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Pics 1–4 from SculptureCenter’s fabulous video installation exhibition by Ellen Pao (May 28–August 16). The piece takes its name from a lonesome whale, known for emitting calls at a frequency of “52Hz” that no other whales appear to respond to. Pao expands on the idea of solitariness throughout the video work, including pics 1–2, which show her video recreation of a sex worker’s lonely death in Hong Kong — her body was discovered only after neighbors noticed the odor of decomposition, while a song continued to play repeatedly inside her apartment.The name of her show is She Moves (pics 8–9), and Pao is a terrific pioneering video artist from Hong Kong — also a dear, longtime friend.🙏🙏🙏 #SculptureCenter #EllenPao #SheMoves #HongKong #QueensNewYork

Pics 1–4 from SculptureCenter’s fabulous video installation exhibition by Ellen Pao (May 28–August 16). The piece takes its name from a lonesome whale, known for emitting calls at a frequency of “52Hz” that no other whales appear to respond to. Pao expands on the idea of solitariness throughout the video work, including pics 1–2, which show her video recreation of a sex worker’s lonely death in Hong Kong — her body was discovered only after neighbors noticed the odor of decomposition, while a song continued to play repeatedly inside her apartment.The name of her show is She Moves (pics 8–9), and Pao is a terrific pioneering video artist from Hong Kong — also a dear, longtime friend.🙏🙏🙏 #SculptureCenter #EllenPao #SheMoves #HongKong #QueensNewYork

Pics 1–4 from SculptureCenter’s fabulous video installation exhibition by Ellen Pao (May 28–August 16). The piece takes its name from a lonesome whale, known for emitting calls at a frequency of “52Hz” that no other whales appear to respond to. Pao expands on the idea of solitariness throughout the video work, including pics 1–2, which show her video recreation of a sex worker’s lonely death in Hong Kong — her body was discovered only after neighbors noticed the odor of decomposition, while a song continued to play repeatedly inside her apartment.The name of her show is She Moves (pics 8–9), and Pao is a terrific pioneering video artist from Hong Kong — also a dear, longtime friend.🙏🙏🙏 #SculptureCenter #EllenPao #SheMoves #HongKong #QueensNewYork

Pics 1–4 from SculptureCenter’s fabulous video installation exhibition by Ellen Pao (May 28–August 16). The piece takes its name from a lonesome whale, known for emitting calls at a frequency of “52Hz” that no other whales appear to respond to. Pao expands on the idea of solitariness throughout the video work, including pics 1–2, which show her video recreation of a sex worker’s lonely death in Hong Kong — her body was discovered only after neighbors noticed the odor of decomposition, while a song continued to play repeatedly inside her apartment.The name of her show is She Moves (pics 8–9), and Pao is a terrific pioneering video artist from Hong Kong — also a dear, longtime friend.🙏🙏🙏 #SculptureCenter #EllenPao #SheMoves #HongKong #QueensNewYork

Pics 1–4 from SculptureCenter’s fabulous video installation exhibition by Ellen Pao (May 28–August 16). The piece takes its name from a lonesome whale, known for emitting calls at a frequency of “52Hz” that no other whales appear to respond to. Pao expands on the idea of solitariness throughout the video work, including pics 1–2, which show her video recreation of a sex worker’s lonely death in Hong Kong — her body was discovered only after neighbors noticed the odor of decomposition, while a song continued to play repeatedly inside her apartment.The name of her show is She Moves (pics 8–9), and Pao is a terrific pioneering video artist from Hong Kong — also a dear, longtime friend.🙏🙏🙏 #SculptureCenter #EllenPao #SheMoves #HongKong #QueensNewYork

Pics 1–4 from SculptureCenter’s fabulous video installation exhibition by Ellen Pao (May 28–August 16). The piece takes its name from a lonesome whale, known for emitting calls at a frequency of “52Hz” that no other whales appear to respond to. Pao expands on the idea of solitariness throughout the video work, including pics 1–2, which show her video recreation of a sex worker’s lonely death in Hong Kong — her body was discovered only after neighbors noticed the odor of decomposition, while a song continued to play repeatedly inside her apartment.The name of her show is She Moves (pics 8–9), and Pao is a terrific pioneering video artist from Hong Kong — also a dear, longtime friend.🙏🙏🙏 #SculptureCenter #EllenPao #SheMoves #HongKong #QueensNewYork

