Erica Galvin

While the cinematic objects on display fascinate, the much-delayed institution opens with an emphasis on diversity and pluralism, not past and present sins. from Art Life Culture https://ift.tt/3kUznNx via IFTTT

Three years after returning two stone sculptures, the museum has decided to give back another artwork to Nepal, this one thought to have been stolen from a temple in the Kathmandu Valley. from Art Life Culture https://ift.tt/3uul8SJ via IFTTT

In 1949s, Clifford Coffin took a photograph for Vogue. Four models sat on sweeping sand dunes, facing away from the camera, each wearing a brightly coloured swimming cap. It was to become an icon of fashion and is now the inspiration behind a new series from award-winning aerial photographer Brad Walls. Walls first became interested in conceptual image-making when he noticed a lack of aerial techniques being used in the genre. “Conceptual photography is mostly shot on handheld cameras,” he explains. “I wanted to showcase the value of an alternate viewpoint to convey a meaningful story.” Instead, Walls uses drones to capture scenes from above. Each frame in Detached, in Harmony is carefully arranged and meticulously choreographed. Models position themselves in straight and diagonal lines, casting precise shadows on the sand. The figures seem to be caught mid-movement: walking, diving, bending backwards. “The figures are purposefully static, to symbolise how we have been frozen i...

To the serious Bowie fan, the unreleased self-covers album Toy is not a secret. This collection of reworked pre-“Space Oddity” songs recorded with his touring band from his 2000 Glastonbury appearance was bootlegged a year after it was shelved in 2001. And it has been re-pressed illegally nearly every year since, sometimes as Toy and sometimes as The Lost Album. Some of the fourteen cuts popped up as b-sides over the years, but the whole album? Maybe, fans thought…one day. Well, that one day is here, as the first single “You’ve Got a Habit of Leaving” dropped yesterday along with an announcement for a larger 90’s-encompassing box set release coming soon after. According to Chris O’Leary’s Pushing Ahead of the Dame webpage —which you really should bookmark if you haven’t yet—the original version of “You’ve Got a Habit of Leaving” was written when he was only 18, and earned him a reprimand from none other than The Who’s Pete Townshend. ”You’re trying to write like me!” said Pete. ...

After a decade of embroidering portraits of loved ones, LJ Roberts delivers a lesson on queer kinship in a new exhibition at Pioneer Works in Brooklyn. from Art Life Culture https://ift.tt/3kVUsY9 via IFTTT

The Los Angeles artist, with her crazy titles and caustic colors, offers “a really provocative combination of pleasure and politics,” says one museum curator. from Art Life Culture https://ift.tt/3injr4L via IFTTT

“Alice Neel: The Early Years”; Diane Simpson’s enigmatic sculptures; and 17 artists explore the concept of space in “Convergent Evolutions.” from Art Life Culture https://ift.tt/3B0AdOG via IFTTT

The subject is one of the gravest topics in art history. I came for the lost stories of Jewish collectors. Where were they? from Art Life Culture https://ift.tt/2Y100Yf via IFTTT

The Russian Revolution split the Morozov collection, but a colossal diplomatic effort has brought it back together in Paris. This exhibition is legitimately historic. from Art Life Culture https://ift.tt/39OK3Hr via IFTTT

Our critics and writers have selected noteworthy cultural events to experience virtually and in person in New York City. from Art Life Culture https://ift.tt/3FfcFIm via IFTTT

The ancient artifact, which contains a portion of the Gilgamesh epic, is going back to Iraq after having been stolen from there some 30 years ago. from Art Life Culture https://ift.tt/3zWKwBG via IFTTT

There have been more than 2,000 nuclear explosions in all of history — which, in the case of the technology required to detonate a nuclear explosion, goes back only 76 years. It all began, according to the animated video above , on July 16, 1945, with the nuclear device code-named Trinity. The fruit of the labors of the Manhattan Project , its explosion famously brought to the mind of theoretical physicist Robert J. Oppenhemier a passage from the Bhagavad Gita : “Now I am become Death, destroyer of worlds.” But however revelatory a spectacle Trinity provided, it turned out merely to be the overture of the nuclear age. Created by Ehsan Rezaie of  Orbital Mechanics , the video offers a simple-looking but deceptively information-rich presentation of every nuclear explosion that has so far occurred. It belongs to a perhaps unlikely but nevertheless decisively established genre, the animated nuclear-explosion time-lapse, of which we’ve previously featured examples from ...

