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Jenny Erpenbeck's 'Kairos' wins the International Booker Prize
LONDON.- Jenny Erpenbeck’s “Kairos,” a novel about a torrid love affair in the final years of East Germany, won on Tuesday the International Booker Prize, the renowned award for fiction translated into English. Erpenbeck shares the award of 50,000 British pounds (about $63,500) with Michael Hofmann, who translated the book into English. The pair received the prize during a ceremony at the Tate Modern art museum in London. After receiving the award, the pair seemed lost for words. Erpenbeck thanked her family, and Hofmann thanked Erpenbeck: “I want to thank Jenny for her trust in me,” he said. “Er, that’s about the size of it.” Eleanor Wachtel, the chair of the judges, said in a news conference that “Kairos” was more than a simple evocation of a romance. The “self-absorption of the lovers” — a student and a 50-something novelist ... More

Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons and Willem Dafoe crack the Yorgos Lanthimos code
CANNES.- In the new Yorgos Lanthimos film “Kinds of Kindness,” a character played by Emma Stone recounts a dream in which she was the denizen of a bizarre world. “There, dogs were in charge,” she murmurs. “People were animals, animals were people.” But being brought to heel by their canine masters wasn’t as bad as it sounds, she says: “I must admit, they treated us pretty well.” Compared with how the human beings treat each other in “Kinds of Kindness,” a dark new comedy that just premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and is in theaters June 21, the dogs would surely be an improvement. Comprised of three separate stories with the cast members recurring in different roles, “Kinds of Kindness” begins with the tale of Robert (Jesse Plemons), a corporate underling whose every interaction in life — including what to eat, how to speak or even ... More

One Japanese word changed the course of her career
NEW YORK, NY.- In January, travel and fashion influencer Devin Halbal decided to take a trip to Kurashiki, a city in the Okayama prefecture of Japan. Halbal, a Queens-born 26-year-old who goes by the username “Hal Baddie” on TikTok, had spent four years traveling around Europe with an extra-long selfie stick and a dream, sharing videos with hundreds of thousands of followers. Halbal had become known for coining inspirational phrases, like “doll check-in” as a proud calling card to her fellow trans girls, and “Met Gala behavior,” for when you’re feeling and acting confident about what you’re wearing. Her fame seemed to peak in 2022 when she was profiled by W magazine and Rolling Stone, and invited on a brand trip to Ibiza by Loewe. But after globe-trotting and a few months off with friends in New York, she wanted to do more than “fashion and affirmations,” ... More

Hunt Slonem debuts his first-ever garden exhibition
SAN ANTONIO, TX.- In partnership with the San Antonio Botanical Garden and the Mays Family Foundation, internationally acclaimed artist Hunt Slonem premiered his first major garden exhibition, Huntopia: Bunnies, Birds, & Butterflies. The exhibition, on view May 4 through November 3, 2024, at the San Antonio Botanical Garden, features larger than life outdoor sculptural installations emulating the lush and vibrant realm of Slonem’s work. Across the Garden’s 38-acres, Huntopia includes a series of monumental pieces and installations thoughtfully curated with the San Antonio Botanical Garden. The exhibition’s debut celebrates Slonem’s lifelong dream to create an immersive and grand outdoor sculpture experience, marking a pivotal moment in his 50-year career. “Botanical gardens fascinate me,” says Artist Hunt Slonem. “Nature ... More

Smart Museum of Art announces new Deputy Director, Curator
CHICAGO, IL.- Vanja V. Malloy, the Dana Feitler Director of the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago, announced today the appointment of two key positions. Marcus E. Margerum joins the Smart as Deputy Director. A native of Chicago, Margerum was most recently the Deputy Director & Chief Business Officer at the Contemporary Arts Center (CAC), Cincinnati. At the Smart, Margerum assumes a significant scope of responsibilities overseeing museum operations and administration, leading the collections and registration, exhibition production and management, publications, communications, facilities and security management, and guest services teams. As a member of the senior leadership staff, Margerum serves as a collaborator and advisor to the Dana Feitler Director to achieve strategic goals and implement organizational initiatives. ... More

Rago/Wright to auction major works by Warhol, Koons, more in Spring Post War & Contemporary Art
LAMBERTVILLE, NJ.- Rago/Wright announced the spring presentation of Post War & Contemporary Art at auction on May 22nd, featuring a robust offering of high-value artworks from artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. Among the more than 100 works on offer, top lots include Andy Warhol’s complete 1972 Mao Portfolio (est. $600,000-800,000) and Jeff Koons’s 1992 canvas Puppy (est. $500,000-700,000), accompanied by works from Günther Förg, Joan Miró, Dana Schutz, Vladimir Dubossarsky and Alex Vinogradov, Damien Hirst, Sol LeWitt, J.B. Blunk, Tony Smith, Keith Haring, Louise Lawler, Sheila Hicks, and many more. Leading the auction is Warhol’s Mao Portfolio (est. $600,000-800,000),an infamous and controversial work published in 1972 that reflects the political and cultural zeitgeist of the early 1970s. As both a prescient consumer ... More