Pics 1–4 from SculptureCenter’s fabulous video installation exhibition by Ellen Pao (May 28–August 16). The piece takes its name from a lonesome whale, known for emitting calls at a frequency of “52Hz” that no other whales appear to respond to. Pao expands on the idea of solitariness throughout the video work, including pics 1–2, which show her video recreation of a sex worker’s lonely death in Hong Kong — her body was discovered only after neighbors noticed the odor of decomposition, while a song continued to play repeatedly inside her apartment.The name of her show is She Moves (pics 8–9), and Pao is a terrific pioneering video artist from Hong Kong — also a dear, longtime friend.🙏🙏🙏 #SculptureCenter #EllenPao #SheMoves #HongKong #QueensNewYork

Pics 1–4 from SculptureCenter’s fabulous video installation exhibition by Ellen Pao (May 28–August 16). The piece takes its name from a lonesome whale, known for emitting calls at a frequency of “52Hz” that no other whales appear to respond to. Pao expands on the idea of solitariness throughout the video work, including pics 1–2, which show her video recreation of a sex worker’s lonely death in Hong Kong — her body was discovered only after neighbors noticed the odor of decomposition, while a song continued to play repeatedly inside her apartment.The name of her show is She Moves (pics 8–9), and Pao is a terrific pioneering video artist from Hong Kong — also a dear, longtime friend.🙏🙏🙏 #SculptureCenter #EllenPao #SheMoves #HongKong #QueensNewYork

Pics 1–4 from SculptureCenter’s fabulous video installation exhibition by Ellen Pao (May 28–August 16). The piece takes its name from a lonesome whale, known for emitting calls at a frequency of “52Hz” that no other whales appear to respond to. Pao expands on the idea of solitariness throughout the video work, including pics 1–2, which show her video recreation of a sex worker’s lonely death in Hong Kong — her body was discovered only after neighbors noticed the odor of decomposition, while a song continued to play repeatedly inside her apartment.The name of her show is She Moves (pics 8–9), and Pao is a terrific pioneering video artist from Hong Kong — also a dear, longtime friend.🙏🙏🙏 #SculptureCenter #EllenPao #SheMoves #HongKong #QueensNewYork

Happy Birthday to Jasper Johns.
Throwback to his 2022 retrospective at the Whitney — (Rainy) “Spring” (tonight in NYC), from his “Season” series (pic 1).
That subtle, melancholic lyricism emanating from his rigorously executed, rightfully earned, self-referential “abstract” surfaces remains a unique experience for me. Yes — he is still, in my view, the preeminent American painter, and among the greatest global painters as well.
Pic 2: my masked pandemic-year selfie, appearing in the target within Johns’ Untitled painting/sculpture.
Apparently, my “target” reflection is framed by “the catenary, which is the term for a curve made by a cord suspended between two points,” implying not only spatial depth but also — for those alert to Johns’ tropes — bodily forms, perhaps even testicles.
No disrespect intended, but I prefer the other interpretation of Johns’ catenary: time itself, the arc of one’s life.
Many thanks, Mr. Johns, for marrying a great intellect to delicately evoked emotions on your indispensable canvases. #spring #seasons #jasperjohns #catenary whitneymuseum

Happy Birthday to Jasper Johns.
Throwback to his 2022 retrospective at the Whitney — (Rainy) “Spring” (tonight in NYC), from his “Season” series (pic 1).
That subtle, melancholic lyricism emanating from his rigorously executed, rightfully earned, self-referential “abstract” surfaces remains a unique experience for me. Yes — he is still, in my view, the preeminent American painter, and among the greatest global painters as well.
Pic 2: my masked pandemic-year selfie, appearing in the target within Johns’ Untitled painting/sculpture.
Apparently, my “target” reflection is framed by “the catenary, which is the term for a curve made by a cord suspended between two points,” implying not only spatial depth but also — for those alert to Johns’ tropes — bodily forms, perhaps even testicles.
No disrespect intended, but I prefer the other interpretation of Johns’ catenary: time itself, the arc of one’s life.
Many thanks, Mr. Johns, for marrying a great intellect to delicately evoked emotions on your indispensable canvases. #spring #seasons #jasperjohns #catenary whitneymuseum

