The 82nd Academy Awarders Soil the Awards

(image from mirror.co.uk)

The 2010 Academy Awards nominated an exceptional ten competitors for Best Picture from a rejuvenated entertainment field, a category not that wide since 1943. “Hurt Locker” won that honor and five others, Best Director, Original Screenplay, Film Editing, and Sound Editing and Mixing.

The films nominated for Best Picture won in other categories: “Up” won Best Animated Feature, Sandra Bullock won Best Actress for “The Blind Side”, Christopher Waltz won Best Supporting Actor for “Inglorious Basterds”, and “Avatar” won three cinematography awards.

For such a great body of artistic work to honor, this year’s Oscars show was particularly artless. Hosts Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin were flat, blundering through the night without vitality or chemistry. John Lasseter, of Pixar and Disney, cracked more smiles than any of Baldwin or Martin’s quips. His relief, in a video introducing the short film nominees, was simply “One of the things I like most about short films? They’re short.”

Cringe-worthy remarks compounded the busts. After a tearful Geoffrey Fletcher accepted his Adapted Screenplay award for “Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire”, admitting humbly “I don’t know what to say,” Martin retorted “I wrote that speech for him.”

Some lines passed lame and abrasive, and cruised towards offensive. Baldwin and Martin made two uncomfortable remarks about race, regarding nominees “Precious” and “Invictus”, and another crack about presenter Sarah Jessica Parker only weighing one pound.

On the red carpet, an ABC interviewer told Bullock, “You look great. Starving was worth it.” This year’s Best Actress did indeed look great, but because she brought grace and good humor to the stage, not because of any connection between beauty and starvation.

That much needed grace was mirrored by most of nominees, if not by the hosts and interviewers. Waltz gave the first speech of the night, holding his Supporting Actor statuette: a short and sweet metaphor of his career as a journeying ship.

Kathryn Bigelow, the first female Best Director, spoke shakily but appeared radiant. Her shoulders back, head high, and whole face graciously smiling, Bigelow thanked writer Mark Boal who “risked his life for the words on the page” and the world’s uniformed men and women.

The Best Actor award went to a refreshing Jeff Bridges, whooping to the audience and thanking “Crazy Heart” director Scott Cooper for “bringing all those great musicians to the party, man.” “Crazy Heart” also won Best Original Song for its soulful theme “Weary Kind”, written by Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett.

Neil Patrick Harris opened the night with a musical number more Vegas than country; the “How I Met Your Mother” star was cheeky but forced. Likewise, the dance montage set to clips from the Best Soundtrack nominees was vivacious but ill-fitting in music that belonged to gritty London streets and balloon-carried houses (“Up” won in this category).

All this superfluous showmanship did more to detract from the cinematographic achievement than to celebrate it. The extras at this year’s Oscars needed to get off the stage and let the talents do the speaking.

Cable, Laptops, and the Oscars

Another interesting development on the media consumption front: the cable was cut for 3 million in New York on Sunday night due to a "nasty money squabble" between a cable company and ABC, and these disagreements may be a trend on the rise. Perhaps there was a reason ABC had the most commercials during Sunday nights' Academy Awards?
Article from Monday's NYT Business section or here online.

For Superstar Koons, Context is Everything

Audience: a New York magazine aimed at young adults, like New York Magazine. Younger audiences cautioned, this review has some adult material.

It is hard to dismiss an artist who sells single pieces for upwards of $20 million and sets record museum ticket sales from Chicago to London. On the other hand, it is easy to dismiss a piece of art that claims a vacuum cleaner in a plexiglass box is worth the price of admission. Jeff Koons and his sculptures fuze these conflicting reactions into a delicious inner tension that breeds public fixation. As a mature artist at age 55, Koons has secured his place in pop art’s canon and still he holds international attention as raptly as he ever has.

Koons’s most iconic works, quite literally named “Balloon Dog” with a color specified in parenthesis, have been exhibited most notably on the Cantor Roof Gardens of the Metropolitan Museum, in “(Yellow),” and in the Chateau de Versailles, in “(Magenta).” The sculpture’s convex metallic surfaces reflect their surroundings in a high-gloss drama between viewer, subject, and setting.

On the Met’s Roof Gardens, the city’s skyline mirrored across the dog’s middle makes Koons’s works monumental, epic; it releases them from the meaningless confines of the traditional four white walls and gives their chromatic surfaces something stunning to reflect. Standing with two of Koons’s other painted aluminum works, “Sacred Heart (Red/Gold)” and “Coloring Book,” “Balloon Dog (Yellow)” gains a certain authority in being on par with, and not overshadowed by, the city’s skyscrapers.

