Cracking the Code in ‘Heeere’s Johnny!’ WHEN “The Shining” was released in 1980, many viewers, including the critic Pauline Kael, left theaters mystified by what they had just seen. Expecting a standard frightfest based on a Stephen King best seller, they got an unexplained river of blood surging out of hotel elevators, a vision...
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How Stanley Kubrick Kept His Eye on the Budget, Down to the Orange Juice
Nothing revealed Stanley Kubrick’s singular intelligence — nor his endearing humor and humanity — more than budgetary decisions. He wore his producer’s hat as ingeniously as his director’s one, confounding expectations. Before he arrived in New York for the opening of 2001, stories of his obsessive genius preceded him. He had a pilot’s license, but...
Remain in light: Mulholland Dr. and the cosmogony of David Lynch
As our ten-yearly poll to find the Greatest Film of All Time gets ever closer, B. Kite considers David Lynch’s Mulholland Dr. in the light of the Vedanta-inspired spiritual philosophy that underpins all the director’s work Despite the accusations of incoherence sometimes made against them by critics who ought to know better, the films...
Jean Vigo: Artist of the floating world
The sole full-length feature made by Jean Vigo, L’Atalante was a bridge between the surrealism of 1920s French cinema and the poetic realism of the 1930s. Graham Fuller makes the case for its inclusion in S&S’s forthcoming ‘Greatest Films of All Time’ poll Jean Vigo’s great work about a pair of troubled newly-weds and...
Ebooks and literature
Books That Are Never Done Being Written Digital text is ushering in an era of perpetual revision and updating, for better and for worse By NICHOLAS CARR I recently got a glimpse into the future of books. A few months ago, I dug out a handful of old essays I’d written about innovation, combined...
A video interview with Robert Franzen
Meet the Writers (B&N)
New York exhibition reviews from ArtForum
New York Exhibitions Artforum
Who Destroyed Classical Civilization?
by Emmet Scott For centuries scholars assumed that the civilization of ancient Rome, the civilization we now call “classical,” was destroyed by the barbarian tribes of Germany and central Asia who, during the fourth and fifth centuries swarmed into the Empire and destroyed the political power of the Eternal City. The migrations of the...
Cars, car parks and cities
Between the Lines That prized garage space or curbside spot you’ve been yearning for may be costing you—and the city—in ways you never realized. A journey into the world of parking, where meter maids are under siege, everybody’s on the take, and the tickets keep on coming. By Dave Gardetta Anyone scanning Disney Hall’s...
Lucian Freud dismantled the established conventions of portrait painting
Lucian Freud Portraits National Portrait Gallery, 9th February-27th May A parent on bedside watch might have had the notion. A certain kind of photographer, too—the kind obsessed, for instance, by isolated fragments and strange magnifications. But among established portrait painters, the idea that the soles of a woman’s feet might testify to her person...
Freud: the last great Enlightenment thinker
Sigmund Freud is out of fashion. The reason? His heroic refusal to flatter humankind. Writing to Albert Einstein in the early 1930s, Sigmund Freud suggested that “man has in him an active instinct for hatred and destruction.” Freud went on to contrast this “instinct to destroy and kill” with one he called erotic—an instinct...
Forgotten Berlioz: Roméo et Juliette
A homage to love, Shakespeare and the symphonic form, Berlioz’s symphony should be recognised as a triumph of drama, formal coherence and lyric beauty. At a time when Hector Berlioz’s music is played more often than ever before, when performances of the Symphonie Fantastique, Les Nuits d’été, The Damnation of Faust and even the...
The 62nd Berlin Film Festival
The public programme of the Berlin International Film Festival shows about 400 films per year, mostly international or European premieres. Films of every genre, length and format find their place in the various sections: great international cinema in the Competition, independent and art house inPanorama, films for young audiences in Generation, new discoveries and promising talents...
Antoni Tapies, Catalan painter and sculptor, dies at 88
Catalan painter and sculptor Antoni Tapies, one of the world’s top contemporary art figures, died Feb. 6 in Barcelona. He was 88. A statement from the government of his native northeastern Catalonia region confirmed the death but did not disclose the cause. Born in Barcelona in 1923, Mr. Tapies was one of Spain’s main...
