BASQUIAT: The Price of Fame w/ Author DOUG WOODHAM - Highlights

BASQUIAT: The Price of Fame w/ Author DOUG WOODHAM - Highlights

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A Conversation with Author DOUG WOODHAM
Managing Partner, Art Fiduciary Partners

All of the great artists are there for a reason: because they rebelled in some way. They created a visual vocabulary that felt fresh and new, which excited people. So, the great artists are not built on sort of anthills of sand. They're built on things of substance and of meaning. Though this is not a sufficient condition to become an icon, it's a necessary but not sufficient condition. I think you have to have an interesting and vivid personality or personal narrative that makes you interesting for people to talk about and want to learn about. I think you also have to have a support network of galleries, curators, and collectors who are excited about your work and want to push it forward, not wanting it to be forgotten. Basquiat's visual vocabulary is distinctive and stands out relative to what was being done in the 1980s. That's the sort of strong hill on which his reputation is built. Basquiat benefited from being the first black artist of note who got pushed forward. As in many things, the first benefits.

JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT: The Making of an Icon with DOUG WOODHAM, Fmr. President of Christie's Americas

JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT: The Making of an Icon with DOUG WOODHAM, Fmr. President of Christie's Americas

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A Conversation with Author DOUG WOODHAM
Fmr. President of the Americas at Christie’s · Managing Partner, Art Fiduciary Partners

All of the great artists are there for a reason: because they rebelled in some way. They created a visual vocabulary that felt fresh and new, which excited people. So, the great artists are not built on sort of anthills of sand. They're built on things of substance and of meaning. Though this is not a sufficient condition to become an icon, it's a necessary but not sufficient condition. I think you have to have an interesting and vivid personality or personal narrative that makes you interesting for people to talk about and want to learn about. I think you also have to have a support network of galleries, curators, and collectors who are excited about your work and want to push it forward, not wanting it to be forgotten. Basquiat's visual vocabulary is distinctive and stands out relative to what was being done in the 1980s. That's the sort of strong hill on which his reputation is built. Basquiat benefited from being the first black artist of note who got pushed forward. As in many things, the first benefits.

On Mind Games, Power & Obsession - Showrunner HOWARD GORDON & Writer DANIEL PEARLE - Highlights

On Mind Games, Power & Obsession - Showrunner HOWARD GORDON & Writer DANIEL PEARLE - Highlights

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Starring CLAIRE DANES & MATTHEW RHYS
A Conversation with Showrunner, Exec. Producer HOWARD GORDON & Exec. Producer Writer DANIEL PEARLE

And I think there's also just something about an unfettered or uncensored id that is so captivating. We all have that fantasy of doing exactly what we want with no consequences and sort of letting that go. I think when you see an athlete at the peak of their game, doing that embodied thing and living that dream, or when someone has actually done horrible things that you would never allow yourself to do, there is a fascination there. I had one teacher who said, "Anyone who drives you crazy or that you just cannot stand in life, put them in a play or put them in a scene, and the audience will love them." If someone has really gotten under your skin and you just cannot stand them, and you have a visceral reaction—like, "I just hate this person"—make them a character, and the audience will make them everyone's favorite character. There is something to that.

The Beast in Me starring CLAIRE DANES - Behind the Scenes w/ HOWARD GORDON & DANIEL PEARLE

The Beast in Me starring CLAIRE DANES - Behind the Scenes w/ HOWARD GORDON & DANIEL PEARLE

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Starring CLAIRE DANES & MATTHEW RHYS
A Conversation with Showrunner, Exec. Producer HOWARD GORDON & Exec. Producer Writer DANIEL PEARLE

And I think there's also just something about an unfettered or uncensored id that is so captivating. We all have that fantasy of doing exactly what we want with no consequences and sort of letting that go. I think when you see an athlete at the peak of their game, doing that embodied thing and living that dream, or when someone has actually done horrible things that you would never allow yourself to do, there is a fascination there. I had one teacher who said, "Anyone who drives you crazy or that you just cannot stand in life, put them in a play or put them in a scene, and the audience will love them." If someone has really gotten under your skin and you just cannot stand them, and you have a visceral reaction—like, "I just hate this person"—make them a character, and the audience will make them everyone's favorite character. There is something to that.

