Arts

Catesby Leigh on the fight to build a World War I memorial near the White House.

It’s tempting, when writing about modern art, to devote more attention than is useful to the kinds of market forces that bestow, say, Jeff Koons ’s totalitarian visions or Damien Hirst’s intellectual posturing with the imprimatur of respectability. After all, so much modern art has become uniformly…

Right now, in New York, the big news is the Broadway opening of a musical biography of Alexander Hamilton told in hip-hop. Such a deliberately anachronistic retelling of American history is automatic grounds for deep skepticism. And yet the chorus of raves for Hamilton—which extend from Barack…

Renzo Piano is too good an architect for his new Whitney Museum, in Manhattan’s meatpacking district, to be a total failure. The interior is, in general, quite good and surely a vast improvement over Marcel Breuer’s nuclear bunker on Madison Avenue, which housed the museum for half-a-century. And…

It's been a full week since The Scrapbook inveighed against the assault on free speech, so we have a new parade of horribles to shake our head at. The precipitating event this time was the killing of two armed assailants at an event in Garland, Texas, that was displaying Muhammad cartoons. It…

Are we allowed, in 2015, to like Thomas Hart Benton? And if so, are we allowed to admit in public that we like him? 

President Obama offered this taped public service announcement at the Grammy Awards:

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Books & Arts Podcast with Philip Terzian, on the October 13th Issue's Books and Arts section.

Years after the National Mall was torn up and blocked off to re-grow grass as part of the stimulus package, the bulldozers are back to clear a ten by six acre parcel, located adjacent to the reflection pool, between the Lincoln Memorial and the World War Two Memorial. The parcel of land will be…

The "busiest land port of entry in the Western Hemisphere" is getting an upgrade, and according to the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), about a half a million dollars worth of new artwork will be part of the package. The San Ysidro Land Port of Entry, the border crossing facility for the…

I live in Connecticut, and I don’t travel much outside of the Northeast corridor. But through a few strokes of luck, and some happy happenstance, I’ve been in Florence five times in the last seven years.

Yesterday, the National Gallery of Art put out a solicitation for nuclear ordnance, giving interested parties until the end of October to respond to the solicitation notice.

When it became known last year that George W. Bush had taken up painting, The Scrapbook took note of the fact, commenting on a couple of random examples that they were “better than you would expect, show imagination, and are certainly evidence of Bush’s well-developed sense of humor. .  .  . The…

From the moment Detroit filed for bankruptcy last summer, comparisons to the 2009 Chrysler and General Motors bailouts have abounded. Most highlight the differences, noting that the federal government is unlikely to pump billions of dollars into Detroit. But although the differences are real, the…

President Obama traveled to Wisconsin yesterday and engaged in a tasteless bit of anti-intellectualism. “A lot of young people no longer see the trades and skilled manufacturing as a viable career,” he told an audience in Waukesha, “but I promise you, folks can make a lot more, potentially, with…

If this painting isn’t iconic, the term should be banished from the vocabulary of art. Forget, for a moment, Mona Lisa’s smile and the Sistine Creator transmitting the spark of life to Adam. Set aside what was to come, including Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907). They, obviously, have…

At the end of September, the federal government's fiscal year was drawing to a close, the threat of a shut down was increasing, and the State Department was shopping for art.  Four contracts were awarded in the last two weeks of September, including $1,000,000 for a granite sculpture by Irish-born…

Washington D.C. is big on tradition, and one of those traditions involves official portraits of top government officials.  The Defense Department just awarded a $31,200 contract (frame included) to Portraits, Inc. for an official portrait of former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta:

In some locales, wrote Albert Camus in The Plague, beautiful days are only experienced in the winter. But this is easily belied by the magnificent Edward Hopper exhibition on display at the Whitney Museum this summer. Beyond a showcase of artistic beauty, it is a much-deserved homage to an American…

John Kinsella, a highly regarded Australian poet who teaches at Cambridge, was quoted not long ago in the Times Literary Supplement as saying that he has “not sold his soul to market fetishization.” Kinsella means that he doesn’t want even to think about making a profit from his writing. But…

The website Jewish Ideas Daily has been, for quite some while, a star of the web, featuring interesting original material as well as links to other worthwhile writing embodying a lively, serious, and committed approach to Jewish issues and ideas. Today, Jewish Ideas Daily has re-launched as Mosaic.…

Detroit is so close to insolvency that there is talk in the city of selling off some of the Detroit Institute of the Arts' treasures, including works by Henri Matisse and Vincent van Gogh.  