Please watch out for each other and love and forgive everybody. It’s a good life, enjoy it. — Jim Henson Born in Greenville, Mississippi, Jim Henson spent his youth practicing the tenets of Christian Science, a faith he would officially renounce in 1975. But the power of positive thinking his early religion years instilled would persist, romanticized by his alter-ego, Kermit the Frog , and tempered by foils like the earthy, irascible Ms. Piggy. For every foul-mouthed Oscar the Grouch, there was always a lovable Big Bird, “Jim taught us many things: to save the planet, be kind to each other, praise God, and be silly,” said Muppet writer Jerry Juhl at Henson’s 1990 New York City memorial service . “That’s how I’ll remember him — as a man who was balanced effortlessly and gracefully between the sacred and the silly.” Henson’s first memorial, held at the cavernous Cathedral of St. John the Divine bore witness to Juhl’s portrait of the late, brilliant creator’s legacy. In true He...

An exhibition in Berlin examines the differences, and surprising confluences, between Cold War-era paintings from the United States and the Soviet Union. from Art Life Culture https://ift.tt/3oimpeJ via IFTTT

This month marks the 30th anniversary of Nirvana’s Nevermind, first released on September 24, 1991, “the day,” writes Michael Tedder at Stereogum , “that college radio-nurtured types and arty hard rock officially became rebranded as Alternative Rock, and, according to legend, everything changed forever.” You might believe that legend even if you remember the reality. Yes, “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was just as huge as everybody says — and, yes, you likely recall where you were when you first saw the video or heard the song explode with Pixies-inspired quiet-loud ferocity from the radio. But the change was already on the way. Nirvana emerged in a pop music landscape slowly becoming saturated with alternative music. You might also remember where you were the first time you saw the video for Depeche Mode’s “Enjoy the Silence,” for example, or R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion,” or Sinéad O’Connor’s “Nothing Compares 2 U” — or when you first experienced the dynamic/melodic assault of the a...

In the contest for the title of the most American historical figure of them all, Thomas Morton ‘s name can’t be left out. Businesslike, litigious, given to rhapsodies over nature, and not resistant to turning celebrity, he was also — in a characteristically American manner — born elsewhere. Back in Devon, England, he’d made his name as a lawyer, representing members of the lower class in court, but in 1622 he was hired by investor Sir Ferdinando Gorges on a trip to handle his affairs in the North American colonies. This was just two years after the founding of Plymouth Colony , whose success had inspired many an English businessman to contemplate getting in on the New World action himself. In 1624, Gorges sent Morton across the Atlantic again, this time with everything needed to found a colony of his own. Morton was not a Puritan, nor was he “on board with the strict, insular, and pious society they had hoped to build for themselves,” as Atlas Obscura’s Matthew Taub puts it . Though ...

In his influential 1936 essay, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” critic Walter Benjamin used the word “aura” to describe an artwork’s “presence in time and space” — an explanation of the thrill, or chill, we get from standing before a Jackson Pollock, say, or a Michelangelo, rather than a photograph of the same. Writing in the age of radio, photography, and newspapers, Benjamin believed that aura could not be transmitted or copied: “Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element” — that rare thing that makes art worth preserving and reproducing in the first place. Let’s grant, for the sake of argument, that musical instruments have aura — that the very sounds they make are its manifestation, and that, no matter how sophisticated our technology, we may never reproduce those sounds perfectly. As Hank Green explains in the SciShow video above: “For centuries, musicians, instrument makers, engineers, and scientists have been trying...

A new study financed by the Mellon Foundation will help ensure that America’s future monuments honor a broader and more diverse range of stories. from Art Life Culture https://ift.tt/3AX8rCw via IFTTT

https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/partiallyexaminedlife/PMP_106_9-3-21.mp3   Your host Mark Linsenmayer discusses how Internet culture has changed stand-up with three comedians: past Pretty Much Pop guests Rodney Ramsey (who co-owns the Unknown Comedy Club ) and Daniel Lobell (host of Modern Day Philosophers and author of the Fair Enough comic), plus Dena Jackson (also a speaker on yoga and mindfulness and host of The Ego Podcast ). How does the existence of YouTube, social media, and virtual spaces changed the way comedians construct a set, relate to their fans, and make a living? We talk about story-telling vs. one-liners, repping your hometown, comedy cliques, surviving negativity, and more. Some articles that go into these issues further include: “ Is Social Media Ruining Comedy? ” by Ian Crouch “ Comedy from a Distance ” by Misha Rajani “ Laugh Out Loud, Virtually ” by Shreya Veronica “ How 5 Chicago Standup Comics Learned to Stop Wo...