Hello dear — another selfie, another spring night in this seemingly endless late spring on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, NYC, with temperatures still hovering in the 50s–60s °F (11–15 °C). So glad to have seen spring fog two nights ago. (Pic/clip 2) My next posting will be a selfie as framed by Jasper Johns. #jasperjohns #latespring #upperwestside #manhattan #nyc

Hello dear — another selfie, another spring night in this seemingly endless late spring on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, NYC, with temperatures still hovering in the 50s–60s °F (11–15 °C). So glad to have seen spring fog two nights ago. (Pic/clip 2) My next posting will be a selfie as framed by Jasper Johns. #jasperjohns #latespring #upperwestside #manhattan #nyc

The Passion According to Johns — Jasper Johns’ pure yet surreptitiously passionate drawings are currently on view in Copy/Trace at the David Zwirner 20th Street Gallery in Chelsea. The Skin series, with the artist’s hand- and face-imprints, is quietly searing (pic 3), while (homo)eroticism manifests through Johns’ rigorously formal yet subtly inflected evocations.
Look at this male nude (pics 1 & 2), seemingly with an erection(?), from one of his early drawings, Tracing after Cézanne. Then there’s Perilous Night — one of only two colored works in the exhibition — dedicated to (and made specifically for) my dear friend Margaret Leng Tan, the “diva of avant-garde pianism” (The New Yorker). It is a painting on paper inspired by the titular John Cage score, a meditation on the pain and terror of unhappy love.
Alas: sex and death — and, hopefully, survival and resurrection.
Perhaps that is why much of the canvas stylishly reprises the terror-stricken soldier from the Resurrection panel of Matthias Grünewald’s sixteenth-century masterwork, the Isenheim Altarpiece (pics 4–8).
Margaret and friends at the opening appear in pic/clip 9. #jasperjohns #davidzwirner #matthiasgrünewald #cezanne #margaretlengtan

The Passion According to Johns — Jasper Johns’ pure yet surreptitiously passionate drawings are currently on view in Copy/Trace at the David Zwirner 20th Street Gallery in Chelsea. The Skin series, with the artist’s hand- and face-imprints, is quietly searing (pic 3), while (homo)eroticism manifests through Johns’ rigorously formal yet subtly inflected evocations.
Look at this male nude (pics 1 & 2), seemingly with an erection(?), from one of his early drawings, Tracing after Cézanne. Then there’s Perilous Night — one of only two colored works in the exhibition — dedicated to (and made specifically for) my dear friend Margaret Leng Tan, the “diva of avant-garde pianism” (The New Yorker). It is a painting on paper inspired by the titular John Cage score, a meditation on the pain and terror of unhappy love.
Alas: sex and death — and, hopefully, survival and resurrection.
Perhaps that is why much of the canvas stylishly reprises the terror-stricken soldier from the Resurrection panel of Matthias Grünewald’s sixteenth-century masterwork, the Isenheim Altarpiece (pics 4–8).
Margaret and friends at the opening appear in pic/clip 9. #jasperjohns #davidzwirner #matthiasgrünewald #cezanne #margaretlengtan

The Passion According to Johns — Jasper Johns’ pure yet surreptitiously passionate drawings are currently on view in Copy/Trace at the David Zwirner 20th Street Gallery in Chelsea. The Skin series, with the artist’s hand- and face-imprints, is quietly searing (pic 3), while (homo)eroticism manifests through Johns’ rigorously formal yet subtly inflected evocations.
Look at this male nude (pics 1 & 2), seemingly with an erection(?), from one of his early drawings, Tracing after Cézanne. Then there’s Perilous Night — one of only two colored works in the exhibition — dedicated to (and made specifically for) my dear friend Margaret Leng Tan, the “diva of avant-garde pianism” (The New Yorker). It is a painting on paper inspired by the titular John Cage score, a meditation on the pain and terror of unhappy love.
Alas: sex and death — and, hopefully, survival and resurrection.
Perhaps that is why much of the canvas stylishly reprises the terror-stricken soldier from the Resurrection panel of Matthias Grünewald’s sixteenth-century masterwork, the Isenheim Altarpiece (pics 4–8).
Margaret and friends at the opening appear in pic/clip 9. #jasperjohns #davidzwirner #matthiasgrünewald #cezanne #margaretlengtan

