“Aren’t these architects a bit too avant-garde for a luxury condo building in the West Village? But Hani Rashid and Lise Anne Couture, the husband-and-wife principals of Asymptote, say the eight-story structure taking shape at 166 Perry Street is intricately related to their ongoing experimental work.”
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
The Anonymous Rebellion Against NYC’s Street Art
“The covert campaign targeting street art began about seven months ago, with blobs of paint that appeared overnight, obscuring murals and wheat-pasted art on walls in Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan. Arcane messages were pasted at the sites, but it was difficult to ask for an explanation. The author was never identified.” Paint splashings, fliers, stink bombs: What’s going on, and who’s behind it?
At 75, Jacob’s Pillow Is Thriving, If Not Cutting-Edge
“After a rocky period in the 1990s when the Pillow was near foreclosure, it has had a resurgence. Under [Ella] Baff in the last 10 years, the institution has experienced a 38 percent increase in ticket sales, with a 77 percent increase in attendance…. Even more indicative of the organization’s financial health is its first endowment campaign. The goal for its first phase, which ended in June, was $6 million; $6.1 million was raised.”
What’s At Stake In Smithsonian Woes? National Identity
“Few people familiar with the Smithsonian in Washington and its various underperforming, weirdly performing and, in some cases, barely existent art and culture museums were much surprised by” its recent troubles, Holland Cotter writes. “The institution has been deteriorating for a while, which has come to seem like part of its musty machinery. Besides, in the grand arena of national politics, why should anyone care about the sins and missteps and of a museum complex? One reason is selfish: As taxpayers we are footing the bill.”
How The Eames House Shaped California Living
“Hear the name ‘Eames,’ and you probably picture bent plywood ‘potato chip’ chairs, or midcentury tables resting on ‘paper clip’ legs — iconic home furnishings that shaped the legacy of their designers. Less celebrated is Charles and Ray Eames’ 1949 Pacific Palisades home, though it has profoundly influenced how Southern Californians nest, even to this day.”
Wait: Kids Believe What They Read?
In the category of Things The Advertisers Already Knew is this bit of now-scientific fact: “Kids believe what they read — even if it’s wrong. This may seem fairly obvious (don’t adults do this too?), but it’s now been statistically confirmed by scientists, who say that parents and teachers should use care in choosing books for their kids.”
Rivera Biographer Questions Paintings in Kahlo Show
“Looks as if Frida Kahlo, one of the Modern era’s most enigmatic artists, has been keeping a few more mysteries tucked inside her tehuana outfits. … On Monday, the Mexico City daily newspaper Reforma published a story in which Raquel Tibol, a respected art critic and author of a new biographical study of Kahlo’s husband, Diego Rivera, raised questions about the authenticity of two of the works in the Kahlo restrospective at the Palace of Bellas Artes.”
He’s Naked Already, And Now He’ll Take A Public Bath
“Donatello’s David, the statue credited with starting Italian Renaissance sculpture, is to receive its first big clean-up using innovative laser lifting techniques that are expected to reveal striking gold leaf hair highlights. The 18-month restoration, boosted by €200,000 (£135,000) in government funding, will be carried out in front of visitors to Florence’s Bargello museum. Instead of moving the bronze figure to a laboratory, restorers have brought their lights, cleaning utensils, microscopes and lasers into the display room.”
A Beauteous Flower, But Whose Verse Has Earned It?
After wandering through Shakespeare gardens in San Francisco and New York, Jeremy McCarter muses that contemporary plays seldom “yield the kinds of passages that people erect gardens to celebrate. Look at the foremost living playwrights: Pinter, Mamet, Albee, Churchill, Kushner (to name a few). All … show varying degrees of flair with language. But who among them employs the kind of luxurious metaphor, the rich description, that people will cast on bronze plaques in a 100 years’ time – and where would they go?”
Spectator Muzzles Review Of Brown; Guardian Pounces
“Whatever its actual merits, Tina Brown’s Diana Chronicles has been the most talked-about book of the season and Sarah Bradford’s its most talked-about review – even though, until today, it had not been published. It remains unclear why the Spectator refused to print Bradford’s piece, given that she is widely considered to be this country’s foremost authority on Diana. But here it is, abridged and edited.” (And, um, it’s not exactly a rave.)