Philip Kennicott

The Rant

philipkennicott — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 00:26:32 +0000

The Washington Post arts section initiated a new feature this week, which the editors are calling “the rant.” It’s meant to be a short, impassioned act of criticism that focuses on something that needs to change in world of the arts or the general aesthetic landscape. I wrote the first one, a brief reminder that the security regime of Washington, D.C. has gone overboard, removing from public access important vistas and places that are essential to the symbolic design of the nation’s capital.

Unfortunately, it’s very hard to find online. First, go the The Washington Post website, then click on the “Lifestyle” banner on the top of the web page. Next, click on the “Style” button (it’s in gray and pretty hard to see). Now scroll down the page and look for a small arrow button that says “More Style Stories.” Then scroll down that page and look for the headline: “The Rant: Security Mania takes away Monumental View.”

Or just use this link.

Catching up

philipkennicott — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 22:03:42 +0000

It remains very difficult to find arts content on The Washington Post, so here are a few links. I reviewed the new Picasso drawings exhibition at the National Gallery of Art… and I loved it. Most everyone will. Also the new French galleries at the NGA, which reopened after a two-year renovation. Physically, the rooms mostly looked the same as before. But the new hang is wonderful. Finally, the Spring Arts Preview, a look ahead at what’s worth paying to attention in the art scene of Washington, DC.

And with impeccable timing, I interviewed the Iranian film maker Ashgar Farhadi about his new film and what it’s like to make films in Iran today. I was interviewed on the same subject by a young journalist from Cornell for GALO (Global Art Laid Out), an online publication.

Gustav Leonhardt

philipkennicott — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 16:40:25 +0000

The great harpsichordist has died. I bought an album–perhaps the last LP I ever purchased–of Leonhardt playing Froberger when I was a student in the 1980s. It revealed a world of color and expression I had never heard before in the instrument. Recordings that pierce you while you’re still young enough to fall intemperately in love with music are dangerous. They never leave, their imprint of the music remains indelible and obscures almost everything that comes after it. Jean-Jacques Rousseau described education in similar terms: The teacher constructs almost violent epiphanies, which remain permanent, emotionally powerful lessons. The danger of these epiphanies is that they lock in you the past. The mind has a tenacious connection to what has been learned or discovered, but can be inflexible thereafter. It’s still hard for me to hear other players render Froberger. But hearing Leonhardt again, this morning, dissolves time.

Greetings from Buckingham Palace

philipkennicott — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 19:33:53 +0000

Christmas, in my house, always includes some time with the Queen. Her annual Christmas message is a masterpiece of the most comforting clichés, a sweet homily on the gift of the season, family, joy and the meaning of community. You can pretty much write it yourself: Christmas is a time for family and reflection… blah blah blah. But those plumy tones, that shock of silver hair, the festive red dress and the strangely somber mood—yule-funereal—can’t be beat. I love in particular how she lets us know that Jesus was neither a general nor a philosopher, and then takes care to let the generals and philosophers know that she isn’t criticizing their particular lines of employment. The empire (sorry, the Commonwealth) will always need its generals and philosophers, and the Queen is never one to offend anyone. I think she really hit out of the park this year.

Farewell Opera Boston

philipkennicott — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 19:56:49 +0000

The impact of the economic crises seems to hit the arts in painful slow motion. The most recent sign of serious distress is the announcement that Opera Boston will shut down, largely because of “lackluster fundraising in a tough economic climate.” I’m sorry to hear this. I wrote a piece for Opera News last year about Paul Hindemith’s opera Cardillac, prompted by a rare and very welcome production of the work at Opera Boston. I didn’t make it to the performance, but I was impressed that Boston, unlike Washington, had an opera company willing to invest in rare and important 20^th century works.

And now it’s gone, another company shuttered in a town that has had a strange and painful history with opera. I can still remember Opera Company of Boston, Sarah Caldwell’s long-troubled venture, during its last and rather pathetic days. I remember thinking then, as again now, how odd it is that Boston, with all its cultural resources, has never been a serious opera town. The usual explanation is that the Boston Symphony Orchestra is such a huge cultural force that there’s no room left over for opera. But that’s not the case in other cities with distinguished orchestras, such as Chicago, Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Detroit. So why is it the case in Boston?

