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Slideshow: Martos Gallery's "Creature From the Blue Lagoon" in Bridgehampton

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Filmmaker Ossama Mohammed Dismissed by Syrian Ministry of Culture

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Filmmaker Ossama Mohammed Dismissed by Syrian Ministry of Culture
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As Syrian strife keeps building (insurgents in Aleppo are now facing air strikes), the government is also waging nonviolent attacks on its critics: Three Syrian filmmakers say that they were fired by the ministry of culture for criticizing the government, and that one of them is considering making a film about the revolution.

Al-Ahram Weekly, which broke the story, named only one of the filmmakers, Ossama Mohammed, who denounced the Syrian government at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. The General Organization for Cinema, which is a department of the Syrian culture ministry, says that Mohammed was fired for absenteeism, since he has not returned to Syria since the Cannes Festival. But Al-Ahram Weekly spoke to several artists who disagreed, saying that the General Organization for Cinema has no attendance requirements and judges directors by their work alone. “I see the ruling regime as an enemy of culture, freedom, and humanity,” Mohammed told the paper. “My dismissal is only a result of the hijacking of Syrian culture by mercenaries.”

According to the website of the Paris mayor’s office, Mohammed is now living there as a political refugee with his wife. He has been awarded a residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts and is thinking about making a film on the Syrian revolution that may incorporate footage filmed by ordinary citizens. “There are many images arriving from Syria,” he told the Paris mayor’s office. “The citizens are doing a lot more than the documentary filmmakers.”

“I have an obsession with facing authority,” Mohammed told New Yorker journalist Lawrence Wright in 2006. “This society is responsible for creating the dictatorship — it’s in our culture, our way of believing and thinking. I am trying to expose the authority inside us and the shadow of political authority in front of our doors.” The filmmaker, who was born in 1954, has made only two feature-length films: “Stars in Broad Daylight” (1988) and “Sacrifices,” also known as “The Box of Life” (2002), both of which were critical of the Syrian dictatorship. The films were well-received internationally but ultimately banned by government censors in his home country.

While Mohammed and his peers have lost only their funding, government repression had tragic consequences for another Syrian filmmaker, Bassel Shehade, who was killed during government shelling in Homs in May. After studying in the U.S. on a Fulbright fellowship, Shehade had gone to Homs to make a documentary about the revolution and to train others in filming and editing. 

Read more culture coverage on Spotlight

Valentino to Hold First Retrospective Five Years After Retirement

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Valentino to Hold First Retrospective Five Years After Retirement
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In the documentary “The Last Emperor,” Valentino Garavani celebrated his 45th anniversary in 2007 with a lavish three-day affair in Rome, which included an exhibition at the Ara Pacis. On November 29, the Italian couturier will open the first real-life retrospective dedicated to his career since his retirement at Somerset House in London.

The show, “Valentino: Master of Couture,” will feature 130 of his couture pieces worn by women like Julia Roberts, who donned a black vintage Valentino gown when she won an Oscar in 2001; Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, who was dressed in one of his creations on her wedding day; Grace Kelly; and Sophia Loren. Those dresses, along with mini-skirts, capes, caftans, and more will be displayed on a Valentino-themed catwalk.

The exhibition will be divided into three sections: History of Valentino, which will include photographs and keepsakes; the Catwalk; and the Atelier, where films documenting his couture techniques will be screened.

“Each of these designs has a beautiful story,” said Valentino in a press release. “The atelier crafted each so diligently by hand, taking hours, sometimes days to complete. The details are incredibly intricate. Though outside the runway shows and events, the dresses have rarely been seen. To be able to showcase these designs at Somerset House, where they can be seen in great detail by the public, is very unique.”

If you can’t make it to London by March 3, 2013, when the exhibition closes, you can always check out the virtual museum that the designer unveiled last December.

Visit Artinfo.com/fashion for more fashion and style news.

Q&A: “Dogfight” Librettist Peter Duchan on the Beauty of an Ugly Premise

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Q&A: “Dogfight” Librettist Peter Duchan on the Beauty of an Ugly Premise
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In “Dogfight,” the new musical at Off-Broadway’s Second Stage Theatre,  the protagonists hardly “meet cute.” The play’s premise is pretty ugly, in fact: While waiting to be shipped out to Vietnam from San Francisco in 1963, a group of Marines decide to place $50 bets in a large pool. The winner? The jarhead who can bring the most unnattractive date to a dance party. Hence the title.

This landmine-packed territory has been expertly navigated by a crack team of Broadway veterans — director Joe Mantello (“Wicked”) and choreographed by Christopher Gattelli (“Newsies”) — in league with a trio of twenty-something neophytes: librettist Peter Duchan and the songwriting team of Benj Pasek and Justin Paul. The musical is based on a 1991 Nancy Savoca film written by Bob Comfort and starring  River Phoenix, as an emotionally stunted Marine, and Lili Taylor, as the empathetic young woman who surprisingly touches his  heart. In the musical version, the roles are played by Lindsay Mendez and Derek Klena, respectively.  

