* Art: Keith Haring: 1978-1982 at the Brooklyn Museum

Art: Keith Haring: 1978-1982 at the Brooklyn Museum: From the Brooklyn Museum: “Keith Haring: 1978–1982 is the first large-scale exhibition to explore the early career of one of the best-known American artists of the twentieth century. Tracing the development of Haring’s extraordinary visual vocabulary, the exhibition includes 155 works on paper, numerous experimental videos, and over 150 archival objects, including rarely seen sketchbooks, journals, exhibition flyers, posters, subway drawings, and documentary photographs.

The exhibition chronicles the period in Haring’s career from his arrival in New York City through the years when he started his studio practice and began making public and political art on the city streets..”  Essential, obviously.

Through July 8, 2012, Morris A. and Meyer Schapiro Wing, 5th Floor at the Brooklyn Museum.

Nothing Is Invisible: Contact

Get Carter – Starring Michael Caine

Get Carter (1971)(DVD) – Directed by Mike Hodges (Pulp (1972), Croupier (1998), I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead (2003)), starring Michael Caine (The Ipcress File (1965), Alfie (1966), Sleuth (1972), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), The Cider House Rules (1999), Children of Men (2006) and many, many other films) and others.  This excellent and iconic British crime drama in which a London gangster, a magnificent Michael Caine as coldly impassive Jack Carter, investigates his brother’s death, and released in 1971, the same year as The French Connection, another superb example of gritty, bleak and fatalistic neo-realism, is thought to be one of the best British films of all time, and certainly of its genre.  Deceptively simple in its story, and unrelenting in its depiction of virtual soullessness, Get Carter, is full of subtle complications and scathing observations on any number of social issues, from grotesque English class injustice, to hypocritical so-called liberation of women, to the oppressiveness of architecture, just to name a few.  Get Carter is undoubtedly a must-see film (though absolutely not to be confused with the abominable 2001 remake of the same name, starring the dubiously talented Sylvester Stallone).  (PR)  (Note that Caine, as Carter, is reading a Raymond Chandler novel on the train to Newcastle, among other small, sly cinematic inflections.)

See our post on the film I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead, also directed by Mike Hodges, starring Clive Owen, and see our post on the excellent film The French Connection, starring Gene Hackman.

We recommend that you buy your DVDs and Blu-ray disks.  Have an exceptional personal film library..  Here are links to amazon.com:

top image: Wikipedia

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Shockingly Orange, Invitingly Meandering, Immensely Imposing – Richard Serra at Gagosian

Karen Rosenberg has written a passionate article entitled “Shockingly Orange, Invitingly Meandering, Immensely Imposing” in the Art & Design section of The New York Times reviewing the magnificent show of new sculpture by the immense sculptor Richard Serra.  The show, entitled “Junction/Cycle” (through 26 November 2011, at Gagosian Gallery, 555 West 24th Street, Chelsea; (212) 741-1111, gagosian.com), composed of two sculptures, one called “Junction”, the other “Cycle”, offers a spectacle of awe, immensity and space, and imposes the active, and reflective, participation of all who visit.  As Serra himself has said, “I consider space to be my primary material.”  One begins to understand.  Awesome.

image: Julieta Cervantes for The New York Times

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Cooking Up a Big Idea in Little Italy – Today New York, Tomorrow the World?

Italian-Jamaican – Fresh curry cavatelli is among the “fusion” dishes on the menu at Torrisi Italian Specialties

The great Frank Bruni has written an excellent, fascinating and inspiring article entitled “Cooking Up a Big Idea in Little Italy” in the Magazine section of The New York Times, looking at the exciting new dynamic in Italian food, restaurants, and chefs, notably in New York, focusing on the chefs Rich Torrisi and Mario Carbone of the restaurant Torrisi Italian Specialties, on the edge of Little Italy in Manhattan.  The savourously detailed article includes Torrisi and Carbone’s recipes for Fried Rice With Prosciutto and Devil’s Chicken (Chicken fra Diavolo) and a very nice slide show,The Fusion Kings of Little Italy (though “fusion”, as a word, appears to be distinctly on the outs, the food is most definitely, deliciously, on the up-and-up!).  Mama mia!!

Here’s a link to Google Maps for Little Italy in New York, so you don’t lose your way.

image: Rebecca Greenfield/The New York Times

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What I Loved

What I Loved, by Siri Hustvedt, cover

What I Loved (novel) (2003) by Siri Hustvedt.  The New York art scene, love, personality disorders and murder. The book jacket calls it “a beautifully written and insightful novel about the way we live now” (Kirkus UK), and Geraldine Bedell, in The Observer section of The Guardian, says it is”…an intellectual page-turner…a ferociously clever book”.  Nevertheless, and though I thoroughly enjoyed Hustvedt’s “The Sorrows of An American“, I tend to agree with kirkusreviews.com, which stated:  “A mannered, somewhat formulaic account of a critic’s long and complicated friendship with an artist, presented by Hustvedt (Yonder, 1998, etc.) with just a touch of melodrama amid the melancholy…told in a gossipy, insider’s tone likely to put off anyone not in (or interested in) the New York art world.”  I may even be tempted to go a bit further in saying that the writing  made me wonder, at times, how well Hustvedt really masters the English language.  Interesting in parts, but really rather tiresome in the long haul. (PR)

We recommend that you buy your books.  Have a wonderful personal library..

top image: waterstones.com

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