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Constructing a Black President
"Everything's changed! Everything's Changed!", exclaimed the young African American boy, jumping and cheering on the streets of The Bronx. Barack Obama had just been elected as the first African...
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Nōbody's Business: This Lingering Life
Pictured L to R: Stephanie Weeks, Meg MacCary, Marta Kuersten. Photo credit: Natassia Jimenez. Though the average American theatergoer has not seen a play from the classical Japanese theatrical style...
View ArticleTheater: Mia Farrow's Broadway Return; LaBute's Cheap 'Shot'
LOVE LETTERS ** 1/2 out of **** THE MONEY SHOT ** 1/2 out of **** LOVE LETTERS ** 1/2 out of **** BROOKS ATKINSON THEATRE Playwright A.R. Gurney is a talent I've only recently been able to see...
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Psychosexual Border Crossings
One of the questions humans constantly ask is whether art mirrors life. Back in the 1970s, when Memorex started mass producing high-quality audio cassettes, the company developed a brilliant...
View ArticleGothic Chill Meets Human Vulnerability: The Birth of the "Sensation" Novel
By Leslie Kendall Dye for Off the Shelf My obsession with Wilkie Collins started, strangely, with The Moonstone. It's often credited with being the first "detective novel," but it isn't. It is...
View ArticleWhy Are Jokes So Perishable?
There are fads and fashions in humor, and most of the world's humor is hopelessly out of fashion. Shakespeare's tragedies are as sad as ever, but his comedies are no longer very funny -- most of them...
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Rachel Lee Hovnanian's Genetically Modified Dystopia
Installation view of Rachel Lee Hovnanian's Perfect Baby Showroom at the Leila Heller Gallery, 2014 Enter Rachel Lee Hovnanian's Perfect Baby Showroom and you'll find a sterile laboratory-like room...
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The Past at Play!
The photographs from the Minnesota Historical Society's (MNHS) collections document the state's history, but the collections provide more than views of early settlers and the various State Capitol...
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Baldessari's '15 Seconds of Fame' Lights Up Paris
John Baldessari, "Your Name in Lights." Courtesy of Monnaie de Paris. Originally a painter, American artist John Baldessari's work began to mutate in the mid-1960s as he started to incorporate...
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The Triumph of Karel Appel
The Dutch furniture designer Martin Visser was the first collector to recognize the importance of the Cobra movement. Visser knew Karel Appel and his friends when they had just begun their careers, and...
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The Hands of Wayne Thiebaud (PHOTOS)
Thiebaud stands outside LeBaron's Fine Art. Photo by EMS. On Sunday, May 18, 2014, on my return trip from San Francisco's Art Market to Los Angeles, I had the opportunity to go to Sacremento to have...
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Arne Svenson On Cat Photography
All images Copyright Arne Svenson, 2014 Many street photographers likely know Arne Svenson, or at least his work. He's that guy who photographed his neighbors through their windows and then got sued....
View Article10 Things I Learned From Watching Pippin
I saw Pippin at the Golden Gate Theatre in San Francisco on press night 9/23/14. In no particular order, here are 10 things I learned: 1. I originally saw it in the 70s starring the Tony award-winning...
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Haunting Images Tell the Story of Human Trafficking and Modern Day Slavery
"Counting Down" From the Bought & Sold Exhibit: Kay Chernush Copyright Kay Chernush believes in the power of reinventing one's self. It's a central theme in her photography and the narrative of...
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Ultimate Fighting
Prize fighting is a metaphor for life. At least it's one of the metaphors and it's probably the metaphoric quality that accounts for its popularity. The same can be said about mixed martial arts, a...
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Nick Cave Reappropriates Racially Charged Objects
Nick Cave, Golden Boy, 2014 Nick Cave's "Made by Whites for Whites" and "Rescue" are currently on view at Jack Shainman gallery's two locations in Chelsea (some of the new work was first seen at The...
View ArticleFirst Nighter: Peter Brooks' Valley of Astonishment, The Sucker Emcee, The...
(Peter Brooks' production The Valley of Astonishment has opened at Theatre for a New Audience's Polonsky Shakespeare Center. Here is the review I filed after seeing it at London's Young Vic in June.)...
View ArticleAnne-Elizabeth Sobieski on the Imageblog
Tongue-tied and Twisted Sterling silver tongue-tied cherry stems, 2014
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Drawn At Sea: Drawing no.04
Drawing no.04 Pierowall, Westray to Stromness, Orkney Mainland 9:40 - Wednesday September 17, 2014 59° 19.396 n, 2° 58.563 w - 14°C After lashing down the drawing machine at the ships bow we sailed out...
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Confessions of a Serial Songwriter: Ch-Ch-Ch Changes
Spent some time with my music publisher friend, Barbara Vander Linde last week. Conversation was quality and the salads so yummy we didn't touch or check our iPhones the whole time. They weren't even...
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