Ragnar Kjartansson at the Reykjavik Art Museum

26/06/2017

In the exhibition God, I feel so bad, which is ongoing at the Reykjavik Art Museum through September 24, visitors can see works done in a variety of mediums that reflect the artist's ode to art in all its glory, including music, theater, film, literature and, naturally, the visual arts. Read more...

Michel Houellebecq’s exhibition “French Bashing” at VENUS, New York City

21/06/2017

Akin to his novels that tend to produce divided opinions, people can either love his art works or argue that the photographs are not good enough. Houellebecq has mastered the art of splitting the public’s response into two distinct halves. Jut as with the white and black rooms in the gallery, there are no ambivalent feelings towards his work. Or, like in his novel “Atomized”: “there are only two responses that they have created and encouraged: hedonistic libertinism or ascetic retreat”. No matter what the reactions are, his name has become a brand in itself. But the obsession with le monde houellbecquien goes far beyond capitalist consumerism. Read more...

Film producer Terry Gilliam’s production at the Berlin State Opera

19/06/2017

On the opening night of Hector Berlioz’s dramatic legend “The Damnation of Faust”, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle at the Berlin State Opera on 27 May, there was a palpable sense of elation. Showing throughout June, this opera on a German cultural figure as interpreted by a French romantic, and as directed by American-born film producer Terry Gilliam, was awaited with joyful interest. Although more than forty years have passed since the dark-humor-filled BBC comedy sketch show was on TV, and Gilliam has made twelve feature-length films since then, his name is still most associated with the highly original Monty Python world of comedy. Read more...

Review on Marta Vosyliūtė’s film “The Life and Death of a Humanist Woman, or Be Smaller than a Poppy-seed”

16/06/2017

The film is a story in seven parts, made up of 328 original paintings, and accompanied by the author’s brief comments in the subtitles. In the words of the artist, it is “a post-Soviet artistic study”. What she tells here is the story of the post-war generation and this generation’s social trajectory – from kitchen gardens and greenhouses to universities and conferences, from black earth hotbeds, planting and weeding to writing articles, from the stagnating peace of a provincial town to the capital with its real or alleged possibilities. Read more...