The filmmaker has been quietly making small, eerie collages on newsprint for 20 years, with faces switched onto other bodies. Now they’re finally on view. from Art Life Culture https://ift.tt/3uj8S7H via IFTTT

Three men feast on free lunch in a drawing by Charles Dana Gibson In one of my favorite episodes of The Simpsons, beer-swilling Homer falls in love with a sandwich. He spends his days nibbling away at the “sickening, festering remains of a 10-foot hoagie,” Nathan Rabin writes , “long after decency, self-respect, and survival would all seem to dictate throwing it out.” The sandwich may be yet another instance of the show pulling some obscure detail from American history for comic effect — or maybe writer David M. Stern read Eugene O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh, in which the playwright describes “an old desiccated ruin of dust-laden bread and mummified ham or cheese.” O’Neill’s sandwich is so historical, it has a name, the Raines Sandwich, named after New York State Senator John Raines, the author of an 1896 law that raised the cost of liquor licenses substantially, upped the drinking age from sixteen to eighteen, and banned alcoholic beverages on Sundays except in large hotels and lodg...

Human beings have always been fascinated by light: from the sun, stars and moon to twinkling LEDs, glowing signage and even UFOs. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Light and Space art movement emerged. Based in and around Los Angeles, the group experimented with how geometric space and radiant light could impact human perception. In parallel, other creatives devoted themselves exclusively to neon – a material previously consigned to the world of advertising. Notable figures emerged such as Dan Flavin and Keith Sonnier, with more recent proponents including Tracey Emin, Martin Creed and Alfredo Jaar. But there are lesser-known trailblazers in the field. New York-based Fred Tschida (b. 1949) is one such name. Introduced to neon by acclaimed glass artist Dale Chihuly, he has always “shied away from the spotlight” – preferring to pass on his knowledge as a university professor. Now, for the very first time, his work is on view in Europe. The Art House, Wakefield, has teamed up with Neon Worksh...

In the summer of 1981, the British band Queen was recording tracks for their tenth studio album, Hot Space , at Mountain Studios in Montreux, Switzerland. As it happened, David Bowie had scheduled time at the same studio to record the title song for the movie Cat People. Before long, Bowie stopped by the Queen sessions and joined in. The original idea was that he would add backup vocals on the song “Cool Cat.” “David came in one night and we were playing other people’s songs for fun, just jamming,” says Queen drummer Roger Taylor in Mark Blake’s book Is This the Real Life?: The Untold Story of Freddie Mercury and Queen . “In the end, David said, ‘This is stupid, why don’t we just write one?'” And so began a marathon session of nearly 24-hours–fueled, according to Blake, by wine and cocaine. Built around John Deacon’s distinctive bass line, the song was mostly written by Mercury and Bowie. Blake describes the scene, beginning with the recollections of Queen’s guitarist: ‘We ...

Some of the most influential directors of the French New Wave, like Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, and Éric Rohmer, first stepped into the world of film as critics. They found their voices by publishing in the Paris cinephile institution of Cahiers du cinéma; a few decades later, Quentin Tarantino found his own by working at the Manhattan Beach cinephile institution of Video Archives. Stories of all the myriad ways in which he would express his enthusiasm for and expertise on cinema there have passed into legend. But just like the critics Godard, Truffaut, and Rohmer, the video-store clerk Tarantino ultimately seems to have signed on to the old proposition that the best response to a work of art is another work of art. Tarantino’s endorsements of and introductions to the work of other directors (for example, the one he recorded for Wong Kar-wai’s Chungking Express ) have given us a sense of his cinematic taste. So, in an even more telling manner, do the elements he steals ...

