COURTESY THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART
Artists
Art in America posted a 1987 interview with Bruce Nauman from its archives. A taste: “Maybe the morality I sense in Man Ray has to do with the fact that while he made his living as a fashion photographer, his art works tended to be jokes—stupid jokes.” [Art in America]
Alex Katz threw some shade on some other artists in the Guardian. “I am conscious of his clumsy, overworked surfaces—his problems with human volumes,” he said of Cézanne. “But on the train ride back I looked at the landscapes out of the window, and it was all Cézanne!” Mark Rothko, meanwhile, is “decorative but beautiful, proficient and pompous.” [The Guardian]
The epic Wall of Birds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology is a mural measuring 100 feet wide by 40 feet tall with all 243 families of modern birds represented, along with depictions of their evolution over 375 million years. “The artist who created this masterwork is Jane Kim—and it’s such a masterwork that she’s been nicknamed ‘Michaelangela.’ ” [NPR]
Here’s an appreciation of the “irrational painting” of Osvaldo Licini. “Licini’s work is rare and much loved among Italian connoisseurs. It expresses an unusual vision and is a slice of the avant-garde unknown to Americans. It’s small, spooky, and beguiling work [that] teaches us some overlooked lessons.” Their maker grew disillusioned, though: “Increasingly, he lost interest in the world, convinced that God had lost interest, too.” [National Review]
Aged Beauty
“Severely damaged during the Second World War and closed to the public for more than 70 years, the Romanesque Hall at the heart of Budapest’s Szepmuveszeti Muzeum (Museum of Fine Arts) will be a highlight of its reopening tomorrow (31 October), following a three-year restoration. The total cost of the renovation was around €40m.” [The Art Newspaper]
Philip Glass performed his 1974 masterpiece Music in 12 Parts at Town Hall in New York and Pitchfork gave it a rave review. “All of 12 Parts’ bright, interlocking keyboard notes feel like they have a holy origin.” [Pitchfork]
Resurrection
Thrilla in Manila II: Gagosian is putting on a Nam June Paik show in collaboration with León Gallery International in the Philippines. [Inquirer]
Selma’s House, right next to the Louis Armstrong Museum in Corona, Queens, is getting renovated thanks to $1.9 million granted by New York City. [The New York Times]
A preservationist in New York set his sights on a ’50s-era glass building in Midtown Manhattan—a lesser-known modernist landmark that “some architectural historians mention . . . in the same breath as two other famous modernist buildings from the same period, the Seagram Building or Lever House.” [The New York Times]
Musician Neneh Cherry talked to The Creative Independent about her new album, Broken Politics. “This idea that everything interesting stopped just because you got older is boring and sad. That kind of thinking will cause you to miss out on so much great stuff. Things change and change can be really hard … but it can also be really great.” [The Creative Independent]
Misc.
More than a million Mexicans who voted in a controversial consultation moved to cancel a $13.3 billion project for a new airport in Mexico City, which was already under construction. [The Wall Street Journal]
The National Portrait Gallery is up to some funny business, in the form of a GIF of a dancing Alex Trebek. [Twitter]