The Passion According to Johns — Jasper Johns’ pure yet surreptitiously passionate drawings are currently on view in Copy/Trace at the David Zwirner 20th Street Gallery in Chelsea. The Skin series, with the artist’s hand- and face-imprints, is quietly searing (pic 3), while (homo)eroticism manifests through Johns’ rigorously formal yet subtly inflected evocations.
Look at this male nude (pics 1 & 2), seemingly with an erection(?), from one of his early drawings, Tracing after Cézanne. Then there’s Perilous Night — one of only two colored works in the exhibition — dedicated to (and made specifically for) my dear friend Margaret Leng Tan, the “diva of avant-garde pianism” (The New Yorker). It is a painting on paper inspired by the titular John Cage score, a meditation on the pain and terror of unhappy love.
Alas: sex and death — and, hopefully, survival and resurrection.
Perhaps that is why much of the canvas stylishly reprises the terror-stricken soldier from the Resurrection panel of Matthias Grünewald’s sixteenth-century masterwork, the Isenheim Altarpiece (pics 4–8).
Margaret and friends at the opening appear in pic/clip 9. #jasperjohns #davidzwirner #matthiasgrünewald #cezanne #margaretlengtan

The Passion According to Johns — Jasper Johns’ pure yet surreptitiously passionate drawings are currently on view in Copy/Trace at the David Zwirner 20th Street Gallery in Chelsea. The Skin series, with the artist’s hand- and face-imprints, is quietly searing (pic 3), while (homo)eroticism manifests through Johns’ rigorously formal yet subtly inflected evocations.
Look at this male nude (pics 1 & 2), seemingly with an erection(?), from one of his early drawings, Tracing after Cézanne. Then there’s Perilous Night — one of only two colored works in the exhibition — dedicated to (and made specifically for) my dear friend Margaret Leng Tan, the “diva of avant-garde pianism” (The New Yorker). It is a painting on paper inspired by the titular John Cage score, a meditation on the pain and terror of unhappy love.
Alas: sex and death — and, hopefully, survival and resurrection.
Perhaps that is why much of the canvas stylishly reprises the terror-stricken soldier from the Resurrection panel of Matthias Grünewald’s sixteenth-century masterwork, the Isenheim Altarpiece (pics 4–8).
Margaret and friends at the opening appear in pic/clip 9. #jasperjohns #davidzwirner #matthiasgrünewald #cezanne #margaretlengtan

The Passion According to Johns — Jasper Johns’ pure yet surreptitiously passionate drawings are currently on view in Copy/Trace at the David Zwirner 20th Street Gallery in Chelsea. The Skin series, with the artist’s hand- and face-imprints, is quietly searing (pic 3), while (homo)eroticism manifests through Johns’ rigorously formal yet subtly inflected evocations.
Look at this male nude (pics 1 & 2), seemingly with an erection(?), from one of his early drawings, Tracing after Cézanne. Then there’s Perilous Night — one of only two colored works in the exhibition — dedicated to (and made specifically for) my dear friend Margaret Leng Tan, the “diva of avant-garde pianism” (The New Yorker). It is a painting on paper inspired by the titular John Cage score, a meditation on the pain and terror of unhappy love.
Alas: sex and death — and, hopefully, survival and resurrection.
Perhaps that is why much of the canvas stylishly reprises the terror-stricken soldier from the Resurrection panel of Matthias Grünewald’s sixteenth-century masterwork, the Isenheim Altarpiece (pics 4–8).
Margaret and friends at the opening appear in pic/clip 9. #jasperjohns #davidzwirner #matthiasgrünewald #cezanne #margaretlengtan

