* Mary Camille Beckman *
I’ve heard that it’s impossible to fold a piece of paper in half more than eight times. But Lucie Brock-Broido can do it.
Her newest book of poems, released today (October 15, 2013), and reviewed here.
Stay, Illusion by Lucie Brock-Broido Read More »
* Mary Camille Beckman *
Even if Joseph Cornell’s artworks—his signature “shadow box” constructions, his montages (what he termed his two-dimensional collages), and his films—are visual, not literary, Robert Motherwell, abstract expressionist and friend and pen pal of Cornell, claimed that “his true parallels are not to be found among the painters and sculptors, but among our best poets.”
Homage to the Romantic Ballet: The Poetics of Joseph Cornell Read More »
* Mary Camille Beckman *
Just like my first summer in the Midwest, this year it’s been relentlessly hot, surprisingly humid, and in my apartment, ever un-air conditioned. In July, I stripped my bed of its quilt and sheets, placed a fan in front of every window, almost cracked a tooth chewing ice. My cat has been nibbling on her Tender Vittles only infrequently, yawning often, and shedding continuously. She stretches out day and night on the cool tiles between the toilet and the shower. I’ve been eating mango popsicles for dinner. This kind of heat—the kind that makes most movement absurd or impossible, robs you of your appetite, colors everything bright, wilts people and plants alike—is the subject of Florine Stettheimer’s 1919 painting titled, you guessed it, Heat.
A Painting for Late Summer: Florine Stettheimer’s Heat Read More »
One afternoon last week, on vacation in British Columbia with my family, my boyfriend and I slipped away from the boozing and card playing for a quick visit to the Vancouver Art Gallery. We arrived at the museum shortly before closing and walked into the first gallery we saw, a small dark room where we found Fiona Tan’s 21-minute, two-channel video installation Rise and Fall (2009). I loved it.
Transcending Beauty: Fiona Tan’s “Rise and Fall” and Terrence Malick’s “To the Wonder” Read More »
