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Hunna Art is now representing Reem R
SHARJAH SH.- Reem R (b. 1995), now represented by Hunna Art, is a Palestinian visual artist whose work is inspired and influenced by daily observations, human interactions, personal experiences, and memories. Contrasting vivid color palettes and carefully-composed artworks capture the essence of her inner world, intertwining personal symbols with cultural references. Reem creates visual riddles that invite the viewers to engage their own imagination to decipher their meanings and come up with their own interpretations. "In the tradition of still life painting, Reem R. emerges as a contemporary artist who breathes new life into this enduring genre. Rooted in ancient Greece and reaching its zenith during the Renaissance, still life paintings depicted meticulously inanimate objects -such as fruits, flowers, and household items- that demonstrated ... More

Swann announces new specialists for illustration art & LGBTQ+ art, material culture & history departments
NEW YORK, NY.- The start of the fall 2023 season at Swann Galleries brings two new specialists for the house: Corey Serrant joins Swann as the associate director of LGBTQ+ Art, Material Culture & History, as well as serving as a specialist for the African American Art department; and Skye Lacerte has stepped into the role of specialist for the Illustration Art department. Swann continues to be an industry leader in both fields, with a recent offering of illustration art in June achieving record results: a group of designs by Charles Schultz for his Peanuts bridge sold for $50,000, and a harvest-themed cover image for the Saturday Evening Post by John Carleton Atherton brought $68,750, an auction record for the artist. The hiring of Corey Serrant into a leadership position for LGBTQ+ material signals the houses dedication to the category. The house is holding its fifth ... More

Bellingham artist Leilani Norman recognized with Originality Award at Anacortes Arts Festival
BELLINGHAM, WA .- Leilani Norman, a prominent artist based in Bellingham, Washington, has been honored with the esteemed Originality Award by the Anacortes Arts Festival's Fine Art Team. The award ceremony took place on July 29, 2023, and marked a highlight of the annual festival celebrating regional artistic talent. Selected from a competitive pool of hundreds of applications, Leilani Norman emerged as one of the 82 regional artists to participate in the Anacortes Arts Festival. The festival, known for showcasing exceptional artwork, brought together a diverse group of creative minds, fostering an environment of artistic appreciation and community engagement. The coveted Originality Award, presented to Leilani Norman for her painting The Valley, included a cash prize of $1000. This recognition is a testament to Norman's unique artistic ... More

Rodriguez, singer whose career was resurrected, dies at 81
NEW YORK, NY.- Rodriguez, a Detroit musician whose songs, full of protest and stark imagery from the urban streets, failed to find an American audience in the early 1970s but resonated in Australia and especially South Africa, leading to a late-career resurgence captured in the Oscar-winning documentary Searching for Sugar Man in 2012, died Aug. 8. He was 81. A posting on his official website announced his death but did not say where he died or provide a cause. Rodriguezs story was, as The New York Times put it in 2012, a real-life tale of talent disregarded, bad luck and missed opportunities, with an improbable stop in the Hamptons and a Hollywood conclusion. Rodriguez who performed under just his surname but whose full name was Sixto Diaz Rodriguez was playing bars in Detroit in the late 1960s, his folk-rock reminding those who ... More

Despite tensions, Salzburg remains a crammed summer stage
SALZBURG.- Early in 1779, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart sulked back to Salzburg, having failed to land a permanent job abroad. In a letter to a family friend, he sneered at the city he was returning to. Salzburg is no place for my talent, he wrote, adding: One hears nothing; theres no theater; no opera! and even if they wanted to stage one, who is there to sing? If only Mozart could see his hometown now. I read those words last weekend in a program note at the Salzburg Festival, which, over the past century, has been largely responsible for giving this place perhaps the richest, densest musical offerings in the world for six weeks each summer. Salzburgs bounty of nearly 200 opera, concert and theater performances, continuing this year through Aug. 31, is so intoxicating that it can lead to some dizzying sprints. Last Tuesday, I left one concert ... More

