The Most Devoted Fans Of Sleep No More Are Mourning Its Eventual End
And they’re going to see it again – and again, and again. Not that that’s unusual. – Washington Post
Philharmonia/Rouvali review – epic Nordic soundscapes of drama and disruption | Classical music
Concert programmes don’t come much more Nordic than this, the first in the Philharmonia’s series of Nordic Soundscapes. Nor would many pieces so aptly fit the subtitle, “music crafted from nature”, as Oceans, a 2018 piece by the Icelandic composer María Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir. Beginning with icy violins, then layering up notes and harmonies underneath, it conveys first the wide horizons at sea and then, when the deeper brass kicks in, the vastness of water underneath. It’s the kind of music that would go very well with some impressive nature photography – Sigfúsdóttir has orchestrated for Sigur Rós – and, indeed, later on it seems to zoom in or out like a camera shot, but it’s evocative enough to stand on its own.
Next, a Nordic warhorse: Grieg’s Piano Concerto, in which the pianist Stephen Hough made the solo instrument into an agent of disruption, always challenging the more measured, elegant lines of the orchestra, even pushing a little against the silky muted strings in the deceptively calm slow movement. For an encore, Hough gave us Christian Sinding’s piece Rustles of Spring, a Norwegian piano solo favourite of a century ago, its restlessly rippling accompaniment and hopeful melody fitting its title perfectly.
This series is, of course, the brainchild of the Philharmonia’s principal conductor Santtu-Matias Rouvali, and the big piece here was one that even Finns don’t often get to programme: Kullervo, Sibelius’s first symphony in all but name, based on a tale of incest and doom from the Finnish national epic. It was written when he had mastered the art of large-scale movement in music more convincingly than that of concision, yet its 75 minutes never dragged here. In the third movement, in which Sibelius introduces voices, we had the Ylioppilaskunnan Laulajat Male Voice Choir, all the way from Helsinki, declaiming the story syllabically like four dozen bards, while the soprano Johanna Rusanen and baritone Tommi Hakala wrung every bit of drama out of the roles of Kullervo and his sister. Perhaps the fourth movement could have been snappier – it felt overly jolly in context – but the fifth was a properly dramatic conclusion, setting the seal on an evening of epic music.
San Francisco Ballet in London Roundup
The Royal Ballet is currently on tour in LA, California, which is funny since, just a month ago, we had a Californian company visit us here in London: San Francisco Ballet, returning after a 7-year gap. During SFB’s previous tour (2012) and later, at Les Etés de la Danse in Paris (2014), the company had captivated us with its athleticism and vast modern ballet repertory. It was no different this time around, with 12 new works made by some of the world’s most influential choreographers today, for example: Cathy Marston, Arthur Pita, Justin Peck, Alexei Ratmansky, and Christopher Wheeldon. While hoping SFB won’t wait another 7 years to return, here are my 6 favourite things from the tour:
1) #Ratmanskyness
We continue to be devoted Ratmansky fans, having been fortunate to catch so many of his works over the years. Emilia reported on the Shostakovich Trilogy when ABT premiered it in New York (2013) and I had also seen Piano Concerto #1 with SFB in Paris, and loved every single second of it: the two-tone unitards, the quick formation changes, the “wow” factor (I will never forget Maria Kochetkova cruising down the stage in a series of grand jetés). This time, it was my chance to see the trilogy as a whole and I feel Symphony #9 has now taken its place as my favourite work. As a direct musical response to the score, one can perceive darker undertones and a creeping sense of loss. The choreography is vivid, filled with details and images, and it was beautifully performed by the cast (Dores André, Joseph Walsh, Aaron Robison, Jennifer Stahl and Wei Wang).
Chamber Symphony is moody and introspective, and looked very different in the two performances I saw, both impactful: the first with Ulrik Birkkjaer, who recently spoke to us about this section of the trilogy, and later with Joseph Walsh in the central role. It tells us much about Shostakovich’s life and lovers, but it is a piece that invites multiple viewings and one that I would like to revisit.
2) Made in Italy
Angelo Greco and Carlo Di Lanno are two Italian dancers who have been promoted in the last few years. They both left a lasting impression. Easily the best part of Stanton Welch’s Bespoke was Greco’s silent opening where we saw him perform a classical solo full of fireworks. Di Lanno brought his beautiful line and jump to Ratmansky’s Piano Concerto #1 and was the perfect partner to Sofiane Sylve, here channeling a red Amazonian Queen. Greco also made a big case for “king of the double tour” in the same ballet.
