Thinking About Getting Into: Some news

On being an appreciator of the arts.

Me if you even care.

What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

I’m sure you’ve heard this quote before. There’s a good chance you know it’s by the poet Mary Oliver, from her poem “The Summer Day.” Perhaps you’ve seen it quoted so frequently that the syntax and sentiment are cliche and corny to you. Fair. And still, the question remains.

Everyone’s answer is different. Perhaps family comes to mind or your career or a passion outside the scope of a traditional 9-5 that drives you forward. The latter, of course, is the response that I’ve built this newsletter around; I believe, still, that having interests—however nebulous that may sound—and cultivating them is one of many keys to a fulfilling life.

Doing what you love—like, above all else—for a living is a privilege that I’d argue is not afforded to the majority of people. That makes the time that we do have to explore our interests especially precious and increasingly fraught amid endless distractions and algorithms. There are so many times when I find myself in the abyss of my phone, resisting the hypnotism of advertisements, both covert and not, that try to convince me I need to spend my money on a product that I do not need. In the ideal image I have of myself in my head, I’d be spending that time learning things, exposing myself to new ideas, and consuming the kind of art and analysis that begs time and real thought.

But it is so much easier to let my phone, turbocharged with all the data it’s collected about me over time, take me wherever it wills me to go. And I can’t help wondering if I am letting my consumption habits be driven by culturally dominant interests instead of seeking out alternatives. I am not above pop culture. I listen to and enjoy Taylor Swift. I am an unabashed member of Bachelor Nation. But perhaps, I’ve realized, I could be making more of an effort to route out the stories that aren’t served to me directly.

I do try to do this. I have more magazine subscriptions than is financially advisable for me to have. I love going to museums. I’ve made attending the ballet an annoyingly central part of my identity, and more recently I’ve become an opera-goer. I have an interest in design and architecture. From time to time, I’ve tried to refine my ear for classical music, picking up on the differences between Debussy and Saint-Saëns. I recently thought to myself that it’d be nice to learn more about the contemporary art world. But then I didn’t really know where to start.

Maybe that resonates with you, too. The thing is that these cultivated interests often require some sort of baseline education in the topic at hand, which is not always easily accessible or even approachable. They require an investment of time and often resources. Most of all, they require intentionality—an engagement in and understanding of interests that might seem “pretentious” arises from the deliberate pursuit of knowledge of those topics.

So with this newsletter, that’s what I’m aiming to do: To break down cultural interests that may not naturally be elevated by social media algorithms and to bring context to them that can make them more immediately understood and appreciated. I worry that American culture at large has poor regard for the arts and humanities when they have little to offer in terms of economic productivity or profitability. This is my attempt to both increase my own knowledge of the topics I want to get into and to hopefully help others appreciate them as well.

Going forward, you can expect to find cultural news here—not pop culture, not social media trends, and not business news. (There are already plenty of people doing that work phenomenally well.) Instead, you might learn something new about a notable choreographer or an artist’s upcoming retrospective or drama in the publishing world or architectural trends or tea on the wine industry: Cultivated interests for interesting people. High-brow culture with a low barrier to entry.

You can expect these round-ups somewhat frequently (though I’ll make no exact promises just yet), and I’ll still publish interviews with interesting people with interesting passions and pastimes every other Sunday. If there’s a topic that you are thinking of getting into—but don’t know where to start—let me know! Maybe it’s something we can get into together.

And now…what’s going on lately:

Maybe the British Museum should just return the Elgin marbles. The 271-year-old institution sure is having a dramatic time lately. The Museum just hired Nicholas Cullinan as its new director. Cullinan certainly has a strong resume for the job. He spent nearly a decade in his role as director of the National Portrait Gallery and oversaw a three-year reno of the institution; before that, he was a curator at the Met and the Guggenheim. And just earlier this year, he received an OBE (Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) for his service to the arts, alongside another notable person, Paul Hollywood—a man whose name I still cannot believe is real. Congrats!