In the great halls of Versailles, joined by 16 other sculptures from various periods in Koons’s career, “Balloon Dog (Magenta)” takes on a regal quality, as if standing primly at Queen Marie Antoinette’s feet. The richly painted vaulted ceilings above the sculpture’s pedestal and the sunlight streaming in through the imposing French doors offer Koons’s form something entirely different to comment upon. In both settings, peering into the meticulously crafted creases in the balloon’s twists and in the knot that is the dog’s smart little nose affords the viewer an unescapable reflection of themselves, caught in the act of peering.

For a man who has his own room in London’s Tate Modern and has had a giant flowered dog in Rockefeller Center, in addition to his shows Versailles and the Met, context is everything. From an early age, Koons watched his father, an interior decorator, change the arrangements of entire rooms unannounced. Koons revealed in a interview with Charlie Rose that he “learned that objects, color, texture can really affect your emotions.” He has been manipulating objects from his daily life ever since. Koons take on ready-made art can be deceivingly simple once the full repercussions of context and intent are understood; or, it can be a flop which never ceases to be explained away when, in critic Robert Hughs words, “art is short, bibliography long.”


In 1988, the wild success of his Banality series, 21 pieces of porcelain, polychromed wood and mirrors, launched a reputable artist into pop-star splendor. There are a few pieces here that transcend context, like the porcelain 3 ½ foot blonde hugging a sock puppet-like Pink Panther, and are mesmerizing even without background knowledge. Most of the collection, though, goes the way of a vase of flowers made entirely of chunks of welded mirror: a clever and novel play off its physical and temporal atmosphere. Koons says his art is “conception” and “non-judgmental,” and says with a laugh that he accepts the term “pop” to describe his work, but would rather “real.”

After he exhibited Banality, Koons faltered a bit and sought a new direction. He became fascinated with porn star turned Italian Parliament member Ilona Staller and then set out to make art from their bodies. Then, unexpectedly, as The Guardian’s Jonathan Jones put it, Koons “fell in love with his own ready-made.” Koons exhibited the resulting sculpture and photography series “Made in Heaven,” which portrayed the two in the throes of many variations of passionate sex; they married in 1991 and had a son, Ludwig, in 1994.


The shock value of Koons’s pseudo-pornography has claimed much of the credit for “Made in Heaven,” which was billed as the heir to such controversial paintings as Courbet’s “Burial at Ornans” and Manet’s “Olympia.” But in Koons’s “Bourgeois Bust - Jeff and Ilona” there is a tenderness in Jeff’s marble fingers that is unlike the starkness of Courbet’s flattened processional figures, and Ilona does not stare the viewer down like the cold Olympia.

Koons instead credits his inspiration to the early Renaissance fresco master Masaccio, one of the first to portray Adam and Eve in true torment as they flee Paradise. He wanted to exhibit “a body of work that is kind of about after the fall,” he mused in a conversation with Jones, “but all of this guilt and shame is removed.” Koons seems not to be interested in shocking his audience into discomfort but rather in confronting his audience with themselves. He says in a CNN tour of his studio that “Its about how your life can look at its own parameters and how they can be expanded from that moment.” It remains to be seen if Koons’ reflective pieces have expansive power once they are no longer confrontational, like Courbet and Manet’s works that continue to haunt and impress over 100 years later.

When the self-assurance that came with the ecstasy in Koons’s marriage disappeared in the bitter divorce and custodial battles, Koons himself disappeared from the popular art scene for the duration of the 1990’s. Though he came back in full force in 2000 with his new conception of the metal-cast balloon objects, Koons’s reliance on setting and public image to validate his art betrays his dependence on the momentary. Koons’s objects may survive his generation, but the controversy and cultural obsessions that drive this moment’s fixation with his art will most likely fade. If the tension simmers down and the settings which give his art meaning dissolve, Jeff Koons will be laid bare as just a man who reproduced banalities.

Wellspring’s RADFest is a Poor Form of Communication

Intended for the readers of Review Magazine, or another regional publication

The director’s introductions are to a dance performance as the chips and salsa are to a meal at a Mexican restaurant: the quality of the appetizer betrays the quality of the substance to follow. Founder Cori Terry and Coordinator Erin Mitchell opened Saturday night’s offerings at the Midwest’s Regional Alternative Dance (RAD) Festival, hosted by Kalamazoo’s Wellspring Theatre, with routine declarations of excitement and acknowledgements of the audience and the crew. But for a one-time-only engagement with modern companies from around the country billed as “innovative” and “exuberant,” Terry and Mitchell’s introductions were not spicy, not subtle, and not hearty.

