On Site: Decoding Betye Saar's Uneasy Symbolism At Milan’s Fondazione Prada
/
Writing for Hyperallergic.com, Seph Rodney surveys the work of American artist Betye Saar at Milan's Fondazione Prada. AOC wrote about Saar in advance of the exhibition opening, but Rodney's impressions put the works in an environmental context and also filtered through the writer's own personal thought universe.
My favorite work in the show is a small teal room titled “The Alpha and the Omega” (2013–16), which contains a related suite of individual works, including a suspended structure threaded with neon tubes and representing a ship. Below, a small playpen holds a collection of inflated balls, two empty chairs face each other across a board set up for an unfamiliar game, and two fancy birdcages sit quietly with entire worlds contained within them. This room is a bit more enigmatic and quietly serene. According to the gallery guide, the installation looks to represent the entire journey of a human life. “The Alpha and the Omega” also demonstrates that Saar can do more than manipulate racist icons; she can give you a glimpse of her internal life, tell you that she is ready for tomorrow to arrive.
Related: Racist Objects: Confronting Racist Objects The New York Times
A Painful Past Still Present The New York Times
For a more detailed discussion of the art of Betye Saar, read our exhibit opening overview: Assemblage Artist Betye Saar Shows 'Uneasy Dancer' At Fondazione Prada Opening Sept 15-2016
Diana Gordon, Beyonce Songwriter, Launches New Feminist Anthem Called 'Woman'
/
Songwriter Diana Gordon has written memorable lyrics for Beyoncé, including three song on 'Lemonade': 'Sorry', 'Don't Hurt Yourself' and 'Daddy Lessons'. Having worked for years in dance clubs under the name Wynter Gordon, the songstress just premiered her first music video on Vogue.com: 'a feminist anthem called 'Woman'.
In the video, shot by director Cameron McCool in grainy black-and-white around New York City, Gordon and a group of bare-chested pregnant women in tailored topcoats are the ultimate symbol of bad-ass feminine power. “We shot this video on a cold day in November; five pregnant women on the cusp of giving birth, and hungry, everyone having to pee at the same time,” wrote Gordon in an email. “This song, that celebrates your mother, my mother, your sister, and my sister, is just my way to stand up for the woman next to me and all those unseen. In a time when we are still defending our right to choose, pay equality, moral and ethical equality; a time where single motherhood is on the rise and women are in the trenches raising the next generation largely by themselves, we have to be all-encompassing and stay strong through the worst of situations. We need to stand together.” Words to live by. Watch below.
America's Alt-Right White Men Attack Liberalism With Pizzagate & Moral Outrage
/
Over the past six weeks, the alleged story of Hillary Clinton and other prominent members of the Democratic Party establishment participating in an international child sex ring has morphed into a front page story. "It began in October, when a baseless rumor about emails allegedly discovered on Anthony Weiner’s laptop made its way through Twitter and 4chan and conspiracy-theorist websites", writes Slate.
Self-deputized online investigators combed through the emails of Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, dumped by WikiLeaks. Finding only campaign talk and recipes, the 'investigators' concluded that innocuous terms used in Podesta’s emails were actually a series of secret codes: “pizza” for girl, “ice cream” for male prostitute, and so on. Comet Ping Pong, a Washington, D.C. pizzeria that had hosted a Democratic fundraiser, was identified (also baselessly) as a headquarters for sex-ring activities. The conspiracy theory acquired a name, “Pizzagate.”
On Sunday a man wielding an assault rifle entered Comet Ping Pong, saying he was there to investigate Pizzagate. 4chan users are confident that the man is part of a false-flag operation being carried out by the establishment to discredit their investigation. Consider that every falsehood has another one to explain why it isn't.
The Clintons have been accused of every possible crime over the course of their 30-plus years in politics, but this one takes the cake, so to speak. We should remember, however, that America has been obsessed with child-sex-rings for the last 30 years. Slate reviews this sordid history of false allegations.