Listening to the Planet - Writers' Perspectives on Nature, Place & Interconnectedness

Listening to the Planet - Writers' Perspectives on Nature, Place & Interconnectedness

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Katie Kitamura, Eiren Caffall, Jay Parini, Irvin Weathersby Jr., Natasha Hakimi Zapata, Audrea Lim & Dr. Bayo Akomolafe share their stories

How do our environments shape who we are and how we care for the world and each other? There are many solutions to climate change, inequality, and poverty around the world. How can we learn from them and transform our society?

The Arrogant Ape: The Myth of Human Exceptionalism & Why it Matters with CHRISTINE WEBB

The Arrogant Ape: The Myth of Human Exceptionalism & Why it Matters with CHRISTINE WEBB

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A Conversation with Primatologist CHRISTINE WEBB

There are many ways in which I think human exceptionalism has seeped into the sciences, but one of the many ways is through the methodologies we use when we compare the intelligence of humans and other species. In particular, in my field, I’m a primatologist by training, comparing the cognitive abilities of humans with the abilities of our closest living relatives, the great apes. Many times, those studies compare the intelligence of captive chimpanzees who are living in highly restricted, manmade environments. Often, these chimpanzees have been separated from their biological mothers at birth. They're often separated from the group during testing. They're subjected to very human-centric experimental paradigms, like playing with plastic puzzle boxes or computer touchscreens, and we're measuring how they perform on these tasks.

How to Make an Algorithm in the Microwave with Poet MAYA SALAMEH

How to Make an Algorithm in the Microwave with Poet MAYA SALAMEH

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Poetry is like one of the great loves of my life, and I think it's probably the longest relationship I'll ever have. I read a lot of poetry. I also wrote these short stories even when I was pretty young, like in second grade, and the stories kept getting shorter and shorter. My family used to go to Damascus in Syria and Lebanon every summer for three months until 2011, when the Civil War broke out in Syria. In 2015, we made our first return after that gap, and my father and I went to Lebanon for two weeks. It's the first time I felt that I belong. To the extent that was true or not, I'm obviously irrevocably American. I speak broken Arabic. I don't think I could ever live in Lebanon or Syria. But for what it was worth at 15 years old, it was a life-changing trip. I wrote my first official poem on the plane back to San Diego from that trip, and I feel that was a formative moment for me. I felt that I had a story to tell and wanted to put it to paper in the form of poetry.

In 2015, we made our first return after that gap, and my father and I went to Lebanon for two weeks. Being back in one of my two homelands as a more fully formed person and not like a young child, I thought, "Wow, this is the first time I've been in an Arabic-speaking Arab place as a teenager." 

 Empire of AI: Dreams & Nightmares in Sam Altman's Open AI with KAREN HAO

 Empire of AI: Dreams & Nightmares in Sam Altman's Open AI with KAREN HAO

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My book is called Empire of AI because I'm trying to articulate this argument and illustrate that these companies operate exactly like empires of old. I highlight four features that essentially encapsulate the three things you read. However, I started talking about it in a different way after writing the book.

The four features are: they lay claim to resources that are not their own, which is the centralization of resources; they exploit an extraordinary amount of labor, both in the development of the technology and the fact that they're producing labor-automating technologies that then suppress workers' ability to bargain for better rights; they monopolize knowledge production, which comes when they centralize talent.

Why We Need Stories in Times of Crisis: ETGAR KERET on Healing, Connection & Creativity in the Age of AI - Highlights

Why We Need Stories in Times of Crisis: ETGAR KERET on Healing, Connection & Creativity in the Age of AI - Highlights

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A Conversation with Author · Filmmaker ETGAR KERET
Winner of Cannes Film Festival’s Caméra d’Or · Charles Bronfman Prize & Sapir Prize

When I write my stories, I don't want to solve things in life. I just want to persuade myself that there is a way out. Maybe I am in a cell, maybe I'm trapped. Maybe I won't make it, but if I can imagine a plan for escape, then I'll be less trapped because at least in my mind, there is a way. I think that my parents are survivors. They always talked about this idea of humanity. My parents always said to me, when you look at people, don't look at their political views; that's not important. Look at the way that they look at you. If they see you, if they listen to you, if they can understand your intention, even if it's a failing one, they're your people. And if they can't, it doesn't matter.

I think that when I came with my mother and father, they thought there are people, there are human beings, and there are people who want to be human beings but are still struggling. And you go with humanity; you go with the person who can go against his ideology if his heart tells him something.

