Gallery brings fall colors to Palo Alto with painter’s new show – The Almanac Online
Gallery brings fall colors to Palo Alto with painter’s new show The Almanac Online
Source link
‘Chaos is great. This time it went over the top’: Andrea Arnold and Robbie Ryan on 21 years of film and friendship | Andrea Arnold
Andrea Arnold and Robbie Ryan take the corner table at their favourite Soho cafe. The director and cinematographer have loved this greasy-spoon joint for years. It’s an ungentrified throwback, a slice of old London, serving big mugs of coffee and double helpings of spuds. Arnold points at the menu. “Look at this, mash and chips. That’s my idea of heaven.”
The pair first worked together more than two decades ago, when Arnold was making her Oscar-winning short, Wasp. The film’s opening shot required Ryan to run backwards down a steep flight of stairs while keeping the lead actor in frame. Most camera operators would have balked at the task, but he relished it – and they’ve been working that way ever since. He scrolls through his phone for a photo from the set of 2011’s Wuthering Heights. It shows him filming backwards again, this time on a horse. “I don’t know if I’d be allowed to do that now,” he says. “But this was up in Yorkshire. They’re a bit more lax there.”
Film-making, they feel, has become risk averse. The wild ways are endangered. Health and safety concerns rule the roost. Arnold’s features – Red Road, Fish Tank, Wuthering Heights, American Honey – are fuelled by a restless, freewheeling spirit. They throw untrained actors against real-world locations and conjure scattershot poetry from the prose of dirty, humdrum life. But her latest work, Bird, became a nightmare of sharp turns. The shoot was beset by bureaucracy: by permits and release forms and various reversals of fortune that she is not keen to discuss. “Lots of problems,” says Ryan. “Lots of plates spinning. Usually chaos is great. But this time it went a bit over the top.”
Partly that’s the job, Arnold says. It’s the nature of the beast. “You win some, you lose some. But on this I kept losing things.” She peers again at the menu; her eyesight has played tricks. “Mash or chips,” she says. “That isn’t half so exciting.”
Bird might not be the dish that she ordered, but it’s a joyous film: a work of fragile, grubby glory; big-hearted and full of life as it scoots alongside 12-year-old Bailey (newcomer Nykiya Adams) and her scallywag dad (Barry Keoghan). Arnold’s tale moves from the low-rise estates of north Kent to the scrubland beyond town, and from punchy social realism into mysticism and magic. Bailey needs a friend and eventually finds one in Bird (Franz Rogowski), a spooky visitor from out of town who materialises in the meadow like Puck of Pook’s Hill. “I come from here, but I have little memory of it,” he tells her. He’s in search of his father, the elusive link to his past.
Much like Bird, the film returns Arnold to her roots. She was raised in north Kent, the eldest child of a single mum. But she was also like Bailey: a wild kid on the prowl. “The estate where we filmed felt very like my childhood,” she says. “I grew up in Dartford, which is changing now because people have realised it’s not that far from London. I used to go to the Dartford show with my mum, which was the wildest, most unhinged event in the country. Everyone drunk, lots of lairy characters, fights everywhere you looked. It was like the wild west. I went back a few years ago and it’s all vegan burgers. Fenced off and tidy. It just wasn’t the same.”
Her film-making, though, has always been personal. Her private life remains private; the work itself is her statement. “But I heard something the other day that was like an equation. It said that pain into art is freedom. It was really hard to make Bird, but something about it was liberating. That sounds weird, because it felt so tough at the time – practically, physically and emotionally. But pain into art means freedom. I like that explanation.”
Her career is one of giant leaps. Critics like to cite Arnold’s humble early gigs – first as a dancer on Top of the Pops, then as the roller-skating TV presenter on Saturday morning kids show No. 73 – and marvel at how far she’s come. But the biggest jump was from Dartford to London, from a Kent council house to a job on kids’ telly.
“I was 18,” she says. “I’d left home and had nowhere to live. I was really struggling. I’d had a big argument with my boyfriend and almost didn’t go to the audition [for No. 73]. I didn’t think I’d get it. Suddenly, I was earning really good money. And in those days you got per diems as well. I used to live off the per diems and put the money I earned in the bank. So I was supporting myself. That was life-changing.”
She made another leap in her 20s by starting to write scripts. She devised A Beetle Called Derek, an environmental magazine show named after a bloke back in Kent, which featured Benjamin Zephaniah. “My mum went out with a guy called Derek. He worked as a welder and he was the best fighter in Dartford. One day he said to me, ‘I’m feeling upset because I keep using these aerosol cans and they’re affecting the ozone layer.’ And I was touched by that. I thought, blimey, maybe I can make a series that explains science and the environment in really simple terms.” The money she earned from it paid her way through film school.