Says Duchan: “In a lot of ways, our show is about a bullshit artist who learns to tell the truth, and I think a lot of us have experienced that arc in our own lives.” It fell to Duchan, as the book writer of the musical, to recreate the testosterone-fueled and callous tribal rites of a tragic era far removed from his middle-class upbringing in Westport, Connecticut. Describing himself as a lover of musicals which “baldly wear their heart on their sleeve,” Duchan spoke with us about how he and his colleagues managed to balance those romantic impulses with the dark and poignant story at the heart of “Dogfight.” 

When you were growing up, what musicals did you admire that had an impact on how you approached “Dogfight”?
I had a great exposure to classic musicals like “Annie,” “Fiddler on the Roof,” and “South Pacific,” but as I came of age and started coming into the city on my own, I was attracted to shows like “Parade,” “The Wild Party,” and “Caroline, or Change” — shows which tested the boundaries of what a musical could be. It’s adolescence and so it’s about rebellion in its own way.

“Parade,” “The Wild Party,” and “Caroline, or Change” — You just mentioned shows that were commercial and even critical failures.
And yet I’d argue that all these shows had an enormous impact on my generation, not necessarily as theater-goers but as theater practitioners. They’re done a tremendous amount at colleges all over the country.

They also deal with difficult subject matter. Is that what attracted you to adapting “Dogfight” into a musical?
Absolutely. The premise is something which audiences and some critics have a problem with. But we were immediately drawn to the emotional power of the story. These guys are mean and what allows them the ability to treat women in that way, with a lack of empathy, is exactly what they are being asked by their country  to do in order to get the job done [in Vietnam]. And the premise is set up in a way that allows the show to be both big and small.

What do you mean?
On one level, it is a small, intimate story about this ordinary couple, Eddie and Rose. But on the other hand, because we have hindsight,  we see the germs of a great cultural change. What really helped me write and expand the character of Rose was to think about who she was and what messages she was getting from the culture at large. For example, the idea of pacifism and the burgeoning folk music scene, songs like “Where Have All the Flowers Gone,” predates the Vietnam War. She’s really this fun mishmash of her own self-awareness, the ways in which she could make herself beautiful from the inside out, versus the mainstream culture telling her how unattractive she is.

Was it much harder to crack the character of Eddie, given that  he’s so repressed in feeling?
Definitely. Because when he actually starts to feel something, he grows quiet.  In the film,  there’s the scene in which River Phoenix starts to think maybe he shouldn’t take Rose into that party. The camera comes in for a close-up. How do you translate that into theatrical terms? And that took years of discussion. The goal was to put the audience into Eddie’s shoes, so that the audience starts to realize something about Eddie that he himself may not know.

Like what?
Well, there was a point  we made Eddie  more “clear” about what he was doing. And Joe [Mantello] kept saying, “He’s not suddenly a different person — let’s allow for some complexity here.”Eddie doesn’t say to himself, “I am good person and this is beneath me.” He’s simply having a pang of conscience. Something doesn’t feel right about what he’s doing to Rose. He then goes for a quick solution and that doesn’t work. And so he goes to another solution which is to get drunk and angry. What Eddie is actually experiencing at that moment  is beyond his emotional articulation.

Does it relate to what you said before, that soldiers, in their training, must learn to divorce themselves from human feeling to get the job done?
Yes. Eddie keeps trying to push Rose away. She keeps becoming more and more human to him and he has to keep her an abstraction. All the boys have to do that in order to be able to treat the women the way they do. And that is what they will have to do with the enemy. The more Eddie gets to know Rose, the more troubled he becomes. And that changes the game for him.

Why does she accept Eddie’s apology?
That also led to ample discussion among all of us because that scene is not in the movie. And we had to ask the question. And what came out of those discussions is her line to him, “’Cause if I didn't, I'd just be what you thought I was. A lonely, pathetic, ugly fat girl. That's all I'd be.” We were really beating our heads against the wall until we realized that she had to prove to herself that she could do this, that it was crucial to her own self-empowerment.

Were you ever tempted to censor yourself on how far you could go?
Early on, we learned that a little bit of boys being mean goes a long way. But there are scenes we can’t avoid telling because they are the story.  I’m glad we don’t sugarcoat it. Some people have to look away at certain point and people have expressed to me that it makes them feel uncomfortable. But if you’re able to feel uncomfortable that means that your feeling something. That means we’re doing our job. You don’t have to understand or know every decision that Eddie makes. You just have to understand the shape of the feelings of the journey he goes on.

Read more theater coverage on Play by Play

One-Line Reviews: Our Staff's Pithy Takes on "Beasts of Revelation," "Post-Op," And Other Summer Exhibitions

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Can This Florida Nude Painter Take on China's Art Cloning Juggernaut?

