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William Turner Gallery to show new large-scale works by Andy Moses
SANTA MONICA, CALIF.- William Turner Gallery will present Andy Moses: Recent Paintings, a compelling exhibition of new large-scale works by Los Angeles-based artist, Andy Moses. The exhibition will run from September 9th through November 11th, 2023. Andy Moses: Recent Paintings is an excitingly ambitious new body of work, showcasing an artist fully engaged and at the height of his creative process. Blurring the line between abstraction and a new kind of pictorialism, Moses utilizes techniques that facilitate his almost obsessive study of the alchemical properties of paint. The paintings that emerge articulate the abstract nature of perception, reaching beyond the material and tapping into the visceral. The images reveal undeniable traces of natural phenomena, seeking not to replicate the natural world, but rather to suggest the forces of nature itself. ... More

Carriage clock owned by famous horticulturist heads to auction
LONDO.- A rare 1900 Swiss miniature silver carriage clock that was once owned by one of the most significant female horticulturists, plant researchers and plant photographers of the 19th and early 20th centuries is to be offered at auction in September. Ellen Ann Willmott (1858-1934), whose name inspired that of more than 200 plants (Veronica prostrata Warley Blue, Potentilla nepalensis Miss Willmott and Syringa vulgaris Miss Ellen Willmott to name a few), was awarded the first ever Victoria Medal of Honour to British horticulturists by the Royal Horticultural Society in 1897. Willmott was revered for her work in redeveloping the gardens of her familys home Warley Place in Essex, made possible due to an inheritance from her aunt the Countess Helen Tasker (1823-1888). Her global plant-hunting expeditions to bring back and introduce ... More

Don't underestimate Jimmy Buffett's influence on style
NEW YORK, NY.- Odds are the world of capital-F fashion never gave a moments thought to Jimmy Buffett, the bard of Margaritaville, who died Friday at 76. Yet the truth is the undisputed king of easy-listening yacht rock probably exerted as much influence on style as any designer that ever sent a model down a runway in a jacket with three sleeves. It is not just a matter of the crazily festooned novelty hats his fans known as Parrot Heads sported at his shows. Buffett, a singer, songwriter, entrepreneur and bestselling author, took a form of laid-back dressing instantly recognizable to anyone who ever hung around a boatyard and made it mainstream both at home and abroad. Not for Buffett the hippie-adjacent suedes and leathers of his musical contemporaries, nor even the standard-issue double-denim get-ups preferred by pop ... More

Venice Film Festival: All your questions about Bradley Cooper's 'Maestro' answered
VENICE.- During a 1976 lecture at Harvard University, conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein said, A work of art does not answer questions, it provokes them. Its fitting that Bradley Cooper opens his new movie about the musician with that same quote: Ever since the teaser trailer dropped for Maestro, which Cooper directed, co-wrote and starred in, all sorts of questions have been flying. And though Bernstein may have been hesitant to answer queries about art, I feel no such reluctance: Having caught the movie Saturday during its debut at the Venice Film Festival, Im ready to fill you in on everything you might want to know about Maestro. Due on Netflix in December, Maestro tracks the exceptional but complicated life of Bernstein, best known as the composer of works such as West Side Story and widely considered Americas first great ... More

Channeling her anger, Ghada Amer looks to the future
SEOUL.- Artist Ghada Amer, whose works will be on view at Frieze Seoul next week in the booth of Tina Kim Gallery, is hardly the first artist to get mad or to channel that feeling into her work. But few artists talk about it so openly, and even cheerfully. My paintings are angry, said Amer, 60, referring to her embroidered works that depict women. During a lively chat in the large, multifloor studio in the Harlem neighborhood of New York that she shares with her partner, artist Reza Farkhondeh, she explained that the emotion dated back to 1986, when a teacher at her French art school would not let her join a painting class. He didnt want to teach any women, she said. Her fury has other fuel, too. Im not collected as much as white artists, Amer added. Born in Egypt, she is a citizen of that country as well as of the United States and France. I ... More