Ryan hasn’t done too badly either. He was just starting out when he collaborated with Arnold on Wasp. Now he’s arguably the industry’s most sought-after cinematographer. He’s worked with Noah Baumbach and Ken Loach; he shot Yorgos Lanthimos’s Kinds of Kindness and Poor Things. “Fuck you, you traitor,” Arnold says – but she’s joking; she’s delighted. Every time she makes a new film, she worries Ryan might not be available. So far he has always come back.
It’s more than loyalty, Ryan says. The relationship is his foundation. “I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Andrea.”
“I reckon he’d be fine,” she says. “You undersell yourself. He might be a slightly different version of where he is now, but only slightly.”
Ryan has ordered another round of coffees. He says: “I’m glad it’s this version. I’ve had more fun with this version.”
The problem is, Arnold’s films take so long to make. Years of writing and raising money. Months of painstaking editing. But a great cinematographer can bounce from one paying gig to the next. It’s a good life, Ryan says. He’s just finished work on Lanthimos’s next film, while living out of a houseboat in Henley, a five-minute walk from the set. “I like working. And I like the challenge of shooting different kinds of films. I’ve only had one occasion where I really haven’t enjoyed it.”
“Don’t say that,” Arnold says. “Now we’ll be looking through your credits, trying to work out what it was.”
Have we covered the movies? How about a new topic? Ryan says that music has always been a big part of their friendship. They mostly share the same tastes. Tomorrow night, it transpires, they’re both DJ’ing, at different venues. Ryan has a regular monthly gig with a mate, playing what he calls “the golden triangle – funk, soul and reggae”. Across town, Arnold is booked for her daughter’s 30th birthday party. It’s a lot of pressure, she says.
“I’ve made a playlist. Actually I’ve made three playlists. I’m going to read the room and then decide which one to go with.”
She pulls out her phone and plays a recent song that she likes. It’s by Lova Lova, a Congolese rapper. The video shows him barrelling around the parched streets of Kinshasa, from the lock-up garages to the market stalls, bathed in African sunshine and sideswiped by pale dust. Arnold adores it. She says, “Look at that video. I want to make a film like this.” From Dartford to London to the Democratic Republic of Congo. It’s been a life of great leaps. She may yet take some more.
Austa Restaurant: Reviving Algarve’s Artisanal Roots Through Contemporary Design
Custom-designed furniture pieces in Austa further amplify the connection to local craftsmanship. Tables and stools, crafted by local artisans using stone and wood, pay homage to the rugged beauty of the Atlantic coast and the skilled hands that shape the region’s materials. The addition of Studio Gameiro’s own Alumina Chairs, made from brushed aluminum, introduces a modern counterpoint to the otherwise natural material palette, emphasizing a balance between tradition and contemporary design.
During their exploration of local crafts, Studio Gameiro discovered the region’s historic connection to copper, a material that has been used in the Algarve since Roman times. Inspired by the art of crafting copper cataplana pans, the studio designed a series of nine copper light pendants that hover above the long dining tables. These pendants, with their shell-like forms, create a warm, moody ambiance that adds to the restaurant’s inviting atmosphere while paying homage to the area’s metallurgical heritage.
“…To be a human being may be a…
“…To be a human being may be a very messy thing, but to be an artist is something else entirely, because art is religion, art is sex, art is society. Art is everything.” Lucas Samaras
Lucas Samaras’s art has always mystified me. Although I am a late convert to his work, I recognize the passion and energy when I see it. The constant striving. The ongoing pursuit of beauty. The relentless creation.
Along with his drive, there’s a psychological depth to his work and an intense self-awareness that I find irresistibly disturbing, and often scary. Lucas Samaras is playing for keeps.
His latest (and thirty-third) exhibit, XYZ, opened today at Pace gallery. For the uninitiated, here’s a fascinating trailer from a forthcoming documentary about his life, along with an excellent interview by his longtime friend and dealer, Arne Glimcher. –Lane Nevares
Lucas Samaras, (1936-2024), RIP.
“…Art is everything.”
Tickets Already Selling Strongly for 13th Annual Robeson County Christmas Show Opens December 6 at Carolina Civic Center Historic Theater – BladenOnline.com
Tickets Already Selling Strongly for 13th Annual Robeson County Christmas Show Opens December 6 at Carolina Civic Center Historic Theater BladenOnline.com
Source link
Faculty express dissatisfaction as budget cuts result in removal of Lydian String Quartet, and receive admissions updates
At 2:00 pm on Oct. 18, the Brandeis faculty met in Rapaporte Treasure Hall for their monthly meeting. The meeting opened with Chair of the Faculty Senate Prof. Jeffrey Lenowitz (POL) giving a welcoming address, informing the staff of a change in timing of the next meeting in order to be able to accommodate an address from Interim President Arthur Levine, Ph.D. ’70. Additionally Lenowitz stated “Though leadership is changing at the University, the structural problems are not. So to this end, I want to assure you all that the senate remains dedicated to working with the administration to ensure that these are addressed in a manner that safeguards faculty interests.” He also discussed future plans to hear and address faculty concerns such as a survey and small group meetings.
