Category Archives: Arts & Literature

Reviews: Director Of Film “The Truth”, Scholar Joyce Zonana’s Translation Of “Malicroix” (LARB Podcast)

Los Angeles Review of BooksThis week, Medaya speaks with acclaimed filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda about his new film, The Truth (La Vérité), starring French film screen legends Catherine Deneuve and Juliette Binoche. Kore-eda discusses complicated family dynamics, the relationship between art and truth-telling and what brought him to France. 

In our second interview, Kate and Medaya are joined by scholar and translator Joyce Zonana, who discusses her translation of Henri Bosco’s 1946 novel Malicroix. This is the first time the French novel has been translated into English.

Cocktails With A Curator: “Riesener, Commode and Secrétaire” (The Frick)

In this week’s episode of “Cocktails with a Curator,” join Deputy Director and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator Xavier F. Salomon as he explores the royal provenance of two pieces of furniture at the Frick made by Jean-Henri Riesener. Sometimes overlooked by visitors, Xavier encourages us to take a closer look at this exquisite commode and secrétaire set. In celebration of these works of art and the upcoming Bastille Day, this week’s complementary cocktail is the Kir Royale.

New Book Review Podcast: “Utopia Avenue” And “The Biggest Bluff” (NY Times)

The Book Review - NY TimesDaniel Mendelsohn discusses Mitchell’s career and new novel, “Utopia Avenue,” and Maria Konnikova talks about “The Biggest Bluff.”

Best New Fiction 2020: “The Decameron Project – The New York Times Magazine”

AS THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC SWEPT THE WORLD, WE ASKED 29 AUTHORS TO WRITE NEW SHORT STORIES INSPIRED BY THE MOMENT. WE WERE INSPIRED BY GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO’S “THE DECAMERON,” WRITTEN AS THE PLAGUE RAVAGED FLORENCE IN THE 14TH CENTURY. Margaret Atwood - Impatient Griselda - NY Times - July 8 2020

 

Colm Toibin - Tales From The L.A. River - New York Times - July 10 2020

 

The New York Times Magazine - The Decameron Project - New Fiction - July 10 2020

Read “The Decameron Project” online

Art Profile: 55-Year Old British Painter Damien Hirst – “Veil Paintings”

“I wanted to make paintings that were a celebration, and that revealed something and obscured something at the same time.” —Damien Hirst

Gagosian logoDamien Steven Hirst (born 1965) is an English artist, entrepreneur, and art collector. He is one of the Young British Artists, who dominated the art scene in the UK during the 1990s. He is reportedly the United Kingdom’s richest living artist, with his wealth valued at £215m in the 2010 Sunday Times Rich List.

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Travels With A Curator: Santa Maria Della Scala In Siena (The Frick Video)

In this week’s episode of “Travels with a Curator,” Xavier F. Salomon, Deputy Director and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator, journeys to Siena to explore Santa Maria della Scala, an eleventh-century complex across from the steps of the cathedral. Behind the modest exterior of this hospital turned museum are a variety of magnificent frescoes and sculptures by Lorenzo di Pietro, better known as Vecchietta. The Frick’s “Resurrection” is the only signed and dated work by the artist in the United States.

Arts & Literature: “Apollo Magazine – July 2020”

Apollo Magazine logo

INSIDE THE ISSUE
FEATURES | Eric Fischl interviewed by Thomas Marks; Linda Wolk-Simon on the life and legacy of Raphael; Joanne Pillsbury on the art of the Olmecs; Samuel Reilly on private restitution of colonial-era artefacts; Christopher Turner on shopfronts and gallery facades; Josie Thaddeus-Johns on John Cage’s mushrooms
REVIEWS | Isabelle Kent on Murillo at the National Gallery of Ireland; Tom Stammers on the British fashion for French interiors; James Lingwood on Stephen Shore’s photographs; Robert O’Byrne on The Buildings of Ireland
MARKET | Melanie Gerlis on art businesses after lockdown; a preview of Parcours des Mondes; and the latest art market columns from Susan Moore and Emma Crichton-Miller
PLUS | Rowan Moore and Tamsin Dillon on the future of public spaces; Susan Moore on the mysterious ‘Barbus Müller’ sculptures; William Aslet on Palladio’s monument to the plague in Venice; Robert O’Byrne on Apollo and the Second World War

Art History: How The Impressionists Elevated The “French Riviera”

From Christie’s (July 3, 2020):

Christie's Matisse to NiceIt was the Impressionists, Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, who first discovered the artistic potential of the south coast, finding an unspoilt landscape that perfectly matched their aims. ‘It is so beautiful,’ Monet wrote, ‘so bright, so luminous. One swims in blue air and it is frightening.’

Vincent van Gogh captured the landscape in and around Arles and Saint-Rémy in the final years of his life, while the Master of Aix, Paul Cézanne, used the rugged landscape of his native Provence to radically reconceive the very nature of art-making.

Long before the South of France became synonymous with glamour and sun-drenched seduction — think of Cary Grant and Grace Kelly in the 1955 film To Catch a Thief, or Brigitte Bardot and Alain Delon on the beaches of Saint-Tropez — this corner of Europe attracted a very different kind of tourist.

Christie's LogoSince the turn of the century, the sleepy fishing villages and remote towns of the Provençal hills had lured artists from Paris and beyond — the bright light, dazzling colours and palpable presence of the classical past all serving to inspire and revive jaded spirits.

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Cocktails with a Curator: Hans Holbein’s ‘Sir Thomas More’ Of 1527 (Video)

In this week’s episode of “Cocktails with a Curator,” Xavier F. Salomon, Deputy Director and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator, examines one of the Frick’s most beloved paintings, Hans Holbein’s “Sir Thomas More.” Xavier considers More’s relationship to humanist circles and the role of “friendship portraits” in making the absent present. In the words of More’s devoted friend, Desiderius Erasmus, “life without a friend is no life.” As a nod to the turbulent times of Tudor England, Xavier pairs this episode with a Bloody Mary cocktail.

Art Video: “Stone Cut” – A Japanese Sculptor’s Quest With “La Sagrada Familia”

An architectural marvel has sat incomplete in a residential corner of Barcelona since its architect, Antoni Gaudí, died during construction in 1926. For decades, La Sagrada Familia has been an example of Christian fealty and Catalan ingenuity wrought in granite and sandstone; but little could anyone have guessed that ninety-four years after Gaudí’s death a Japanese sculptor would dedicate his life to completing the architect’s colossal work…

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