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Can This Florida Nude Painter Take on China's Art Cloning Juggernaut?
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NAPLES, Florida — You may not know the name of Xiamen, China-based company LSI Art Co., but increasingly it's becoming a must-check destination for living artists — though not necessarily for happy reasons. LSI's website Oilpaintings-supplier.com offers copies of paintings, many of them in the public domain, but many more by living, largely unrecognized artists who generally still expect to be paid for what they do (Stone Roberts, an artist who is currently highlighed at the Museum of the City of New York, is one such painter). And at least one of these artists has had enough.

Elaine Murphy, a painter who lives and works in Naples, first heard about the site this past July when she received an email from Fergal Keane, an art dealer who works in London. Murphy was “shocked” to find 8-by-10-inch reproductions of her abstracted portraits of cavorting nude figures being sold under her own name on the site, and that paintings she would generally sell for $4,000 were available on the site for just $20. Seeking advice from her dealer, Mary Jane Cohen, Murphy was directed to the Miami artist advocacy firm LegalArt, and eventually filed a report with the FBI.

“It's just amazing,” Murphy told ARTINFO, explaining that until her lawyer in Miami can establish that they've been selling her paintings in the US, her only recourse is to politely ask LSI Art Co to stop.

While the legal and ethical factors at play in Murphy's dispute are amply discussed in the age of appropriation-based art, because Murphy and her peers operate at a more accessible end of the art market, it can be far more difficult to draw attention and make demands than it would be for someone represented by a prestigious gallery in London or New York. “I just wonder if I can make other artists aware of this,” she said. “Not only are they using my name, signing my name, but they’re duplicates of my paintings! There’s nothing changed.”

"Dreams of a Life," the Tragic True Story of an Improbably Forgotten Woman

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"Dreams of a Life," the Tragic True Story of an Improbably Forgotten Woman
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On January 25, 2006, the body of Joyce Vincent was found on the sofa in her housing project studio flat, which backed on to a busy shopping center in Wood Green, North London. The television was on and there were unopened Christmas presents on the floor beside her. She had been dead since December 2003 and the body was so badly decomposed that her identity could only be ascertained by comparing her dental records with a holiday photograph in which she was smiling.

A beautiful, popular, and once gregarious Londoner of Caribbean and Indian descent, Vincent had been 38 when she died. She had seemingly been forgotten about – by her friends, by her father and four sisters (with whom she apparently had no contact), and by the authorities whose job it was to collect her rent.

The filmmaker Carol Morley discovered the Vincent case when she chanced upon a report of the grisly discovery in The Sun newspaper -- not that there was much of a story or even a photograph. Police could find no evidence of foul play, so Morley decided to create the most detailed narrative she could of Vincent’s existence, as an act of memorialization. The resulting movie, ”Dreams of a Life,” is heartrending. Inevitably, though, the mystery of Vincent’s fate proves unignorable. How can someone with as many social connections as Vincent had simply be allowed to evaporate at the heart of a metropolis?

A writer-director who has worked in both fiction and documentary films, Morley blends both disciplines in “Dreams of a Life,” conducting talking-head interviews and constructing imagined scenes from Vincent’s early family life and of her having fun as an adult, singing in a friend’s studio (she aspired to being an R&B performer), and dancing with several guys (she was, everyone agrees, a man magnet). And facing the end alone.

After a search for people who knew Vincent, Morley assembled enough acquaintances (flatmates, colleagues, friends, and friends of friends, but tellingly no relatives) to piece together an oral version of her life, which ran the gamut from mixing with music celebrities like Jimmy Cliff and Gil Scott-Heron and meeting Nelson Mandela to taking refuge in a domestic-abuse shelter. Some speculate she was the victim of child abuse or that she was murdered (Vincent's asthma and hospitalization with a peptic ulcer may have greater bearing on her demise). Others confess their guilt at losing touch with her. The word suicide never comes up, though she had been on a downward spiral before her death.

The two ex-boyfriends who spoke to Morley for the film couldn’t be more different: one is a sweet, gentle, man, probably the best friend she ever had, who breaks down on camera through grief; the other is a guarded onetime manager of successful music acts who says he had an intense live-in affair with her yet articulates the belief that “Joyce died alone because she wanted to be alone.”

The boyfriend Morley couldn’t locate was the one who locked her up all day on one occasion and probably hit her. There is an implicit connection between her death and this relationship. Morley gives a little information about the man when the camera tantalizingly pans across her research notes – an irritating tic that’s repeated several times – but otherwise doesn’t elaborate. A woman who was enjoyable company, yet pathologically private,  Vincent left few trails. (Even if Facebook had existed in 2003, she would never have signed up.)  