Frances Chung and Angelo Greco in Let’s Begin at the End. Photo: © Erik Tomasson
3) Dores André
She’s my pick for SFB’s MVP during the London season. This Spanish-American ballerina was literally cast in every work I saw, always showcasing her steely technique and kick-a*s attitude. She is a natural for the company’s style: neoclassical pieces that demand athleticism, but also some degree of emotion. She was witty and determined in Ratmansky’s Symphony #9, seductive in Pita’s Björk Ballet and uber cool in the Justin Peck. Plus, she made a solid partnership with fellow principal Joseph Walsh.
Her performances here made me wonder what she would be like in narrative work. YouTube tells me she has done Juliet in Tomasson’s Romeo and Juliet, Swanilda in Balanchine’s Coppélia and Olga in Cranko’s Onegin. Also Salome in Arthur Pita’s work of the same name.
Dores Andre and Joseph Walsh in Justin Peck’s Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming. Photo: © Erik Tomasson
4) Björk Party
Speaking of Pita, I had been so disappointed with The Wind, which he choreographed for The Royal Ballet, that it is a huge relief to see him back at his most creative and having fun with the bonkers awesome Björk Ballet. Granted, this work might not be breaking any new ground, but that is not the point. It is seriously fun to watch and belongs in the same category as Wayne McGregor’s Carbon Life (Gig ballets? Rave ballets?). It also makes smart use of design, props, music and lighting to create a mood. When Pita throws a Pierrot-like character on a mirrored floor, while a pink-feathered ballerina struts down the stage, what’s not to like?
Sarah Van Patten and Nathaniel Remez in Arthur Pita’s Björk Ballet. Photo: © Erik Tomasson
5) Narrative bonus
Of all the ballets presented by SFB on this tour, only Cathy Marston’s Snowblind had elements of narrative. Based on the novel Ethan Frome, Marston focuses on the love triangle between Ethan, a farmer (Ulrik Birkkjaer), Zeena his wife (Jennifer Stahl), and his wife’s cousin, Mattie (Mathilde Froustey). The language is balletic, but owes a lot to contemporary dance, and even if some parts of the ballet can appear unclear to audiences unfamiliar with the story, the choreography makes room for these dancers to inhabit the characters. The final exchanges between the characters were powerful and Marston conveys the snowstorm that leads the ballet to its tragic conclusion with creativity and an effective sense of pace.
Mathilde Froustey, Ulrik Birkkjaer and Sarah Van Patten in Cathy Marston’s Snowblind. Photo: © Erik Tomasson
6) Justified HypeÂ
The adjectives “fresh” and “cool” are often used to describe Justin Peck’s ballets. I don’t disagree with these labels, but to me, the most interesting aspect of Peck’s Hurry Up We’re Dreaming is the fact that, despite being performed in sneakers (to a killer pop soundtrack by M83) , the language remains classical throughout. The positions are turned out, the upper body is lifted and two central pas de deux emerge amidst the various sections that also use a corps de ballet. Moreover, unlike many contemporary works out there, the piece had a point, it was not just dance for the sake of it. The ballet spoke of community and relationships, and had a sense of time and place. As the first song in the score tells us, Raconte-Moi Une Histoire.
Artists of San Francisco Ballet in Justin Peck’s Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming.
Photo: © Erik Tomasson
Matthias Hollwich on His Favorite Mountain Bike, Nature + More
Matthias Hollwich’s time at university was seminal, marked by his natural curiosity. He often wondered what it would be like to contribute to the creation of things that people actually use. Yet it was a summer program that changed his trajectory in a way he could have never imagined. After applying for the three-week course, and initially receiving a rejection, Hollwich convinced his professor to allow him to participate.
The classes in Venice, Italy were abstract and poetic, the antithesis of the traditional educational system in Germany, his home country. While most of his classmates spent time at the beach, Hollwich was working day and night in the studio on concepts and models, with guidance from guest instructor Ricardo Scofidio, partner at Diller Scofidio + Renfro. “He became my teacher, speaking about abstract ideas in architecture, challenging me to explore,” says Hollwich.