Alice K. Ladas, author of landmark book on female sexuality, dies at 102
NEW YORK, NY.- Alice Kahn Ladas, a psychologist and psychotherapist whose bestselling 1982 book, The G Spot: And Other Recent Discoveries About Human Sexuality, created a tipping point for female sensual autonomy by introducing ways for women to experience greater sexual pleasure, died July 29 at her home in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She was 102. Her daughter Robin Janis confirmed the death, adding that Ladas was still seeing patients at her home office the day before she died. Ladas book, written with researchers Beverly Whipple and John Perry, examined the existence of the G-spot, a patch of erectile tissue that can be felt through the front wall of the vagina, behind the pubic bone. (The tissue is named for Ernst GrÃ¤fenberg, a German physician who was the first person to write about it in modern medical literature.) The book compared ... More

In 'Operation Mincemeat,' the theater of war is a comedy
LONDON.- The inflatable tanks had to go. At one time, those tanks were a feature of Operation Mincemeat, a punchy, plucky, highly unlikely West End musical that tells the even more unlikely story of an MI5 escapade. It describes how, in 1942, British intelligence outfitted an unclaimed corpse as a member of the Royal Marines and delivered the body to the shores of Spain, trusting that German sympathizers would study faked documents planted on the body. It worked. That was hardly the craziest part. Part of the joy was that the crazy stuff was all true, said Natasha Hodgson, a member of SplitLip, a theater collective that created the show. But there was so very much crazy stuff. And during early performances, audience members had doubts. They especially doubted the dummy Sherman tanks, which the Allies created to misdirect the Germans. ... More

Mostly Mozart's repertoire broadens with its audience
NEW YORK, NY.- For the past 10 months, the back side of David Geffen Hall has greeted passersby with Nina Chanel Abneys installation San Juan Heal. Its bold, color-blocked illustrations pay tribute to the largely Black and Puerto Rican neighborhood that was torn down to make way for Lincoln Center in the mid-20th century. San Juan Heal was a way of acknowledging this performing-arts campus original sin. When it was announced, Henry Timms, the centers president and CEO, said, Weve been very intentional about thinking about different voices, different audiences, more people seeing themselves at Lincoln Center. But as the months passed, I began to wonder: Are there more people of color on the building than inside it? If the installation is both a nod to the past and a hope for the future, then what is Lincoln Center doing to get ... More

A poet captures the terror of life in an authoritarian state
NEW YORK, NY.- Tahir Hamut Izgil watched as parks emptied of people, naan bakeries boarded up their windows and, one after another, his friends were taken away. The Chinese governments repression of Uyghurs, the predominantly Muslim ethnic minority to which he belonged, had gone on for years in Xinjiang, the groups ancestral homeland in Chinas northwest. But in 2017, it morphed into something more terrifying: a mass internment system into which hundreds of thousands of people were disappearing. Millions lived under intense and growing surveillance. Izgil, a prominent poet and film director, feared that one day soon, authorities would come for him. So, he did what few have managed in the summer of 2017, he escaped with his family, and once settled in a Virginia suburb, he wrote about the experience. In his memoir, Waiting ... More

The devastated town of Lahaina is a trove of history
LAHAINA.- For many visitors, the town of Lahaina is a place to go for tropical beaches. But for residents of Hawaii, it is a trove of history. Its heritage museum, in a landmark courthouse, houses artifacts from before the rest of the world knew Hawaii existed. Its oldest building, the Baldwin Home, was occupied by the 19th-century physician who saved Maui from an epidemic of smallpox. Its central feature, a sprawling 150-year-old banyan tree, was planted to commemorate the arrival of Christian missionaries in 1873. On Wednesday, that legacy and more appeared to be in ashes, consumed by the hurricane-driven wildfires that have devastated the island of Maui, razing much of the historic district of Lahaina, once Hawaiis royal capital, in a matter of hours. We had no preparation, no warning, nothing, said Theo Morrison, the executive director ... More