Make Art, Not War
A conversation with New York artist Dove Bradshaw
Exhibition at ARTe VallARTa Museo, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico | Zero Time, Zero Space, Infinite Heat
February 2nd – May 5th, 2024
Meet with Dove Bradshaw at ARTe VallARTa Museo on February 3rd, 2024
The first time I visited the apartment of conceptual and minimalist artist Dove Bradshaw, I barely let my eyes wander around the living room, busy with paintings and books everywhere, a piano in a corner, and an old chess table. Two friends had asked me to join them for an intimate dinner at Dove and her husband’s, artist William Anastasi (also known as Bill), Upper West Side home, blocks away from Morningside Heights and the Hudson River. I vividly recalled this evening when, years after, Dove invited me back, this time to show a few people some of the artwork soon to be exhibited in Puerto Vallarta at ARTe VallARTa Museo. “A first for this museum, which had presented only Mexican artists before,” and a premiere in Mexico for this artist, whose work is part of the permanent collection of the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Metropolitan Museum and MoMA in New York.
As I was riding the Broadway-Seventh Avenue 1 train to 103rd Street, I remembered how her husband—who passed away just a few weeks ago—had described his famous Subway Drawings. Every time Bill Anastasi would sit in a subway, he would balance a piece of paper on a board on his knees, close his eyes, and let a pencil or felt-tip pens draw lines as the train would vibrate, and lurch when it stopped at a station, and depart again until he reached his chosen destination. During my only dinner with him, his wife, and our shared friends, Bill told endless stories of his daily chess games with composer John Cage. Dove Bradshaw, Anastasi, Cage, and his companion, choreographer Merce Cunningham, formed a band of artistry and friendship for years, all dedicated to conceptual art, along with Carl André, Sol LeWitt, and Robert Ryman.
Category: Mujeres
Listen to the Women and Girls of Iran
Listen to the Women and Girls of Iran
It was gigantic and staring at me. Everyone around seemed as mesmerized by it as I was: an eye, wide open. It was staring at the sky, too, and it covered most of the steps of Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park at the far end of the oblong Roosevelt Island on the East River, an unlikely urban cable car stop away from Manhattan. In the background, lurking in the shadows, stood the 39-story United Nations building, proud and self-confident.
In that park, at the bottom of the steps that morning of November 28, 2022, every spoken word and every single stare were targeted at the United Nations, at the United Nations and Iran.
Art Could be a Sustainable Luxury (but it Has a Long Way to Go)
Art Could be Sustainable Luxury, but it Has a Long Way to Go.
Artist Betsabeé Romero honored at LuxuryLab 2022
Exhibition at Museo de la Ciudad de Mexico on view until end of August
(text edited by Delphine Schrank)
As I walked through Cuando el tiempo se rompió (When Time Broke), the latest exhibition by Mexican artist Betsabeé Romero at the Museo de la Ciudad de Mexico, I was struck by the juxtaposition of her most recent works. It suddenly made sense. It was all coming together. The artistic interpretation of movement, migrants, and mirrors. The artist was there, it was a Monday in June, and the museum was closed to the public.
I have marveled at Betsabeé’s work so often in the past. The first time was eight years ago, wandering the streets of the Condesa district. Betsabeé had transformed a car into a playful permanent installation, a human-size toy, really, and planted it on the doorsteps of the hotel Condesa DF. To the left of the white and burgundy car, passersby will find a large silver key. Turn it, and the car will suddenly play a rendering of Agustin Lara‘s Veracruz song.
Lola’s Race
LOLA’S RACE
As the sun rises over the Verrazano bridge, Mirjam Lavabre, a woman entrepreneur and single mother of one, is warming her muscles up at Fort Wadsworth on Staten Island. Grey sport pants and a blue tee on, she is wearing runner’s bib 25341.
Mirjam leads a group of French friends, all about to pass the starting line of New York Marathon and engage on the 26.2-mile iconic race.
They are not just running to challenge their physical capacities; they are also raising money for First Candle foundation in memory of Mirjam’s daughter, who 15 years ago passed away of the sudden infant death syndrome. Her name was Lola, and it is written on capital letters on Mirjam’s arms, visible to the thousands of runners and supporters as she races through the five boroughs of Manhattan.
Women Have Power: Let’s Hear Them
Women Have Power: Let’s Hear Them
A conversation with Alyse Nelson, President and co-Founder of Vital Voices for Global Partnership. Co-editor of Vital Voices: 100 Women to Empower Other Women (Assouline)
Forget for a moment Joe Biden’s victory as President-elect and Donald Trump’s struggles with defeat, one of the main news from the 2020 American Presidential election is Senator Kamala Harris. For the first time in history, a woman—a Black, Asian woman—will become the first female Vice President of the United States. Harris will also rank first in line to succeed Joe Biden as President.
Besides the election of Kamala Harris, women seem to have taken center political stage whether it is in the United States or on the opposite side of the world.
Women actually played a key role in the 2020 American elections a mere 100 years after the 19th amendment of the American Constitution granting women’s suffrage was passed. Fast forward to 2020, 57% of women—and among them 90% of Black women—chose the Democratic candidate over the incumbent President, according to NBC News. Women also voted more than men (52%). In other words, they decided the Presidential outcome and chose Joe Biden although Donald Trump increased his base of white women voters.
Ahead of the Presidential election, another woman, Justice Amy Coney Barrett also made history and became the only the fifth woman to sit on the United States Supreme Court in 230 years. A woman Justice has replaced another one. While it surely seems to be a positive step for women’s empowerment and gender equality, succession might not be as simple as just having a woman leader succeeding another one. Ruth Bader Ginsburg was the American champion of women’s rights; based on the 48-year old Justice Barrett’s past judicial positions show, the new Justice is not.