Art
March 3, 2018 — John Hinderaker
Like most people, I suppose, I am aware of the Hittites only as bit players in the Old Testament. In my imagining, they have always been primitive at best. So I was surprised to come across this silver drinking cup in the shape of a fist, which is in the collection of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts: The museum’s site places the vessel in the Hittite New Kingdom during
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January 23, 2018 — Steven Hayward
For at least 25 years now, conservatives have been asking why taxpayers should subsidize marginal art like “Piss Christ” through the National Endowment for the Arts and such. Periodic calls to abolish the NEA always seem to get turned back somehow in the DC swamp. But the Trump Administration just might be the people to blow off the special pleading of the “arts community” and zero out the NEA. But
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September 3, 2017 — John Hinderaker
When Summer draws to an end, it is time for the Minnesota State Fair, one of the world’s great spectacles. You might expect a state fair to be a refuge from the daily onslaught of politics, but that is not the case. The parties have booths, and even in an odd-numbered year, politicians have booths. Still, this year’s event was low-key, politically, until you entered the seed section of the
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May 25, 2017 — Steven Hayward
I made a burrito for lunch today, because I wanted to commit a gross act of cultural appropriation. Have you heard the latest out of Portlandia? The appropriately named Kooks Burritos was forced out of business after being attacked for white supremacy because these kooky burritos were being made and sold by white women. Seriously. The Portland Mercury, whose title may explain its mindset because only something like lead or
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March 28, 2017 — Scott Johnson
Architect and Right By Ike spokesman Sam Roche writes to summarize the case against the planned Eisenhower Memorial on the Mall in Washington, DC. Designed by the atrocious postmodern architect Frank Gehry, it has rightly been called “a monumental shame.” A friend writes to report that GOP Rep. Ken Calvert of California, chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies, says he’s about to fund
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March 14, 2016 — Steven Hayward
I’ve been wanting to get this story planted somewhere for a long time. Tomorrow’s Wall Street Journal A-hed story: Fans Rally Around ‘That Painting,’ A Symbol of Las Vegas Kitsch By Alexandra Berzon LAS VEGAS—People here can no longer marvel at the public display of one million dollars, be dazzled by “the world’s largest rhinestone” or even watch showgirls prance in ostrich-feather headdresses. All have vanished. But when a reality-television
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February 29, 2016 — John Hinderaker
What is it with the Black Panthers? They were exposed as a vicious criminal gang long ago, and liberals who fawn over them have been subjects of ridicule at least since 1970, when Tom Wolfe wrote Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers. Yet somehow, they keep coming back. I wrote here about the University of Minnesota’s disgraceful plan to honor two surviving Panthers, both of whom are available for
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December 6, 2015 — Scott Johnson
The December 2015 issue of the New Criterion carries the magazine’s annual special section on art. The last of the essays in the special section is James Panero’s “The vengeance of the Vandals.” It’s an essay that smartly draws interesting historical connections, explains the barbaric vandalism of the Islamists, and makes sound policy recommendations. I can’t recall another essay quite like it. Here is James’s conclusion: It would be untrue
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July 8, 2015 — Scott Johnson
Reading a hard copy of the New York Times over the weekend, my eye was caught by the reproduction of a portrait of Henry James by John Singer Sargent that Leon Edel used for the cover of his multivolume biography of James. The accompanying Times article by Holland Cotter covers the Metropolitan Museum’s exhibit of portraits by Sargent, about whom I knew nothing, and includes several more Sargent portraits. Even
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July 6, 2015 — Scott Johnson
David Gelernter is an old-fashioned Renaissance man. He is professor of computer science at Yale University, chief scientist at Mirror Worlds Technologies, contributing editor at the Weekly Standard and member of the National Council of the Arts (more here). We have proudly hosted several of his thoughts on the present discontents. Professor Gelernter is the author of books that suggest a kind of Herodotean interest in everything human. Professor Gelernter
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June 30, 2015 — John Hinderaker
This is from yesterday’s Twitchy, but, assuming that most of our readers don’t haunt Twitter, it bears repeating here. Following the Charlie Hebdo murders, the New York Times covered the terrorist attack, but declined to print any of Charlie Hebdo’s mocking images of Muhammad. The paper self-righteously declared a policy against showing religious images that may be deemed offensive: “Out of respect to our readers we have avoided those we
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April 14, 2015 — Paul Mirengoff
On Wednesday evening, April 15, at 7:00 here in Washington DC, there will be a public reading of excerpts from FERGUSON, a play based exclusively on the testimony presented to the grand jury that so sensibly declined to indict Officer Darren Wilson. The performance will take place at the Atlas Performing Arts Center Lab, which is located at 1333 H Street, NE. Prominent lawyers will play the grand jury attorneys.
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October 9, 2014 — John Hinderaker
The emergence of anti-Obama street art over the last couple of years has been a welcome development, which we have reported on several times. Most recently, an artist who calls himself Sabo decorated actress Gwyneth Paltrow’s neighborhood just before her scheduled fundraiser (what else?) with President Obama. Apparently Sabo has been interviewed on Fox News, so his identity may be known, just not to me. This Sabo poster calls Paltrow
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September 20, 2014 — Scott Johnson
We have sporadically followed the long, sad saga of the proposed Eisenhower Memorial. The Eisenhower Memorial Commission has now survived 15 years. We have no Eisenhower Memorial, but the commission has a plan (a bad one) and a promotional website. For good and sufficient reason the National Capital Planning Commission rejected the proposed memorial plan earlier this year. The Washington Examiner reported on the NCPC’s rejection in a long article
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September 19, 2014 — Steven Hayward
Lots and lots of climate news right now, ahead of next week’s UN “Leaders Climate Summit” that no world leaders are attending, but there’s one story out the last few days that deserves special notice: did you know that $700,000 of your tax dollars went to subsidizing an off-Broadway musical about the evils of climate change? Yes, I know, this sounds like a plot to a lame Mel Brooks remake
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April 15, 2014 — Steven Hayward
I know I wasn’t alone when I heard the news last year that Francis Bacon’s triptych “Three Studies of Lucian Freud” had sold for a staggering $142 million at an art auction. Who could have been the buyer? Surely a Russian oligarch, or a Silicon Valley techillionaire. Turned out to be Elaine Wynn, the ex-wife of casino magnate Steve Wynn. (That must have been some divorce settlement.) The next bit of
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April 4, 2014 — Scott Johnson
Terry Teachout traces his interest in Louis Armstrong to the time his mother called him in from outdoors to see Armstrong sing (probably “Hello, Dolly”) on the Ed Sullivan Show. His mother beckoned him with the sage admonition, “He won’t be around forever.” By the same token, if you are in the vicinity of New York City, or visiting some time soon, I urge you to come in and see
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