Morley cast actors to play the young and adult Vincent, her mother (who died when Joyce was around 11) and her father (who died in 2004). Zawe Ashton is riveting as the grown Vincent, particularly in a scene in which she seductively mimes to herself the Carolyn Crawford number “My Smile Is Just a Frown” and then, when the song’s done, caves in, crushed by the emptiness of her prospects and by her self-inflicted loneliness. The truth may be different, of course, but it’s a convincing reading of a woman’s life that is unlikely to yield any more secrets, which is the way Vincent may have wanted it. Morley does, however, have a visual revelation in store at the end of the film.

There’s a certain Schadenfreude involved in watching “Dreams of a Life.” Any objections to its well-meaning expansion of a sensationalistic subject will be outweighed, though, if the story of Vincent’s dying unnoticed raises consciousness about the need for people to keep an eye on the solitary and stay in touch with the elusive. Social media doesn’t count, only the old-fashioned notion of community spirit.

Watch the trailer:

 

The Louvre's Islamic Galleries, A Mix of I.M. Pei and Magic Carpet, Get Set for Fall Debut

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The Louvre's Islamic Galleries, A Mix of I.M. Pei and Magic Carpet, Get Set for Fall Debut
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In 1985, when I.M. Pei proposed his design for a 70-foot-tall glass pyramid in the courtyard of the Louvre Palace, skeptics reacted in horror. The design was viewed as an apotheosis of modern glass-and-steel engineering and, to some, a flagrant affront to the Louvre’s neoclassical grandeur. But since the project’s completion in 1989, the Louvre courtyard, once a dismal parking lot, has become a cherished public gathering space and a popular tourist destination, attracting over 8.5 million visitors a year. Perhaps an even greater testament to the pyramid’s critical acceptance is the relative lack of uproar surrounding the first major architectural intervention at the Louvre since Pei’s makeover: a 150-ton undulating glass roof designed by architects Mario Bellini and Rudy Ricciotti to hover over the museum’s new Arts of Islam gallery.

Starting on September 22, the new two-story gallery, nestled in the Visconti Courtyard, will be the permanent home to the Museum’s extensive collection of Islamic art. The interior of the gallery was conceived by architect and museographer Renaud Piérard to situate the over 2,500 objects on display in place and time. But the defining feature of the gallery is Bellini and Ricciotti’s floating, iridescent roof. The undulating structure is an attempt at a “gentle and non-violent integration” of the contemporary with the historical, as the architects described in Architecture Today. Taking form at the Louvre over two decades after Pei’s pyramid, the immense woven steel canopy is an impressive but surprisingly subdued statement on the evolution of computer-enabled design.

Looking back at the controversy surrounding Pei's pyramid over two decades ago, Fast Company writer Ken Carbone aptly described the abstract glass geometries (there are three smaller glass pyramids flanking the courtyard centerpiece) as the “proverbial tip of the iceberg,” the visible marker — albeit an iconic one — of a much larger design concept that unfolds in the Louvre’s subterranean levels. Pei's design, as many have come to realize, is a work of urbanism; the sweeping makeover connected the museum with the city and reconfigured it to meet the demands of its growing popularity. On the other hand, the new gallery's golden roof is perhaps too literal an interpretation of the architects’ design prompt, as museum goers are to be greeted with an exotic magic carpet-like structure as a means of accessing the Islamic World (represented, in part, by a collection of carpets on the ground floor).

Still, as anyone will recognize, the undulating design is no small feat of engineering; its elastic form makes Pei's glass pyramids look comparatively planar and offers a striking contrast to the surrounding neoclassical symmetries. Perhaps a “gentle and non-violent” ornament is just what the Louvre's new gallery needs.

 


Aussie Art Star Ian Burns Assembles Jumbo Aviation-Themed Contraption for Melbourne Art Fair

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Aussie Art Star Ian Burns Assembles Jumbo Aviation-Themed Contraption for Melbourne Art Fair
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MELBOURNE — Although it wouldn’t fit through my door, let alone in my living room, Ian Burns’s huge sculptural kinetic assemblage, produced for the Melbourne Art Fair as part of their Melbourne Art Foundation Commission project, would be a great conversation starter at awkward dinner parties.

Chosen as Commission Artist for the 2012 Melbourne Art Fair, Ian Burns, a New York-based Australian artist who is represented by the Melbourne and Sydney gallery Anna Schwartz Gallery, spent several months as the Artist in Residence at the Yarra Valley winery Domaine Chandon. During that time he developed his work for the Commission, which links the technological screen with embodied experience.

Burns’s imposing sculptural form, titled “Cloud,” presents the viewer with a pseudo-cinematic series of scenes that suggest a narrative, but have no ending. Amazingly, the scenes are generated within the sculpture itself and are based on images of motion, specifically flight. Ladders, toys, tables, lights, salad bowls, and other everyday items are repurposed towards the live re-creation of imagery portraying the clichéd cinematic sublimity of air travel.