The Passion According to Johns — Jasper Johns’ pure yet surreptitiously passionate drawings are currently on view in Copy/Trace at the David Zwirner 20th Street Gallery in Chelsea. The Skin series, with the artist’s hand- and face-imprints, is quietly searing (pic 3), while (homo)eroticism manifests through Johns’ rigorously formal yet subtly inflected evocations.
Look at this male nude (pics 1 & 2), seemingly with an erection(?), from one of his early drawings, Tracing after Cézanne. Then there’s Perilous Night — one of only two colored works in the exhibition — dedicated to (and made specifically for) my dear friend Margaret Leng Tan, the “diva of avant-garde pianism” (The New Yorker). It is a painting on paper inspired by the titular John Cage score, a meditation on the pain and terror of unhappy love.
Alas: sex and death — and, hopefully, survival and resurrection.
Perhaps that is why much of the canvas stylishly reprises the terror-stricken soldier from the Resurrection panel of Matthias Grünewald’s sixteenth-century masterwork, the Isenheim Altarpiece (pics 4–8).
Margaret and friends at the opening appear in pic/clip 9. #jasperjohns #davidzwirner #matthiasgrünewald #cezanne #margaretlengtan

The Passion According to Johns — Jasper Johns’ pure yet surreptitiously passionate drawings are currently on view in Copy/Trace at the David Zwirner 20th Street Gallery in Chelsea. The Skin series, with the artist’s hand- and face-imprints, is quietly searing (pic 3), while (homo)eroticism manifests through Johns’ rigorously formal yet subtly inflected evocations.
Look at this male nude (pics 1 & 2), seemingly with an erection(?), from one of his early drawings, Tracing after Cézanne. Then there’s Perilous Night — one of only two colored works in the exhibition — dedicated to (and made specifically for) my dear friend Margaret Leng Tan, the “diva of avant-garde pianism” (The New Yorker). It is a painting on paper inspired by the titular John Cage score, a meditation on the pain and terror of unhappy love.
Alas: sex and death — and, hopefully, survival and resurrection.
Perhaps that is why much of the canvas stylishly reprises the terror-stricken soldier from the Resurrection panel of Matthias Grünewald’s sixteenth-century masterwork, the Isenheim Altarpiece (pics 4–8).
Margaret and friends at the opening appear in pic/clip 9. #jasperjohns #davidzwirner #matthiasgrünewald #cezanne #margaretlengtan

The Passion According to Johns — Jasper Johns’ pure yet surreptitiously passionate drawings are currently on view in Copy/Trace at the David Zwirner 20th Street Gallery in Chelsea. The Skin series, with the artist’s hand- and face-imprints, is quietly searing (pic 3), while (homo)eroticism manifests through Johns’ rigorously formal yet subtly inflected evocations.
Look at this male nude (pics 1 & 2), seemingly with an erection(?), from one of his early drawings, Tracing after Cézanne. Then there’s Perilous Night — one of only two colored works in the exhibition — dedicated to (and made specifically for) my dear friend Margaret Leng Tan, the “diva of avant-garde pianism” (The New Yorker). It is a painting on paper inspired by the titular John Cage score, a meditation on the pain and terror of unhappy love.
Alas: sex and death — and, hopefully, survival and resurrection.
Perhaps that is why much of the canvas stylishly reprises the terror-stricken soldier from the Resurrection panel of Matthias Grünewald’s sixteenth-century masterwork, the Isenheim Altarpiece (pics 4–8).
Margaret and friends at the opening appear in pic/clip 9. #jasperjohns #davidzwirner #matthiasgrünewald #cezanne #margaretlengtan

A clip from Water Moon, Lin Hwai-min’s masterpiece, performed by his Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan and shown during his onstage interview at the Asia Society on Friday.A longtime friend — whom I have always known simply as Hwai-min — he is a major choreographer and perhaps the only one to have distilled meticulously Chinese aesthetics into movement, rhythm, and a profound sense of space and time. (It’s not cinematic slow-moin the clip, but sustained tai-chi- & calligraphy-inspired movement.) Lin’s incomparable work deserves to be seen worldwide again and again. I hope I can see Water Moon, and many more of his 90-plus works, at least one more time during, alas, these waning decades of my life. #linhwaimin #cloudgatedancetheatre #watermoon #asiasociety #taiwan

