Tuesday, February 4

Tag: arts in review

‘Wonka’ Review: Whimsy in Need of a Wilder Willy
14Dec By adminNo Comments
World

‘Wonka’ Review: Whimsy in Need of a Wilder Willy

Willy Wonka is funny and sinister. Timothée Chalamet is neither funny nor sinister. Moreover, when he steps up to sing, he makes Gene Wilder sound like Frank Sinatra. He’s an odd choice to play the aspiring choco-tycoon in the musical origin story “Wonka.” Fortunately, superior talents around him work like Fizzy Lifting Drinks and raise the film off the ground.The only reason I can think of to select Mr. Chalamet for the part seems to be that, like Wilder in the 1971 Roald Dahl adaptation “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,” which remains by far the best movie about the character, he has curly hair suggesting a certain mad merriness. Yet he seems determined to be as cute and bland as possible, much like the glossy sets, which suggest a Dickensian theme park.Copyright ©2023 Dow Jones &...
Read More
‘Look Again: European Paintings 1300-1800’ Review: Old Master Masterpiece
13Dec By adminNo Comments
World

‘Look Again: European Paintings 1300-1800’ Review: Old Master Masterpiece

New YorkIt’s been said that some museums have a blockbuster on view every day: their permanent collections. That’s true at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which has just opened “Look Again: European Paintings 1300-1800,” a reinstallation of its core collection. It’s the art event of the year, in almost every respect an unalloyed triumph. Copyright ©2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Read More
‘Car Masters: Rust to Riches’ Review: Hot Rods in the Rough
12Dec By adminNo Comments
World

‘Car Masters: Rust to Riches’ Review: Hot Rods in the Rough

Any adult exposed or subjected to the repartee of the very young may have noticed the evolution of “satisfying.” It no longer means “meeting expectations,” or quieting some primal urge. It refers to a sensory response—glee, comfort—in response to certain very tactile acts. The night before Thanksgiving, for instance, a TV news announcer’s child described the blowing up of the Macy’s parade balloons as “satisfying.” There are hundreds of videos on YouTube devoted to the “oddly satisfying,” short bits that involve slime, goo, paint, cake frosting and ball bearings. My personal thing would be the breaking of the sugary burnt surface on a bowl of crème brûlée, though one needn’t actually do anything, or eat anything, to be satisfied.All of which might explain the romance viewers have had with...
Read More
The Buffalo AKG Art Museum’s Collection in a New Context
9Dec By adminNo Comments
World

The Buffalo AKG Art Museum’s Collection in a New Context

Buffalo, N.Y.This city’s location—only 65 miles on a beeline from Toronto but at a distant midpoint between New York and Cleveland—makes it a bit off the beaten track. Nevertheless, its symphony orchestra and a tri-partite performing arts center (lingering criticisms of too conservative a repertoire aside) give Buffalo an outsize heft in the arts. The city’s most prominent cultural institution is the venerable Albright-Knox Art Gallery, the sixth-oldest public art institution in the country, founded more than 160 years ago. Following a major renovation and expansion, it reopened this summer with a new name, the Buffalo AKG Art Museum (the G here stands for museum patron Jeffrey Gundlach, a billionaire bond investor who was born in nearby Amherst, N.Y., and lives in Los Angeles). Copyright...
Read More
The Best Architecture of 2023: Solving Problems in Imaginative Style
9Dec By adminNo Comments
World

The Best Architecture of 2023: Solving Problems in Imaginative Style

The Great American Building, like the Great American Novel, is a phrase that can scarcely be uttered today without irony. The problem is that if you do not believe in greatness, you do not strive for it, which may explain why today we no longer seem able to make universally acknowledged masterpieces such as Fallingwater or the Chrysler Building. But if we no longer think in terms of greatness, the past year has given us some very good buildings. Imaginative problem-solving, masterly use of innovative technology, and concern for the human experience of a building: All are there in abundance.Copyright ©2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Read More
The Buffalo AKG Art Museum Adds a Jewel to Its Setting
9Dec By adminNo Comments
World

The Buffalo AKG Art Museum Adds a Jewel to Its Setting

Buffalo, N.Y.There is no good way to add to a classical temple. You either sling your addition off to one side and accept the incongruity, or else you step away and build a second building that stands aloof. Gordon Bunshaft tried the first approach with his 1962 addition to the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, and now Shohei Shigematsu has chosen the second. His new pavilion, which contains nearly 30,000 square feet of exhibition space and which opened July 20, is set so far away that you must reach it over a 300-foot serpentine bridge. All this dramatically changes the character of the institution that has now been rechristened the Buffalo AKG Art Museum. Copyright ©2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Read More
Art Basel Miami Beach Review: An Art Fair in Need of Excitement 
7Dec By adminNo Comments
World

Art Basel Miami Beach Review: An Art Fair in Need of Excitement 

Miami Beach, Fla.With Mr. Micawber, Charles Dickens gave us the eternal optimist. A perennial debtor who nonetheless held out hope that things would work out, he came to mind while wending my way through the labyrinthine booths at Art Basel Miami Beach. Exploring the cavernous convention center where the annual fair is held, searching for the truly inspiring, I kept thinking “Something will turn up.” Copyright ©2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Read More
The Best Music of 2023: Rich Rewards Outside the Mainstream
7Dec By adminNo Comments
Business

The Best Music of 2023: Rich Rewards Outside the Mainstream

Most of the biggest music news of 2023 had little to do with the release of a new album. Taylor Swift owned the year, with her still-running and record-setting Eras Tour—the receipts of which helped make her a billionaire—along with a concert film, a re-recorded LP that topped the charts, and just the right amount of drama from her budding relationship with Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs to keep her in the spotlight 24/7. And yet her most recent record of new material, “Midnights,” came out in 2022.Copyright ©2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Read More
Religion and Riches at the Morgan Library
2Dec By adminNo Comments
World

Religion and Riches at the Morgan Library

The New York museum mounts two exhibitions, ‘Morgan’s Bibles: Splendor in Scripture’ and ‘Medieval Money, Merchants, and Morality,’ that explore its founder’s sumptuous collection of religious texts and the conflicting claims of faith and wealth.
Read More