Last night at the Kennedy Center concert hall, Oscar-winning director Martin Scorsese delivered the 2013 National Endowment for the Humanities Jefferson Lecture. He spoke of the importance of preserving film and lamented the studios' fixation with box office grosses. The end of celluloid saddened…

At a celebration at UCLA of the career of Eugen Weber, the Romanian-born historian of France, I made the mistake of describing Eugen as an exile. In his response to the tributes paid him, Eugen corrected me, remarking that he had never considered himself an exile. “From the moment I attained…

The illegal hacking of email addresses of George W. Bush's family members has revealed paintings that appear to be the work of the former president himself. The Washington Free Beacon says the "The paintings demonstrate a command of line and color that is rarely seen in the modern-day 'art' world."

I predicted on Fox News Sunday on December 30 that the Metropolitan Opera's production of Donizetti's Maria Stuarda would be the entertainment event of the year. We had the good fortune to be invited by friends to see it at the Met last night, and it was spectacular. Bel canto doesn't get any…

I'm as thrilled as every other red-blooded Washington-area resident by the Redskins' victory yesterday. Yes, I did "predict" a Cowboys victory on Fox News Sunday. But that was, as I said on the show, a prediction contrary to my hopes, and of course was really made in order to avert the evil eye…

Instead of disparaging all popular culture as a “vast wasteland” of cultural and moral decay, conservative critics should tease out those elements that reinforce conservative values in the arts. Russell Kirk used to lament the falling-off in depictions of normative behavior; but whereas Kirk…

At an event at the White House for the National Arts and Humanities Youth Program awards program, First Lady Michelle Obama praised arts in children's education by saying, "if it’s good enough for our kids, it’s good enough for all of our kids."

One of the ways you can tell that Obama's magic is gone is the lack of insane, iconographic art surrounding his campaign this time. In 2008 Obama art was beyond parody. There was an entire meme about The One riding on unicorns.

The Serpent and the Lamb is not easy to pin down. Officially, it tells the story of Martin Luther’s relations with the eminent painter Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1553); Professor Ozment argues that the two men created the Protestant Reformation between them. Luther was the mastermind and…

You may have heard a bit about the recent controversy over the Eisenhower Memorial here in Washington, D.C. The design by Frank Gehry centers on a minuscule statue of Dwight D. Eisenhower as a boy in a park surrounded by 80-foot-tall images of a stark Kansas countryside. But you might wonder, why…

“Joan Miró: The Ladder of Escape” is at the National Gallery of Art through August 12. The conceit of the exhibit is that Miró was no sequestered surrealist but an artist readily engaged with politics and society—“an artist of his times,” as a wall caption puts it. Visitors reading that caption…

Sadly, Levon Helm – the drummer for the Band – died this afternoon at age 71. A terrible day for music fans everywhere, indeed. But let’s stop to appreciate Helm's great influence on American music.

In a grim footnote to the ongoing human tragedy in Syria, the country's cultural heritage as well as its civilian population is now in peril. Syria, a center of civilization in the ancient and medieval eras, boasts some of the finest archaeological sites in the near east, notably the old cities of…

Roger Kimball remembers Hilton Kramer:

A Sensitivity to the Seasons

Philanthropy magazine features Albert Barnes on the cover of its summer issue, the latest in a growing number of newspapers and magazines to run feature stories about Barnes and his museum in Pennsylvania. James Panero, writing in Philanthropy:

A new Australian reality series is "sending six native-born Australians with differing views on immigration on punishing journeys that retrace the voyages of asylum seekers seeking safe haven in their country."

Finally some good news: Ai Weiwei has been released by Chinese authorities. The dissident artist had been detained for three months on charges the international community unanimously recognized were bogus. Weiwei told the New York Times, “In legal terms, I’m — how do you say? — on bail. So I cannot…

We all hate the sound of cell phones ringing during classical concerts. Master of the Queen's Music and composer Sir Peter Maxwell Davies has proposed a solution to what he calls "artistic terrorists": Fine them.

Most sophisticated museumgoers would think it ineffably crass to complain about Cezanne’s unending sequence of apples and peaches, or the relentless quadrilaterals of Piet Mondrian. But it appears that certain of these people are no proof against the ennui that sets in when they encounter yet…

Another call for the art community to stand up for Ai Weiwei: Philip Bishop says a little known online petition is not enough. Museums should be publicizing the detention of the artist by Chinese authorities front and center.

