February 2012
6 posts
Berlin and the Artist
Robert Walser, Berlin Stories (1905) translated into English by Susan Bernofsky
A city like Berlin is an ill-mannered, impertinent, intelligent scoundrel, constantly affirming the things that suit him and tossing aside everything he tires of. Here in the big city you can definitely feel the waves of intellect washing over the life of Berlin society like a sort of bath. An artist here has no...
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From the Archives: "At the Grand Palais"
by Hal Foster published in Vol. 30 No. 10 of the London Review of Books, 22 May 2008
There is a general recognition of a ‘late style’ in music and literature – a turn to a vital asperity towards the end of a life of composition à la Beethoven or Yeats – but less so in visual art, at least among prominent Modernists. One exception is Matisse, who, in his late cutouts, returned with gusto to ‘the...
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Charlie Rose talks with sculptor Richard Serra about the impact of witnessing 9/11 and how the event shaped his life and work.
January 2012
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Heine's astonishing prophecy
From thecultofgenius, the concluding words of Heinrich Heine’s 1834 book, Religion and Philosophy in Germany:
Christianity - and that is its greatest merit - has somewhat mitigated that brutal German love of war, but it could not destroy it. Should that subduing talisman, the Cross, be shattered, the frenzied madness of the ancient warriors, that insane Berserk rage of which Nordic bards have...
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As for Vermeer of Delft, Odette asked whether he had been made to suffer by a...
– Marcel Proust Swann’s Way (Remembrance of Things Past, Volume One), pg. 158
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December 2011
26 posts
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It is the Acropolis that made a rebel of me. One clear image will stand in my...
– Le Corbusier, Fourth Meeting of the CIAM, 1933
Classical Architecture: The Poetics of Order by Tzonis and Lefaivre
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A great building must begin with the unmeasurable, must go through measurable...
– Louis Kahn
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Suddenly all my ancestors are behind me. Be still, they say. Watch and listen....
– Linda Hogan, “Walking” from Dwellings: A Spiritual History of the Living Word
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The Creative Covers of Miles Davis
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As men, we very rarely, if ever, know what it’s like to face unwelcome comments...
– Yashar Ali, “Men Will Never Truly Understand A Day In The Life of Women. But Shouldn’t We Try?”
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