Welcome back, Hungary—emerging from Viktor Orbán’s stifling illiberal grip. Maybe this moment was presaged weeks ago by the memorial screenings of Béla Tarr’s 6-&-half-hour magnum opus , SATANTANGO, at Lincoln Center. J. Hoberman once called it an “unwatchable” major film, while Susan Sontag declared it a film she would like to see “once a year.” The latter is not an ambition I share.Regardless of whether I revisit it, no other film I’ve seen in recent years so powerfully advocates the “aesthetic of boredom” inaugurated by the great Michelangelo Antonioni in the 1960s. The pervasive ennui of a barren landscape — set within a Soviet-style Hungarian agricultural commune — is rendered as a palpably oppressive presence.The utterly powerful sequence of a young girl torturing & poisoning her cat operates as a kind of parallel real-time montage, echoing the offscreentransactional sexual encounter between her prostitute mother and a client—after the girl has been sternly warned not to watch. Across its shifting tableaux, the film interweaves a range of social conditions and themes: poverty, drunkenness, medical inertia, the seductions of socialist utopia, the corrosive pull of personality cults, and the maddening bureaucracies of the bygone Eastern Bloc.Adapted from a novel by the latest Nobel laureate László Krasznahorkai, the film stands as a formidable literary-cinematic experiment/achievement. By the end, the narrator’s identity comes into focus: a figure writing himself into the story, even as he remains ignorant of certain key events. Through this oscillation between interior and exterior points of view, the film exposes both art’s blind spots and its omnipresence—its limits, and its strange capacity to redeem us as readers and viewers alike. #belatarr #satantango #laszlokrasznahorkai #aestheticsofboredom #michelangeloantonioni

Martha Graham Dance Company’s 100 anniversary season at the New York City Center.Pic 2 & 3 shows the ensemble dancing Appalachian Spring. Pic 4 shows a moment from Diversion of Angels, which women in yellow, red & white represent different stages of a woman’s romantic involvement — from adolescence, adult passion, to platonic possibilities.I’ve seen Graham concerts over the years, from the time when she was alive to this weekend. But I’ve finally noticed her Cubist inspiration & forthright exploration of female sexuality by having all these bare-chested -foot male dancers on stage.#marthagraham #newyorkcitycenter #appalachianspring #cubismart #femalesexuality

Martha Graham Dance Company’s 100 anniversary season at the New York City Center.Pic 2 & 3 shows the ensemble dancing Appalachian Spring. Pic 4 shows a moment from Diversion of Angels, which women in yellow, red & white represent different stages of a woman’s romantic involvement — from adolescence, adult passion, to platonic possibilities.I’ve seen Graham concerts over the years, from the time when she was alive to this weekend. But I’ve finally noticed her Cubist inspiration & forthright exploration of female sexuality by having all these bare-chested -foot male dancers on stage.#marthagraham #newyorkcitycenter #appalachianspring #cubismart #femalesexuality

Martha Graham Dance Company’s 100 anniversary season at the New York City Center.Pic 2 & 3 shows the ensemble dancing Appalachian Spring. Pic 4 shows a moment from Diversion of Angels, which women in yellow, red & white represent different stages of a woman’s romantic involvement — from adolescence, adult passion, to platonic possibilities.I’ve seen Graham concerts over the years, from the time when she was alive to this weekend. But I’ve finally noticed her Cubist inspiration & forthright exploration of female sexuality by having all these bare-chested -foot male dancers on stage.#marthagraham #newyorkcitycenter #appalachianspring #cubismart #femalesexuality

