In 1972, Aretha Franklin who had by then had some 11 consecutive hits including, “Respect,” “Think” and “(You Make Me Feel Like A) Natural Woman” decided to record a live gospel album. Over two nights at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles, Aretha performed with the Reverend James Cleveland and the Southern […]
In the waning hours before coronavirus shut down New York, I visited a more-empty-than-usual Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). The Museum re-opened last October after several months of closure for expansion, renovation, and re-installation of the collection. Let me cut to the chase here: I love what the Museum has done MoMA has found a […]
Read More… from Inside The Newly Renovated Museum Of Modern Art
“Ai Weiwei: Trace” at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles presents three of the six floor panels Ai Weiwei created in 2014 for a site-specific exhibition in San Francisco on Alcatraz Island concerning prisoners of conscience, political prisoners, and those subject to unlawful detention and, in some cases, torture. The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture […]
Read More… from Traces Of Ai Weiwei’s Politics At Skirball Cultural Center.
At the close of every Passover Seder attendees are enjoined to proclaim, “Next Year in Jerusalem!”You need not wait. Mekudeshet, a Jerusalem-based cultural organization is offering up a virtual experience Dissolving Boundaries: A Journey with the People of Jerusalem, that you can order online and experience in your own home and while walking around your […]
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LA Louver gallery in Venice, California which is celebrating its 45th year, has a new exhibition that you can actually go see by appointment, “David Hockney: My Normandy.” I could say that seeing an exhibition of art in person, and seeing the joy with which Hockney in his 80s creates his work, was for me […]
Read More… from A Pleasing Pandemic In Normandy: David Hockney’s Creative French Country Prints
“To think visually is a capacity not just for artists; it is essential for everyone.” With these words the visual artist Tobi Kahn concludes the artist statement that accompanies the just published “Mishkan Haseder,” a new Passover Haggadah published by the Central Conference of Rabbis (CCR).This new edition comes replete with new translations, new Rabbinical […]
This week’s Grammy Awards Ceremony, the second during the pandemic, made the best of a bad situation bringing a much needed freshness to the awards show.In recent times, the Grammys show have found a successful formula and run it into the ground. The show had pared down the more than 100 awards given as part […]
Steve Leder, Senior Rabbi of Wilshire Boulevard Temple, one of (if not the) largest Jewish congregations in the United States, has written a new book, “The Beauty of What Remains: How Our Greatest Fear Becomes Our Greatest Gift” (Avery Books) that is about death and how acknowledging and facing our own mortality can make for […]
Read More… from Life, Death And Rabbi Leder: Inside “The Beauty Of What Remains”
It seems like only yesterday…or maybe the day before? What day is it anyway? As one week glides into the next I”ve found that I”m not reading for pleasure as much as I normally do. I started a book some time ago, and find it strange that I can”t get past the mid-point. And I […]
“What is life if it’s not an adventure and an exploration internally and externally. So I choose to do that from my poetry,” said In-Q, the spoken word artist whose first collection of poetry “Inquire Within” was recently published by HarperOne. “Inquire Within” gathers In-Q’s rhythmic written word explorations of our humanity couched in a […]
Wallis Annenberg announced this week that the Annenberg Space for Photography which has been closed since March due to the pandemic, will not reopen. Located in Century City, the decade old institution had been LA’s only museum devoted solely to Photography.In a letter posted on the The Annenberg Space’s website, Annenberg said her decisions was […]
Read More… from Los Angeles’ Annenberg Space For Photography To Close Permanently
“Artists are the heart and soul of this nation,” Music icon, Artist and Philanthropist Herb Alpert said at the 26th annual Herb Alpert Award in the Arts. “It’s all about freedom of expression, imagination and truth telling.”“They are our second responders,” Alpert said in a telephone interview earlier in the week.The Herb Alpert Award in […]