Punch bowl showing the trade district in Canton, China, about 1780.Art: Earlier this month, China claimed the title of the world’s second-largest economy, overtaking Japan for the No. 2 spot behind the United States. It seems a local achievement for a nation that has long been a much-desired global trading partner, and a new show at the … [Read more...]
Archives for August 2010
Weekend arts picks: Aug. 27-29
Art: Earlier this month, China claimed the title of the world’s second-largest economy, overtaking Japan for the No. 2 spot behind the United States. It seems a local achievement for a nation that has long been a much-desired global trading partner, and a new show at the Norton Museum of Art focuses on one of the more familiar offshoots of that commercial energy. On the Silk … [Read more...]
Book review: Alert the Squid Squad! The kraken is (lamely) on the loose!
Kraken, by China Miéville; Ballantine Books; 509 pp.; $26.By Chauncey MabeWhy is it that genre writers, just when they are about to step onto a wider stage of literature, tend to lose heart – or nerve?I first noticed this in 1998 when Stephen King, after almost a decade of increasing critical acceptance, retreated to the comforts of Bag of Bones, an … [Read more...]
Alert the Squid Squad! The kraken is (lamely) on the loose!
Why is it that genre writers, just when they are about to step onto a wider stage of literature, tend to lose heart – or nerve? I first noticed this in 1998 when Stephen King, after almost a decade of increasing critical acceptance, retreated to the comforts of Bag of Bones, an overlong, overstuffed supernatural thriller of the kind that made him famous earlier in his career. … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Aug. 20-22
Tilda Swinton as the title character in Orlando.Film: Tilda Swinton broke into the wider consciousness back in 1992 with her star turn as Orlando, the androgynous hero/heroine of Virginia Woolf’s gender-bending novel of a Tudor-era Zelig who begins as a debonair male court poet in 1588 and ends up in 1928 as a married woman. In Sally … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Aug. 20-22
Film: Tilda Swinton broke into the wider consciousness back in 1992 with her star turn as Orlando, the androgynous hero/heroine of Virginia Woolf’s gender-bending novel of a Tudor-era Zelig who begins as a debonair male court poet in 1588 and ends up in 1928 as a married woman. In Sally Potter’s lovely-to-look-at film, Quentin Crisp makes a marvelous Queen Elizabeth I, … [Read more...]
Art review: Quiet abstract sculpture at Norton speaks volumes about forms
A view of the Beyond the Figure exhibit. (Photo by Kelli Marin)By Amy BroderickEntering Beyond the Figure at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, one enters a darkened gallery in which strange forms emerge from the shadows. Although artifacts from our own culture, these forms also point toward a parallel universe — a realm where we understand and know … [Read more...]
Quiet abstract sculpture at Norton speaks volumes about forms
Entering Beyond the Figure at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, one enters a darkened gallery in which strange forms emerge from the shadows. Although artifacts from our own culture, these forms also point toward a parallel universe — a realm where we understand and know objects with all our senses and our imaginations. The roughly 20 sculptural works on view do not … [Read more...]
The View From Home 12: New releases on DVD
By John ThomasonAppointment With Danger, Dark City and Union Station (Olive Films)Standard list price: $19.99Release date: July 27Apparently, DVD labels distributed the memo well: 2010 is the year for classic film noir. Last month Columbia released its Film Noir Classics Vol. 2 collection (SLP $44.99), an essential five-disc set that … [Read more...]
The View From Home 12: New releases on DVD
Appointment With Danger, Dark City and Union Station (Olive Films) Standard list price: $19.99 Release date: July 27 Apparently, DVD labels distributed the memo well: 2010 is the year for classic film noir. Last month Columbia released its Film Noir Classics Vol. 2 collection (SLP $44.99), an essential five-disc set that included Fritz Lang’s Human Desire, Phil Karlson’s The … [Read more...]