On the whole, the night’s five pieces, of 19 dances performed at RAD last weekend, followed suit. They could be at times well-phrased, virtuous, and even pretty, but rarely managed to be convincing or heartfelt. In the first piece, Erin Mitchell’s “Among the Porcelain,” the two women wore short black sequined dresses that readily showed matching bright red underwear. In combination with the offensively loud, squeaky music, the underwear could have been to push the audience to confront discomfort in the face of broken social norms except that the fluid choreography and quality of movement in no way suggested that. The turns were well executed and the formations were varied but not new, giving the impression that the dancers were introspective explorers.

Modern dance rests on the pillar of individuality, and attention to one’s own body is crucial for the dancer. But “feeling the movement” is no good to anyone other than the dancer unless he or she can communicate those feelings to the audience. The performing modern dancer must radiate the internal experience out, and transform exercise and meditation to valuable and sharable art. Only Matthew Janczewski’s “UGLY” achieved this level of performance, with his makeshift shoulder pads mirroring the choreography that was at times combative and tender. Janczewski and Galen Treuer’s faces changed as they moved around, with and against each other, an element that the other dancers missed.

RAD’s details elsewhere lacked cohesion too, and called into question the dance’s purposes. Gretchen Garnett’s “Just Passing Through” was a solo that explored a mix of full body movement and isolated extremities that ended, like a few other movements throughout the night, with Leah Katz simply ceasing movement and walking off-stage in faux contemplation. There is not a more trite way to end a modern piece and ruin the Festival’s claim to “impassioned… innovation.” Rachel Miller’s “Somewhere Else Not So Blighted” began with promising and relatable energy, as the spotlighted Miller and Jennifer Hudson moved wildly like wind sockets, which it gradually lost as the choreography slowed and the dancers forgot to treasure the music.

Kalamazoo dressed up for the event, it seemed, to impress each other more than anything else. The festival was limited in this way too; the small space and high ticket price ($10 for less than 45 minutes of dance) included only those who were predisposed to like the show. RAD’s “innovations” thus remained internal, not only within the dancers themselves but also within the city’s performance circle.

Final Assignment Pitch: Jeff Koons Profile

Audience: a New York magazine aimed at young adults, like New York Magazine

Jeff Koons represents the epitome of current art, with artistic references to Andy Warhol and Marcel Duchamp and pop references to Elvis and the Pink Panther. His pieces walk the line between “playfulness (with) a contemporary monumentality,” in his words, and vacuous flops without a frame of reference. Placement is crucial to the effectiveness of Koons’s pieces, a theme which I aim to explore alongside sexuality, bright color, and scale as they mirror trends in wider popular culture.

Koons has reached a sustained stardom during his active career, a feat few visual artists achieve. This popularity comes with much debate; I will use articles with contradictory viewpoints from the “New York Times,” London’s “The Independent,” and other new sources, as well as interviews with Koons from “Charlie Rose,” “CNN,” and a Warhol documentary by Ric Burns. My research will of course be supplemented with Koons’s own work from his web portfolio.

His personal life builds the controversy evoked by his art: he married a porn star turned Italian Parliament member, hired an image consultant, and according to “The Independent” of London “gives interview in the third person.” This profile will have qualities that catch our readers attention: pop culture, art, and controversy through the lens of a New York-based artist.

I am versed in pop culture, art history, and the New York art scene, but not too immersed in any to blind my analysis. I believe that as a young visual artist, I am well-suited to write an informed and critical feature on Jeff Koons.

Pauline Kael Awoke Slumbering Giant in Criticism

Audience: a New York magazine aimed at young adults, like New York Magazine

Amid the disagreements swirling around the late “New Yorker” critic Pauline Kael, one thing is not up for grabs: those who write about Kael cannot help but use her style. Since Kael hit the New York film scene in 1967, magazines have become rife with writers, self-proclaimed “Paulettes” like jazz critic Francis Davis, who reproduce her schismatic language and personal attachment. Kael was fond of superlatives; “New Times” critic Andy Klein sticks one in a Kael obituary, declaring she was “simply the most stylistically influential film critic ever.” Even Renata Alder’s essay “House Critic,” perhaps Kael’s largest censure, concludes “once the tone and the ante have been pumped up… it becomes hard - even in reviewing Ms. Kael’s work - to write in any other way.”

With so many imitators, Kael clearly awoke some slumbering thing in criticism, part Princess Aurora and part mountain troll, and it demanded response. Adler calls the thing “frenzy,” Davis, in “Afterglow: A Last Conversation with Pauline Kael,” would rather “energy,” and Kael spoke of her own “passion.” Certainly, Kael’s reviews do not waver on her devotion to film. She delighted in Jean-Luc Godard’s “stunning” use of pop and Barbara Streisand’s “incandescent” comedy, and panned “Hiroshima Mon Amour”s “passive… imposture” and “Top Gun”s “depersonalized… commercial”; she pursued her particular beauty like an 19th century aesthete. Beauty for Kael is stardom, authenticity, and pleasure; it is sexual appeal and a good laugh, clear direction and pop culture.