Anyway, Cullinan has his work cut out for himself. The Museum just sued its former curator Peter Higgs for allegedly stealing and damaging nearly 2,000 artifacts and even selling hundreds of them on eBay. (Which was a smart call—the Depop girlies would have nickel and dimed him big time.) Probably the craziest thing about this whole ordeal is that Higgs oversaw Greek and Roman art and yet the Elgin marbles remain in British Museum custody. Missed opportunity!*

Higgs denies the claims, so we’ll see what happens there. And the Museum seems to be playing up the drama of the situation for its own advantage. More than 300 stolen artifacts have been recovered, some of them returned by collectors who were unaware they were purchasing illicit antiques. Ten of those returned gems are currently on display in an exhibit called Rediscovering Gems, which opened in February and will run until June. Good luck to Cullinan.

*Perhaps now is a good time to remind everyone that the British Museum itself has long been accused of stealing goods. Human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson argues in his 2019 book Who Owns History? Elgin's Loot and the Case for Returning Plundered Treasure that institutions like the British Museum don’t have a right to plundered artifacts that they obtained through colonialist measures. The British Museum, for its part, consistently defends its contested objects, including, most famously the Elgin marbles.

The tl;dr on those, if you haven’t taken an intro to art history class: The Elgin marbles come from the Parthenon in Athens. During Ottoman rule of Greece, Lord Elgin, then the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, petitioned authorities and got a permit to remove sculptures and architectural pieces from the Parthenon and around the Acropolis between 1801 and 1805 and ship them to London, the British Museum says. While this deal has been deemed legal, that hasn’t stopped contentious debate, especially as Greece has repeatedly requested to get the antiquities back. It’s a complex matter with all sorts of legal debates and moral questions, and even though the British Museum says that it has a positive relationship with Athens’s Acropolis Museum, things aren’t quite settled. So we’ll keep watching this space.

In the U.S., things are looking a bit different regarding what might be considered a similar matter. The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) led the American Museum of Natural History in January to close two of its halls that exhibit Native American objects; the new law mandates that museums have permission from tribes to display and/or conduct research with their cultural items. Other museums around the country have also closed or covered up displays as they work to comply with the law. It’s entirely possible that many of these items will never be put back on display, but rather repatriated.

“The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act is an essential tool for the safe return of sacred objects to the communities from which they were stolen. Among the updates we are implementing are critical steps to strengthen the authority and role of Indigenous communities in the repatriation process,” Secretary Deb Haaland—a member of the Pueblo of Laguna, a federally recognized tribe of Native American Pueblo people—said in a statement.

What if Beyoncé pivoted to opera? I’ve seen multiple TikToks commending Beyoncé’s take on the Italian aria “Caro Mio Ben” in her new track “Daughter.” The song doesn’t come from an opera, as the NYT points out; it was composed in 1783 by an Italian, either Giuseppe Giordano, his older brother Tommaso, or their father Giuseppe senior. The song is often performed in recitals and concerts and can be adapted for higher or lower voices. Although it’s in a major key, Beyoncé takes it in a minor key, giving it an extra-haunting appeal.

@stephanielexis#beyonce #cowboycarter #operatok #operasinger

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While the Times’s contributing classical music reviewer Joshua Barone says (in an overall complimentary review) that Beyoncé “ doesn’t have the voice of an opera singer,” I have to ask: What is the voice of an opera singer? What if we expanded our definition to breathe new life into that art form? I ask this as someone who has attended three (3) operas in the past few months !

In all seriousness: I do think this is what an institution like the Met Opera needs. It’s tapped its endowment twice in the past two years, withdrawing $30 million in late 2022 and another $40 million in 2024. This may at least partially be attributable to pandemic woes, but I’m sure that can’t be all. The nonprofit said in 2022 that it was going to start embracing new works, which were “outselling the classics.”