“By the inventive nature of the construction, and the use of commonplace objects to create believable live video renditions of apparently real footage,” a Melbourne Art Foundation press release explains, “Burns' work encourages a playful spirit of investigation.” As part of the project, the commissioned work is gifted to an Australian public gallery or museum, as announced at the beginning of the Fair — this year's commission is being donated to the Art Gallery of South Australia.

In addition to the Melbourne Art Fair Commission, Burns has an upcoming solo exhibition and commission at Melbourne's Australian Centre for the Moving Image, and an exhibition at Mother's Tankstation in Dublin. His work at the 2012 Melbourne Art Fair will remain on view through the end of the fair on Sunday August 5.

To a slideshow of images of Burns’ Melbourne Art Fair Commission click the slideshow.

This article appears on ARTINFO Australia.

Slideshow: "Spontaneous Interventions: Design Actions for the Common Good"

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Bespoke Wines Celebrates the Olympic Games’ Ideals

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The Summer 2012 Olympic Games are the first with an official wine — a red, white, a rose varietal. London 2012 is the first Olympics to have its own “official” wine – or three wines, to be precise. One red, one white, and one rosé of 2012 vintage are on...

Six Beer Cocktails: The Michelada

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More of a doctored beer than a beer cocktail, the michelada features lime, Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce, and beer, served on ice. This version nails that tart, savory, spicy mix. Consider it a blueprint for experimentation. Salt the rim. Add ice, the...

Fragrance Notes: A School for Perfumers

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I took my share of esoteric courses in college—The Films of Stanley Kubrick, An Exploration of the Male Gaze, Yoga 501. But what I wouldn’t have given to enroll in Vanilla Building, a class offered at the Givaudan Perfumery School outside of Paris...

Projeto Ânsias de Ver

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Week in Review: Facebook Censors Pompidou, The Olympics Get Stylish, Chris Marker Remembered, And More

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Week in Review: Facebook Censors Pompidou, The Olympics Get Stylish, Chris Marker Remembered, And More
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Our most-talked-about stories in Art, Design & Architecture, Fashion & Style, and Performing Arts, July 30-August 3, 2012:

ART

Facebook was accused of censorship when it removed a nude painting by Gerhard Richter from the Pompidou Center's page.

Joseph Nicéphore Niépce’s “View from the Window at Le Gras” from 1826, the world's oldest photograph, headed to Mannheim's Reiss-Engelhorn-Museen for its first showing in Europe in over 50 years.

— Modern Painters magazine completed its survey of the 50 most exciting collectors under 50 — which it began last week.

— Benjamin Sutton visited Olana, the faux-Persian estate of Hudson River School painter Frederic Church in upstate New York.

— British street artists spoke out against the police crackdown on graffiti during the London Olympics.

DESIGN & ARCHITECTURE

— Kelly Chan sized up the Louvre's forthcoming Islamic art galleries.

— Janelle Zara surveyed a host of amenities airports are hoping will make travelers' long waits less tedious.

— The London Olympics' inventively durable infrastructural architecture reaffirmed the UK's knack for building well-designed public utilities.

— Conservationists and starchitects rallied to rescue Bertrand Goldberg's brutalist Prentice Women's Hospital in Chicago from demolition.

— A new memory game based on the designs of Frank Lloyd Wright sought to teach tots architecture.

FASHION & STYLE

— This week in Olympian fashion, Alanna Martinez looked back on Olympic gymnastics leotard design trends of the past three decades, the UK's top milliners adorned London statues with hats, and die-hard sports fans got Olympics-themed nail art.

— Nate Freeman surveyed the six strangest picks from Vanity Fair's annual International Best-Dressed List.

— A torrential downpour didn't dampen the spirits of attendees at the Watermill Center's annual Big Bang benefit, which raised $1.5 million.

— In hot pursuit of the food truck trend, the fashion truck trend got rolling.

Target tapped Karlie Kloss to be the face of the campaign for its new campaign for its CFDA line.

PERFORMING ARTS

—  Coline Milliard praised filmmaker Danny Boyle's opening ceremony for the London Olympics, choreographer Akram Khan criticized NBC for cutting his memorial to victims of the London bombings from its opening ceremony broadcast, Ben Davis considered Martin Creed's pre-Olympics participatory bell-ringing performance an apt metaphor for the UK's political ideology, and 2016 host city Rio de Janeiro sent a delegation of artists to perform operation Rio Occupation London.

— Graham Fuller looked back on the life and work of the seminal just-deceased filmmaker Chris Marker.

The Iranian government threatened to boycott this year's Venice Film Festival in retaliation for European countries' trade sanctions against the Middle Eastern nation.

Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo" dethroned the long-standing champ, Orson Welles's "Citizen Kane," in Sight and Sound's latest once-a-decade poll to determine the best film ever.

Nina Arianda landed the part of Italian actress Giulietta Masina in the forthcoming Frederico Fellini biopic "Fellini Black and White."

