New Scientist spoke to the winning photographers, alongside broadcaster Chris Packham, about the stories behind the images and how they hope their work will inspire change. Wildlife Photographer of the Year is developed and produced by the Natural History Museum, London.
The Week In Art Podcast (October 13, 2023): The Frieze art fair has turned 20 this week, and is only growing in its ambitions, having acquired the Armory Show fair in New York and Expo Chicago.
So what should we make of Frieze’s continuing expansion and what’s the mood at Frieze London and Frieze Masters this year? We talk to Tim Schneider, The Art Newspaper’s acting art market editor, who is over from New York for the fairs. In Reykjavik in Iceland, the artist-run Sequences Biennial opens on Friday. A former curator of the event is Hildigunnur Birgisdóttir, who will represent Iceland at the Venice Biennale in 2024. Tom Seymour went to the Icelandic capital to talk to her about Venice, Sequences and the Icelandic scene.
And this episode’s Work of the Week is Open Window, Collioure (1905) by Henri Matisse. The painting is a highlight of the exhibition Vertigo of Colour: Matisse, Derain, and the Origins of Fauvism at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. We speak to Dita Amory, co-curator of the show, about this landmark painting in Matisse’s career.
Frieze London and Frieze Masters, Regent’s Park, London, until 15 October.
The Sequences Biennial, entitled Can’t See, begins on 13 October and continues until 22 October 2023.
Vertigo of Color: Matisse, Derain, and the Origins of Fauvism, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 13 October-21 January 2024; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 25 February-27 May 2024.
Directed by Steve Atkins (https://www.steveatkins.co/)
Music by Rob Martland (http://www.robmartland.com/)
THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE (October 15, 2023):
Taylor Swift’s greatest gift is for telling her own story — better than any journalist could. But Taffy Brodesser-Akner gives it a shot anyway.
Section 301, in the second-to-highest tier of Levi’s Stadium, floats 105 feet above Santa Clara, Calif. It comprises 251 seats — a mere hamlet in the vast 64,000-seat general kingdom of the place, but it was our hamlet, and on the last Saturday in July, we took up each one of those seats and watched, our collective breath held, as Taylor Swift emerged from a bevy of billowing pastel parachutes and rose up on a platform to perform the 47th show of her Eras Tour. A few songs in, she announced, laughing, that her father told her that Santa Clara had named her its honorary mayor during her two-night stay there and that the entire town had been renamed Swiftie Clara.
The novelist is competing with giants like William Faulkner, while mapping territory all her own.
By Imani Perry
Jesmyn Ward gestured with her eyes and a tilt of her face, hands on the wheel. “This crazy colored house right here? That’s my grandmother’s house. That’s the house I grew up in. And her sister lives there” — she pointed — “and then that little blue house? That’s my great-grandparents’ house.” She was driving me around DeLisle, Miss., her hometown and the inspiration for Bois Sauvage, the fictional setting of her first three novels. It is Deep South-in-August hot outside, and the air-conditioning was a relief. “My mom’s side of the family was all clustered around this road.”
As Israel retaliates for the Hamas assault last weekend and plans a potential ground attack, its airstrikes have left Gazans without power, water and medical care.
The country’s new unity government agrees that Hamas must be destroyed so it can never attack Israel again, but there is little appetite for a reoccupation.
By rushing to confront the attackers himself, Israel Ziv has become a public symbol of Israel’s former military successes — and its failure this time.
The FTX founder’s criminal trial has made clear just how much his inner circle has turned against him.
A cell census provides information on the source of human brain specialization
The brain is composed of multiple regions associated with distinct functions, which have become further specialized in the human lineage. To define how this specialization is implemented, how it arises during development, and how it has emerged over the course of human evolution, a detailed understanding of the cells that make up the human brain is required.
Some whale populations are exhibiting unexpected cycles of boom and bust
The largest of them, l’Île aux Moines, is the most popular with tourists. Others belong to private owners, who live out their desert island dream. Oysters are farmed all year round on this storm-protected inland sea.
We take a closer look. Read more about this story in our article: https://f24.my/9r7U.y
Much depends on its offensive in Gaza—and its politicians and neighbours
Briefing
The miscalculations of Israel’s and Gaza’s leaders are being laid bare
Boomers Daily 