Related: Trump Fires Adviser's Son From Transition for Spreading Fake News The New York Times
'Loving' Star Ruth Negga Tells Vogue US She's Territorial About Her Identity
/
“Loving Star Ruth Negga on Biracial Politics: “I Get Very Territorial About My Identity””
With her mesmerizing performance in Jeff Nichols’s subtly groundbreaking film 'Loving', the Irish-Ethiopian actress Ruth Negga has become a star for our time, writes Vogue about their January cover star.
Negga is 35 (though she feels she “was about 22 a second ago”), and her powers of transformation are such that she’s been cast, with striking frequency, as people who look and are nothing like her. Tulip is a busty blonde in the original. Nichols thought at first that she was too petite to play Mildred. Six years ago, she became the National Theatre’s first black Ophelia and let a troubling force of revenge seep through her sweetness. She embodies these characters so fully, you forget they could have been otherwise. At a time when most British exports to Hollywood have tended toward the aristocratic, this Irish-Ethiopian actress is a different kind of royalty, a “brilliant chameleon,” in the words of her friend the director Annie Ryan, fit for a world of equal rights and dissolving borders.
Related on AOC: Ruth Negga & Joel Edgerton In 'Love Story' by Mario Testino for Vogue US November 2016. Read on.
Leonardo DiCaprio Meets With Trump & Ivanka To Talk Green Jobs
/
Just as Al Gore talked green jobs in his recent meeting with president-elect Donald Trump, Leonardo DiCaprio and the head of his foundation Terry Tamminen focused their 90-minute environmental presentation on job creation in the green sector when they met with Trump, his daughter Ivanka and other members of the Trump team on Wednesday at Trump Tower in New York.
"Today, we presented the President-elect and his advisors with a framework — which LDF developed in consultation with leading voices in the fields of economics and environmentalism — that details how to unleash a major economic revival across the United States that is centered on investments in sustainable infrastructure," Tamminen said. "Our conversation focused on how to create millions of secure, American jobs in the construction and operation of commercial and residential clean, renewable energy generation."
The Oscar-winning actor has been a strong advocate of fighting climate change and preserving wildlife, and his recent documentary, "Before the Flood," addresses the peril that the world faces because of climate change.
DiCaprio previously met with Ivanka Trump and presented her with a copy of the film.
On Wednesday Trump also announced that Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt -- a tremendous foe of the climate change and environmental protections -- will head the Environmental Protection Agency.
NYC Guggenheim Museum Talks Steve Jobs' New Opera On April 9, 2017
/
Composer Mason Bates, librettist Mark Campbell and director Kevin Newbury are writing an opera about the life of Apple visionary Steve Jobs scheduled to debut in Santa Fe.
On April 9 and 10, 2017, a handful of New Yorkers will have the chance to hear the trio discuss what it was like to write an opera about the man who put an iPhone in the hands of more than 101 million Americans. New York's Guggenheim museum presents the creators of “The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs” as part of its Works & Process series on April 9 at the Guggenheim's Peter B. Lewis Theater, which seats 285 audience members for a moderated conversation.
Related: A Steve Jobs Opera Is Next Up for the Santa Fe Company New York Times
Forget Hamilton, Steve Jobs' life will make for memorable opera CultofMac.com
Will Ivanka Trump Be the Most Powerful First Daughter in History?
/
Will Ivanka Trump Be the Most Powerful First Daughter in History? AOC Front Page
How the Trump daughter runs the family businesses while acting as a policy adviser to her father -- without conflicts of interest guaranteed to rock a Trump presidency -- currently is a topic of hot debate. Yet, when House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi called the president-elect shortly after November 8, he handed the phone to his daughter when the conversation moved from infrastructure and domestic policy to women's issues.