Just three weeks after Hollwich’s return from his sojourn, he received a phone call from Scofidi telling him to report for work at the New York-based firm (then Diller + Scofidio) in 48 hours. After additional stints at Eisenman Architects and OMA with Rem Koolhaas, Hollwich founded HWKN in 2008.
Hollwich and his team emphasize maximum human engagement, ecological innovation, and technological exploration, which includes artificial intelligence. Even with the current debate centered on AI, Hollwich is fascinated by all of the possibilities. How it may impact our lives – for better or worse – he can’t say. He is already using it to streamline everyday tasks, and is now focused on how it will shape his design process.
Not every aspect of the architect’s life is about a digital experience, however. The five acres upstate that he owns with his partner is a haven, reminiscent of the Heimat of his youth. “It is a place of untapped potential, but also of endless beauty,” Hollwich adds. “It is an ecology that was there before, and will be there for a million years to come.”
Today, Matthias Hollwich joins us for Friday Five!
Photo: Dado Ruvić; Reuters
I engage with ChatGPT to correct my grammar, provide some ideas, and reflect on the work I am doing. My appreciation for AI began in London about two years ago with tech professionals from major firms like Amazon, Google, and Apple. This meetup sparked my initial interest in AI, leading to more explorations of AI platforms and their abilities. I felt really driven by these personal explorations, and from there I’ve completely shifted my focus to integrating AI into my architectural practice. As wide as the concept goes, ChatGPT remains a loyal friend of sorts. It’s simple, practical, and gives me what I need on a daily basis.
Photo: Courtesy of vintage furniture dealer
This is my Ligne Roset sofa at home, and I love seeing it and sitting on it. What really gets me is the shape. It’s low to the ground and has these deep, cozy curves that make you want to sit down and never get up. It doesn’t have a traditional frame, so it almost feels like it molds to me. Plus, the quilted design with all those folds and pleats gives it such an inviting look. I love that it is both sophisticated and super comfortable, which isn’t always easy to find in a piece of furniture.
Photo: E. Callierotti
3. Raw Nature
The Drei Zinnen near Zillertal are the mountaintops that I remember best from my youth. They stand untouched by human hands, embodying a raw, unspoiled majesty that’s hard to find elsewhere. It’s this pure, natural splendor that has shaped my appreciation for the unaltered and the authentic. Nature reminds me of the importance of preserving beauty and experiencing it in its most unrefined form.
Photo: Courtesy of Expedition Portal
The ultimate fitness and commute combo, this is a bike I use to commute from work to home and everywhere else. It is incredibly reliable, offering a smooth and steady ride whether I’m on a busy road or a more challenging trail. It also turns a typical commute into an opportunity for exercise. Riding this bike not only gets me where I need to go but also helps me stay fit and energized. It’s very thoughtfully engineered and is designed to be both rugged and versatile, yet it maintains a lightweight feel that makes it easy to handle. The ergonomic design and adjustable features ensure that it fits comfortably, making every ride enjoyable.
Photo: Courtesy of Raise3D
The Raise3D printer is an essential tool for us at the office, bridging the gap between our digital designs and their physical manifestations. It translates our virtual concepts into real, three-dimensional objects, allowing us to see and touch what we’ve been working on in the digital realm. This printer helps us grasp the true potential and impact of our designs. By creating physical prototypes, we can evaluate their form, functionality, and overall effectiveness in a tangible way. It’s invaluable for testing ideas, making adjustments, and fully understanding how our work will translate into the real world.
Works by Matthias Hollwich:
Photo: Michael Moran
Wendy Wendy is an experiential installation by the architecture firm HWKN, created for the 2012 MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program. The project is a large-scale, interactive structure made of scaffolding covered in spiky blue fabric treated with titania nanoparticles. These nanoparticles enable the fabric to neutralize airborne pollutants, effectively purifying the air around the installation. Wendy serves multiple purposes: it is an architectural experiment, an environmental statement, and a social space for public interaction. The design challenges traditional notions of architecture by integrating ecological functionality with bold, unconventional aesthetics. The installation features various interactive elements, including misting nozzles, sound systems, and lights, making it a dynamic and engaging space for visitors. Its unique form and environmentally conscious design highlight the potential of architecture to address urban environmental issues creatively.