The awoken giant shows its ugly side when her convictions persuade the reader to go to the theaters for entirely the wrong reason. Her reviews of films like “Silkwood” or “Funny Girl” are essentially argumentative, a challenge to disagree. Kael’s second person, as in “You feel that you understand,” could be construed as including the audience, except that, as Adler indicates, “‘You’ is most often Ms. Kael’s ‘I.’” She co-opts the reader’s power to make his or her own decisions: “The Witches of Eastwick” review states “And damned if (Jack Nicholson) doesn’t entertain us, too.” Here, Kael’s energetic writing shamefully conveys the value of judgement more than the value of the movie.

When Kael’s quest for beauty dissipates into bullying argument, Kael’s criticisms are laid bare as individual taste. Inevitably, those who can’t stand her lowbrow taste will concoct arguments against Kael, and those who love the “energy of a popular art,” as she says in Davis's interview, will join the ranks of “Paulettes.”

Adler, in “House Critic” for example, wants to skewer Kael on her penchant for bodily functions, both in movies and in her writing. But she cannot say “Pauline shouldn't like guts,” so instead argues “all the squishing and crunching attributed to characters, actors, anyone, is entirely (Kael’s) own idea” and has no place in a movie critique. Ultimately, though, as Louis Menand of The New York Review of Books points out, Kael’s taste “kept the attention of the magazine's readers during a time when movies seemed to mean a great deal to them” by generally walking the line between Sleeping Beauty and obstinate monster.

The Elements of Pauline Kael: Influence, Taste, and Judgement

Amid the debate about the late “New Yorker” critic Pauline Kael, one thing is not up for grabs: those who write about Kael inevitably use her grammar. Francis Davis, author of “Afterglow: A Last Conversation with Pauline Kael,” counts himself within the ranks of “Paulettes” in today’s magazines. Even the censures, Renata Adler’s essay “House Critic” looming large among them, recognize Kael’s pervasive literary influence. Adler writes in her conclusion that “it becomes hard -- even in reviewing Ms. Kael’s work -- to write in any other way,” and exposes her own essay to be rife with Kael’s techniques. Andy Klein, a critic for the New Times and a clear devotee to her superlatives, declares in his obituary of Kael that she was “simply the most stylistically influential film critic ever.”

With so many imitators, Kael clearly awoke some slumbering thing in criticism that demanded response. Adler calls the thing “frenzy,” Davis would rather “energy,” and Kael spoke of her own “passion.” Certainly, Kael’s reviews do not waver on their convictions or her devotion to her subject. She delighted in Jean-Luc Godard’s “stunning” use of pop and Barbara Streisand’s “incandescent” comedy, and panned “Hiroshima Mon Amour”s “passive… imposture” and “Top Gun”s “depersonalized… commercial”; she pursued beauty like Oscar Wilde at his most conspicuous. Beauty for Kael is stardom, authenticity, and pleasure; it is sexual appeal and a good laugh, clear direction and pop culture.

The awoken giant sometimes drifts back to sleep in her longer pieces, “Busybody” for example loses all excitement by the third rambling paragraph, and it is here that the controversy surrounding Kael emerges. When visceral excitement can’t carry her, Kael’s criticisms are laid bare as individual taste. Those who can’t stand lowbrow taste will concoct arguments against her, and those who love the “energy of a popular art,” as she says in Davis's interview, will join the ranks of “Paulettes.”

In the end, one cannot judge taste on any stronger grounds than those upon which the opinions rely. Rational debate comes to a standstill. Adler, for example, wants to skewer Kael on her penchant for bodily functions, both in movies and in her writing, but she cannot say “Pauline shouldn't like guts” and instead argues “all the squishing and crunching attributed to characters, actors, anyone, is entirely (Kael’s) own idea” and is outside of “the legitimate borders of polemic.”

Whatever your position on Kael’s taste, it is unfortunate when her energies persuade the reader to go to the theaters for entirely the wrong reason. Reviews like “Busybody” or “Funny Girl” are essentially argumentative, a challenge to disagree. Kael’s second person, as in “You feel that you understand,” could be construed as including the audience, except that, as Adler indicates, “‘You’ is most often Ms. Kael’s ‘I.’” She co-opts the reader’s power to make his or her own decisions: “The Witches of Eastwick” review states “And damned if he doesn’t entertain us, too.” The implication is that you are damned if you disagree. Here, Kael’s energetic writing shamefully conveys the value of judgement more than the value of the movie.