The restoration of a statue the artist created for his own tomb shines light on the psychology of the aging Renaissance master. from Art Life Culture https://ift.tt/3kNC9o1 via IFTTT

Traditional Japanese carpentry impresses us today, not so much with the tools its practitioners use as with the ones they don’t: nails, for example. Or glue, for that matter. Here on Open Culture we’ve previously featured introductions to Japanese wood joinery , the art of cutting wood in a manner such that pieces slide together and solidly interlock without the aid of any other materials. Though it may seem like magic, it’s really just physics — or rather, physics, and engineering, and the branches of biology relevant to growing the right wood. For the traditional Japanese carpenter himself, it all comes down to extensive training and practice. Traditional Japanese carpentry need not even be done in Japan. Take Miya Shoji, the New York City shop profiled in the China Uncensored video above . Under current owner Hisao Hanafusa, who came to the United States in 1963, it makes and sells furniture crafted using canonical techniques, but in service of particular pieces quite unlike...

Few symphonies are as well-known as Beethoven’s Ninth, an assertion supported by the fact that it’s no doubt playing in your head even as you read this. Few symphonies are less well-known — at least by Beethoven’s standards — than his Tenth, primarily because he never actually got the thing finished. He did make a start on it, however, and at his death in 1827 left behind notes and drafts composed alongside the Ninth, which had also been commissioned by the Royal Philharmonic Society. Such is Beethoven’s stature that his enthusiasts have been speculating ever since on what his incomplete symphony would sound like if completed, employing any techniques to do so that their time put at hand. “In 1988, musicologist Barry Cooper ventured to complete the first and second movements,” writes Rutgers University Art & AI Lab director Ahmed Elgammal at The Conversation . “He wove together 250 bars of music from the sketches to create what was, in his view, a production of the first moveme...

Gorgeously illustrated cookbooks featuring sumptuous images of fancy desserts and other special occasion food can be quite an  intimidating proposition to self-doubting beginners . The recipes themselves are daunting, and as every  Great British Baking Show  viewer learns, watching the top contestants squirm in advance of co-host  Paul Hollywood ‘s icy judgment, flavor can’t save an edible creation that fails as art. Andy Warhol’s approach to cookery appears rather more blithe. His 1959 cookbook,  Wild Raspberries  — the title is a play on Ingmar Bergman’s  Wild Strawberries  — displays little interest in its readers’ cooking ability… or, for that matter, its authors. Fanciful representations of such delicacies as  Gardoons a la Mousseline  are pretty as a picture… and stress free given that no one is actually expected to make them. Wild Raspberries  is all about attitude… and ambition of a purely social nature. Warhol’s c...

Smoke billows from car bonnets. Figures stand in rivers and lakes. Headlights pierce through tree trunks. Prague-based Martin Stranka’s (b. 1984) images appear like stills from a film — walking the line between fantasy and reality. Stranka, a native of the Czech Republic, first picked up a camera whilst studying at business school. The unexpected loss of a close friend led him to pursue photography as a form of therapy. Shown here are images from the Boyhood series, a “visual confession” exploring identity, alienation and coming of age. Stranka’s work has been recognised by global awards and exhibited in museums worldwide— Getty Images Gallery and Saatchi Gallery among them. His photographs can also be found on the covers of thriller and mystery novels fromHarper Collins and Penguin. It’s a fitting match; the compositions are full of suspense and compelling narratives waiting to unfold. Each snapshot exists, according to Stranka, “in a narrow window of a few seconds between dreamin...

We live in a fast-paced world. Everything from food and clothing to news and entertainment is produced, packaged and marketed for our convenience. But how often do we stop to think about the processes behind these objects? What might we learn? Amy Widdowson, a Fine Art graduate from Leeds School of Arts, is interested in these questions. The artist spins and weaves fabrics by hand, reviving traditional crafting methods whilst exploring the history of computing and automation. Widdowson, who is part of Leeds School of Arts’ 2021 End of Year Show , speaks to Aesthetica about this refreshing way of working. A: What type of media do you work with? Why are you drawn to this particular approach? AW: I work primarily in textiles, specifically weaving. In my latest piece Solo (2021), I spin my own wools and incorporate them into the design. Weaving takes a long time, and my work is a call back to our traditional ways of creating. By spinning and weaving by hand, I slow down today’s fast-pac...