Photo: Klemens Renner
Die Macherei München Designed in partnership with the firms OSA Ochs Schmidhuber Architekten and Holger Meyer Architecture, Die Macherei München is the first LEED-GOLD neighborhood in Europe. The complex consists of six multi-purpose properties, three of which have been designed by HWKN, including the new hotel, Scandic München Macherei, and two office buildings. The Scandic München Macherei hotel features a rough, earthen-brown brick facade that appears to be in motion from a distance, with ripples across its surface. This main canyon leads to another office building and a public plaza, both clad in glossy, red-to-orange brick, reminiscent of Munich’s historic brick-making tradition, including those used in the Frauenkirche. A design breakthrough, the highly inviting complex transforms a once-barren, industrial area into a neighborhood that is welcoming, human, eventful, and filled with emotion.
Photo: Ty Cole
25 Kent HWKN designed 25 Kent from the outside in by choosing local forces, shifts within society, and the power of creativity as guiding principles. 25 Kent is a premier office building in Brooklyn, known for its distinct architecture and vibrant location in Williamsburg. Spanning 500,000 square feet, it features floor-to-ceiling windows, terraces on each level, and an activated rooftop. The building fosters a dynamic work environment with its blend of contextual design appearing like stacked warehouses, accessible location with an open canyon passing through the building, and abundant green spaces at the recessing volumes with waterfront access, making it a preferred destination for many companies.
Photo: Michael Moran
378 Broome St HWKN pioneered a distinctive approach for the boutique residential building at 378 Broome Street by combining hyper-modern aesthetics with a profound respect for the local context. The seven-story townhouse-type building displays a highly distinctive façade, with sandstone-colored brick, triangular-shaped uprights, and oversized windows. HWKN’s architectural approach blends contextual design with modern updates, adhering to its surroundings while embracing contemporary aesthetics. The inside consists of four spacious residences: two large duplex apartments with two single, full-floor apartments in between. Located in one of the city’s most sought-after neighborhoods, 378 Broome offers easy access to iconic restaurants, shops, and cultural landmarks, with major subway lines nearby.
Photo: Dor Kedmi
Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance Designed by New York firm HWKN and Tel Aviv-based practice HQ Architects, the new Advanced Inter-Arts Center building significantly expands this famed institution’s presence in Jerusalem. The Academy sought to confront a persistent programmatic flaw in its operation as a world-renowned and international institute of performing arts. While its curriculum is strong, the campus lacked a proper performance space or a stage of any kind. HWKN and HQ’s bold vision brought to life the new 2,500 m² building that sits adjacent to the original JAMD building. A contextual stone façade with a twist from HWKN now extends across the entire complex, creating curiosity while directing the flow of people into the welcoming buildings lobby.
The Paris Review – Hannah Arendt, Poet
Hannah Arendt, 1958. Photograph by Barbara Niggl Radloff. Münchner Stadtmuseum, Sammlung Fotografie. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
For a while there in the late nineties, it seemed to me like every other book of poetry that I flipped open in the bookstore was prefaced by an austere epigraph from the writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein. Plato, Rousseau, Nietzsche, Sartre, and Wittgenstein—for all their many differences—enjoy a special status as “poets’ philosophers” in the annals of literary history. Other lofty thinkers fly under poets’ collective radar; I have yet to come across a volume of verse prefaced by a quotation from David Hume. What makes some philosophers, and not others, into poets’ philosophers remains a mystery to me. But I’ve never really thought of Hannah Arendt as one of them.
Unemotional, anti-Romantic, and doggedly insistent on expunging unruly feelings from collective life, Arendt may seem to possess the least lyrical of temperaments, but a new volume of her poetry reveals that the author of sobering works like The Origins of Totalitarianism and The Human Condition was writing ardent and intimate verse in her off-hours. We’re pleased to feature Samantha Rose Hill’s new translation, with Genese Grill, of an untitled poem from Arendt’s manuscripts in our Fall 2024 issue.
Now housed in Arendt’s archive at the Library of Congress, the poem is dated to September 1947, six years after the philosopher’s arrival in the United States. Though she had by then settled on New York’s Upper West Side, Arendt reflects upon what she’d left behind on her life’s journey in this wistful poem:
This was the farewell:
Many friends came with us
And whoever did not come was no longer a friend.