The floor was then ceded to the Dean of Admissions, Jennifer Walker. Walker presented data on the new freshman class, as well as future recruitment plans. She began by providing context for the past 10 fiscal years, starting with FY’16. Following COVID-19, enrollment dropped, with 750 students joining the Brandeis community in the fall of 2021. In the past 10 years shown, the only year that had lower enrollment than that was the fall of 2024 with 738 students, a stark contrast to two years ago with a matriculating class of 980. Walker explained that following the dip in enrollment during Covid, Admissions was tasked with working on gaining larger classes for the next two years in order to round out the size of the total undergraduate population.
Walker then expressed changes in the market, meaning that trends supported the idea that public institutions were becoming more favorable than private for many students, bringing some public schools into Brandeis’ “competitor set,” which has generally been private schools in the past.
She went on to relate this to the U.S. News and World Report ranking system, which has recently changed, now utilizing an algorithm that favors public schools. At its peak, Brandeis University was ranked 35 but has dropped down to tie with many other schools for 63 following these algorithm changes. Walker also outlined that admissions teams from across the country have seen a general increase in the number of schools that high school students are applying to since the pandemic, with 28% now applying to 10 or more institutions. This increase has caused challenges when deciding who to admit, as it is harder to tell which students are the most likely to choose to attend Brandeis.
Walker then detailed the statistics of the first year class, something that has generated much conversation since the elimination of affirmative action this past year. She shared that 48% of domestic first-year students are students of color, that these students come from 36 states and 29 countries and that the majority of them attended public high schools. Walker then went on to discuss the transfer class, this year’s being the largest in the University’s history with 83 students. Her guess was that all institutions across higher education have seen “a bit of a mass reshuffling,” and explained that 83 is twice the target of 40. Walker also shared that the outgoing students were 60 students beyond what they had anticipated, with a total of 120 students leaving Brandeis following last academic year.
Walker addressed the question of whether or not these enrollment deficits are specific to just Brandeis. She answered with the phrase “no, but,” meaning that while the issue is not exclusive to the University, that doesn’t mean that it isn’t an area of concern. She addressed that the amount of students bound for college is “shrinking,” as well as the amount of college bound students in households with combined incomes of over $250,000. Walker expressed concerns about a drastic decline in applications from China over the past year. She explained that this is an issue in admissions because this applicant pool often fills many of the early decision admissions seats, as well as having a high general yield rate.
In order to solve some of these concerns, the University is creating a division of Enrollment Management. Additionally, they have shortened the information session and slightly lengthened the campus tour route to include entering more buildings. Admissions is also requesting specific cosmetic campus improvements specifically along the tour route seen by prospective students. They are working with an outside vendor regarding flexibility and prices and how Brandeis can optimize its financial aid. Budget dollars have also been relocated towards increasing digital marketing campaigns and stronger messaging regarding Brandeis’ guarantee of need-based aid will be pushed moving forward.
Additionally, Walker shared that faculty will be added back into admissions programming following their removal due to lack of participation on the weekends, without pay and without childcare incentives. Admissions is going to add back the faculty fair to admitted students days, allowing potential students to meet with faculty from each department and learn about course offerings and research opportunities. This is in addition to the current Fall for Brandeis days taught by faculty and virtual panels.
Walker also spoke to faculty regarding the need for good news and good press, calling upon them to share the positive things that are happening such as receiving grants or outstanding students. She asked everyone to “please say yes” when it comes to asks like being a part of videos, recordings and events. The ultimate goal of this positive media is to create a balance of five positive pieces of news media for every one negative, according to the new Vice President of Communications.
Following Walker’s presentation, University Provost Carol Fierke began her presentation by acknowledging the large amount of change that has taken place over the last year. She also spoke on the financial challenges currently being faced by the University, stating that the University has “taken a number of measures to cut costs.” Fierke explained that it would not be appropriate to lay out any concrete plans in the middle of this leadership transition.
Fierke called on the faculty for help regarding increasing revenue, stating that the most helpful thing they can do is to “recruit or retain one student.” Fierke explained that what is known to be the strongest part of Brandeis is the faculty and the academic offerings. She then highlighted the weaknesses of the University, stating “our campus infrastructure, physically, facilities are not competitive with peer institutions.” Fierke also explained that many students find the campus lacking in social options.
Fierke echoed Walker’s sentiment, explaining that Brandeis has not spent a lot of money on marketing, explaining that soon to be President Levine will lead a division of Enrollment Marketing that he plans to establish. She highlighted the joint marketing campaign that all graduate programs have worked on together in addition to the increase in undergraduate marketing.