Citizen Philosophers
Teaching Justice in Brazil Carlos Fraenkel Getting out of the cave and seeing things as they really are: that’s what philosophy is about, according to Almira Ribeiro. Ribeiro teaches the subject in a high school in Itapuã, a beautiful, poor, violent neighborhood on the periphery of Salvador, capital of the state of Bahia in...
Howard Hodgkin, Yayoi Kusama and Andrea Zittel
Howard Hodgkin, Yayoi Kusama and Andrea Zittel – the week in art Hodgkin’s impressive Mughal art collection explodes with untamed colour, much like his own work, while a Japanese icon hits the spot at Tate Modern. Exhibition of the week: Visions of Mughal India: The Collection of Howard Hodgkin. The painter Howard Hodgkin has one of the...
£160m Cézanne: Highest price ever for a painting
£160m Cézanne: Highest price ever for a painting as Qatari royal family trumps world dealers for The Card Players One of Cezanne’s best-loved paintings has sold for £160million, the highest price ever paid for a work of art. The Card Players, one in a series of five works depicting French peasants playing cards, was...
Leonard Cohen’s Old Ideas album
Leonard Cohen’s new album Old Ideas is unexpected delight, says Bernadette McNulty. Being invited to an exclusive first listen of an album at a record company playback is usually a poisoned chalice, especially if the musician themself will be present. While you sit in a windowless room, being bombarded by unfamiliar songs blaring at...
Poet Laureate compared to Mills & Boon romance writers in stinging attack by rival
Oxford’s Poetry Professor criticises Poet Laureate’s eagerness to ‘democratise’ poetry Carol Ann Duffy had previously argued that text messaging helps youngsters perfect poetry skills. A remarkable literary spat has erupted with the Oxford Professor of Poetry comparing the work of the Poet Laureate to Mills & Boon. In a lecture entitled Poetry, Policing and...
‘In Wonderland: Surrealist Adventures of Women Artists’ at LACMA
Probably the most famous of all Surrealist paintings is Salvador Dalí’s weird little 1931 canvas, “The Persistence of Memory.” Dating from the European movement’s heyday between the First and Second World War, when Surrealism’s psychic, sociocultural probings dominated the School of Paris, its soft, drooping pocket-watches scattered around a barren landscape create an unforgettable...
Constructive criticism: the week in architecture
Stuttgart launches a controversial redevelopment of its central station, Burgundy gets a new museum and Frank Gehry’s Eisenhower memorial sparks a battle. The recession might be biting hard in Britain, but elsewhere in the world, things are clearly booming. The city of Stuttgart is so gung-ho about the €7bn redevelopment of its central railway...
A new book on the techniques of icon and wall painting
TECHNIQUES OF ICON AND WALL PAINTING: Egg Tempera, Fresco, Secco’ by Aidan Hart 460 pages. Over 450 colour illustrations and over 160 drawings. 227mm x 278mm. Hard cover. This is the most comprehensive book to date on the techniques of icon and wall painting. Illustrated by over 450 colour ilustrations and over 160 drawings,...
Why don’t theatres talk to each other more?
Theatres are keen to advertise their own shows, but not events at other venues. Isn’t it time to pool publicity for the benefit of all? There’s much talk of collaboration in theatre at the moment, but how far does it really extend? We’ve already seen the National helping regional houses unlock philanthropic donations, but are...
Oral Care and Health Daily
Health and wellness articles for those looking to better the overall lifestyle
The Style Glossy
Up-to-date fashion and beauty trends for women looking to feel their best
The Art Market
Money Talk At least one market posted strong results in November. That was the market for contemporary art. In just four days in New York — 7 to 10 November — a phenomenal $775 million was spent on postwar and contemporary art at auction alone (who knows what deals were transacted privately). Sotheby’s evening...