The bracing conclusion of Arendt’s opening stanza lands with the impact of a practical realist’s rebuke to a sentimental fool: Friendship is companionship; therefore, whoever is not a companion cannot be considered a friend. (There’s something syllogistic to the philosopher’s adoption of tercets for this poem’s form.) In her introduction to What Remains: The Collected Poems of Hannah Arendt, which will be published later in December, Hill chronicles how Arendt’s notebook of poems accompanied her through a succession of farewells: when she fled Germany after her release from the Gestapo prison in Alexanderplatz in the spring of 1933; when she left her second life in Paris to report to the internment camp at Gurs seven years later; and when she escaped on foot and by bicycle to Lisbon, where she boarded the SS Guinee for Ellis Island on May 22, 1941. “This was the train: / Measuring the country in flight,” Arendt writes, “and slowing as it passed through many cities.”
From its melancholy opening to its bemused conclusion, Arendt’s poem reflects the emotional passage of many who leave home to take up residence in a foreign land. It begins as an aubade, or song of parting, and it ends with the enigma of arrival:
This is the arrival:
Bread is no longer called bread
and wine in a foreign language changes the conversation.
For the German speaker newly arrived in America, bread is no longer Brot. One irony of Arendt’s historical displacements lies in how her original German word for bread is now effaced by “bread” in the English translation. A further irony is to be found in the poem’s final line, where “a foreign language” intrudes on what would otherwise read: “and wine changes the conversation.” The essential purpose of wine—at a dinner party, for instance—is to change the conversation. But what is wine in a foreign language? When many of your dinner guests are, like you, serial émigrés who’ve fled Europe in the political wake of World War II, wine serves an additional purpose; anyone who’s found themselves a little more tipsily fluent at a dinner party abroad will understand how “wine in a foreign language changes the conversation.” Arendt made a home away from home for herself—and for others—in New York at 317 West Ninety-Fifth Street and, later, at 370 Riverside Drive, where she entertained fellow expatriates like Hermann Broch, Lotte Kohler, Helen and Kurt Wolff, Paul Tillich, and Hans Morgenthau. The slightly slanted rhyme of “Stadt” with “Gespräch” that concludes the poem in Arendt’s original German links the author’s mid-century Manhattan to the bonhomie of intellectual exchange; “city” sounds a little like “conversation” in the poet’s mother tongue.
Arendt’s poem, then, tells the story of her farewell to Europe and her arrival in the United States in a dozen lines of verse. But it’s also a self-aware work of art that quietly asserts its own place in the German poetic tradition—the bread and wine invoke the literary sacraments of Friedrich Hölderlin’s celebrated poem “Brod und Wein.” (“Bread is the fruit of the earth, yet it’s blessed also by light,” writes Hölderlin. “The pleasure of wine comes from the thundering god.”) German poetry, for Arendt, was a constant presence in both heart and mind. “I know a rather large part of German poetry by heart,” she said in a 1964 interview on German national television. “The poems are always somehow in the back of my mind.” She wrote her first poems when she was a teenager; some of these early literary efforts were addressed to her teacher—and lover—at the University of Marburg, Martin Heidegger. Those early love poems remained secret, like the affair that produced them, until after her death. Reading them now, we can see the intimate association of poetry and philosophy during this formative period in Arendt’s life. Yet her poems, unlike her philosophy, remained a private affair for Arendt to the end. We don’t know if she ever showed her poems to her close friends Robert Lowell, Randall Jarrell, and W. H. Auden in New York; to our knowledge, only her second husband, the poet and philosopher Heinrich Blücher, read her verse. The final poem to be found in the Library of Congress archive is labeled “January 1961, Evanston.” Its author was about to depart from a residency at Northwestern University to attend Adolf Eichmann’s trial in Jerusalem. What she saw there may have marked the end of poetry for Hannah Arendt.
Srikanth Reddy is the poetry editor of The Paris Review.
Museum of Wild and Newfangled Art Hosts New Online Biennial
This past year has taken a toll on in-person art events, to say the least. From galleries to museums to art fairs, experiencing live art seems to be a thing of the past and has unfortunately led to more struggling artists now more than ever.
But in a time full of darkness, there is a beacon of light for both art lovers and artists as The Museum of Wild and Newfangled Art (mowna) announces their new online Biennial, a museum born out of the pandemic and specifically designed for the digital age. Launching Friday, April 30, 2021, the show will run until September 22, 2021, and features an international pool of artists selected from 44 countries throughout the world.
