Author Archive
Dr. Susan Feldman
Thirty-two years ago, the New York Landmarks Conservancy hired a young social activist named Susan Feldman to figure out how to bring people to St. Ann’s Church, a Brooklyn Heights architectural gem desperately seeking restoration funds but with a congregation barely topping out at 30. Concerts at the intimate church setting lured Manhattan classical music...
Turning Journalism Into Art
Djuna Barnes makes news at Brooklyn Museum By Marsha McCreadie We may have been reading the wrong thing all along. Blame it on T.S. Eliot, who proclaimed Djuna Barnes’ stylistically avant-garde Nightwood equal to great Elizabethan tragedy—the novel was canonized by many in lesbian literature as a breakthrough: a lightly disguised version of Barnes’ breakup...
Karma Komix
History of Tibet Pop at Rubin Museum By Renfreu Neff Visitors entering the lobby of the Rubin Museum of Art are welcomed with soothing Eastern music played by live performers nestled in the curved foot of an elegant spiral staircase—the building is itself a landmarked structure created by the noted French architectural designer Andrée Putman...
Diaspora Story for All: A Biblical Trek in ‘400 Miles’
By Elena Oumano “You don’t look Jewish” (meaning not like the stereotypical hook-nosed European) is not a compliment, no matter what the speaker’s intentions. And what do Jews look like anyway? 400 Miles to Freedom, directed by husband and wife team Avishai and Shari Rothfarb Mekonen, addresses this and other issues of Jewish identity in...
Lichtenstein in Motion: Three Surprises on Whitney Screens
By Marsha McCreadie They are in town for a just a few more days, but since the only three films by Roy Lichtenstein, of Pop Art and the comic book style, haven’t been screened since 1971, you don’t have to think twice about catching them. Three Landscapes: A Film Installation by Roy Lichtenstein is at...
Not Necessarily So
‘Porgy’ reborn By Joseph Smith A Broadway production calls itself The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess. There is no such thing. In a musical, the words may have as much importance as the music; thus, for instance, Girl Crazy is “by” the Gershwins, plural. But Porgy and Bess is an opera. (Music and singing are continuous,...
Modern Masters at Montclair Art Museum
Beginning Feb. 12, Montclair Art Museum, located at 3 South Mountain Ave. in Montclair, N.J., will host the exhibition Look Now: Modern and Contemporary Art from Private Collections. The exhibit will feature multi-media works by 31 modern masters and cutting-edge artists—including Roy Lichetnstein, Andy Warhol, Louise Bourgeois, Rachel Harrison and Ryan McGinness—through June 17. For more...
Architecture on Screen
This Feb. 3 and Feb. 4, The Center for Architecture and MUSE Film and Television present Architecture on Screen, selections from the 29th Montreal International Festival of Films on Art. The two-day affair will see films about Copenhagen’s city hall (A City Hall for All Occasions), Bauhaus, Le Corbusier and Daniel Burnham, among others, as...
Bard Graduate Center’s The Actress as Artists’ Muse
Return to a world in which stage actresses were treated like rock stars Feb. 9 with The Actress as Artist’s Muse: Sarah Bernhardt, Eleonora Duse, and Ellen Terry. The special lecture at the Gallery at Bard Graduate Center will find art historian Peter Trippi, editor of Fine Art Connoisseur and former director of Dahesh Museum...
Art Crawl 2012 Kicks Off Feb. 4
This Saturday, Feb. 4, join ARTLOG for the first Art Crawl of 2012. Beginning at 3 p.m. at The New Museum, 235 Bowery, the fifth annual event (presented in partnership with Thrillist, The New Museum, Columbia University Alumni and The Appraisers Association) will celebrate the Lower East Side’s leading galleries from 3–7 p.m., concluding with...
Cecil Fabulous: Beaton’s New York Years Revived
By Marsha McCreadie One high aesthetic compliment is to call an artist ahead of his time. Yet the real trick is to be of your time and ahead of it, too. Cecil Beaton—photographer, illustrator, set and costume designer, even author—turned that trick, and nicely, too. The fabulous results, even a hint at his motivation, are...
Dr. Kahlil Gibran Muhammad
Dr. Kahlil Gibran Muhammad, formerly an assistant professor of history at Indiana University, was named director of Harlem’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at a press conference Nov. 17, 2010. On the flight home that day, Muhammad glanced over to see his seatmate unfold the New York Times’ Arts and Leisure section and...
BROTHERLY SHOVE
Samuel Brett Williams’ Derby Day makes for a winning day at the races By Dough Strassler Derby Day covers much the same ground popularized by Tracy Letts’ August: Osage County: adults behaving badly and tossing out family secrets with the aim of a javelin thrower. It’s not an entirely polished work, though talented playwright Samuel...
Robert Battle
No one could have been better suited than Robert Battle to take over the artistic direction of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater from the stupendous Judith Jamison. When he assumed the position in July 2011, though only 38, he had already achieved more than many people do in a lifetime. Battle graduated from two...
Events Listings
Art Events American Realness: Abrons Arts Center presents 46 productions of 20 dance, theater & performance works over 10 days. Jan. 5–15, Abrons Arts Center, 466 Grand St., abronsartscenter.org. Peter & The Wolf: Isaac Mizrahi narrates Prokofiev’s classic, performed by the Juilliard Ensemble, as Jason Hackenwerth creates a mobile installation with thousands of balloons. Ends...
Rose Kuo
Under the agile leadership of Rose Kuo, the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s annual New York Film Festival, New Directors/New Films, Rendezvous with French Cinema, and its many smaller programs in between provide platforms for gifted filmmakers and give NYC cinephiles viewing opportunities unequaled at local multiplexes. Kuo, who joined the Society in 2010 after...
The One-Night-Only Return of Nina Ananiashvili
Nina Ananiashvili may have retired in a flower-strewn farewell performance from American Ballet Theatre last year, but the seemingly ageless ballerina is still dancing with the State Ballet of Georgia, the company she has directed since 2004 in her native land. That’s Georgia as in the former Soviet Republic—and the birthplace of George Balanchine. And...
The City Arts Interview: Will Barnet
Will Barnet’s eight-decade career is not only one of the most enduring of any living American artist, it is also one of the most varied. Over the many years, the renowned painter and printmaker has moved through phases of social realism, cubism, abstraction and lyrical realism before his recent return to abstraction. His numerous awards...
Paul Holdengräber
New York City’s reigning nightlife impresario may well be Paul Holdengräber, director of public programs at the 42nd Street Library. His cheerfully inclusive “LIVE from the NYPL” interview series blasts away fusty cultural assumptions by featuring Patti Smith as well as Zadie Smith and such unlikely pairings as Al Sharpton and Christopher Hitchens. Holdengräber tunnels...
Maurice Prendergast Paris Scene Unearthed at Clarke Auction
While sifting through a large box lot of art dropped off at the Larchmont, N.Y., gallery by what is known in the trade as a “picker,” Nelia Moore, art specialist/auctioneer at Clarke Auction spotted a beautifully executed but very dirty painting on panel of a woman in a veil. After dusting it off and studying...
