution, and guess who’s sitting in those seats!’

Previews: Country Life Magazine – May 29, 2024

Country Life Magazine (May 28, 2024): The latest issue features

We salute you

As Blind Veterans UK pays its own special tribute to survivors of the D-Day operation, Octavia Pollock puts words to Richard Cannon’s poignant photographs

 ‘Plans are worthless, but planning is everything’

Allan Mallinson examines the key role that country houses played in preparations for D-Day, aided by well-stocked wine cellars and countesses in the canteen

 ‘Because it’s there’: the Mallory and Irvine mystery

Was the 1924 British Everest Expedition a success or failure? Robin Ashcroft takes a broad perspective as he sifts through a century of speculation

There’s no place like home

In the first of four articles, Annunciata Elwes investigates how flexible working has opened up the North to City commuters

Country Life International

Holly Kirkwood explores the Balearic Islands — the life and sol of the Mediterranean Sea

Growing in stature

Chelsea provides many magic moments for Tiffany Daneff, who finds inspiring gardens on Main Avenue and in the Great Pavilion

Native herbs

John Wright raises a glass to hops, that stalwart ingredient of the ale-brewing industry

The late Sir Andrew Davis’s favourite painting

Before his death last month, the celebrated conductor selected  a compelling and inspiring work

Elegant and congruous

In the second of two articles, John Goodall charts the recent history of Hartland Abbey, Devon

The legacy

Kate Green reveals Thomas Darley’s role in the story of the English Thoroughbred horse

Empire protest

A Passage to India reflects the rising tensions of the British Raj. Matthew Dennison revisits the masterpiece 100 years on

 ‘Nature is nowhere as great as in its smallest creatures’

John Lewis-Stempel marvels at the variety of microscopic wild-life that calls tree bark home

Luxury

Hetty Lintell serves up a new tennis collection, plus Heston Blumenthal’s favourite things

Interiors

A bright, colourful drawing room and Alidad at Wow!house

Spring-fed genius

Charles Quest-Ritson reveals how springs have shaped Selehurst garden in the West Sussex Weald

Kitchen garden cook

Melanie Johnson celebrates sweet and juicy strawberries

Achilles healed

The ancient Greeks harnessed its medicinal powers, but yarrow now has a role to play in modern agriculture, discovers Ian Morton

The darling buds of May

May Morris is finally stepping out of the shadow of her famous father, William — and not before time, argues Huon Mallalieu

Previews: The New Yorker Magazine – June 3, 2024

A woman rides a scooter along a river and New York Citys skyline.

The New Yorker (May 27, 2024): The new issue‘s cover features

Sergio García Sánchez’s “Scoot” – The artist depicts the thrill of leaning into summer in the city.

The People’s Commencement at Columbia

It’s 1968 all over again, as New York Ivy Leaguers flip the script and stage an unofficial counter-graduation ceremony at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.

The Bronx Cheers—Mostly—for Trump

Biden’s a pedophile; Trump’s a fascist; the maga Hasidim have to get their act together—and other sentiments spewed at the former President’s rally in Crotona Park.

How to Pick Stocks Like You’re in Congress

The team at Autopilot, an app that lets you copy the trades of Nancy Pelosi’s husband (up forty-five per cent last year) or Dan Crenshaw (up forty-one), choose their newest offering.

Reviews: ‘The Week In Art’

The Week In Art Podcast (May 24, 2024): As the Louvre’s director admits that the Paris museum wants to move its most famous painting away from the crowded gallery in which it is currently displayed, we ask the Leonardo specialist Martin Kemp: does the museum have a Mona Lisa problem?

We also talk about the painting’s continuing allure and the ongoing efforts to explain its mysteries. In London, remarkably, Judy Chicago has just opened her first major multidisciplinary survey in a British public gallery, at the Serpentine North. We talk to her about the show. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Christian Schad’s Self-Portrait with Model (1927). The painting features in Splendour and Misery: New Objectivity in Germany at the Leopold Museum in Vienna. Hans-Peter Wipplinger, the director of the museum and co-curator of the show, tells us more.

Judy Chicago: Revelations, Serpentine North, London, until 1 September.

Splendour and Misery: New Objectivity in Germany, Leopold Museum, Vienna, until 29 September.

