Can a work of art be independent of the time and culture in which it was created? Can it thrive on the characteristics inherent in its shaping—on aesthetic merit alone?
In today’s theory-addled art world, no avant-gardist curio comes off the assembly line without a ream (or three) of explicatory text. We live in an Read More
A queen who proclaimed herself king is the spectacular subject of a spectacular new exhibition at the Met. Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh spotlights a woman who rose to govern Egypt way back in the 18th Dynasty, more than 3,000 years ago. Today’s sensibilities will undoubtedly applaud the feminist overtones of this venture. Certainly, the Read More
Not long before the Museum of Modern Art moved from its makeshift quarters in Queens back to 53rd Street, it offered an exhibition intended to make us look closely at objects we use again and again, thoughtlessly, without even noting their appearance. The show was developed by Paola Antonelli, a MoMA curator of architecture and Read More
In the mid-1980′s, Tom Wolfe predicted that Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) would be knocked from his pedestal by the year 2020. Mr. Wolfe has long exhibited a tin eye for the innovations of modern art-but maybe, in this case, he had a point. What New Yorker hasn’t had it up to here with Picasso’s maddening genius, Read More
A Shot of Classical Calm,
Antidote to Picasso Fatigue
In the mid-1980′s, Tom Wolfe predicted that Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) would be knocked from his pedestal by the year 2020. Mr. Wolfe has long exhibited a tin eye for the innovations of modern art-but maybe, in this case, he had a point. What New Yorker hasn’t Read More
Fruity Get-Up Puts Perp
In the Mood for Crime If an NYPD precinct commander was asked to conjure up his worst nightmare, it would probably look something like the guy the cops apprehended early on the morning of May 16. The perp, whom the police were on the look-out for after he donned a ski Read More
Sappho’s Leap, by Erica Jong. W.W. Norton, 316 pages, $24.95.
The Nile isn’t the only sodden delta in the ancient world. No. As she trips about the Mediterranean, tricky-fingers Sappho-that peerless crooner-leaves behind a trail of damp deltas that would give Anaïs Nin pause.
But this isn’t Anaïs Nin-it’s the fearless Erica Jong, whose Read More
New York has always been the epicenter of szhoosh . What’s szhoosh? It’s interior-decorating vernacular meaning “to gussie up lavishly” or, as a noun, “that which has been gussied up lavishly.” Despite the 80′s revival, recent events have caused me to wonder if szhoosh might not be a vanishing commodity: Gayfryd and Saul’s recent yard Read More
The rumor spread like a computer virus: After months of being battered in the courts, Microsoft had come up with a solution to its Joel Klein problem. To escape the Justice Department’s clutches, the company would simply move to Canada.
The scenario was as nifty as it was improbable: The shining star of America’s corporate Read More
Rod Dreher, the New York Post ‘s movie critic turned conservative news columnist, was pacing the housewares department of the Gracious Home store on 67th Street and Broadway. Dressed in jeans and hiking boots, Mr. Dre-her, 32, had a di-lemma-namely, which version of the Cafe Froth milk frother to buy, the automatic, hand-held Turbo model, Read More
