Reading articles in the January issues of The New Yorker January 11 and January 25. 2016
January 11, 2016.
Read Ben Lerner's "The Custodians". The Whitney's conservation methods. Fascinating review of the kinds of practice of conservation in museums, and how contemporary art conservation has evolved in less than an orthodox fashion, but more as a collaboration with the living artists. p. 50
Read Anne Carson's "1=1" An assertion of the impossibility of leaving an interiority which this author possesses and expresses. Always provocative. p 60
Read Peter Schjeldahl's SEEING AND BELIEVING The Mysteries of Matthias Buchinger (1674-1739) a fascinating review of "Wordplay: Matthias Buchinger's Drawings from the Collection of Ricky Jay" at the Met , Ricky Jay is a magician. Buchinger was an artist born without hands and feet and who stood 29 inches tall and was also a musician. p. 70.
Read Alex Ross's review of Igor Levit and Evgeny Kissin, one of my favorite pianists. Ross is critical, but points out that Kissin engaged with repertory outside the usual fare -- all pieces mixing Jewish folk material with early twentieth century modernist gestures... and that the pianist is taking a sabbatical after his current artists in residence status at Carnegie Hall, to study Bach to Bartok, which Ross thinks will forge a "distinct identity" for Kissin. "At the end of the Carnegie evening, Kissin offered a short poem of his own "Ani Maymin" or "Credo". It closed with a line that every touring artist can take to heart: "If I am like the others, who will be like me."
January 25, 2016. Like the cover, "Winter Delight".
Read Calvin Tomkins fascinating review of the history of contemporary art at the Metropolitan Museum, and its new status to be reflected in the opening of the Metropolitan Breur Museum(the former home of the Whitney on Madison) in March. "The Met and The Now", p 32
Note: Irving Penn's beautiful photography of David Bowie with a New Yorker postscript in memoriam.
Read Tatyana Toystaya's one page(lovely short fiction) "Aspic", focussing on the making of this winter dish in Russia as metaphor and more.
Read Alex Ross's "The career of Pierre Boulez" p 74 Boulez died on January 5, at age 90. Ross makes a tribute to Boulez by saying "In the wake of the Second World War, a phalanx of young composers took hold of European music, determined to discard a compromised past and remake their art." Ross cites disks worth having: Sony. "Ravel's "Trois Poemes de Stephane Mallarme", (Ross praises the poems' setting: ""Pli Selon Pli (1957-1962) an orchestral cycle on texts of Mallarme, was his most formidable creation: voice and instruments give flesh and blood to an allegedly inscrutable poet. It begins with a chord like the crack of a whip and ends in similar fashion, its circuitous path encircling a cauldron of emotion." The Mallarme poems were performed in Berkeley's tribute to Boulez at the Music School in 2015. Other recommendations of recordings are given. Ross mentions that Boulez is said to have been working on an opera of "Waiting for Godot".
Read Ben Lerner's "The Custodians". The Whitney's conservation methods. Fascinating review of the kinds of practice of conservation in museums, and how contemporary art conservation has evolved in less than an orthodox fashion, but more as a collaboration with the living artists. p. 50
Read Anne Carson's "1=1" An assertion of the impossibility of leaving an interiority which this author possesses and expresses. Always provocative. p 60
Read Peter Schjeldahl's SEEING AND BELIEVING The Mysteries of Matthias Buchinger (1674-1739) a fascinating review of "Wordplay: Matthias Buchinger's Drawings from the Collection of Ricky Jay" at the Met , Ricky Jay is a magician. Buchinger was an artist born without hands and feet and who stood 29 inches tall and was also a musician. p. 70.
Read Alex Ross's review of Igor Levit and Evgeny Kissin, one of my favorite pianists. Ross is critical, but points out that Kissin engaged with repertory outside the usual fare -- all pieces mixing Jewish folk material with early twentieth century modernist gestures... and that the pianist is taking a sabbatical after his current artists in residence status at Carnegie Hall, to study Bach to Bartok, which Ross thinks will forge a "distinct identity" for Kissin. "At the end of the Carnegie evening, Kissin offered a short poem of his own "Ani Maymin" or "Credo". It closed with a line that every touring artist can take to heart: "If I am like the others, who will be like me."
January 25, 2016. Like the cover, "Winter Delight".
Read Calvin Tomkins fascinating review of the history of contemporary art at the Metropolitan Museum, and its new status to be reflected in the opening of the Metropolitan Breur Museum(the former home of the Whitney on Madison) in March. "The Met and The Now", p 32
Note: Irving Penn's beautiful photography of David Bowie with a New Yorker postscript in memoriam.
Read Tatyana Toystaya's one page(lovely short fiction) "Aspic", focussing on the making of this winter dish in Russia as metaphor and more.
Read Alex Ross's "The career of Pierre Boulez" p 74 Boulez died on January 5, at age 90. Ross makes a tribute to Boulez by saying "In the wake of the Second World War, a phalanx of young composers took hold of European music, determined to discard a compromised past and remake their art." Ross cites disks worth having: Sony. "Ravel's "Trois Poemes de Stephane Mallarme", (Ross praises the poems' setting: ""Pli Selon Pli (1957-1962) an orchestral cycle on texts of Mallarme, was his most formidable creation: voice and instruments give flesh and blood to an allegedly inscrutable poet. It begins with a chord like the crack of a whip and ends in similar fashion, its circuitous path encircling a cauldron of emotion." The Mallarme poems were performed in Berkeley's tribute to Boulez at the Music School in 2015. Other recommendations of recordings are given. Ross mentions that Boulez is said to have been working on an opera of "Waiting for Godot".
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