Tag Archives: Arts & Literature

Arts & Literature, Books, Magazines, Previews, Reviews

Arts & Literature: Kirkus Reviews – April 15, 2023

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Kirkus Reviews – April 15, 2023 Issue:

April’s Best Fiction Is Music to Our Ears

April’s Best Fiction Is Music to Our Ears

I recently returned to the Metropolitan Opera to see The Hours, based on Michael Cunningham’s novel. It was wonderful to be back in the glittering hall, after three long pandemic years, listening to Renee Fleming, Joyce DiDonato, and Kelli O’Hara bring Virginia Woolf and Cunningham’s other characters to life. That experience sent me looking for novels about music, and I was thrilled to see that Brendan Slocumb has a new one coming out only a year after his bestselling debut, 

Return Trip to Indieland

Return Trip to Indieland

In the fourth annual Indie Issue, we let the books speak for themselves in these excerpts from a trio of starred Indieland picks: a memoir by two sisters who survived the Holocaust; another memoir about a teen’s coming-of-age on a sailing-school ship; and a collection of short stories from a renowned Bengali author.

In Daniel Seymour’s From Auschwitz With Love, sisters Manci Grunberger Beran and Ruth Grunberger Mermelstein describe their arrival at the concentration camp:

Father realized that we didn’t have much time together. So, he said to us, “No matter what happens, I want you to remember three things.”

Arts & Literature, Books, Newspapers, Previews, Reviews

The New York Times Book Review – April 16, 2023

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The New York Times Book Review – April 16, 2023:

She Taught Us to Do Nothing. Now Jenny Odell Wants to Save Time.

This image shows the hands of a clock set into a circle of melting ice, suggesting time is fluid and ephemeral.
Credit…Ricardo Tomás

The author’s new book, “Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock,” urges readers to revise their conceptions of time and the world to nurture hope and action for a better future.

In Russia’s War in Ukraine, ‘Nature Has Also Suffered.’

This is a black-and-white photo of a series of manmade wooden columns sticking out of a tranquil body of water.
Early-1900s wooden poles used for salt mining on the Kuialnyk Estuary, on the northwest coast of the Black Sea.Credit…Yevhen Samuchenko

A book of photographs taken before February 2022 reveals formerly breathtaking landscapes that may never be the same.

A Time-Travel Novel Whose Thrills Go Beyond the Speculative

In this abstract illustration, three figures in an astral plain try to hold onto the flow of time, which is artistically rendered as a colorful, flowing stream.
Credit…Changyu Zou

In Jinwoo Chong’s debut novel, “Flux,” a time-warping discovery impacts the lives of three people coping with personal and systemic traumas.

Art, Arts & Literature, Exhibitions, Museums, Podcasts, Reviews

Reviews: ‘The Week In Art’

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April 13, 2023: This week: Expo Chicago and the art scene in the Windy City. Ben Sutton, The Art Newspaper’s editor, Americas, and Carlie Porterfield, associate editor, art market, Americas, discuss the fair, and the wider market and gallery scene in Chicago. 

As the US president Joe Biden visits Northern Ireland to honour the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday or Belfast agreement, we talk to Hannah Crowdy, head of curatorial at National Museums Northern Ireland, a group of four museums. She tells us about how the museums are addressing the anniversary, representing Northern Ireland’s recent history and looking to the future.

And this episode’s Work of the Week is Georges Clairin’s 1876 portrait of the celebrated French actor Sarah Bernhardt, who died 100 years ago. The work is part of a huge new exhibition about Bernhardt opening this week at the Petit Palais in Paris. The museum’s director, Annick Lemoine, tells us about the painting and the extraordinary fame of the woman it depicts.

Principled and Revolutionary: Northern Ireland’s Peace Women by Hannah Starkey, Ulster Museum, Belfast, until 10 September; Array Collective: The Druthaib’s Ball, Ulster Museum, until 3 September.Sarah Bernhardt: and the woman created the star, Petit Palais, Paris, until 27 August. 