Fierke discussed potential remedies for the issues previously discussed, including the plans for a new residence hall and general reorganization of residential life. This discussion also included the possibility of living learning communities, something that faculty would be involved in. Additionally, Fierke mentioned that the building of a new air conditioned residential building could lead to an increase in summer programming, which would increase revenue.
Parents have called for more career services for students, an area Fierke hopes to improve upon as well as increasing marketing regarding the Hiatt Career Center. She adds that she has had conversations with Dean of Arts and Sciences Jeffrey Shoulson regarding what a potential cooperative education program at Brandeis would look like.
During her address, Fierke discussed the potential of adding first year seminars back into the core curriculum, in order to encourage meaningful relationships for students with tenure and tenure track faculty. Fierke shared that there were higher yields in last year’s admissions cycle for students who were involved in the Quantitative Biology Research Community and Humanities fellowship programs, and divisions such as the creative arts and business are considering implementing similar programs.
Following Fierke, Shoulson and Senior Assistant Provost Joel Christensen discuss faculty hiring and contracts. Shoulsen explained that due to limitations such as tenured faculty, the primary way to comply with budget restrictions is to review contracts once they are up for renewal and decide if the positions are still necessary or if they can be eliminated “in order to meet those budget expectations.”
Christensen shared that this year there were 25 OTS contracts up for renewal, and each of these positions were closely examined. “We didn’t find very many places that we could eliminate without significantly damaging undergraduate programming that we offer to our students, ”Shoulson explained. He adds that while he was not eager, they decided not to renew the contracts of the Lydian faculty, stating that it is “a savings of around $275,000 a year annually, and in order to reach that savings we would have to eliminate two to three OTS positions in some of the other programs.”
Christensen then explained that the process required all faculty who are not being renewed to be notified by Oct. 1, and explained that they have been working on figuring out how to comply with these new budget guidelines since February. This process includes looking at everything, from contracted hires to projected retirement plans. He explained that this is an ongoing process over multiple years, but stated “if anyone is up for reappointment now, you’re fine.”
The floor was then opened for questions, and multiple faculty members stepped forward in order to express their dissatisfaction regarding the elimination of the Lydian String Quartet. Head of the Music Department Prof. Yu-Hui Chang (MUS) took to the stand to express her anger as “a quarter” of her current faculty will be gone next year. She stated “I have to publicly question the wisdom of this kind of decision making,” following up by expressing that “[she feels] like this administration has greatly underestimated the value of the music department and what the department has done for Brandeis.”
Chang went on to describe what she believes is the purpose of the music department: “We are here to group everybody together. We are also a very public facing department. So what we do is be seen by hundreds and thousands of people.” She then discussed the prior presentations of the day, highlighting the importance that was placed on admissions. She explained that if members of the administration are so concerned about the Brandeis reputation, they should “stop making decisions that damage our reputation.”
The Lydian String Quartet was founded in 1980, becoming a staple of the Brandeis music program for the past 44 years. The current members are Prof. Joshua Gordon (MUS) who plays the cello, Prof. Julia Glenn (MUS) and Prof. Clara Lyon (MUS) who play the violin and Prof. Mark Berger (MUS) who plays the viola. Many artists have played with the quartet since its formation, with Lyon, a three-time Grammy nominated artist and the newest member, joining the group in September of 2024, less than a month prior to the announcement that the quartet will be dissolved.
According to the Lydian website, at the formation of the group, “the quartet studied repertoire with Robert Koff, a founding member of the Juilliard String Quartet who had joined the Brandeis faculty in 1958.” The group has gone on to perform all over the United States and in many different countries abroad in addition to performances at Brandeis. According to their website, “From the acknowledged masterpieces of the classical, romantic, and modern eras to the remarkable compositions written by today’s cutting edge composers, the quartet approaches music-making with a sense of exploration and personal expression that is timeless.”
In addition to the quartet, the Lydian faculty work with Brandeis students. Chang spoke with The Justice on Oct. 19, detailing how her department will be affected by this loss. She began her statement by detailing “On 9/30, I was informed that both the Lydian and another member of my department will not have their contracts renewed next year, and that they planned to notify them the next day. I was asked not to discuss the matter with these faculty beforehand. As this is a 25% faculty reduction to our department (or more than 33% if you count the number of faculty), it means my department is disproportionately shouldering the school’s financial burden when the upper administrators’ goal was to reduce the faculty by 8% campus-wide.”
Chang then continued on to discuss the state of the music department in general, explaining “this is not to mention all the other losses we’ve had to deal with, including the freeze of our doctoral programs, and the loss of our concert production staff that we desperately need to function. At this moment the department still doesn’t know how we can handle the aftermath of this cut, as the Lydian is an integral part of our department’s programs and much more.” The Lydian plays a large part in the marketing of the Brandeis music department. Chang concluded her statement by saying “Given the Lydian’s national reputation, we dread the negative impact this will bring to Brandeis’ already tarnished public image.”
