“Always at the forefront in plastic and sculptural movements, Kosice was the first artist to ever use water and neon gas as part of an artwork in 1946. … Among his most impressive pieces, Kosice was the creator of hydraulic sculptures which used water and light as their fundamental elements.”
Category: people
What Walter Benjamin Read
“The small black notebook catalogues Benjamin’s reading from the age of 22 in 1917 until 1939, shortly before he left Paris fleeing from the Nazis. It begins with number 462—earlier entries are lost—and ends with number 1712, Robert Hichens’ Le Toque noire. Putting to shame the more leisurely reader, Benjamin was averaging more than one book a week.”
Lin-Manuel Miranda Gets The Full Rolling Stone Treatment
“I get it 50 times a day: ‘Please film [Hamilton]! Please film it so we can watch it!’ And I understand it’s hard to get to New York and it’s hard to get a Broadway ticket. At the same time, filming is an act of translation. It is not being in the room with us. It’s different. You will get the forest, you will not get the trees.”
Playwright Peter Shaffer, Writer Of Equus And Amadeus, Dies At 90
“His agent, Rupert Lord, said: ‘He was simply at the end of his life but delighted to have been able to celebrate his 90th birthday with friends and then, I think, decided it was time.'”
This Is The Guy Who Knows What Broadway Stars Like To Drink
“A few weeks ago, Mr. Estevez, 72, told the restaurant’s main owner, Max Klimavicius, that he was planning to retire. The word spread quickly, and during Mr. Estevez’s last shift, on Saturday, more than two dozen regulars gathered to wish him a fond, raucous goodbye.”
Phyllis Curtin, Soprano And Beloved Tanglewood Teacher, Dies At 94
“Audiences knew the glamorous young singer best in such operatic roles as Verdi’s Violetta and Strauss’ Salome, but she was proudest of her role as a pioneering recitalist, championing American music, contemporary music and music to texts in English at a time when such things were not the custom.”
The Man Who Rewrote Art History
“Hugh Honour, a self-taught art historian who produced indispensable works on Neo-Classicism and romanticism and who, with John Fleming, wrote the monumental survey ‘The Visual Arts: A History,’ one of the first to pay serious attention to non-Western art, died on May 19 at his home in Tofori, Italy. He was 88.”
Irving Benson, One Of The Last Of The Vaudeville/Burlesque Comedians, Dead At 102
“Mr. Benson won an amateur contest as a dancer in the 1920s and, by the mid-1930s, he was touring the country telling jokes. He worked in the vaudeville theater, in which a variety of performers – singers, jugglers, dancers, magicians – appeared on a single bill. For many years, he also appeared opposite strippers and other performers in burlesque shows, vaudeville’s more disreputable cousin.”
Laurie Anderson: ‘I Didn’t Want To Be The Artist Who Was Playing Concerts For Dogs. Now I AM The Artist Who Does The Concerts For Dogs.’
“So we did the show [for the first time] and we thought a few hundred dogs would show up. Thousands. They were all up the steps to the Sydney Opera House. … And there are a lot of Australian dogs who just. Want. To. Rooooock.”
Is That Tomb Discovered Last Week Aristotle’s Or Not?
At a conference in Thessaloniki last week celebrating Aristotle’s 2400th birthday, a Greek archaeologist announced with “almost certainty” that he had discovered the philosopher’s burial complex. Considering the oh-so-convenient timing, along with how premature high-profile announcements have embarrassed the profession in the past, other archaeologists have reacted skeptically. John Timpane lays out the pros and cons.