VIDEO

New Museum curator Gary Carrion-Murayari gave ARTINFO a tour of the museum's current Nathalie Djurberg exhibition:

 


Can You Guess Who? Ten Famous Visual Artists Turned Into Minimalist Puzzle Posters

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Can You Guess Who? Ten Famous Visual Artists Turned Into Minimalist Puzzle Posters
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In the Internet meme factory, minimalism is an absolute gold mine. Designers have taken to creating minimalist poster versions of just about everything imaginable, reducing philosophies into abstract shapes, movies into collections of icons, and children’s stories into spare narrative images. Now, it’s art history’s turn to get simplified.

Re:design studio’s Eurydyka Kata and Rafal Szczawinski have created a series called “Iconic Painters to Guess” that translates famous artists into series of three objects, depicted in clean silhouettes on top of monochrome backgrounds. Andy Warhol, for example, gets a banana (think Velvet Underground), a Campbell’s Soup Can (duh), and Marilyn Monroe’s face (his most famous screenprint subject) arrayed on bright pink.

Other puzzles are tougher. Neoclassical French painter Jacques-Louis David has a Napoleon-style tricorner hat, three downward-pointing swords, and a lounge chair. It’s a fun guessing game for any art history aficionado. We suggest the designers include some real minimalist artists though. Call it meta-minimalization.

Click on the slide show for the minimalist representations of artists, and see below for the answer key. 

Answer Key:

1. Andy Warhol, 2. Johan Vermeer, 3. Vincent van Gogh, 4. Jacques-Louis David, 5. Frida Kahlo, 6. Renee Magritte, 7. Mark Rothko, 8. Salvador Dali, 9. Georgia O’Keeffe, 10. Roy Lichtenstein. 

by Kyle Chayka,Visual Arts,Visual Arts

The Third Coming of Kevin Costner

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The Third Coming of Kevin Costner
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Kevin Costner, who peaked as a Hollywood leading man in the early ’90s and saw his star wane in the 2000s, is on the verge of a major comeback. As reported by Deadline’s Mike Fleming, the huge success of the History Channel’s “Hatfields & McCoys” miniseries has led to the actor “being courted for a pair of big roles that could bring on a resurgence.”

Fifty-seven now and approaching elder-statesman status, Costner has been offered the co-lead in Kenneth Branagh’s upcoming Jack Ryan film. He would play the recruiter and mentor of Ryan, who, as played by “Star Trek”’s Chris Pine, is a younger version of Tom Clancy’s resolute CIA man, famously played by Harrison Ford in “Patriot Games” and “Clear and Present Danger.”

Costner is also being courted, writes Fleming, by Luc Besson’s Europacorp to star as a government assassin, Ethan Renner, in “Three Days to Kill.” The character, who is gravely ill, seeks to reconcile with his daughter and complete a final mission before he dies. McG (Joseph McGinty Nichol) has been penciled in as a possible director for the French-made English-language production.

Zack Snyder’s Superman movie “Man of Steel,” in which Costner plays Jonathan (“Pa”) Kent, Clark’s adoptive dad, is meanwhile in post-production; it is scheduled to open next June. Diane Lane plays Martha Kent and Henry Cavill is Clark/Superman opposite Amy Adams’s Lois Lane.

Despite the failure of “Wyatt Earp” in 1994, Costner’s loyalty to the Western and its ilk has served him well in his career. “Silverado” (1985) showed his star potential, two years before “The Untouchables” and “No Way Out.” “Dances With Wolves” (1990), though flawed, brought him Oscars for Best Director and Best Picture. The downbeat “Open Range” (2003), which he also directed and starred in, kept the genre alive during one of its periodic slumps and showed how good Costner could be in a battered cowboy hat and with an old timer (Robert Duvall) by his side.

Although the blood feud drama “Hatfields & McCoys” isn’t a Western, being set on the Kentucky-West Virginia border, it is mined from the same materials and corresponds exactly to the Western period, from the Civil War through the closing of the frontier. Costner’s portrayal of William Anderson “Devil Anse” Hatfield, the clan patriarch, is his finest in years.

“As Devil Anse, Costner comes as close to a hero as this piece gets,” wrote Mary McNamara in the Los Angeles Times. “It is a truly brilliant performance, worthy of an Emmy for the pipe-smoking alone.

“Costner makes this Hatfield as wise as he is ruthless. He appears to be the only character aware of what is actually happening and the only one capable of stopping it, which makes his refusal to do so until it is too late the story’s greatest tragedy.”

The May 28 premiere of the six-hour show was watched by 13.9 million, making it the top non-sports telecast in cable television history, according to Deadline. It earned 22 Emmy nominations, including nods for both Costner and Bill Paxton as Outstanding Lead Actor in a Movie or Miniseries. Best of all, it revealed how an American actor ill-suited to playing a So Cal Robin Hood with blow-waved hair could, 21 years on, excel as a grizzled, grimy bastard with a taste for brutal revenge.