Arts & Literature, Books, Magazines, Previews, Reviews

Arts/Books: Times Literary Supplement – April 14, 2023

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Times Literary Supplement @TheTLS (April 14, 2023) – This week’s issue features @TristramHuntVA on monuments; @nclarke14 on English caricature; @HettieJudah on Action, Gesture, Paint @_TheWhitechapel; @jntod on J. H. Prynne; @rinireg on the Trump indictment – and more.

Art, Arts & Literature, Exhibitions, Museums, Previews, Reviews

Art: ‘Le Souffle Moderne’ Collection Features Miró, Picasso, Léger And Braque

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Sotheby’s (April 11, 2023) – This collection was put together by a couple of passionate collectors who favored avant-garde works from the 1930s and 1940s, thus creating an extremely harmonious whole that perfectly reflects the taste of an era and the artistic revolutions that went through it.

The works have remained preserved in a Parisian apartment for almost sixty years, and their appearance on the market constitutes an unprecedented opportunity for collectors today”. Says Aurélie Vandevoorde, Director of the Impressionist and Modern Art Department.

Unveiling an unprecedented group of 12 works by some of the greatest masters of the 20th century, which include artists such as Pablo Picasso, Fernand Léger, Nicolas de Staël & Georges Braque, “Le Souffle Moderne” Collections presents an exceptional ensemble embodying the artistic avant-gardes of the 1930s and 1940s.

Art, Arts & Literature, Exhibitions, Museums, Previews, Reviews

Art Exhibitions: ‘Georgia O’Keeffe -To See Takes Time’

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Georgia O’Keeffe. Evening Star No. III. 1917. Watercolor on paper on board: 8 7/8 x 11 7/8" (22.7 x 30.4 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Mr. and Mrs. Donald B. Straus Fund

The Museum of Modern Art (April 10, 2023) – “To see takes time,”  Georgia O’Keeffe once wrote. Best known for her flower paintings, O’Keeffe (1887-1986) also made extraordinary series of works in charcoal, pencil, watercolor, and pastel.

Georgia O’Keeffe – To See Takes Time

April 9 to August 12, 2023

Reuniting works on paper that are often seen individually, along with key paintings, this exhibition offers a rare glimpse of the artist’s working methods and invites us to take time to look.

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Installation view of Georgia O’Keeffe: To See Takes Time, on view at The Museum of Modern Art, New York from April 9 through August 12, 2023. Photo by Jonathan Dorado.

Over her long career, O’Keeffe revisited and reworked the same subjects, developing, repeating, and transforming motifs that lie between observation and abstraction. Between 1915 and 1918, a breakthrough period of experimentation, she made as many works on paper as she would during the next four decades, producing progressions of bold lines, organic landscapes, and frank nudes, as well as the radically abstract charcoals she called “specials.”

Even as she turned increasingly to painting, important series—including flowers in the 1930s, portraits in the ’40s, and aerial views in the ’50s—reaffirmed her commitment to working on paper. Drawing in this way enabled O’Keeffe to capture not only nature’s forms but its rhythms: tracing the sun’s spiraling descent in vividly hued pigment, or committing to velvety black the shifting perspective as seen from an airplane window.

Discover the important role working on paper played in Georgia O’Keeffe’s life and career.

Art, Arts & Literature, Exhibitions, Museums, Previews, Reviews

Exhibits: ‘Sarah Bernhardt – And The Woman Created The Star’, Petit Palais, Paris

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Sarah Bernhardt, (1844-1923), was an emblematic figure who spanned the 19th and 20th centuries. The “Divine Sarah”, who was an artist as well as an actress, takes center stage at the Petit Palais in an exceptional exhibition to mark the centenary of her death. 

Sarah Bernhardt

And the woman created the star

14 April 2023 to 27 August 2023

The museum holds important collections of works linked to the actress, including the spectacular portrait of her that was painted in 1876 by her friend Georges Clairin and donated by her son Maurice.

Sarah Bernhardt, Actress, Cocotte and Fashion Icon - ICON-ICON

 With over four hundred works, the exhibition traces the life and theatrical career of this “sacred monster”, as Jean Cocteau dubbed her. A legendary performer of the greatest roles from Racine, Shakespeare, Edmond Rostand and Alexandre Dumas fils, among others, Sarah Bernhardt went from triumph to triumph in theaters all over the world.

