Architecture & art
Birmingham, Alabama, was founded in 1871 – after the Civil War – but quickly caught up with other Southern cities’ cruel segregation and Jim Crow practices. Some say it bested them. Dr. Martin Luther King, …
Next time you see a Ken Burns documentary, think of Lou Stoumen. It was Stoumen who invented a track that allowed a camera to slowly pan up and down while zooming in and out of …
Austin, Texas: Most of us know it as the self-proclaimed “Live Music Capital of the World,” home to SXSW, and a place that gets really, really hot in the summer. But for an active, social …
Art exhibitions serve an especially useful purpose if they revise our assumptions and rewrite established narratives, correcting for new information, shifting valuations, fresh polemical agendas, and the mysteries of shared taste. Without a foundational intellectual …
While sampling one of the “immersive environments” in Phenomenal: California Light, Space, Surface, currently at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, I suffered a mild panic attack, but don’t let that keep you away. …
New to Paris is Place Django Reinhardt. Well, the site isn't new, but the designation is. The site is where the gypsy guitariste et compositeur lived in his caravan, in the Saint-Ouen neighborhood of Paris's …
I know people who say they’re from the ’60s as some people say they’re from Paris or New York. It’s not descriptive, it’s declarative, proudly (or smugly) so, and vaguely definitive of their politics. I …
Whether you want to learn about early American history, explore art museums, watch leaves change color or sip a pint, Boston does not disappoint. The easiest way for someone unfamiliar with Boston to get around …
Kuala Lumpur is, above all, a city of contrasts. The capital of Malaysia is an interesting mix of the historic, traditional Asia and the modern, hip Asia. Its ethnically diverse population of Malays, Chinese and …
Little Rock, Arkansas, has quietly become an indie music lover’s paradise. People who ponder going to SxSW, but worry about the expense, the hassle and its growing commercialism are discovering Arkansas’ indie musician– and audience-friendly …
When you’re staring at a deer beneath a grove of oak trees, it might be difficult to realize that you’re within the city limits of Los Angeles. Topanga is a hilly, wooded oasis located within …
Born in 1960, the African-American artist Glenn Ligon grew up in housing projects in the Bronx but attended the privileged, mostly white Walden School in Manhattan, a one-hour commute each way. Later, after majoring in …
The plummy walls of the San Diego Museum of Art give the exhibition they surround, From El Greco to Dalí, a velvet jewel-case warmth. If the rooms were full of Goya’s ferocious Caprichos or Disasters …
We’re cognizant of but normally don’t heed the fact that we’re hostages of fortune. I sometimes think photography was invented as a memory aid to press upon us that unhappy fact. The first batch of …