The loss of Opera Boston is truly sad. One begins to imagine a world in which the form is so expensive, and so marginal, that only two or three serious opera companies remain in the United States. The vast majority of opera lovers will get their fix in the movie theater, watching the Met high-def broadcasts. And the majority of those who are fortunate enough to live in an opera town simply won’t be able to afford it anymore. The democratization of opera that began in the 19^th century will have come full circle, as the form becomes once again an elite entertainment, teeming with oligarchs.

North Korean Tears: Real, Fake or Viral?

philipkennicott — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 15:25:57 +0000

That is the essence of today’s brief column in the Post, about the mourning and mass hysteria in North Korea. I argue that not only is it likely that the grief feels real to those emoting over the death of Kim Jong-il, but that it is potentially troublesome for the North Korean regime. Yes, it seems to suggest a genuine sense of loss and thus some measure of devotion to the cult. But emotion can never be entirely scripted, and anything unscripted in a totalitarian society has the potential to be volatile. Read it here.

Reviewing the Gehry-designed Eisenhower Memorial

philipkennicott — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 15:51:32 +0000

I was skeptical at first, and for a long time. I still wonder about the enormous columns that will support the tapestry with which Frank Gehry memorializes the life and accomplishments of Dwight D. Eisenhower. But the more you think about it–and I suspect I over think it in this piece–the more brilliant a giant, civic tapestry in the middle of Washington seems. After a test of sample pieces of the metal fabric, many of the people who will ultimately have to approve the memorial design were wowed. And now, with the generation that remembers Ike as a war leader and president getting on in years, there is an urgency to see the memorial finished. There are many reasons to stop building memorials, full-stop, in Washington. But based on design alone, this is one that deserves to be realized.

A minor Hitch anecdote having nothing to do with salami

philipkennicott — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 16:20:05 +0000

Everyone is offering his Christopher Hitchens memories today. I had only one face-to-face encounter, after he gave a lecture at the Greek embassy about the Elgin Marbles (he argued passionately for their return to Greece). Some of us retired to a restaurant afterward, and the proprietors must have known him well because an enormous tumbler of Scotch, filled to the brim, arrived as if by magic, before the menus, water and the bread basket. It disappeared almost as quickly and was replaced at least once more and probably twice (I don’t remember very well). He spoke of the novels of Mary Renault, which I said I loved, and he said deserved a better reputation and wider audience. At one point he was trying to remember the name of a critical battle between Ancient Greece and Persia and I tentatively offered an answer, Salamis, which unfortunately I pronounced a bit too much like the Italian meat product. He raised his hand, and said impatiently, “No, no, no.” He thought for a moment, and then said, “sal-uh-MEES.” He was right, of course.

The “exploding” towers controversy

philipkennicott — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 17:55:05 +0000

If you’re following the ginned up controversy over a proposal, by the Dutch architecture firm MVRDV, to build twin towers that appear to be “exploding,” I gave my short take on the Post’s “Arts Post” website. Here’s the crux of it:

The controversy seems part of a larger cultural effort to make the events of September 11, 2001 somehow sacred, to use the meaning of the terrorist attack for larger, more overbearing cultural control. So now it is being deployed against contemporary architecture, not because there is anything inherently offensive in this design (which may or may not be an intentional reference to 9/11), but because the emotions generated by the attack have been co-opted by one part of the political and cultural spectrum.

Architects have long been exploring ways to turn buildings inside out, to peel away their external skin, to represent them as if melting or hurtling through space. The metaphor to “explode” a building might well be used as a positive architectural value, to open up space, break down formal strictures, allow multiple points of access. So even if the Dutch design firm, MVRDV, intended a reference to 9/11, there’s no reason that reference should be read as mocking or ironic. It might easily be seen as an effort to freeze frame a traumatic event, in architectural form, and neutralize its shock and pain.

Update: On second and third thought, it’s remarkable how old-hat the idea is. A vertically uplifted edition of Habitat 67?

Top Ten for 2011

philipkennicott — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 16:01:19 +0000

The Washington Post critics published their top ten picks for the past year in today’s edition, including my Art and Architecture list. The online format is a slide show, which means clicking through, and the order of the selections isn’t hierarchical. But it’s nice to look at.