Always amazing how quickly the MTA gets New York transport back on its feet.
Conservatives fight back against environmental and socially conscious investments
What’s striking, somewhat unique in almost all Henry Taylor’s human figures is the gaze. The eyeball. Even when head down, sideways, almost obscured. Not even that, more - they’ve clocked you and vice versa. If Norman Lewis made the case for aestheticism then Henry Taylor is your man for facial vibrancy. Yet still. Immobile. Impossible to ignore his work. Palpable the power.
Nothing confrontation. What is it you want of me?
The Black Panthers Untitled, 2022 Mannequins, leather jackets. Imbuing this sculpture with power because of the history or is this inherent and independent in the work?
It could be argued even THE TIMES THAY AINT A CHANGING, FAST ENOUGH!, 2017 isn’t confrontational. Again: what is it you want of me? Who is the aggressor? Easy to see, too many times too often easier to prove. Untitled, 2022. A war bomber, generic insignia. Fleeing silhouette figures. Where is the eyeball? All brings to mind Louis Althusser/Brecht. We are here forever, you are the ones walking out into the wild blue yonder.
So what has Harry Smith got to do with Henry Taylor? Well, nothing really. Except there was some space leftover. That wasn’t meant to be snarky Whitney. No. You do what you can! The show something 4years in the making! No artist ever exists in a vacuum. Always a continuum. I first learned of Harry Smith when researching performance artist guru Jack Smith. Page1 Page2 [cat sized print]
It’s a small strange show of one well-overdue for attention. My first thought was, ooooh, his Mahagonny film which has [almost] never been seen in its restored entirety. Reason enough. Nice comfy sofa. Kinda wished the curators had theatricalized more the whole experience. Jack Smith was that, Harry Smith way more cerebral. Yet his whole life was transient-the Chelsea hotel then Ginsberg’s apartment- drove each other mad. His head always focussing on what mattered.
Animations and Abstractions: John Zorn Plays Harry Smith
A great day visit to the Whitney. Chill out on more comfy sofas overlooking the Hudson listening to Harry Smith’s folk music anthologies. Whitney’s top floor Ruth Asawa more of Norman Lewis’ line. The exquisite. The inquisitive. Did either know of each other?
Folk should art indulge more often. Never binge, pace, chill out. Explore. Goodness knows New Yorkers need that maybe more than anyone.
Arthur Dove a well trodden name in American art history. Historians genuflect, so why is he, well, not up there with everyone else? Ex-upper East-sider Andrew Schoelkopf opens his new downtown gallery space with Mr. Dove for that very reason. Prescient isn’t the word for his work. Keeping meticulous weather patterns diaries with advanced barometric pressure readings. Similarities with surrealists but everything is from Dove’s own obsession with organic and modern. Metal. Radio waves. All is connected. One wonders if Dove would have continued creating if it weren’t for support of Alfred Stieglitz and his second stalwart artist/wife Helen Torr.
Artists don’t need praise. Just a little love.
Could there ever be a possible segue to the above? You’ve been wondering haven’t you? As indeed have I. Has someone ever written a readable forensic book ‘Terrorism: What’s Ever Achieved?’ Respected urban theorist Mike Davis wrote a ‘forensic’ book on the car bomb, Buda's Wagon. No, not a terrorist manual. He treated the subject as he’d done with demographics. There may well be ‘forensic’ truths even on American soil very difficult to swallow in such a book on terrorism. What did Hamas hoped/s to achieve in its terrorist attack on Israel? How could an end game ever be justified with thousands of dead Palestinians? What must Daniel Barenboim’s West-Eastern Divan Orchestra be feeling now? Guess how all of us feel. Powerless? Could one ever justify all those dead young men from World War 1? World War II a war against Hitler worth fighting for. Japan’s alliance: the questions never cease. Tell me: what religion ever sanctified the slaughter of innocent people? Shouldn’t Israel lead rather than be stool pigeon’d? No regime in the world ever could condemn Israel for hitting back, though, what point is in the making? And is that inherently the problem not the solution. A question? Dare it be said, perhaps Hamas are smarter than given credit and in some horrible twisted logic knew Israel would respond as they’ve done and will do. Thus the Israeli government losing support both home and abroad: a terrible terrible price to pay for the mostly poor Palestinians of Gaza.
BBC Radio discussion of Israel.