In a statement shared with The Justice on Oct. 21, members of the quartet shared the sentiment that this was as unexpected to them as Chang. Their statement began “On September 30 we were given 24 hours’ notice of a zoom meeting with Provost Carol A. Fierke and Senior Assistant Provost Joel Christensen, where we were informed that Brandeis University will not be renewing the contracts for the Lydian String Quartet. We are shocked and saddened by this decision, which will have a devastating impact on the arts culture of Brandeis and the quality of arts education for students.”
The quartet also chose to emphasize the impact that they have on the Brandeis community, stating “For more than 40 years, the Lydian Quartet has been the core music performance faculty at Brandeis, but our impact on the students reaches far beyond the lessons and chamber music coachings we provide.” In addition to class time, the Lydian has a larger reach in the department. They explained “As faculty members of the music department, we provide music major track advising, oversight of the Leonard Bernstein Fellows, administration of major gifts to the university (the Henri Lazarof Living Legacy, the Irving Fine Tribute Concert fund, the Lydian Quartet Commission Prize), and professional performances of Brandeis student compositions, as well as music major required course offerings and electives.”
Emphasizing Chang’s statement regarding the overall struggles of the music department and other additional losses, they stated “In this most recent round of cuts, which we were told are for purely budgetary reasons and had nothing to do with our performance or contributions to the university, the music department is being disproportionately gutted, eliminating 25% of the music faculty with no plans for replacement.” The quartet then went on to explain “This follows one year after the attempt to eliminate our PhD programs in musicology and composition, and continues a trend from a previous administration’s notorious attempt to sell off the Rose Art Museum’s collection.”
The members of the group emphasized to The Justice that their group has an integral role in the history of the University. They stated “The Lydian Quartet is intimately tied up in the storied history of Brandeis, and we have embraced our role as artistic ambassadors with gusto, performing concerts around the globe, publishing over 30 studio albums, performing masterclasses and outreach wherever we travel, and making Brandeis a cultural destination for the Boston area music scene through our concert series on campus.” The members then went on to explain the effect that this decision will have on the overall music department, stating “The Lydian Quartet is a cultural jewel for Brandeis, a unique partnership that sets our university apart from other institutions. This decision to end the legacy of the Lydian Quartet is a huge blow to the culture and history of Brandeis, and will have devastating ramifications for the music department, whose rich history stretches back to the beginning when Leonard Bernstein and Irving Fine were faculty members.”
The quartet then concluded their statement with a call to action to members of the University community, stating “We hope the greater Brandeis community of students, faculty, alumni, award recipients, donors, and other friends and supporters will call upon the Brandeis administration to reverse this shortsighted decision.”
The faculty meeting concluded following statements of unhappiness and uncertainty from the faculty following these four speakers. The financial state of the University is still up in the air following the recent announcement regarding leadership transitions.
Angel Corella opens up about his new Le…
Philadelphia Ballet opens the second year of its 60th anniversary season with a revamped production of Le Corsaire, and artistic director Angel Corella says plenty of changes are on deck for the story (more on that below). I was glad to hear it, but as I sat down with Corella to talk about his decade at the helm, I wanted to learn more about his journey as a leader and a choreographer.
Despite its glamor and glitz, the company had fallen into financial disaster in the past, and in 2014 it was on the downslide again. It needed an artistic director who could bring the excitement back to the stage and the donors back to their checkbooks. “We needed fresh blood,” board chair David Hoffman told me in in 2020, “and Angel was a star of his generation in dance. [He] remembers every part of every ballet he’s ever been in or seen, and he is a tremendous teacher.”
“You can’t please everyone”
For Corella, the Philadelphia Ballet seemed a perfect match: he knew the company and had visited it regularly when his sister, Carmen, danced here. But changing a company’s direction is never easy. While Corella charmed donors, there was trouble behind the scenes. In his 20-year career, he said he’d never experienced that kind of rejection.
“I even heard from one of the dancers, ‘we will get rid of you the same way that we got rid of [former director Kaiser] Roy,’ so I was like, ‘ooow. That’s a little bit much!” In hindsight, Corella admits, “I was kind of naïve.” He’s a people pleaser by nature, he said, and “it was really difficult for me to understand that you can’t please everyone.”
Ten years later
Since that contentious beginning, Corella has turned the company around with vivid dancing in a mix of newer works, lots more classical story ballets, and enough Balanchine to tie the company back to its roots. But he said that his own greatest talent is recognizing it in others: not just his dancers, but also Brazilian artist Juliano Nunes, who served as the ballet’s resident choreographer for two seasons beginning in 2021. “To be able to see the talent so clearly, so quick, that was great,” Corella remembered, plus “being able to grab him before everyone else.”
