On Friday, I went to the Chanel-sponsored BAAND Together Dance Festival at Lincoln Center for the first time; I was especially happy to see Alvin Ailey perform Lar Lubovich’s mesmerizing “Many Angels,” a gorgeous piece set to the adagietto in Mahler’s Fifth. I went directly from Lincoln Center to Under the K Bridge Park in Brooklyn so that I myself could dance to Jamie xx.
August is a strange month to me. It feels, already, like we are in the crunch time before September—when I’d binge all of my summer reading in one week before school started up again and imagine how I might reinvent myself that autumn with a few trips to TJ Maxx. September, to me, is better than New Year’s, and so I’m approaching this month before it with intentionality, prioritizing the practices that will help take me to where I’d like to be.
That means finishing Middlemarch (I’m in the final 200-page stretch) so I can get to the much-hyped Lonely Crowds by Stephanie Wambugu, a novel that sits squarely in my favorite genre: fiction about female friendships. I’ve acquired a Kindle, and I’m practicing my Spanish by reading Nada by Carmen Laforet (the Kindle’s translation tools are a game-changer). And, of course, I am writing, too.
If you are looking for some end-of-summer reading, might I also suggest John Gregory Dunne’s Vegas? I’ll be hosting McNally Jackson’s McNally Editions book club starting in September—you can join me to discuss it then! Sign up ahead of time here.
The Department of Homeland Security is using art to fuel narratives that lean toward the promotion of ethno-nationalism, and the artists it’s promoting are not happy. The agency has shared several paintings on its social media feeds, including Thomas Kinkade’s “Morning Pledge”—a romanticized depiction of suburban American life shown in his trademark style, which critics have called “banal and hollow.” The Kinkade Family Foundation responded, saying that it did not authorize the the use of Kinkade’s work (the artist died in 2012 and therefore his paintings—unlike those you often see in this newsletter—are not in the public domain). The Foundation added:
At The Kinkade Family Foundation, we strongly condemn the sentiment expressed in the post and the deplorable actions that DHS continues to carry out. Like many of you, we were deeply troubled to see this image used to promote division and xenophobia associated with the ideals of DHS, as this is antithetical to our mission. We stand firmly with our communities who have been threatened and targeted by DHS, especially our immigrant, BIPOC, undocumented, LGBTQ+, and disabled relatives and neighbors.
DHS also shared John Gast’s “American Progress,” an image depicting the concept of Manifest Destiny, which surely you’ve seen in a U.S. history textbook, and Morgan Weistling’s “A Prayer for a New Life. Weistling wrote on social media that DHS used his painting (which it also mistitled) without his permission, the Washington Post reported.
In a piece for Hyperallergic, academic and writer Ed Simon decried DHS’s promotion of these paintings, connecting this dissemination of images, which suggest themes of colonialism and white supremacy masqueraded as patriotism, with fascism; he points out how the American idea of Manifest Destiny and westward expansion inspired Nazi Germany’s Lebensraum, a policy that was normalized, at least in part, by art which promoted the “normative family unit” and nationalism. “The DHS posts may be hokum and kitsch, pablum and camp, but it also evidences a very dangerous current situation, particularly as the budget for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), already operating several concentration camps throughout the United States, will increase to larger than the militaries of Canada, Turkey, Mexico, Iran, and Spain,” Simon writes. “This isn’t even to mention the U.S.’s active support of Israel’s current genocide and famine in Gaza.”
Last week, we spoke about how the Hamburg State Opera is facing controversy for accepting funding for its new opera house from the Kühne Foundation (which has historical family ties to the Nazi regime). This week, the Financial Times published an interview with director Tobias Kratzer about his plans for the company. At the very least, he insists that the Kühne money won’t impact his progressive programming. “It’s better for the money to be invested in art than for it to be lying around in a Swiss bank vault. Like everything in life, it’s not black and white,” he said. “Opera has the capacity to reflect on moral questions in a nuanced way; we’re not going to whitewash history any more than we’re going to issue blanket condemnations.”
The Metropolitan Opera, meanwhile, is facing a funding shortfall. Slipped Disc reported that contracts between the Met and its orchestra and stagehands have expired, with insiders suggesting money problems may be at hand. New York’s recent story about late fraud philanthropist Matthew Christopher Pietras sheds light on the financial situation: the Met, over years, accepted millions in fraudulent donations from Pietras, leading it to dip into its endowment to make up for the expected money: “Lately, in interviews, Gelb has teased a ‘transformative’ gift some say is almost certainly a deal with the government of Saudi Arabia.”
Applications are open for the Guggenheim Fellowship. Get at it, geniuses.
Speaking of the Guggenheim, its upcoming slate of Works & Process performances is very good (Lar Lubovich! Jamar Roberts! Yuri Possokhov! Alicia Graf Mack!)
Lululemon has removed dancers and dance teachers from its Sweat Collective discount program, which gives athletes and coaches a 25-percent discount on regular-priced apparel, Dance Spirit reported. This has led countless dancers to protest the brand on social media for its suggestion that dancers are not, in fact, athletes. The brand does not appear to have reversed its position but does seem to be trying to gain some positive PR: on Saturday, Lululemon’s store in Vail Village, Colorado, offered a one-day-only 25-percent discount for dancers, many of whom are in town performing at the annual Vail Dance Festival.
Can the Kennedy Center actually be renamed for the Trumps? We have all been wondering this—and according to the Washington Post, the answer is yes, but not likely. The Center’s board of trustees don’t have the authority to make such changes, says Georgetown Law professor David Super, but Congress can. It “would need 60 votes in the U.S. Senate, and I would be shocked if they could find seven Democratic senators that would vote to name an opera house after the wife of someone who has been cutting arts funding,” he said. This is likely why this change was inserted into a spending bill. Representative Chellie Pingree, a Democrat from Maine, doesn’t put it past Trump to simply install a new sign no matter what happens, legally or not.
I need to join the London Literary Salon. As the FT recently reported, the group hosts immersive book clubs—such as a six-night sailing voyage paired with Moby Dick and a five-day Proust course in Paris. “I wanted to reimagine the way learning happens,” founder Toby Brothers says.
In July, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History removed a placard referring to President Trump’s two impeachments from the exhibit, “American Presidency: A Glorious Burden,” during a content review. Now, the Washington Post reports that the placard will be replaced, and the Smithsonian says in a statement it was not removed due to governmental pressure: “The placard, which was meant to be a temporary addition to a 25-year-old exhibition, did not meet the museum’s standards in appearance, location, timeline, and overall presentation. It was not consistent with other sections in the exhibit and moreover blocked the view of the objects inside its case. For these reasons, we removed the placard.”
With the Booker Prize nominees officially announced and And Just Like That officially cancelled, Sarah Jessica Parker must have a lot more time on her hands. Perhaps SJP Lit will rev up its publication cadence. Of the 13 Booker nominees, I am most excited to read David Szalay’s Flesh, Maria Reva’s Endling, and Katie Kitamura’s Audition (which I really should have read by now).
Last week, we spoke about how artist Amy Sherald was withdrawing her exhibition, “American Sublime” from the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery over censorship concerns regarding her painting “Trans Forming Liberty.” This week, that painting is on the cover of the New Yorker.
Justin Peck surf ballet…okay!
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Mezzanine Society to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.