Katie Couric wants to be the new Oprah. She says her upcoming show will model itself after the queen of daytime. Though Couric wasn't big on specifics: "It’s gonna be topical, it’s gonna be live, you know, hopefully it will deal with various issues."

"In 1992 Colm Tóibín encountered the power of the critic for the first time. He awoke one morning to find The Heather Blazing, his second novel, favourably reviewed in the books section of the Sunday Times by a just-published author named Nick Hornby." The notice helped the Irish novelist sell…

The Telegraph reports:

Some brave Chinese artists offered an artistic protest of the arrest of Ai Weiwei. The exhibition has been dismantled, and three artists and organizers have since disappeared.

“Stars are stars,” Metropolitan Opera general manager Peter Gelb says. “They’re different than company members." In this case, it means musicians on union contracts must go on tour in Japan, while some of the Met's brightest lights have cancelled their planned appearances due to worries about…

"Are America's museums as willing to stand up for an artist whose life may be on the line?" That's the cutting question asked by Terry Teachout, who points out the cowardice of some cultural leaders unwilling to protest the Chinese government's imprisonment of artist Ai Weiwei. In fact, some…

From the Metropolitan Museum of Art to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, exhibitions around the country are threatened after a court ruling has Russia afraid to loan out its art.

Supreme Court justices talk about who has influenced their writing and how they approach penning an opinion, with mentions of Vladimir Nabokov and the television show 24.

Shakespeare might be the greatest writer ever to live, but he ranks only 40 out of 100 on this list -- a charity contest whose winner is chosen American Idol-style. Voting ends tomorrow for the Chase Community Giving project on Facebook. While arts organizations struggling to survive turn to social…

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg plans to challenge the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act so that youngsters under 13 can join his social networking site.

Philip Roth wins the 2011 Man Booker International Prize. And one of the judges promptly resigns, with this provocative comment (among others):  "Emperor's clothes: in 20 years' time will anyone read him?" A worthy question.

"Harlequin is revolutionizing the e-book market," John Barber writes in the Globe and Mail. (I wrote about this two years ago -- and offered a number of other reasons for romance's popularity in electronic form.)

It's official: Ashton Kutcher is replacing Charlie Sheen on Two and a Half Men. Though really, no one could actually replace the singular Sheen...

The Library of Congress has opened a "National Jukebox" on the Internet. It has more than 10,000 recordings and more are on the way, in genres from classical to Tin Pan Alley. But heed the LoC's disclaimer: "WARNING: Historical recordings may contain offensive language."

Television ownership in America is down for the first time in two decades. Your first thought will be that the Internet is killing the boxes, but as the piece pointed out, the digital conversation had the effect of making many go without.

But with the inevitable forward march of progress come new ways of hiding things, and new things to hide. —Chris Ware, Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth  

Director Kenneth Branagh explains why his comic book adaptation Thor, which opens this Friday, is not so different from his Shakespeare films. And he compares it to the royal wedding.

JerrySeinfeld.com debuts Friday. The comedian has assembled over a thousand clips from his standup career. But they'll be made available just three videos at a time. His rationale? “Burger King now has a burger where you decide how many patties. How disgusting is that? That’s the problem right…

"NEA Research Director Sunil Iyengar said the fact that performing arts ticket revenue is bigger than movie ticket sales will surprise many people." Not those who know that movie tickets are around $10, and a night at the opera can start at $100. Another story on the study conducted by the National…

Movie critic Dan Kois admits that he hates watching films "that are good for you." Which raises the question: Should someone who admits their tastes are anything but sophisticated be given the job of film critic? Another question: Should someone who hates mainstream films be given the job of film…

Globe and Mail television critic John Doyle notes that Laurence C. Smith's book, The World in 2050: Four Forces Shaping Civilization’s Northern Future, posits that northern countries will soon rule the world as a result of global warming, water shortages, and the need for oil. This spells great…

The Spectator across the pond has taken inspiration from Washington. It offered a competition based on the Post's for the most "toe-curlingly bad analogies." The winners are here -- though I actually think this one is quite good: "The accountant had the world-weary air of a ferret that had been up…

Who doesn’t love an animal logo? Allen Lane knew that, in 1935, when he published the first 10 Penguin books in London. The six pence paperbacks arrived in bookshops sporting the avian logo and no other graphics, just broad bands of color at the top and bottom. General fiction had orange bands;…

The love affair of Martin Amis and Christopher Hitchens continues. Amis has a long piece in the Guardian, discussing life and death, everything from the Hitch's way with women to his (unfortunate) love of puns. "The rebel is in fact a very rare type. In my whole life I have known only two others,…

"But Other Than Being Shot to Death, Mr. Lincoln, How Did You Like the Play?"

