Jane Alexander is one of those exceptional actresses who combine formidable inner strength with an almost porcelain fragility. Among her many projects of the last ten years there has been a small feature film, Testament, that “broke out” into mainstream recognition, and Eleanor and Franklin, a television film that rose above its own mainstream aspirations.
“Things are changing, and I think Hispanic people are making it change, and I’m going to do my best to make it change, you know? Not just sit back and wait for things to happen, ‘cause they’re not going to happen by themselves.”
Mary Shultz’s usual reserve turns to fire when she reaches the stage. Recipient of both Obie and Bessie awards, she remains the secret weapon of downtown theater—without fail her appearances guarantee integrity, intensity, and charm.
Alan Uglow doesn’t neglect a single source of inspiration—from the noise of the street to the beauty of Italian luxury cars—his is a rigorous formal reflection with a subjectivity full of charm and tenderness. Alan’s paintings are beyond reductive commentary and that’s why, with him, it’s always best to stay alert.
James Merrill is one of America’s most distinguished poets. Critic Stephen Yenser has called Merrill’s epic poem The Changing Light at Sandover “a landmark in American literature.” Certainly it’s the only epic poem mostly dictated on a Ouija board to its two mediums, JM and DJ (Merrill and his co-adventurer David Jackson).
Anxious landscapes, aberrant allegories, perverse personifications: Chuck Connelly is Norman Rockwell on acid—a maverick narrative painter pushing the limits of myth into a modern malaise all his own. Connelly has worked with Martin Scorcese on New York Stories and is currently showing with Lennon Weinberg Gallery. I talked to Chuck in his paint-drenched studio on East Second Street, where he spoke with his usual fiery candor and irreverence.
Richard Prince and the legendary architect and installation artist Vito Acconci on everything from pornography to childhood memories to films that make him cry in this fast-paced, in-depth interview from 1991.
“I don’t feel very much affected by it. Even before Boat People, I got offers to make movies from companies that import films to Taiwan. The companies said they could fix the import regulations. In any case, I could only make one film a year, so it didn’t matter. I’m not losing many offers.” Ann Hui
They spoke in light, when they felt like speaking. They spoke only to her, they said.
Sounds stretch out in the station—footsteps, crackling announcements, rag ends of instructions and goodbyes echo and balloon, tangle in a mass that hangs high up under the sooty vaulting of transoms and girders.
September 10, 1990
Dear Bill:
Richard’s face twisted up and he screamed: “Violence is love and sex is death.”—which didn’t make sense to Elsie, but then, nothing he said ever did.
I love the shiny, pristine teeth that most Americans keep behind their lips, pearly immaculate rows of ivory, often capped in precious metals, brilliant they seem and impervious to decay, and their children’s teeth, wrapped in steel for years so they too, will grow in straight and flawless.
Cries Majnoon:
Beloved you are not here
For some reason, he wrote to me frequently from Berlin.
Untitled black-and-white drawing, by Li Trincere.
Photograph of a large, abstract oil on canvas painting, Project for Bomb Magazine by Pat Steir.
Untitled, abstract ink drawing by Richard Nabhan.
Black-and-white photograph, The Artist on Holiday by Geralyn Donahue.
Two untitled ink drawings by Jeanne Hedstrom.