And he’s proud of his 2023 Carmen, which was a turning point for him. After the 2021 performance of his Landscaping the Mist at the Performance Garage (the company’s soft return thanks to Covid vaccine rollout), he said that he’d created the piece because they had a hole to fill in the program. He was more comfortable staging the classical ballets and didn’t consider himself a “real” choreographer. Now, with a full-length story ballet of his own and another major piece, Bolero, set for the spring, he says, “I have to eat my words now. I surprised myself.”
Ballet in the pandemic
In March of 2020, the company was in the middle of its run of Bayadère
when the order came to shut down the theaters. It was dancer Nayara Lopes’s first time doing the show. “I remember very clearly because she started to cry,” Corella said. “She had been working so hard and she was ready to do it, and we had to say we’re not performing tonight.”
When everyone realized that the Covid shutdowns would last more than a week or two, the company pivoted to at-home and digital. “It was crazy,” he told me. “You might see a dancer jumping and doing turns a la second [a turn with the leg extended] over the sofa, like, literally brushing the sofa. Nick Patterson was doing a double tour, and he hit his head on the ceiling, and I was like, oh my God, they’re going to kill themselves! And he was like, ‘I’m okay, I’m okay, I’m okay.’ Just be careful, okay? Measure where you are!”
The company stayed in the public eye with past performances on video and a series of digital performances, created with the dancers in those well-remembered pods for safety and recorded at the Performance Garage. But years of plans for a new building were on hold again, and efforts long in the works to tour the company abroad evaporated. Then, on the advice of a marketing company, the ballet chose that moment to rebrand itself, changing its name from the Pennsylvania Ballet to the Philadelphia Ballet. (The switch drew a mixed response in the dance world.)
Work-life balance
Some challenges have been joyful, even in a pandemic. Four years ago, Corella and company dancer and choreographer Russell Ducker were married. (We’ll be seeing Ducker’s choreography in Dance Card later this season.) The couple has been together for more than 17 years, with a house in the burbs and a dog. Still, Corella is sensitive to navigating the professional part of the relationship in the public eye. Sometimes, he said, “I balance it out in the wrong way, because he’s my partner, and sometimes I don’t give him as many opportunities as he deserves, because I don’t want people to feel that I’m [showing] favoritism.” The company is a low-drama environment these days, he said, with lots of couples among the principal dancers.
The future of Philadelphia Ballet
Corella’s new take on Le Corsaire (running October 18-26, 2024 at the Academy of Music) opens the season. It’s a complete revamp of the story that keeps the fun of the fantastical 19th-century ballet but jettisons many of the bits that made us wince (here’s my review of Corella’s 2017 version). Lankedem is now arranging a wealthy marriage for his sister Medora, who is smitten with the pirate Conrad. So there will still be rollicking pirates and close escapes and swoony duets. The faithful servant Ali will doubtless steal Act 2, but no villains will be bowing to Mecca. And according to Corella, the new story is easier to follow.
As for the future, Corella is looking forward to the company’s new building on North Broad. It has been on the drawing board since 2007, but changing plans and finances left the space a vacant lot until this year. During the pandemic, however, the need for the added space became painfully clear, and construction is now underway. And the company is once again putting out feelers for international touring: there’s been interest in Carmen.
Corella has another hope for the future. He has his eye on productions we haven’t seen here, like Onegin, or Manon or The Merry Widow, but he’s having a hard time making that happen. Some are expensive, and the marketing department worries that they are not as well known. The company increasingly relies on the classic story ballets to bring in audiences, but much as we love them, we can weary of a constant diet of Cinderella or even Giselle. The point of bringing Corella on board was to shake things up, and hopefully the donors—and the audiences—will step up to let him do it again.
Growing pains: how will London house 1.5 million more people by 2030? | Architecture
Walking past a soggy piece of A4 paper, crumpled among cigarette butts and dog urine at the bottom of a lamp-post, is the closest most people come to any interaction with the British planning system. The nosy might stop to uncurl the wind-battered notice, jot down the reference number and look up the application online, where, once they have navigated pages of documents, they might be lucky enough to download a file that shows what is being proposed – if they can decode architectural drawings, that is.
For those who aren’t prepared to go to such lengths, the first warning that a 40-storey tower is being built at the end of their street often comes in the shape of the tower itself.
The opacity of the planning system has long fostered a destructively combative culture on both sides of the building site fence. Developers go to increasing lengths to obscure the reality of proposals, organising token “consultation” sessions at times when few apart from the retired can attend, and concealing their calculations in pages of viability assessments. Opposition groups, meanwhile, have become ever more militant in their attacks on the developers, staging marches, protests and public meetings with the crazed fervour of a lynch mob.