Top New York Artists Protested Outside Ivanka Trump's Soho Apartment Before Heading to Art Basel
/
Top New York Artists Protested Outside Ivanka Trump's Soho Apartment Before Heading to Art Basel AOC Front Page
“Dear Ivanka,” the protest’s title and name of the Instagram account sending messages to Ivanka Trump, drew notable artists like Cecily Brown, Rob Pruitt, Ryan McNamara, Jonah Freeman, Dan Colen, and Marilyn Minter; as well as writers and curators like Wendy Vogel, Brian Droitcour, Zoë Lescaze, David Velasco, Sarah Nicole Prickett, Alison Gingeras, Carolyn Ramo, and Fabiola Alondra, along with dealers and advisors Jay Gorney, Bill Powers, and Erin Goldberger, ArtNews reports.
Related: Marilyn Minter: Pretty/Dirty November 4, 2016-April 2, 2017
Minter, who is currently the subject of a major retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum, told the New York Times of her involvement: “The culture changes, and fascism rears its ugly head every so often and that’s what’s happening now,” she said. “We wanted to do something to start to the ball rolling, to grow a protest, and we’re artists, so we know how to make posters.”
Melinda Gates Assumes Primary Role In Defending Women's Health & Reproductive Rights Worldwide
/
Melinda Gates Assumes Primary Role In Defending Women's Health & Reproductive Rights Worldwide AOC Front Page
Pictured above on her first trip to Africa in 1993, Melinda Gates could now be the most important action hero for women worldwide. That includes America, where the Republican War on Women is in full swing with their commitment to defunding Planned Parenthood, rolling back not only abortion rights but rights to contraception as well, and focusing on personhood legislation, which not only establishes a legal definition of life as beginning at conception, but severely limiting the civil rights of all pregnant women by equating her rights with those of a 24-hour old fertilized egg.
With the rise of alt-right lover Donald Trump as America's next president, the Trump administration is surrounding themselves with officials who want to implement this full-court strategy against American women asap.
Without Hillary Clinton at the helm of the American presidency, the future of women's most precious rights probably falls to Melinda Gates, who is notably apolitical. The first order in a Trump administration will be once again cutting off any federal government support for contraception and family planning worldwide. America's Catholic bishops and Christian conservatives in Congress won't permit it.
Read on about Melinda Gates and her refusal to bow to these massive powers that dominate American culture.
Jennifer Lawrence Is 'J Law' In Peter Lindbergh Images For Vanity Fair Holiday 2016-17
/
Jennifer Lawrence Is 'J Law' In Peter Lindbergh Images For Vanity Fair Holiday 2016-17
This fall, Lawrence flew to Africa to shadow photojournalist Lynsey Addario as she documented South Sudanese refugees crossing into Uganda. Although the experience offered her a rare veil of anonymity (when introducing herself to a U.N. worker as Jennifer, he replied, “Ahhh, like Jennifer Lopez”), she was haunted by her uselessness. “The worst feeling about being there was that I wasn’t helping anybody,” she says of the humanitarian crisis. “I was doing a character study.” (Lawrence is also a producer on It’s What I Do, the Spielberg film based on Addario’s memoir.) Lawrence, who has donated generously to a number of charities (including $2 million to a children’s hospital in her hometown this year), said she found solace in vowing to visit again in a more active role.
This photo was shared by Lynsey Addario with Jennifer Lawrence on her Instagram page, with the message: "Look who I dragged to Uganda/South Sudan.
While the bulk of my own work in Sudan has been in Khartoum, AOC has been covering the South Sudan refugee crisis. Read on: Nykhor Paul's 'We Are Nilotic' T-shirts Zero In On South Sudan's Fragile Beauty.
Doutzen Kroes: An Angel For Elephants By Ruven Afanador For Bloomberg Pursuits
/
Doutzen Kroes: An Angel For Elephants By Ruven Afanador For Bloomberg Pursuits
Doutzen Kroes has been a voice for elephants and steps up again to lead the Knot On My Planet campaign. Kroes is deadly serious about the need to put an end to the ivory crisis and elephant extinction -- a passion burning inside her since she first visited Samburu, Kenya.
