The Arts Archives - Page 23 of 36

Body & Mind

The World Is Absolutely Full of Wonder

An interview with Mary Ruefle

April 30, 2020 • by Mary Ruefle and Gina Chung

In Dunce, Mary Ruefle examines death, endings, and our relationship to the everyday objects and rituals that remind us, even while they provide comfort and solace, of the fundamental frailty and uncertainty of life. We spoke recently by phone (the “Contact” section of Ruefle’s website states, wonderfully, that she does not own a computer and that ...

Fashion

The Meaning(s) of Medical Masks

Hygiene, fashion, solidarity — and care

April 27, 2020 • by Tina Sikka

It is startling to see the ways in which medical masks have taken on a multiplicity of meanings: They were initially objects of confusion (to wear, or not to wear?), they have been in short supply -- and now, in many states, citizens by law must wear them in public. ...

Art & Design

Evoking Artist As Mother

An Interview With Myla Goldberg

April 23, 2020 • by Myla Goldberg and Hayleigh Santra

Hayleigh Santra [HS]: How did you come up with the idea for Feast Your Eyes? Myla Goldberg [MG]: For me, the book started with a question: Is it possible to be both an excellent artist and an excellent parent, or to be one of those, do you have to kick the ...

Interviews

Donald Trump’s Former Book Agent Comes Clean

UTA’s Byrd Leavell calls Caroline Calloway “unwell” and regrets his association with the President

April 21, 2020 • by Alexa Mauzy

Leavell is a literary agent, currently at United Talent Agency (UTA), one of Hollywood’s most powerful agencies, representing artists and other professionals in the entertainment industry. Based in Beverly Hills, it has divisions focused on film, television, digital, video games, and music, in addition to books. As the agency’s mission statement puts it, “We help ...

Donald Trump’s Former Book Agent Comes Clean

Music

David Bowie’s Future Revolution

Why the music made us feel so alive — and his death is still so hard to take

April 21, 2020 • by Simon Critchley

On the title track of Blackstar, released just a couple of days before his death, Bowie sings, “I’m not a pop star.” For me, and for his millions of fans, he was much more than that. He was someone who simply made us feel alive. This is what makes his ...

Interviews

Elegies for Lost Children

An Interview With Valeria Luiselli

April 20, 2020 • by Valeria Luiselli and Vanessa Chan

Eventually, the narrator’s own children go missing, culminating in a 20-page single sentence climax that breaks every convention, and that the reader is unable to look away from. On top of this wide range of themes, Luiselli also creates a novel-within-a-novel – a book called “Elegies for Lost Children” that ...

Democracy

Donald Trump Has Been in Politics for Decades

As a new book by Andrea Bernstein details, creating a 20th-century real estate empire demanded it

April 19, 2020 • by Claire Potter

As early as 1987, rumor had it that Donald Trump was considering a presidential bid. In October 1987, as both parties began to assemble the 1988 field, Trump took a trip to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where a crowd bearing “Trump for President” signs greeted him. He decided not to run ...

Donald Trump Has Been in Politics for Decades

Interviews

Pay Attention to the Language Itself

An interview with Lydia Davis

April 13, 2020 • by Lydia Davis and Pune Dracker

-- “The Fly,” Lydia Davis A classic short story -- yes, short story -- from the writer whom the Los Angeles Times Book Review has called “one of the quiet giants in the world of American fiction.” In Essays One, the reader is treated to a compilation of Davis’s commentaries, explorations, and ...

Literature

The Rest of Us Are Already Here

A lyric essay on fleeing a city in crisis

April 12, 2020 • by Nancy Barnes

The streets are empty No one’s there I stare -- is it true? Just yesterday, people streamed everywhere, high pitched humming currents of worry, rushing chunks of ice colliding The streets are empty No one’s there I stare -- is it true? Overnight Broadway goes dark, no money back ...

History

The Coronavirus Time Warp

Reading medieval literature in the midst of a pandemic

April 10, 2020 • by Eric Weiskott

We are in a fourteenth-century time warp, living through another pandemic originating in Asia and laying waste to Europe. Although this plague is less deadly than the Black Death, it has globalization on its side. The Black Death took ten years to reach Europe; coronavirus took two months. The Black Death ...

Art & Design

Archives of the Everyday

Finding what is hidden in the dress archive

April 10, 2020 • by Ellen Sampson

Much has been written in recent years about the role, position and display of dress in museums, about the ways that fashion exhibitions function as manifestations and metaphors for the predominant preoccupations of our times. Less explored, however, are the numerous garments that reside within museums archives, things which are ...

Fashion

Sartorial Steersmanship

We behave as if fashion is superficial — but only because it is so important

April 9, 2020 • by Otto von Busch

Everyone hearing the comment knows, don’t they? It’s never really about the shoes, but about who is in control. The utterance takes aim at my desire to just, for once, be the pilot of my own life, and dress the part, and that is not taken lightly. Teen angst and obsession with minuscule details ...