Listen, when I saw Carmen in January—famously not a new work, though it was styled in contemporary times—the Met was packed. And with plenty of 30- and 40-somethings! I do think the modern framing of that show gave it some excitement and broader appeal, and I wonder if casting a superstar—not just in the opera world, but the broader pop culture world—could give the Met more edge. When I saw Solange’s composition at New York City Ballet last year, the theater was similarly packed with an audience who had dressed up to the nines for the occasion. I’m not saying the opera should embrace stunt casting as Broadway has (because that is usually…bad). But maybe there’s a little more room to explore here.

Art Basel Hong Kong is sort of back. This week, the show returned to its pre-pandemic scale, with 242 galleries participating, more than 100 museum and gallery reps attending, and more than 75,000 visiting. Princess Eugenie, who is a director at the contemporary gallery Hauser & Wirth, was there. I can’t lie: I did not know she had a job.

Young collectors, especially from China, made a significant showing. Art advisor Shana Wu told The Art Newspaper that some of them are opening “their own private museums,” which is exactly what I’d be doing if I were ridiculously rich, so good for them. Some notable sales include a Willem de Kooning painting for $9 million, three works by Yayoi Kusama (including a mirrored infinity room) for $11 million, a painting by American contemporary artist Mark Bradford for $3.5 million, and a piece by the late Canadian painter Philip Guston for $8.5 million. An exhibit on Guston in the Tate Modern just ended in February.

In spite of that commercial boom, The Guardian reported this week that some artists are leaving Hong Kong, as they no longer feel they have safety of expression in the region. A national security law Beijing passed in 2020 has led some arts institutions to end their relationships with more contentious art groups or adjust the positioning of certain works, The Guardian added; an Art Basel spokesperson told the publication that the fair has not faced censorship issues and that it “abides by the laws and regulations of the jurisdictions” in which it operates.

Once again, it’s Hamaguchi time. I love this man. Japanese director Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s new film, Evil Does Not Exist comes to select theaters on May 3, the day before my birthday. What a gift! There’s a quiet sadness that I love about Hamaguchi’s films, especially Drive My Car and Asako I & II; they’re realist but with the essence of otherworldliness—coincidences and unlikely encounters and connections emphasize, in his work, the futility of humans against fate and the weight of their responses to the world around them. It looks like his newest film goes even deeper in exploring the consequences of human behavior, with an environmental focus. Hamaguchi’s never looked quite so eerie before.

You’re running out of time to see Sleep No More. I honestly thought that this immersive, Macbeth-inspired performance at the McKittrick Hotel was just like…a permanent thing. Apparently not! After 13 years, the show is finally closing on May 27. I like the idea of it but I am a little afraid of interacting with actors. So TBD if I will go or not.

There’s still time to get tickets to see one of the coolest dance companies come to NYC. Nederlands Dans Theater is performing at New York City Center this week, from April 3 to 6. It’s hard to really capture in words the appeal of the company. It performs works that are cinematic and emotive; there’s something symphonic in the way its dancers move together—the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. While I think some modern dance can feel a bit more esoteric to a viewer who isn’t familiar with the stylings of say, Cunningham, Graham, or Bausch, Nederlands Dans Theater tends to have a fluidity and musicality to its work that I think make it accessible and appealing for a large audience, while still feeling fresh and engaging.

Here is one of the easiest ways to sound cultured. Learn how to identify famous pieces of furniture. It is incredibly chic to be able to point out a Jeanneret chair or, at the VERY LEAST, an Eames chair. Want to learn more? The Times is on it. T mag published its list of the 25 most defining pieces of furniture from the last 100 years. Perhaps the biggest twist of this list is that Julianne Moore (yes, of May December snub fame) is one of the judges? Apparently she is an avid furniture collector? Kind of iconic.

In any case, I think having a knowledge of design history can make it more fun and interesting to cultivate your own design tastes. You can even get better at spotting dupes—like how IKEA’s stools are 100% a copy of Alvar Aalto’s Stool 60. Just be sure that you don’t go around calling any of your knockoffs the real thing, lest you end up being sued by the Donald Judd Foundation, like Kim Kardashian was this week. Oops!

OK, see you in a few days! ▲