Doutzen Kroes Leads Knot On My Planet, Igniting Fashion Industry For Elephant Conservation
Stella McCartney Delivers 2016 Kering Talk On Deforestation & Sustainable Viscose
/
Salma Hayek supported good friend Stella McCartney's 2016 Kering Talk Monday evening at the London College of Fashion. Her nature-inspired print dress came from McCartney's vegetarian fashion collection. Hayek's husband, Francois-Henri Pinault, the Kering CEO, attended as well.
The focus of Stella's talk was the issue of deforestation and sustainable sourcing of viscose, one of the most used fabrics in the global fashion industry.
The Stella McCartney lifestyle brand was launched in partnership with Kering in 2001. Fifteen years later, the designer is the luxury industry's most consistent voice for animal and environmental welfare and sustainable design. Materials like organic cotton and recycled cashmere are fundamental to the brand.
When McCartney first launched her label she was “ridiculed” for banning leather and fur from her collections. “I was told definitely I would not have a business, I wouldn’t have an accessories business…by people I worked with, that I looked up to." But as luxury consumers have become more conscious of the impact of their consumption decisions on the planet's health, Stella McCartney sales have risen annually in the "double digits . . . for a while now."
“Fashion is one of the most harmful industries on the planet, and I think people are a little more aware of that now,” Stella said in her Kering Talk. While she says she doesn't want to preach, McCartney didn't hesitate to call out her parent company. “I’m sure [Kering] will give up python farms very soon,” she said wishfully. She was especially adamant that fashion companies trade out real fur for faux: “You really can’t tell the difference. There’s no reason to kill 15 million innocent creatures.”
Nicole Kidman Is Full Throttle Sumptuous In Yu Tsai Images For Flaunt Magazine
/
Nicole Kidman Is Full Throttle Sumptuous In Yu Tsai Images For Flaunt Magazine
Kidman is currently starring in 'Lion', a true story inspired by Sue Brierly, who adopted Saroo Brierly., living in an Indian orphanage.
As an adult, Saroo Brierley, now an Australian citizen uses Google Earth to find the family that he was separated from in India. Sunny Pawar commands the screen for much of the film’s first hour, playing Saroo as a 5-year-old lost on the streets of Calcutta. It marks his first screen role, one that’s already earned him raves. Variety critic Peter Debruge wrote that Pawar is “so adorable he could set off an Indian adoption craze.”
Priyanka Bose and Dev Patel join Kidman and Pawar in the cast.
'Years of Living Dangerously', Gisele's National Geographic Series On Climate Change in Amazon
/
GISELE IN THE AMAZON RAINFOREST, TALKING CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACT ON TREES FOR NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC.
'Years of Living Dangerously', Gisele's National Geographic Series On Climate Change in Amazon
Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bündchen is among the most successful talents of all time. Gisele continues to dominate the Forbes Highest-earning Models List in 2016, with an estimated earnings of $30.5 million last year.
Not everyone knows that Bündchen has been a dedicated environmentalist for many years. Next week the opening ceremonies star of the Rio Olympics takes cameras with her on an expedition into her home country. Starring in an episode of the award-winning National Geographic Channel series 'Years of Living Dangerously', Gisele next week directs an expedition deep into the Brazilian rain forest for a closeup view of deforestation and its effects on climate change. She explains:
Beyonce, Jay-Z, Katy Perry, Pharrell Williams, Jennifer Lopez, Mark Anthony: Clinton Concerts Rock the Night
/
After a psychologically and emotionally back-breaking campaign, Hillary Clinton, Bill and Chelsea; Michelle and Barack Obama; and a large contingent of Democratic heavyweights will roll into Philadelphia's Independence Hall tonight to end Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.
Rockers Bruce Springsteen and Bon Jovi will headline the entertainment in a week that has brought out a long list of superstars, driving a wide array of supporting souls to the polls for Hillary.
"With Independence Hall as the backdrop, Clinton will urge Pennsylvanians to make history on Tuesday by electing her president so she can continue pushing for the American ideals of progress, inclusion, equality and strength that our founders enshrined in our Constitution there in 1787," states a message on Hillary Clinton's website.