Ilana Lewitan is a painter of questions too wide or deep for words, whose originality, intelligence, and painterly virtuosity make her one of the most significant surrealists in decades. Her work is now on show at the prestigious Galerie Noah in Augsburg. Possibly you weren’t planning to stop by…

In case you are feeling the pain of the money you paid to the federal government this week, here is a treat from the National Gallery of Art—free audio and video podcasts! So if finances are forcing you into yet another stay-cation this spring break, you can at least enjoy some of the best cultural…

The May issue of the Atlantic features a new story by Stephen King. As part of its package on "How Genius Works," the magazine spoke to the master of horror about his creative process.

Putting the greats on American Idol: Mischievious tricksters post David Foster Wallace's and Henri Cartier-Bresson's work as their own and watch the comments flow in.

Makoto Fujimura is one of the best painters alive; there is no finer abstract painter at work today. He is a Christian who lives in New York and paints using the traditional Japanese Nihonga technique, and Crossway has just published an elegantly produced folio of the four gospels with Fujimura’s…

Even rock stars have to trim their budgets these days. After last summer's disappointing concert season, bands are lowering ticket prices and finding ways to tour on the cheap. A look ahead.

Tax tips from David Foster Wallace. GalleyCat reads The Pale King, the unfinished novel about IRS agents now postumously published, and shares the findings. Some seem obvious, but others aren't. Who knew auditors look for divorces?

China's best known artist, Ai Weiwei, is still missing after being taken by Chinese police.

Ballet is dying, says the head of Britain's top dance venue. (To learn about the art form's past -- and another possible future -- read George B. Stauffer's review of Apollo's Angels in the latest issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD.)

Some Indian states have banned a new biography of Mahatma Gandhi after U.S. and U.K. reviews carried the implication that the revered leader had a sexual relationship with German-Jewish bodybuilder Hermann Kallenbach. Homosexuality was only decriminalized in India in 2009.

Hollywood loves writer's block more than it likes writers who write. Laura Miller thinks the recent flick Limitless is implausible. But does she have a solution? "Yes. It's called a mortgage."

Hollywood loves a controversy: Ballerina Sarah Lane says that Natalie Portman only danced about five percent of the full-body shots in Black Swan, for which the actress was given an Oscar. Director Darren Aronofsky responded that Portman danced in about 90 percent of the shots. In any case, Lane…

Washington institution Politics and Prose has settled on a buyer. The owners of the bookstore insisted they would only sell to someone with whom they felt comfortable. That's turned out to be a Bethesda couple, both of whom worked for the Washington Post and various Democrats.

Organized religion will all but disappear from nine countries, mathematicians predict -- even in traditionally Catholic Ireland.

Elizabeth Taylor, 1932-2011. Let's remember Taylor in her glorious youth, with her one Time cover, from August 22, 1949. The accompanying story discusses the business of art and the aging of the sex symbol -- prescient in this case.

Historian and poet Robert Conquest discusses five books on communism.

"Escapism is overrated," Lisa Kennedy declares. Instead, we should seek out films that engage us in the real world around us -- such as the powerful French film Of Gods and Men, which just opened in DC.

The New York Times has an interesting article today about the use of social media like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter by museums to foster online communities built around common interest in art:

A new study by the National Endowment for the Arts finds that the omnivore is an endangered species. These people -- who attend a wide variety of cultural events and attend them often -- are becoming an ever-smaller proportion of the population. Report author Mark J. Stern is optimistic about what…

"The Intellectual as Courtier": Paul Rahe looks at the history of thinkers seduced by tyrants -- including those who have defended the autocratic Qaddafi.

Al Qaeda launches its own Cosmo for the jihadist set, which offers advice on "marrying a mujahideen" and keeping your face looking young (by wearing a niqab, of course).

Jennifer Egan beats Jonathan Franzen to win the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction. The Los Angeles Times still leads its story with a picture of the over-hyped Franzen.

Modern Life Edward Hopper and His Time Whitney Museum of American Art Through April 10

No painter in history is more taken for granted than Meindert Hobbema.

I record with interest and, perhaps, a measure of surprise and sorrow a brief dispatch from the frontiers of culture—in this case, the hallowed precincts of the 92nd Street Y on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Suffice it to say that the 92nd Street Y is the sort of place where Charlie Rose might…

Vienna