[Addition: Oct 19- 10days after the Hamas atrocities in Israel, most American university campuses are now ablaze with students ardently promulgating either pro-Israel or pro-Palestinian. Surprising was the vehemency of an Israeli Rabbi’s open letter to a liberal arts university, it matters not to name or link. Clearly this person wanted this college to utterly condemn the Hamas barbarism. Personally, no fan here of American college P/C ness but what did this Rabbi expect? The flying of a flag? Odds on, colleges always side with the money anyway and even when ‘called out’ none will ever admit to that.
Tom Ford’s very bold, brazen, oft excruciating watch Nocturnal Animals came to mind. Those barbarians had no belief nor reason for their actions though clearly utterly were screwed by something in their lives. If you survived your family being butchered wouldn’t you want to kill the perpertrators? In America, at least, that’s the crime of murder for which you’d be judicially tried. But when Israel retaliates against Hamas they are not criminals: simply at war. Palestinians always portrayed as aggressors: Hamas rightly but not the majority of Palestinians. See the anger from both sides each politically manipulated. Arts/culture mag Hyperallergic were right to call out artist Judy Chicago. Therein lies all the college protests.
Israel and the Jews don’t own the rights to ‘suffering’, they’re in the public domain, all, all too often. Maddening has been steadily global rising of anti-Semitism the past decade. Blood spilt on American soil. John Adams’ 1991 opera The Death of Klinghoffer was deemed by many Jews tasteless, exploitative, anti-Semitic. That it gave terrorists a voice. Yet everyone in opera has a voice, good and bad. Why opera still exists. Nabucco’s OK but not Klinghoffer?
Anti-semitism time travels way long back in history: Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, Wagner- an interesting case could be made in his defense for rather revolutionary zeitgeist, the Drefus Affair, the Balfour Declaration. So are the Brits to blame? Ask John Oliver. Or not. He earns a lot of money btw. Certainly not Wagner! Aways penniless. When you start the questions never cease…]
[Oct 21-At least 25 percent of the Gaza Strip's residential buildings, or more than 98,000 housing units, have been destroyed in Israeli air attacks.]
So segue, life goes on elsewhere. Jews like Broadway right? They even liked The Producers! Go figure. Old friends. …Critics panned Sondheim’s 1981 Merrily We Roll Along closing it after only 16 performances yet ever since its songs have become standards for Broadway lovers and performers. Mr. Stephen Sondheim’s genius: his specific show writing resonates beyond forever. Course, not alone in that. Art isn’t easy. Every minor detail…
Prime Minister Netanyahu, please don’t ignore friends like ol’ Bill Clinton. Diplomacy never equalled cynicism. That’s the easy way out. Not a Day Goes By. Music, the human spirit what survives generations.
As a P.S, attended a local gallery opening a way ago with my little suitcase ‘cause my bad back and even after sitting and chatting more than I wished, was confronted upon my exit with the remake: “is that a bomb?” Even taken as a strange joke, not that funny. Sometimes hard to tell what’s real and imaginary on this site. N’est pas? Guess they need Milton Berlin Mr. Scharzenegger for finesse. That word’s been ‘nuked’ as well? Are there secret wonderful words in your new book waiting to fly?
So: Succession Season 4…..
Given this has always been an ensemble cast, star of these final eps ’****-show’ is actress Sarah Snook, daughter ‘concubine’ Shiv Roy Family. [Predestination: sometimes talent will out!] Brian: shut up! You’re..[oops, spoiler alert] …in heaven! So easily could be melo-Dynasty, so isn’t. Ms. Snook wiggles Shiv’s underbelly tickling seamlessly alternating with viper’s tongue. She corners cousin ‘Gregg the Egg’ in a tiny room. We’re in no doubt she’d impale, extract, embalm Greg’s inner organs if he ****d with her. Shiv’ s understandbly f”” up and f”” smart! Carapace beneath another and another… Russian dolls. Russian nyet not. Shiv but not. Without her anchor Succession most would probably sink. Therein lies….
Executive Succession lead producers Will Ferrell/Adam McKay well-know satire and comedy works only when grounded in reality. And those in the know know all these characters all too bloody well. Billions is pretty good. Very pretty. Succession- unsurpassed. Not a lotta laughs, though. So for some Winter cheer and poignancy try Ramy. Real life for a Muslim in New Jersey is bad enough without.…