Martha Graham Dance Company’s 100 anniversary season at the New York City Center.Pic 2 & 3 shows the ensemble dancing Appalachian Spring. Pic 4 shows a moment from Diversion of Angels, which women in yellow, red & white represent different stages of a woman’s romantic involvement — from adolescence, adult passion, to platonic possibilities.I’ve seen Graham concerts over the years, from the time when she was alive to this weekend. But I’ve finally noticed her Cubist inspiration & forthright exploration of female sexuality by having all these bare-chested -foot male dancers on stage.#marthagraham #newyorkcitycenter #appalachianspring #cubismart #femalesexuality

Existential noir — “Damnation” tonight at the Walter Reade Theater as part of a memorial retrospective honoring Béla Tarr.This was Tarr’s first collaboration with his compatriot, this year’s Nobelist László Krasznahorkai. It’s a film about “looking at the hopelessness of things,” as Tarr rigorously stages stagnation, disintegration, and sexual desperation through languid, slow-moving long takes. These unfold against a lyrical, accordion-heavy soundtrack, interposed with the grinding, everyday noise of a coal mine. The desolate, hurtful Eastern Bloc of yesteryear — Hungary in 1988, before the collapse of totalitarian governance — opens its gigantic mouth to drain the life from almost everyone, as they scheme, betray, and grasp at whatever sexual gratification they can.The film closes with a brutal, rain-soaked confrontation: a man and a dog facing each other, snarling and barking, until the dog finally retreats in defeat. What a masterwork about humanity’s beastly existence, with the cast’s incredibly committed performance.#damnation #belatarr #lincolncenter #hungary #lászlókrasznahorkai

Existential noir — “Damnation” tonight at the Walter Reade Theater as part of a memorial retrospective honoring Béla Tarr.This was Tarr’s first collaboration with his compatriot, this year’s Nobelist László Krasznahorkai. It’s a film about “looking at the hopelessness of things,” as Tarr rigorously stages stagnation, disintegration, and sexual desperation through languid, slow-moving long takes. These unfold against a lyrical, accordion-heavy soundtrack, interposed with the grinding, everyday noise of a coal mine. The desolate, hurtful Eastern Bloc of yesteryear — Hungary in 1988, before the collapse of totalitarian governance — opens its gigantic mouth to drain the life from almost everyone, as they scheme, betray, and grasp at whatever sexual gratification they can.The film closes with a brutal, rain-soaked confrontation: a man and a dog facing each other, snarling and barking, until the dog finally retreats in defeat. What a masterwork about humanity’s beastly existence, with the cast’s incredibly committed performance.#damnation #belatarr #lincolncenter #hungary #lászlókrasznahorkai

Sex(, Trump, and Protest) in the City?No Kings March in New York City last Saturday, as protesters marched through Times Square (clip 1) and walked past a digital ad about the launching of “Sexistential” (clip 2). #nokings #sexandthecity #trump #timesquare #manhattan

Sex(, Trump, and Protest) in the City?No Kings March in New York City last Saturday, as protesters marched through Times Square (clip 1) and walked past a digital ad about the launching of “Sexistential” (clip 2). #nokings #sexandthecity #trump #timesquare #manhattan

Sex(, Trump, and Protest) in the City?No Kings March in New York City last Saturday, as protesters marched through Times Square (clip 1) and walked past a digital ad about the launching of “Sexistential” (clip 2). #nokings #sexandthecity #trump #timesquare #manhattan

The 115th anniversary of the Triangle Factory fire is today. (Pic 1-4) Nearly 150 women garment workers died—many forced to jump to their deaths. The tragedy had a profound impact on U.S. labor standards in the decades that followed, though some fear those protections could be weakened in the future, as the Trumpist GOP even considers bringing back child labor to replace deported immigrants. (Pic 5) Labor Chorus singing Woody Guthrie’s
Union Maid: “… sticking to the union ‘til the day I die…”
#trianglefactoryfire #woodyguthrie #unionmaid #womanlaborers #laborchorus

The 115th anniversary of the Triangle Factory fire is today. (Pic 1-4) Nearly 150 women garment workers died—many forced to jump to their deaths. The tragedy had a profound impact on U.S. labor standards in the decades that followed, though some fear those protections could be weakened in the future, as the Trumpist GOP even considers bringing back child labor to replace deported immigrants. (Pic 5) Labor Chorus singing Woody Guthrie’s
Union Maid: “… sticking to the union ‘til the day I die…”
#trianglefactoryfire #woodyguthrie #unionmaid #womanlaborers #laborchorus