Who Is Street Artist Manny Castro, The Chik-fil-A "Tastes Like Hate" Vandal?

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Who Is Street Artist Manny Castro, The Chik-fil-A "Tastes Like Hate" Vandal?
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Thousands of people have seen his work, even if they don't know his name. But now that street artist Manny Castro has stepped forward to claim responsibility for painting the satirical phrase “Tastes Like Hate” on a Torrance, California Chik-fil-A restaurant — riding a tidal wave of controversy over derogatory remarks made by the fast food company's chief operating officer about the status of gays and lesbians  — it's unlikely that the L.A.-based artist could escape the scrutiny of fans, detractors, art critics, or the Torrance police even if he wanted to.

“Our investigators are still working the information that they have,” sargeant Steve Jenkinson told the L.A. Times, who reported that as of yesterday, no arrests have been made. 

Who is Manny Castro? His first experiments with sidewalk-level design were perfectly legal, and he has plenty of experience grabbing attention. After graduating from Parsons School of Design, he made installations to make the windows of Saks Fifth Avenue resemble an artist's studio, and did similar work for Barney’s New York and Fred Segal boutiques. After moving to L.A., Castro increased his profile when he hung illicit-looking bags of white powder and shiny ruby slippers from telephone wires, but at worst, these toed — rather than crossed — the line of acceptability.

The last truly controversial thing Castro made was in February 2011, when he sprawled a canvas in Runyon Canyon (near the Hollywood sign) that showed Lady Gaga wearing a crown of thorns. In spite of an endorsement from Perez Hilton, the comparison of the pop idol to the Messiah may have riled the kinds of fundamentalists who have now rallied to Chic-fil-A as their go-to anti-LGBT snack spot. More recently, Castro has had a solo exhibition at iam8bit gallery in Echo Park (the ruby slippers and cocaine bags were his very own viral ad campaign for the show), and was part of a group exhibition, “LA MiXTAPE,” at Le Basse Projects in Chinatown. 

Talking to the Huffington Post earlier this week, it would seem that mischief was not Castro's primary concern when he authored this latest work of bona fide graffiti. “It's not much of a crime — it's a protest,” he said of his  “Tastes Like Hate” image. “I'm against what these people stand for, what this company stands for. They're trying to take away what little rights we already have.”

Marvin Hamlisch: The Clear-Eyed Craftsman Behind “A Chorus Line”

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Marvin Hamlisch: The Clear-Eyed Craftsman Behind “A Chorus Line”
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As the tributes poured in for Marvin Hamlisch, the acclaimed pop composer who died on August 6, it soon became evident that his legacy would be highlighted by one work: “A Chorus Line.” Practically every headline acknowledged his contribution to this 1975 landmark musical and rightly so. Second only to Michael Bennett, who conceived, directed, and co-choreographed the show, Hamlisch was most responsible for its stunning success.  Winning nine Tony Awards, the musical re-invigorated Broadway, then at a nadir, and forever shadowed Hamlisch’s subsequent attempts for the stage. 

“Marvin’s music was emotionally stirring, he had the audience in the palm of his hand night after night,” says Robert LuPone, who was a member of the original cast of “A Chorus Line.”  During the creative process, while putting the musical together, Hamlisch could be ruthless about his own material, according to LuPone. “He was very clear-eyed, sensitive, intelligent, and objective.  If something he wrote didn’t work, or if Michael didn’t like it, he threw it out. He had tremendous confidence. It was the discipline of craft rather than ego which drove him.”  

In an interview for “Free For All,” an oral history of the Public Theater, which developed “A Chorus Line,” Hamlisch told writer Kenneth Turan that his agent was practically apoplectic when the composer decided to move back to New York.  He recalled, “I had just won three Academy Awards in one night for 'The Way We Were' and 'The Sting,' and all of a sudden I was leaving Hollywood to come back to New York to get paid nothing, to give a year or two years of my life to a project based solely on the fact that Michael Bennett was doing it.”

It was a homecoming of sorts for the then 30-year-old. He had begun his Broadway career as a rehearsal pianist for “Funny Girl,” starring Barbra Streisand, with whom he would later collaborate on numerous projects. After the success of “A Chorus Line,” Hamlisch would go on to write other musicals —“Smile,” “Sweet Smell of Success,” “The Goodbye Girl”— but he would only score one other hit: “They’re Playing Our Song,”  the 1979 semi-autobiographical musical, which explored his stormy romance with songwriter Carole Bayer Sager. Despite the flops, he remained adventurous, if not eclectic, in his choice of subject matter. He penned the musical, “Jean Seberg,” based on the life the tragic American film actress who was defamed, and possibly driven to suicide, by the FBI for her radical politics.  The show, which debuted at the National Theatre of Great Britain, never made it to the United States.  