The New Criterion – June 2024 Arts/Culture Preview

The New Criterion – The June 2024 issue features:

Protecting America’s promise

by Ronald S. Lauder

On combating anti-Semitism & anti-Americanism.

All the rage

by Victor Davis Hanson

On White Rural Rage by Tom Schaller & Paul Waldman.

The masterpiece of our time

by Gary Saul Morson

On The Gulag Archipelago at fifty.

Building Palm Beach

by Benjamin Riley

On the town’s history & architecture.

Previews: The New Yorker Magazine – May 27, 2024

A woman carrying a bag eyes a similar counterfeit bag for sale on a city street.

The New Yorker (May 20, 2024): The new issue‘s cover features

R. Kikuo Johnson’s “Genuine Style” – The artist depicts all the luxuries the city has to offer.

Donald Trump’s Abortion Problem at the Polls

Since Roe v. Wade was overturned, G.O.P. efforts to ban abortion have backfired with voters in many states—and they could do so again in November.

The Guy on Trial for the Same Thing as Trump

At 100 Centre Street, another man charged with falsifying business records had a good day in court.

Previews: Country Life Magazine – May 15, 2024

Country Life Magazine (May 14, 2024): The latest issue features

The year of the tree

This year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show is poised to celebrate the unfolding freshness and energy of deciduous woods in May, as Kathryn Bradley-Hole discovers

Beneath the boughs

Garden designer Tom Stuart-Smith is returning to Chelsea’s Main Avenue for the first time in 14 years for the National Garden Scheme, reveals Joanna Fortnam

‘When the ass begins to bray, surely rain will come that day’

It’s raining ancient folklore and proverbs as John Lewis-Stempel relies on jumping trout, croaking frogs and chirping crickets to predict the great British weather

My art is in the garden

Carla Passino examines how the brushstrokes of Monet, Turner, Klimt and Canaletto are providing colour and inspiration at Chelsea

All I need is the air that I breathe

Cathryn Spence airs the story of how—250 years ago—Joseph Priestley ‘discovered’ oxygen at Bowood House in Wiltshire

Cindy Sughrue’s favourite painting

The director of London’s Charles Dickens Museum picks a classic snapshot of the capital’s skyline

The legacy

Bess of Hardwick was the first of many influential Chatsworth women, as Kate Green learns

A timeless view

George Plumptre admires the simple beauty of the gardens at Pusey House in Oxfordshire

Seating plans

What makes a comfortable garden seat, asks Tiffany Daneff

Sitting pretty

Amelia Thorpe seeks out crafted benches to suit every garden

The cutting-garden diaries

In the final part of her series, Anna Brown is focused on harvesting

A lily among weeds

Clive Aslet lauds the enduring influence of the prolific Victorian architect George Edmund Street

Slugging it out

Marianne Taylor is captivated by the curious beauty of molluscs

Mane stay

Deborah Nash visits the last British firm creating horsehair fabric

Out and About

The Royal Countryside Fund reception at Fortnum & Mason

Interiors

Amelia Thorpe takes a look at six of the best WOW!house creations

A brush with sparkles

Hetty Lintell is wowed by jewels celebrating the National Gallery

Kitchen garden cook

The arrival of new-season carrots is applauded by Melanie Johnson

Native herbs

John Wright is playing with fire as he investigates horseradish

Sweet chamomile, good times never seemed so good

Deborah Nicholls-Lee dreams of dainty white flowers and a fragrant lawn that never needs mowing

Falstaff reimagined

Sir Ian McKellen lends a ‘silvering dignity’ to Shakespeare’s famed roisterer, finds Michael Billington

Previews: The New Yorker Magazine – May 20, 2024

Students are escorted by police as they cross a graduation stage to accept their diplomas.

The New Yorker (May 13, 2024): The new issue‘s cover features Barry Blitt’s “Class of 2024” – The campus tensions take center stage.

An Israeli Newspaper Presents Truths Readers May Prefer to Avoid

Haaretz consistently attempts to wrestle with the realities of what is going on in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank.

By David Remnick

A British Nurse Was Found Guilty of Killing Seven Babies. Did She Do It?

Colleagues reportedly called Lucy Letby an “angel of death,” and the Prime Minister condemned her. But, in the rush to judgment, serious questions about the evidence were ignored.