Co-founders Cari Ann and Joey Zaza created this new online Biennial with the goal of supporting artists by not only showcasing their work, but also helping them make a living. In fact, 70% of the profits earned by the museum through membership sales, store sales, and ticket sales go directly to the artists!
The Museum spent the greater half of January and February selecting artists to participate in their new online Biennial and they are proud to announce they will be supporting over 100 artists on their digital platform with over 20 hours of content to be viewed from images, paintings, drawings, videos, fashion, sculptures, photography, and much more.
Co-founder Joey Zaza says “there’s nowhere else that you can see this collection of art, in this way. There are hours of artwork to explore, play with, and listen to, twenty-four hours a day.”
Featured works include “The Lockdown”, a VR sonic memory installation by Mana Saei, “Planes of resistance” an empathy experiment to explore the world from the vantage point of a black woman using autobiographical acrylic compositions and sound by Linda Rebeiz, a Lebanese-Senegalese artist living in Accra, Ghana, “ERRANDS”, a portrait series documenting our shared shelter-in-place experiences by Zachary Handler of Baltimore, Maryland who will perform 3 slots of portraits per week for the month of May to museum guests, first come, first serve. “Susan” is an interactive augmented/virtual reality and video sculpture web experience by Sue Roh, a Brooklyn-based Korean-American multimedia artist navigating the IRL and URL. “Black Man in America” is a film by Vance Brown and Justina Kamiel Grayman from New York, NY. An interactive new-media installation, “AuxeticBreath”, visualizes the rhythmic respiratory rate, as well as tidal volume of collective human breaths using soft robotics covered with auxetic structures by Hyejun Younof Salzburg, Austria. “PETSCII leaks” by ailadi, an Italian artist whose works have been viewed hundreds of millions of times, are a series of ASCII inspired gif comics. A series of experimental music videos from the opera “The Magic Hummingbird” by Joseph Martin Waters from San Diego, CA will also be shown.
To kick off the Biennial, mowna will host a special screening of the feature doc The Faithful: The King, The Pope, The Princess, by Annie Berman on April 30th at 9 pm Eastern Time. The opening event will also be followed by a Q&A and a first look at the entrance to the Biennial!
Tickets and museum memberships can be purchased on their website, https://www.mowna.org/.
About mowna
mowna seeks to create an ever changing, fun, thoughtful, beautifully designed space to encourage awareness and mindfulness through the exhibition and experience of art and serves the public’s need for art for the highest good of all. By addressing the current needs of not only the artist but also the audience, mowna is breaking barriers within the global art community.
mowna offers the preservation of artworks through an online collection that is an educational resource and archive for its members and its artists, and aims to find, display, and support wild and newfangled art through the incorporation of innovative new technologies and mediums. mowna provides artists with financial compensation for their art and expands awareness of their talents via a sustainable platform where they can flourish.
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Presenting the Winners of AcrylicWorks 11: The Best of Acrylic Competition
For more than a decade, the annual AcrylicWorks art competition has been recognizing the incredible skill and talent of today’s acrylic artists. In this 11th year of the competition, we were delighted to have painter Joe Gyurcsak serve as the Juror of Awards. Take a look at his selections for the top three awards and find out what it was about these works that caught his eye and earned his admiration. You can learn more about these three painters and see all 119 honored paintings in the publication The Best of Acrylic (Fall 2024), a special showcase that not only applauds artistic excellence but also celebrates a thriving acrylic community that just keeps getting stronger.
Grand Prizewinners
First Place
From the Juror
“Neighboring Field captured my attention early in the judging process. It sums up the definition of abstract realism in a single vision. The painting is an interpretation of a delicately coated winter landscape covered with frost in a carefully controlled and compress value structure. The subtilties of light conveyed in this majestic organic tapestry are impressive. When a painting can accomplish such a level of mastery, it’s well deserving of the highest honor.”
Second Place
From the Juror
“The painting, Unique, is the story of life. I see the spiritual light above shining on the leaves on a brilliantly lit day. As you view it, you realize that the leaves are decaying, a subtle reminder that life is also passing by. The overall graphic design is very strong. Even from a distance, the leaf patterns, shapes, varied sizes and colors are well positioned. The leaves are in a wonderful rhythmic dance, which adds to the overall abstract and organic sensitivity. The sky and tree trunks are keyed down in value, so the illumination of light on the leaves keeps the viewer totally engaged in this pictorial wonderment.”