At the time of his death, Hamlisch was working on two musicals, “Gotta Dance,” and a musical version of the classic film comedy, “The Nutty Professor.” The latter, directed and co-written by Jerry Lewis, recently received solid notices for its world premiere production at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center in Nashville.  The composer no doubt was pleased at the reception.  Even though he is only one of two people to be the recipient of the Oscar, the Grammy, the Tony, the Emmy and the Pulitzer — the other is, fittingly enough, the Broadway composer, Richard Rodgers — Hamlisch always took critics to heart. 

“I’m not one of those people who says, ‘I never read reviews,’” he told the New York Times.  “These songs are my babies. And I always say, it’s like having a baby in a hospital, taking a Polaroid, and going up to someone and saying, ‘What do you think?’ And he goes,  ‘I give you a 3.’ That’s what criticism is like. You’ve worked on this thing forever — ‘I give you a 3.’ And it’s part of you. That’s the bargain you’ve made.” 

Extreme Makeover: Istanbul Edition

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Vanessa Able
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Adahan Istanbul
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Adahan Istabul Hotel
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The late-19th-century mansion of a famous Jewish trading family in Galata, the city's burgeoning artsy-bohemian neighborhood, emerged in April as the contemporary 47-room hotel Adahan Istanbul. Salvaged original details, such as trompe l'oeil murals and elaborate ceilings, stand out from the otherwise minimalist modern decor (streamlined wood furniture; cotton fabrics in earth tones). The rooftop restaurant serves up seasonal Turkish cuisine and great views of Galata, the Golden Horn, and Old Constantinople; the downstairs Baylo Bistro & Bar is worth a drop in after dark.

(Photo courtesy of Adahan Istanbul)

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SALT Galata
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SALT Galata Istanbul
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In 2011, art institution SALT transformed the former headquarters of the Ottoman Imperial Bank into an exhibition and archive space for emerging regional artists. The monumental building, designed by French architect Alexandre Vallaury in the 18th century, has a unique facade that's apropos, given the area's history: It's neoclassical on one side and oriental on the other. The revamped interior includes Ca'd'Oro restaurant, which serves a dreamy Mediterranean menu from local food impresarios Istanbul Doors.

(Photo by Iwan Bann)

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#Bunk
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#Bunk Istanbul Hostel
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Trailblazers of the boutique-hostel concept in Istanbul, the team at #Bunk have done sterling work converting a private Pera townhouse into a classy hostel that's rousing to the eye and easy on the wallet. A snow-white bunk in a four-person room (marble tile on the floor, decorative motifs on the ceiling, heated towel racks in the shared bathroom) starts at just €17. En-suite doubles are available, too. Shoehorned onto a tiny terrace at the top of the building is a small heated pool and a couple of deckchairs where guests can watch the city lights surge. Backpacking has never been so glam.

(Photo courtesy of #Bunk)

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Santral Istanbul
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Santral Istanbul
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Contemporary art shows have taken the place of giant mechanical dynamos in what was once a decaying coal-fired Ottoman power station—the Empire's first—located at the end of the Golden Horn, on the campus of Bilgi University. Well worth the 20-minute taxi ride from the city center, the Santral Istanbul complex houses a massive exhibition space in the main building of the former plant, while a pizzeria, nightclub, and bookshop have moved into its peripheral structures. Don't miss the fascinatingly beautiful old machinery that's now shown in the adjacent Energy Museum.

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The House Hotel Bosphorus
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The House Hotel Bosphorus Istanbul
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Renowned Istanbul design group Autoban came to the rescue of this ailing 19th-century seaside mansion known as a Yah, converting the debilitated building into a delectable third branch of The House Hotel. Sitting on what might be one of Istanbul's most striking locations in the former fishing village of Ortaköy, 16 of its 26 rooms have full or partial views of the Bosphorus and its tremendous suspension bridge. Inside the hotel, late Ottoman wall and ceiling moldings have been preserved to blend with the beiges and browns of Autoban's more modern design choices.

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Ghetto
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Ghetto Club Istanbul
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A one-time bakery in the Taksim district, near the Balik Pazari fish market, this large industrial building underwent a drastic change of identity a few years back, turning into Ghetto, one of Istanbul's most popular venues for world music and especially jazz, having hosted Harold Lopez Nussa, Talvin Singh, and Echo and the Bunnymen. A gut renovation converted the split-level building, with 33-foot ceilings and murals adorning its walls, into a just-big-enough space ready to accommodate a lively dance floor, bar, and quieter dining area upstairs. Currently undergoing a further nip and tuck, expect to see the place refreshed for a new season at the end of the summer.

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House Hotel Bosphorous
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Like Botox to the Bosphorous, artists, hoteliers, and nighthawks are breathing new life into formerly dilapidated buildings around the city.

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