The 115th anniversary of the Triangle Factory fire is today. (Pic 1-4) Nearly 150 women garment workers died—many forced to jump to their deaths. The tragedy had a profound impact on U.S. labor standards in the decades that followed, though some fear those protections could be weakened in the future, as the Trumpist GOP even considers bringing back child labor to replace deported immigrants. (Pic 5) Labor Chorus singing Woody Guthrie’s
Union Maid: “… sticking to the union ‘til the day I die…”
#trianglefactoryfire #woodyguthrie #unionmaid #womanlaborers #laborchorus

The 115th anniversary of the Triangle Factory fire is today. (Pic 1-4) Nearly 150 women garment workers died—many forced to jump to their deaths. The tragedy had a profound impact on U.S. labor standards in the decades that followed, though some fear those protections could be weakened in the future, as the Trumpist GOP even considers bringing back child labor to replace deported immigrants. (Pic 5) Labor Chorus singing Woody Guthrie’s
Union Maid: “… sticking to the union ‘til the day I die…”
#trianglefactoryfire #woodyguthrie #unionmaid #womanlaborers #laborchorus

The 115th anniversary of the Triangle Factory fire is today. (Pic 1-4) Nearly 150 women garment workers died—many forced to jump to their deaths. The tragedy had a profound impact on U.S. labor standards in the decades that followed, though some fear those protections could be weakened in the future, as the Trumpist GOP even considers bringing back child labor to replace deported immigrants. (Pic 5) Labor Chorus singing Woody Guthrie’s
Union Maid: “… sticking to the union ‘til the day I die…”
#trianglefactoryfire #woodyguthrie #unionmaid #womanlaborers #laborchorus

Another selfie, another night, another Saturday, alas, another war.Dear friends, Take care & be well. 🌹

Another selfie, another night, another Saturday, alas, another war.Dear friends, Take care & be well. 🌹

Another selfie, another night, another Saturday, alas, another war.Dear friends, Take care & be well. 🌹

Another selfie, another night, another Saturday, alas, another war.Dear friends, Take care & be well. 🌹

“Gay or Black first?” A queer Black person may get asked this by a cishet Black person—an African American grad student at NYU once told me. I couldn’t help thinking about that question after seeing Billy Preston: That’s the Way God Planned It today at the Film Forum.In fact, the “Black or gay first?” contrast manifests starkly in the difference between this docu and I Am Not Your Negro, the film about James Baldwin. Both Baldwin and Preston were “nourished” by the church—rhetorically and musically—but their paths as Black queer artists truly diverged.
Baldwin was bold enough to publish his pioneering gay novel Giovanni’s Room (1956), yet his queerness was scarcely mentioned in I Am Not Your Negro. By contrast, the Preston docu almost feels like an attempt to redeem—at least retrospectively—the queerness he struggled to acknowledge in his own life, alongside, of course, his remarkable musical legacy.
It’s heartbreaking to see the hushed atmosphere surrounding his sexuality, which apparently contributed to his downward, uncontrollable spiral. It’s also deeply moving to hear Eric Clapton speak in a broken voice about his sense of helplessness as Preston’s close friend and admirer. Clapton was even humble enough to acknowledge that Preston—rather than himself—often became the real bandleader during recording sessions.
Preston was sometimes called the “fifth Beatle,” and his impact on The Beatles was palpable—to the extent that Ringo Starr appears as an interviewee in the film. Meanwhile, Olivia Harrison raves about the deep friendship between Preston and George, her late husband.
Despite the wealth of archival footage showing Preston singing exuberantly and powerfully, the real gut punch for me arrived near the end of the film. There, Preston—seated at the piano—belts out My Sweet Lord at Harrison’s memorial concert. The docu is worth seeing for many reasons, but Preston’s rousing rendition of Harrison’s biggest hit alone is worth the price of admission. #Billypreston #Jamesnaldwin #thebeatles #georgeharrison #ringostarr