Lost letter penned by literary genius Dr Samuel Johnson discovered in Gloucestershire country house
NEAR CRANHAM.- Among a cache of letters discovered in a Gloucestershire country house is a lost letter written by the renowned English writer Samuel Johnson, (1709-1784), who compiled one of the most famous dictionaries in history: Dictionary of the English Language. The letter, which had been officially logged as present location unknown for many years, was published in The Letters of Samuel Johnson (Oxford, 1994; Bruce Bedford, ed.) and was found on a routine valuation by Chorleys auction specialists. The letter was tucked away with others in a cupboard, with the current owner of the house being unaware of their historical importance. Samuel Johnson, usually known as Dr Johnson, was a revered essayist, literary critic, editor, poet, playwright, biographer and lexicographer (the art of compiling dictionaries.) The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography ... More

An unexpected hotbed of YA authors: Utah
PROVO, UTAH.- American book-reading habits have been in decline for decades, but you wouldnt know it from sitting in on a young adult literature class held in the winter at Brigham Young University. The professor, Chris Crowe, arrived with a box full of books. When he announced they were free for the taking, some two dozen students rushed to the table. There were reminders that the class was taking place at the Lords university, as BYU is known in the Mormon world. (The university is owned and run by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.) Class began with a student-led prayer, and the syllabus cited the schools mission statement: The full realization of each students divine potential is our central focus. But the reading list consisted of mainstream titles any YA fiction fan would recognize, like The Outsiders, by S.E. ... More

Norman Pfeiffer, bicoastal architect of civic spaces, dies at 82
NEW YORK, NY.- Norman Pfeiffer, a bicoastal architect who for more than a half-century restored, re-imagined and created civic spaces that enhanced New York City landmarks and helped revitalize downtown Los Angeles, died Aug. 23 at his home in Pacific Palisades, California. He was 82. The cause was congestive heart failure, his wife, Patricia Zohn, said. In Los Angeles, Pfeiffer, a founding partner of Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates, was instrumental in designing the renovation and expansion of the Los Angeles Central Library, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Colburn School of Performing Arts & Music Conservatory, and the Griffith Observatory. In New York, he drafted plans for the restoration of Radio City Music Hall, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Cooper Hewitt museum and the New Amsterdam Theater, as well as new ... More

Reeling from heartbreak, and then 'Penelope' showed up
GARRISON, NY.- Composer and lyricist Alex Bechtel didnt go looking for Penelope, the mythical character in The Odyssey famed for her clever weaving and steadfast endurance of long abandonment. At a low moment in Bechtels romantic life, Penelope came to him, inspiring music that developed into a concept album a breakup album, really, begun in 2020 during the early months of the coronavirus pandemic. Bechtel was at home in Philadelphia, far from his partner in Boston, as their relationship fell apart and as he wondered, with the nations stages shuttered, whether he would ever be able to work in theater again. The music, then, was also fed by what he called his terror and confusion and grief and longing for this thing that I have chosen to do with my life. I started writing songs from the point of view of Penelope, he said. I never sat down ... More

In Key West, where Buffett met his muse, the tributes flow
KEY WEST, FLA.- A small shrine of flowers appeared in front of Margaritaville in Key West on Saturday. There were more flowers outside Shrimp Boat Sound, Jimmy Buffetts low-key recording studio along the docks of the Historic Seaport, where fans of the singer also placed a six-pack of beer, a copy of one of his books and, of course, a shaker of salt. For residents of the southernmost city in the continental United States, Saturday was a day to mourn and toast the singer who died at 76 on Friday and who, with his 1977 anthem Margaritaville, made himself and his onetime home famous. Key Westers posted tributes on social media, dropped well-wishes at the Margaritaville restaurant and store the Buffett businesses that started here and expanded into an empire of hotels, products such as Landshark Lager and more and started planning a celebration ... More

A Nicaraguan novelist betrayed by the revolution he helped build
NEW YORK, NY.- Sergio RamÃrez has been forced into exile twice; once for his role in a revolution and once after writing, in a work of fiction, about what that revolution became. One thing hes learned in the interim: Dictators lack imagination. When it comes to suppressing freedom and exercising absolute power, the distance between left and right is erased, RamÃrez said. They want the same things. Its not hard to see why authoritarians of varying stripes might want RamÃrez to just go away. A central figure in Nicaraguan literature and politics for six decades, his reflections on the perils of power for its own sake whether they come at a book fair or a peace conference carry weight. RamÃrez was an intellectual leader of the Nicaraguan revolution that ousted right wing dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979. He founded his own political party ... More