Third Place
From the Juror
“This painting, Environment, achieves a meticulous balance, while exuding an intuitive feel. Its color harmony is calculated and sublime, radiating a Zen-like quality in its application. The interplay of counterbalance and division, punctuated by dark accents and delicate linear shapes, creates a compelling visual experience.”
Category Finalists
Honorable Mention Recipients
Mark Collins
Scott Coulter
Shawn Dixon
Margie Florini
Jill Haas
Marc Hanson
Chris Klein
Jeffrey Knick
Cher Pruys
Johannes Wessmark
Abstract & Experimental Category Finalists
Judy Anderson
Carolyn Reed Barritt
Linda Bell
Robert K. Carsten
Sally Cooper
Jeff Dillon
Mel Grunau
Linda Heath Clark
Kristin Herzog
Carolanne Jiang
Jane E. Jones
TaiMeng Lim
Lu Bo
Diana Madaras
Catie Radney
Mary Ann Scott Sedivy
Brenda Stichter
Mary Ellen Strack
Diana Toma
Zhang Wenlei
Kathy Sayad Zatari
Pet & Wildlife Category Finalists
J.M. Brodrick
David Dorsey
Esther van Hulsen
Bev Jozwiak
Reenie Kennedy
Tanya Lichinsky
Yael Maimon
Vickie McMillan-Hayes
Liz Park
Anne Peyton
Kate Pratt
Lise Racine
Michelle Reynolds
Donna Schimonitz
Frederick Szatkowski
Annie Troe
Ellen Frances Turcio
Weijiao Hu
Architecture & Urban Life Category Finalists
Jacynthe C. Artist
Robert B R Gratiot
John Jaster
Jeffrey Knick
Andrew McDermott
Claudia J Morgan
Thelma Simons
Nikki Travaglino
Michael Ward
Don Yaun
Still life & Floral Category Finalists
Beth Bouffard
Ron Craig
David Dorsey
Jess Firshein
John Jaster
Reenie Kennedy
Anton C. Kimball
Teodora Pecenica
Cher Pruys
Portrait & Figure Category Finalists
Dina Belyayeva
Vie Dunn-Harr
Matthew Alfonso Durante
Pamela Edevold
DebiLynn Fendley
Bryana Fleming
Robert B R Gratiot
Laurie Humble
Kathleen Kinkopf
Filip Kołat
Marissa Madonna
Dan Simoneau
Bai Song
Vilas Tonape
Land & Sea Category Finalists
Carol Borrett
Chantal Bourque
Suzana Bulatovic
Lil Clinard
Scott Coulter
Matthew J Cutter
Patrick Egger
Jody Futterman
Bob Gherardi
Evgeniya Goldobina
Marc R. Hanson
Rebecca Kiser
Aaron A. Lade
Susan Lucas
Bruce Makinney
Jey E. Moore
Lynn Neuman
Joe A. Oakes
Sam Paonessa
Sam Paonessa
Nancy Roberts
Margaret Roseman
Jennifer L. Sowders
Anda Styler
Megan Whitfield
Beyond the prizes and the glory, juried competitions provide artists with the motivation to work toward a goal, stretch themselves and aim beyond even their own expectations. The annual AcrylicWorks art competition offers a unique opportunity for acrylic enthusiasts to participate in a medium-specific competition with winners celebrated in this special, newsstand publication, The Best of Acrylic. Look for information and entry details about the next competition, AcrylicWorks 12, as well as Call for Entry announcements for all our fine art competitions here.
Just Stop Oil supporters deny damaging Vincent van Gogh Sunflowers paintings at National Gallery – Sky News
Just Stop Oil supporters deny damaging Vincent van Gogh Sunflowers paintings at National Gallery Sky News
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‘Saturday Night’ | Anatomy of a Scene
new video loaded: ‘Saturday Night’ | Anatomy of a Scene
transcript
transcript
‘Saturday Night’ | Anatomy of a Scene
The director Jason Reitman narrates a sequence from his film about the making of the first episode of “Saturday Night Live.”