Rome
The Crass, Beautiful Eternal City DECEMBER 22, 2011 Ingrid D. Rowland by Robert Hughes In the spring of 1959, a twenty-one-year-old Australian architecture student named Robert Hughes made his first visit to Rome. He captures that first heady plunge into the city’s stew of chaos, sensuality, history, amber light, and sudden moments of piercing...
Philip Larkin
“Moving and Memorable” By Francis-Noël Thomas Philip Larkin started writing poems in 1938 when he was fifteen or sixteen and very nearly stopped about ten years before he died at sixty-three. His reputation, during his lifetime, was based almost entirely on three collections published at intervals of approximately ten years: The Less Deceived (1955), The Whitsun Weddings (1964),...
Jeremy Nicholas ponders what to do with his collection of 78s
Shelving the shellac Tue 10th January 2012 Jeremy Nicholas: 78s span seven decades of recorded history…and a lot of storage space. In the early 1960s when I was about 13, an optician friend of my parents named Peter Leach gave me his entire collection of 78rpm discs. It was a whole library of great...
First International Biennale of Contemporary Art in Ukraine 2012 Announced, and Curator Appointed
KEY DATES 23rd May – 1st August 2012 VENUE Mystetskyi Arsenal 10 Lavrska Street, Kyiv, Ukraine, 01010 The Inaugural International Biennale of Contemporary Art in the Ukraine, ‘ARSENALE’ (named after the art complex in which it will be shown,) will open in Kyiv on 17th May 2012, at the National Culture and Art...
Youth orchestras in Venezuela
The music man The power of art IN THE debate on the value of arts lessons in schools, one killer argument comes from a place that few know much about. Some are familiar with Venezuela’s oil, natural beauty, high crime rates and comic-opera rulers. But the country is also home to el sistema, a network...
Trouble at the mall? Classical music dudes in fight
The news of Monday night’s riot at the Mall of America shocked many, who insisted it be called a fracas. Other citizens, grasping for reasons why the outbreak of violence came at a time of holiday cheer, said it was a melee. But one thing is clear: Mall officials were stunned by what some...
Arts review of 2011. BBC
Will Gompertz A devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan, revolutions in North Africa and the Middle East, riots in London and Manchester, and the imminent threat of financial Armageddon in Europe. That was the big news of 2011. Oh, and there were some good art exhibitions too. Tracey Emin at the Hayward Gallery, Mike...
War Horse
Deborah Ross Steven Spielberg’s version of War Horse is like an extended Sunday afternoon episode of Black Beauty gone mad via the first world war, just so you know, and although it made me cry this is no endorsement. I rarely cry in real life but have been known to howl in the cinema, even when I’m aware...
The Leonard Cohen Interview
Leonard Cohen: ‘All I’ve got to put in a song is my own experience’ Sombre prophet, mordant wisecracker, repentant cad: Leonard Cohen is back with a great new album, Old Ideas – and more wit and wisdom On Leonard Cohen‘s gruelling 1972 world tour, captured in Tony Palmer’s documentary Bird on a Wire, an interviewer asked the...
Self-Publishing. The Relaunch of Amanda Hocking
Lauren Oliver At the time of its first official paperback release, “Switched,” by Amanda Hocking, the much-celebrated darling of self-publishing, will already have sold more than a million copies. Hocking’s rise to self-publishing stardom has been so well chronicled — The New York Times Magazine did a lengthy profile of her and her success in the...
Epic models built in 17th century of fortified towns and rural landscapes unveiled in Paris show
John Lichfield A military deterrent, constructed from wood, paper and silk? A royal and imperial toy collection? A time machine? A 17th century Google Earth? Forgotten gems from the world’s largest and finest collection of old models of urban and rural landscapes go on exhibition in Paris from this week. For the next month...
Matisse: Drawing Life
Matisse: Drawing Life Henri Matisse, La Pleureuse 3 December 2011 – 4 March 2012 | Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) | Ticketed | Exclusive to Brisbane Every day, Henri Matisse drew from life. And what he drew from his art was life itself. ‘Matisse: Drawing Life’ is the most comprehensive exhibition of Henri Matisse’s...