The exhibition evokes her greatest roles through the costumes she wore on stage, photographs, paintings, posters and other memorabilia. Her “golden voice” and her tall, slender figure – unusual in those days – held the public in thrall, as well as the artistic and literary world, who simply venerated her. She was the friend of painters such as Gustave Doré, Georges Clairin, Louise Abbéma, and Alphonse Mucha, but also of writers like Victor Hugo, Victorien Sardou and Sacha Guitry, as well as musicians and composers like Reynaldo Hahn. She was an artist herself, and an entire section of the exhibition focuses on this lesser-known aspect of her life.

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Art, Arts & Literature, Exhibitions, Museums, Previews, Reviews, Videos

Exhibits: ‘Art Deco Glass’ – Fort Wayne Art Museum

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Fort Wayne Museum of Art (April 6, 2023) – Curators take you on a new gallery tour each month, offering unique perspectives on all FWMoA exhibits. For April 2023, we explore the exhibit Art Deco Glass from the David Huchthausen Collection, on view from April 1 – August 6, 2023.

Art Deco Glass from the David Huchthausen Collection

April 01, 2023 – August 06, 2023

Art Deco Glass: The David Huchthausen Collection – Museum of Glass

The Art Deco period (c. 1910-1940), with its focus on simplified forms and captivating repeating surface treatments, was revolutionary. Inspired by other burgeoning modern art movements of the time including Cubism and Fauvism, the philosophy behind this style aimed to introduce high quality design to a broader market.

The lasting influence of this period can still be seen in today’s Studio Glass movement in style and technique. For many decades, glass artist and collector David Huchthausen has collected with a keen and practiced eye. The quality and depth of his collection would be difficult, if not impossible, to replicate. His collecting history begins with the first pieces acquired while working as a graduate assistant to Harvey Littleton and continues today.

The FWMoA is proud to display his remarkable collection of over 120 Art Deco glass works, which includes many major studios and artists of the period (René Lalique, Steuben Glass Works, Daum Nancy, and Pierre D’Avesn) concurrent with our permanent collection of contemporary glass. This exhibition is organized by the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, WA.

Arts & Literature, Books, Newspapers, Previews, Reviews

The New York Times Book Review – April 9, 2023

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The New York Times Book Review – April 9, 2023:

It’s Like ‘Little Women’ — but With Basketball

This is a series of six small drawings of men and women dressed in white, standing in a hilly rural landscape.
Credit…Kristina Tzekova

In “Hello Beautiful,” Ann Napolitano puts a fresh spin on the classic story of four sisters.

“It is your God-given right as an American fiction writer,” Ursula K. Le Guin once said, to change point of view. But “you need to know that you’re doing it,” she warned, and “some American fiction writers don’t.”

Osamu Dazai, With Help From TikTok, Keeps Finding New Fans

A black-and-white photograph of the author Osamu Dazai, who is resting his chin on his hand and looking to his left.
The Japanese novelist Osamu Dazai.

The enduring appeal of a midcentury Japanese novelist who wrote of alienation and suicide.

The first thing you hear is an eerie synth tone, followed by a portentous, insinuating voice. “Tell me, Dazai,” it says. “Why is it you wish to die?”

“Let’s turn that question around,” someone earnestly replies. “Is there really any value to this thing we call … living?” Then a beat drops, accompanied by distorted shouts.

Real People, Reincarnated in the Pages of New Novels

This is an illustration featuring six coin-like drawings in orange, teal, purple in pink, layered over a monochromatic street scene.
Credit…Michelle Mildenberg

These hefty books explore the lives of a former poet, a polarizing artist and a Scottish rebel from unexpected angles.

One of the great attractions of historical fiction is its ability to approach the past from unexpected angles, allowing us to consider famous figures in surprising ways. It’s a tactic that pays off brilliantly in Stephen May’s elegantly acerbic SELL US THE ROPE (Bloomsbury, 240 pp., paperback, $18), which features a thuggish former poet who calls himself Koba. The world will later know him as Stalin.