Exhibition of new paintings by Keith Mayerson to open at Karma
LOS ANGELES, CA.- Karma presents My American Dream: City of Angels, an exhibition of new paintings by Keith Mayerson, open from May 23 to July 20 at 7351 Santa Monica Boulevard. Keith Mayerson’s sprawling, non-linear narrative painting series My American Dream (2000– ) weaves hundreds of discrete images from his personal life, popular culture, and the national landscape into a portrait of America as he sees it, full of potentiality. City of Angels, Mayerson’s latest chapter in the series, addresses his personal national imaginary, honing in on Los Angeles, the city where he came into his own as an artist in the 1990s and one that he has, since returning from New York in 2016, once again come to call home. The exhibition’s two rooms—the first an homage to the figures who are central to the artist’s California mythology, the second a meditation on the changing landscape of the American West—together comprise Mayerso ... More

Scarlett Johansson said no, but OpenAI's virtual assistant sounds just like her
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF.- Days before OpenAI demonstrated its new, flirty voice assistant last week, actress Scarlett Johansson said, Sam Altman, the company’s CEO, called her agent and asked that she consider licensing her voice for a virtual assistant. It was his second request to the actress in the past year, Johannson said in a statement Monday, adding that the reply both times was no. Despite those refusals, Johansson said, OpenAI used a voice that sounded “eerily similar to mine.” She has hired a lawyer and asked OpenAI to stop using a voice it called “Sky.” OpenAI suspended its release of “Sky” over the weekend. The company said in a blog post Sunday that “AI voices should not deliberately mimic a celebrity’s distinctive voice — Sky’s voice is not an imitation of Scarlett Johansson but belongs to a different professional actress using her own natural speaking voice.” ... More

In 'Three Houses,' a dark karaoke night of the soul
NEW YORK, NY.- It’s only fitting that a bar, replete with liquor and raised like an altar, presides over Dave Malloy’s “Three Houses,” which opened Monday at the Signature Theater. Malloy’s music is, after all, intoxicating. Alcohol is the accelerant for the show’s linked monodramas. And hung over is how it leaves its pandemic-sozzled characters at the end of a dark karaoke night of the soul. You may feel that way, too: lost in a morning-after fog like Malloy’s three protagonists, each having radically relocated during lockdown. Susan (Margo Seibert) found herself in her dead grandmother’s ranch home in Latvia, pointlessly alphabetizing the library. Sadie (Mia Pak) moved into her auntie’s New Mexico adobe, where a life-simulation game akin to Animal Crossing was her only companion. Having holed up in a “red brick basement in Brooklyn,” Beckett (J.D. Mollison) soon turned into an Amazon shopaholic. ... More

Retro, kitsch and vintage: The best of horror film posters at auction from Ewbank's on May 24
WOKING.- Spiders, vampires, zombies, werewolves and evil spirits abound among the classic designs of Ewbank’s Vintage Posters auction on May 24. Led by the magnificently retro kitsch Tarantula, here is a fine selection. Tarantula (1955), US One sheet. Rolled, with heavy linen backing, the 42 x 28½ inch (107 x 72cm) poster, has an estimate of £400-600. The Flesh and the Fiends (1959), linen backed, 30 x 40 inch (76 x 102cm) British Quad film poster. The film starred Peter Cushing. Estimate £100-200. The Prowlers, a 1981 slasher movie that starred the later great Farley Granger, who also co-starred in Hitchcock’s Strangers On A Train. One of a collection of vintage posters offered together as a single lot with an estimate of £100-200. Peter Cushing and Dennis Price co-starred in Twins of Evil (1971), a Hammer Horror cult classic for which this 30 ... More

Castellani Art Museum unveils "Colors Sing to Me: The Life and Art of Polly King"
NIAGARA FALLS, NY.- Castellani Art Museum, in collaboration with the Niagara Falls National Heritage Area, presents Colors Sing to Me: The Life and Art of Polly King. This exhibition, which spans May 22 to September 1, 2024, stands as a poignant homage and homecoming for an artist deeply intertwined with the heart and history of Niagara Falls, New York. The public is warmly invited to the opening reception on June 6, 2024, from 5:30 to 8:00 p.m. at the Castellani Art Museum. This special event marks the beginning of an extraordinary showcase of King's work, offering a chance to experience her legacy and influence firsthand. From the roaring twenties (1925) to the early nineties (1993), artist Polly King watched Niagara Falls, NY, undergo a remarkable metamorphosis. She saw it evolve from an industrial powerhouse to the famous "Honeymoon ... More