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Hey, this is Jason Reitman. I’m the co-writer and director of “Saturday Night.” “O.K, let’s see if we can get through one of these skits.” “Sketches! Davey, please.” So what you’re seeing here is a scene from very early in the film. We’re getting introduced to characters left and right. And what we really wanted from the very beginning was a completely immersive experience. You’re watching a movie that is 90 minutes of real time, the 90 minutes leading to the first episode of “Saturday Night Live.” The last line we knew from the beginning it was going to be, “Live from New York, It’s Saturday Night.” “What’s the problem?” “What’s going on, Dan?” “It’s a little lodged.” And we’re seeing the rehearsal of a sketch with John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Dan Aykroyd and Garrett Morris. And we wanted to give the audience a pure adrenaline roller coaster ride of what it’s like to be there minute to minute as things are happening. And at the beginning, it’s going through the normal steps of trying to figure out blocking and camera work. And by the end, it’s obviously it’s a total catastrophe and it’s one of the many things that hopefully keeps you on the edge of your seat as you’re watching this film. And to do that, we needed to create a living, breathing set where every background actor was brought through a boot camp where they learned how to do their jobs, whether it was cable lighting, sound, and every actor was mic’d every single day. “I’m president of Trojan Horse Home Security.” “I’ve broken into your home tonight to illustrate to you and your family just how …” [LOUD CRASH] Boom! There goes the light boom. And this refers to something that’s actually happening that Lorne just kept requesting more and more lights. He was being demanding because he had never made television before. No one on that show had done television before. In order to create this kind of chaos on screen, what we found is that we actually had to choreograph this movie like a dance film. I’d have a giant white board like a football coach, and I would have to write plays for all the extras and background actors and crew just so everyone would know where to be. We were given this giant stage to create chaos every single day. And what continues to boggle my mind is that Lorne Michaels does this every Saturday. “I don’t guys. It was kind of exciting. Like, it’s probably good luck.”
Recent episodes in Anatomy of a Scene
Film directors walk viewers through one scene of their movies, showing the magic, motives and the mistakes from behind the camera.
Film directors walk viewers through one scene of their movies, showing the magic, motives and the mistakes from behind the camera.
Art Athina 2024: Highlights from Greece’s Annual Contemporary Art Fair
Moving beyond traditional mediums, we were particularly impressed by the work of Yiannis Stempilis and Olga Migliaressi-Phoca. Drawing on his background as a jewellery designer, Stempilis creates collage-like artworks from various metal sheets, including zinc, bronze, copper, and brass, which he carves, oxidizes, and sometimes burns. As even the slightest mistake can be catastrophic, each piece requires at least two months to complete. This is exemplified by his work “Three Metals and the Blue Caribbean Girl”, showcased at Αrt Zone 42‘s booth, where the figure of a woman is meticulously formed by stamping countless points onto the metal sheets.
At The Breeder’s space, the mirrored artworks of Olga Migliaressi-Phoca captivated visitors with their large-scale dimensions, ever-changing reflections, and caustic humour—playfully riffing on VOGUE magazine covers as part of her 12-piece installation “The Future is Vague / 2023”. Meticulously crafted through a labour-intensive process involving bleaching, scratching, and painting, these fictional covers critically examine consumer desire, surveillance, and the challenges of self-definition in isolation, revealing the profound impact of commercial influences on our perceptions. Complementing Migliaressi-Phoca’s work were sculptural pieces by Panos Profitis, this year’s recipient of the Art Athina’s Emerging Artist Award.
Additional artists working with unconventional materials who struck a chord include Maria Efstathiou, whose porcelain series of paper-thin panels incredibly resemble creased or folded pieces of paper (Eleftheria Tseliou Gallery),and Christina Mitrentse, who used vintage books to create her “Fungi Classification” tableau and fungi-shaped stools (CITRONNE Gallery).
We also singled out artist duo Kalos&Klio, whose “On the Tapis” series of handwoven rugs and textiles (Kalfayan Galleries) intertwines global socio-political themes, ancient archetypes, and modern symbols to explore issues of oppression and freedom, and Brazilian artist Vik Muniz’s kaleidoscopic collage “Women on the Bank of the Seine, after Courbet, after Picasso” (XIPPAS). A homage to Picasso’s famous painting, and part of his “Surfaces” series, Muniz’s work was composed of multiple layers of photographic images of painted surfaces, prompting viewers to question their relationship with art in an era dominated by digital mediation.
artphotocollector: Sunset on the Serengeti… Where I want to…
Sunset on the Serengeti…
Where I want to be…
How ‘Discoshow’ Spun Las Vegas Into Funkytown
Revisiting 1970s New York, a new theatrical experience is one history lesson that’s all about the good times.
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