Communities understandably feel cut out and disenfranchised from the shaping of their cities as the march of luxury flats continues, and developers feel they’re being held over a barrel, forever cast as villains while being forced to contribute to local authority coffers over and above what they deem fair. And with resources stretched to breaking point, councils are resorting to similar measures, as if to say “we’re not guilty, we’re being forced to do it”.
In Hackney, east London, a bold hoarding erected around an estate regeneration project declares: “28 new council homes for social renting, 39 for shared ownership and eight for private sale to help pay for them all in the absence of government funding”.
It is an unprecedented statement for a local authority to make, joined a little further south by another council-sponsored billboard warning of “A dark future for Shoreditch”. With big black and red letters giving it the look of a horror movie poster, it outlines exactly why the borough is opposed to controversial plans to develop the Bishopsgate Goods Yard, which could be the site for a cluster of 12 buildings of up to 47 storeys, where one-bed flats are likely to go for more than £1m.
“We’ve had the decision taken away from us,” proclaims the poster, in reference to the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, calling in the project to decide for himself, “but it’s not too late for you to have your say.”
Perhaps people could have had their say a little earlier, rather than the developer wasting millions on professional fees and the council now spending taxpayers’ money on a campaign to stop the project so far down the line – if they had been allowed to have input before the designs were already fixed.
These issues are the nub of a new report produced by the mayor’s Design Advisory Group, an independent body of experts from across the architecture, planning and property sectors, on tackling London’s growth up to 2030 – by which time an extra 1.5 million people will need to have been accommodated in the capital. Unlike the pages of generic platitudes that usually emerge from such groups, Growing London is a breath of fresh air, addressing longstanding flaws in the development system and weaknesses of the London Plan with commonsense recommendations that any new mayor would do well to take up.
The report is ambitiously broad in scope ranging from rethinking density and policy for tall buildings to how suburbia could be intensified, and the need for better understanding of the total lifetime maintenance costs of new buildings. There are good recommendations on breaking up large parcels of publicly owned land into smaller development sites, to give smaller house-builders a look-in, and on encouraging local authorities to share expertise in leading development projects themselves. There is important advice about measuring the qualitative impact of planning policies, given the strange new urban forms often spawned in a developer’s vain effort to tick all the boxes.
The most important thrust of the report, which should be embraced by the next administration, is about finally cracking open the byzantine development process in London, laying it out under the spotlight for all to see. For one thing, it advises that the feeble A4 planning notice should be rethought – perhaps a picture of the proposal might help? – and that it could be linked to a virtual 3D model, so you could see what was being proposed in its wider context. Astonishingly, most planning authorities still don’t have their own in-house virtual models, or request the submission of 3D models with big planning applications, meaning the cumulative impact of neighbouring developments can go critically ignored.
Building on this, the report stresses that public engagement in development needs to become less reactive and move to a much earlier stage in the process: consultation should inform the principles of any development before they are fixed, rather than simply present a finished design to be voted on. It also demands greater transparency and accountability over section 106 agreements, which mitigate impacts of schemes, and the viability appraisals that underpin them, to help reconcile the mismatch between communities’ demands and the reality of what developments can deliver.
If the potential wider benefits of a scheme are spelled out, at least people can judge whether it is in their interests, rather than resorting to a nimby knee-jerk no.
If London’s population is to grow by as much as 100,000 people every year – adding the equivalent of a town the size of Bath on an annual basis – then Londoners have to come to terms with the realities of what that kind of growth means. Opening up the planning process to full scrutiny, with choices presented in a way that people can actually understand and feel part of, is the crucial first step.
How Alison Wilding pushes materials to their limits
In 1975, Alison Wilding created Without Casting Light on the Subject. The sculptural installation featured two blacked-out reading lamps, one placed on top of a table, the other beneath it, and pointed to an innate tension between materials. Obstructed by the table and their own light-proof coverings, the lamps were unable to illuminate the glass and slate sheets that rested on the table’s surface; object and viewer were destined to remain in the dark.
The installation, long-since destroyed by its maker, lives on through a framed black-and-white photograph and a written description, which form a new work named after the old one. Wilding’s idiosyncratic approach to materials is to the fore in ‘Testing the Objects of Affection’, a small but scintillating display of sculptures from the last five decades, at Alison Jacques Gallery. In Wilding’s work, what you see is what you get. Aside from the relic of Without Casting Light on the Subject and a similar piece describing another dismantled work, there are no wall texts or labels. Viewers must look at her constructions and draw their own conclusions.
Without Casting Light on the Subject (1975), Alison Wilding. Photo: Michael Brzezinski; courtesy Alison Jacques, London; © Alison Wilding
The first sculptures in the exhibition are small-scale works arranged on a table from the artist’s London studio. At first glance, Press 1 and Press 2 (both 2006) appear to be cubes of rosy alabaster, but closer inspection reveals a thin sheet of paper sandwiched between spliced segments of stone. On a parallel wall, Ahem (2020) is an oblong form, also carved from alabaster, and crowned with matte black high-density foam. These unexpected combinations of materials are a signature move by Wilding, in whose work hard surfaces meet soft ones, found objects are paired with the artist’s own careful creations and cheap materials mingle with expensive ones.