The Science Delusion
James Le Fanu THE SCIENCE DELUSION by Rupert Sheldrake There is something rather odd about the current state of science. The funding for its prestigious institutions and mega projects now routinely runs to hundreds of millions, even billions, of pounds. And it is certainly productive, generating a tidal wave of papers every year published...
Atheism as a religion
Rreligion for Atheists Alain de Botton A.N. Wilson Over 125 of the 320 pages in this book are either blank, or taken up with black-and-white illustrations, of subjects as various as Madonna and her former husband Guy Ritchie, slates arranged by Richard Long, Buddhist truth-seekers going for a walk in a wood, and a...
Charline von Heyl’s paintings
Mining the Field By Joe Fyfe Ruminative and energetic, visceral and cerebral, Charline von Heyl’s paintings and works on paper, seen in a 10-year survey at the Philadelphia ICA, suggest that perhaps the best tactic at present is to leave high-concept spectacle to other mediums and let painting be its weird old self. Bob...
At home with Ai Weiwei
What is daily life like for China’s most famous dissident artist? Since his nearly three-month detention last spring, Ai Weiwei has been heroized in the West—receiving, in absentia, the Bianca Jagger Human Rights Award for Courage and topping ArtReview magazine’s Power 100 list of influential art-world figures. But in the People’s Republic, he remains curatorially untouchable,...
New prize for art that creates social change
Pistoletto and Zegna foundations present €25,000 award at Serpentine Gallery By Ermanno Rivetti. The Serpentine Gallery hosted an awards show on 11 January for a new art prize, Visible 2011. The prize, curated by Matteo Luchetti and Judith Wielander, was conceived by the Italian artist and art activist Michelangelo Pistoletto, in collaboration with the...
Alex Ross
OUTSIDE THE MACHINE: THE BEST CLASSICAL PERFORMANCES OF 2011 By Alex Ross If popular stereotypes about classical music held true, the genre should have had no social or political relevance in 2011, one of the darkest and angriest years in recent American history. Classical music is, we are given to understand, the playground of...
A. D. Hope
Invitation to a Resurrection by A. D. Hope; introduced by Andrew McCulloch Removed from its historical context, this poem by the Australian poet Alec Derwent Hope (1907–2000) might have seemed little more than a rearguard grumble by a disgruntled formalist, but it appeared on the same page as a review of A New History...
What do I Know?
Article: Leontia Flynn What do I know? (Or, why I’m giving up post-modern poetry to live an irony-free life.) One theory holds that Northern Irish poets ‘share elements of an outlook – ironic, stylish, suspicious of obvious sincerity’ (Martin Mooney’s words, in the book of interviews with poets In the Chair), but in fact when...
Selfridges’ Library
SELFRIDGES today opens its very own pop-up library – a 3,500 square-foot space housing over 15,000 of the world’s most inspirational books curated by Penguin, Thames and Hudson, Faber and Taschen. In celebration of the launch, the store has recruited the help of its famous friends to reveal their favourite books – from Olivia...
Steve McQueen
Sexual obsessions and psychoanalysis take centre stage. Steve McQueen’s “Shame” explores addiction; Jan Svankmajer’s “Surviving Life” charts one man’s disturbing dreams. By Iain Millar. Steve McQueen takes a step slightly further away from the day-to-day preoccupations of the art world and more firmly into the film world with his second feature, “Shame”. It’s a...
Arab protesters put their art on the streets
Artists have used the walls of Cairo, Damascus and Tripoli to document the uprisings. By Anny Shaw and Gareth Harris Cairo. The Cairo-based artist Ganzeer’s stencil of Egyptian riot police, bravely painted on the side of the Mogamma government building on Tahrir Square last month, is the latest in a long line of works...
Delius
His life was as romantic and colourful as his exquisite music, yet his works are rarely performed today. Delius deserves better, writes Julian Lloyd Webber. No other composer polarises opinion like Delius. You either love or loathe his music. And it is rare to find someone who has grown to like it. Although this...