For Wilding, no single material reigns supreme and the artist has said that she rarely knows how a work is going to turn out. This attitude reflects her association with the New British Sculpture movement, which, in the 1980s, pushed back against the conceptual art of earlier decades in favour of a simpler, more direct approach to materials. It was during this period that Wilding’s work began receiving more attention; she was nominated twice for the Turner Prize, in 1988 and 1992.
Killjoy (2015), Alison Wilding. Photo: Michael Brzezinski; courtesy Alison Jacques, London; © Alison Wilding
Elsewhere at Alison Jacques, Wilding’s experiments with the push and pull of materials sprawl from table to floor. In Trip Trap (2023), two long sheets of black rubber are laid flat on the ground and topped with a small, scrappy iron form and a smooth, egg-like dome. Nearby, Belvedere (2011) echoes this juxtaposition of contrasting materials: a fibreglass balloon is attached to the end of a branch made from bronze and rests on the walls of a plaster and jesmonite enclosure. These representational elements, scarce in Wilding’s work, bring a sense of containment; the balloon and twisting tree are trapped within their angled confines.
In the gallery’s brightly lit back room, further contrasts are made between light and shadow, balance and instability. In Drowned (1993), the core of a towering, translucent cone of deep green acrylic is almost imperceptible, but catch the sculpture at just the right angle and it hints at something metal and weighty within. Terrestrial (2003) is one of Wilding’s signature monocoque sculptures, a self-supporting construction of grids of smoky plastic. Made some 25 years after Without Casting a Light on the Subject, Terrestrial shows a similar interest in concealment, its shape reminiscent of two stealth bombers.
Installation view of Belvedere (2011) by Alison Wilding in ‘Alison Wilding: Testing the Objects of Affection’, Photo: Michael Brzezinski; courtesy Alison Jacques, London; © Alison Wilding
Things teeter precariously in the Tablet series (2009), in which four Crystacal plaster rectangles brushed with wood ash sit at the very edge of bronze wall plinths. Peering behind them reveals a gap between the plaster works and the wall, seemingly wide enough that a wrong move could send them tumbling. Likewise, Hocus Pocus (2022) balances a twisted metal ball on a narrow, curving form with serrated edges, ready to roll to the floor at any moment. It’s by creating tensions like these that Wilding has kept audiences on their toes for the past 50 years, as she upends our expectations of how a material should look and behave to offer what she calls ‘a glimpse of an alternative order’.
‘Alison Wilding: Testing the Objects of Affection’ is at Alison Jacques, London, until 28 October.
The 50 Biggest Street Art & Graffiti Arrests (pt. 1/2)
The war between street artists and the law shows no sign of abating. If anything, it’s intensifying. The vandal squad’s genuine love of catching writers is a well known phenomenon in the graffiti world. Likewise, any artist with his heart in the right place will tell you that without the illegal aspect, it just wouldn’t be the same. It seems even as security measures grow tighter and legal
How Native Art, Folklore, and Fruit Mesh Together in Madalina Andronic's Incredible Illustrations
Madalina Andronic is a Romanian illustrator now working out of Italy. With an MA in Illustration from Camberwell College of Arts, Andronic draws inspiration for her work from native art, folklore, love and travels. Looking at her pieces, it’s easy to see why she has had the opportunity to work for clients from around the world while having nine books published in Romania, the UK and the United States.
Andronic’s artistic output has a magical feel with many of her illustrations incorporating fruit, food and aspects of nature in completely unexpected ways. Her most recent series of pieces, posted as ‘C'est deja les vacances 2019’, show just how far Andronic has come as an artist while tantalizing us with ideas of where she may go inthe future. The entire series is Summer through and through in Andronic’s signature style. The first piece evokes the magical merging of nature we often see in her work with a bed of flowers appearing where the spokes of a bicycle wheel should be while it’s rider flies by with one hand on the handles and the other holding the top of a bathing suit streaming in the wind. It evokes the freedom and fun of summer perfectly while acting as a perfect introduction to the rest of the series’ scenes of summer fun. It’s filled with oversized fruit, like a strawberry resting on a woman’s bare back and butt, a woman with close-cropped hair straddling an enormous pomegranate opened in a suggestive feminine manner and a burly man with green line flora tattoos, wearing a beret and carrying a gigantic lemon under one of his arms. They’re bright, vibrant scenes of one of the best times of year, often capturing the spirit of the feminine in classic ways that still feel fresh under Andronic’s touch. Whether you’re looking for a new print, a shirt or a tote, Madalina Andronic’s work is the perfect way to commemorate the summer of 2019 in style.
The English Garden