Finding Humanity Through Storytelling with Author & Filmmaker ETGAR KERET

Finding Humanity Through Storytelling with Author & Filmmaker ETGAR KERET

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A Conversation with Author · Filmmaker ETGAR KERET
Winner of Cannes Film Festival’s Caméra d’Or · Charles Bronfman Prize & Sapir Prize

When I write my stories, I don't want to solve things in life. I just want to persuade myself that there is a way out. Maybe I am in a cell, maybe I'm trapped. Maybe I won't make it, but if I can imagine a plan for escape, then I'll be less trapped because at least in my mind, there is a way. I think that my parents are survivors. They always talked about this idea of humanity. My parents always said to me, when you look at people, don't look at their political views; that's not important. Look at the way that they look at you. If they see you, if they listen to you, if they can understand your intention, even if it's a failing one, they're your people. And if they can't, it doesn't matter.

I think that when I came with my mother and father, they thought there are people, there are human beings, and there are people who want to be human beings but are still struggling. And you go with humanity; you go with the person who can go against his ideology if his heart tells him something.

Arabic Literature, Palestine & The Art of Translation with HUDA FAKHREDDINE

Arabic Literature, Palestine & The Art of Translation with HUDA FAKHREDDINE

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A Conversation with HUDA FAKHREDDINE
Writer · Translator · Associate Professor of Arabic Literature · University of Pennsylvania

I'm Lebanese. I grew up in Lebanon during the Civil War, and I came to the United States as a graduate student with the intention of going back. I never wanted to stay here. I really thought that my life would happen in Beirut, in a city that I loved and hated in the healthiest of ways. My investments, both literary and intellectual, were rooted there. I came here as a graduate student and joined the PhD program, and then the events continued to unfold there, making life more and more of a risk, building a life in a place like Lebanon. The most important counterpoint in my life was meeting my partner, Ahmad Almallah, who is Palestinian. So immediately, my life became the life of a Palestinian by association. Of course, the past two years—almost two years—have been surreal. I sometimes don't believe that we're going through what we're going through because, as security concerns have become something we think about at home, when we walk from home to campus or my office, I'm constantly anxious to open my mail because often there are things that will require a lot of energy, time, emotion, and are emotionally taxing. There’s a lot of rage now in many aspects of my life, but all that aside, my personal experience—both professional and personal, and at home, familial—are not exceptional. Many other people are experiencing intimidation, silencing, and feeling cornered, censored, and oppressed just because they took a stand—a very decent, normal, basic human stand against genocide.

What's Left: Three Paths Through the Planetary Crisis with MALCOLM HARRIS

What's Left: Three Paths Through the Planetary Crisis with MALCOLM HARRIS

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A Conversation with Author MALCOLM HARRIS

One day, I woke up with this concept of oil being tied up in our lives in ways that we don't talk about. It’s sort of a value-theoretical approach to climate change and the climate crisis. Something that's impersonal and goes to the root of our entire social metabolic structure.

The Poetics & Pedagogy of Toni Cade Bambara, June Jordan, Audre Lorde &Adrienne Rich in the Era of Free College w/ DANICA SAVONICK

The Poetics & Pedagogy of Toni Cade Bambara, June Jordan, Audre Lorde &Adrienne Rich in the Era of Free College w/ DANICA SAVONICK

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A Conversation with DANICA SAVONICK about her book Open Admissions: The Poetics and Pedagogy of Toni Cade Bambara, June Jordan, Audre Lorde, and Adrienne Rich in the Era of Free College

As I was reading Hooks and Freire, a colleague recommended Adrian Rich's essay "Teaching Language in Open Admissions." It was in that essay that I first read about her experiences teaching at CUNY during open admissions, learning that she taught alongside June Jordan, Audre Lorde, and Toni Cade Bambara. Eventually, that essay led me to their archival teaching materials. I was really excited because I found in those materials concrete teaching methods, things they were doing in their own classrooms that I then started trying in my classrooms as well. I also really liked their educational philosophies, thinking about what it means for college to be free and the fact that they were teaching during this revolutionary era. What would that look like today? What would it mean? What could free college bring to our society? What does free college make possible? All of those things coming together led me to the project.

Hayek’s Bastards: Race, Gold, IQ & the Capitalism of the Far Right with QUINN SLOBODIAN

Hayek’s Bastards: Race, Gold, IQ & the Capitalism of the Far Right with QUINN SLOBODIAN

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Race, Gold, IQ & the Capitalism of the Far Right
A Conversation with QUINN SLOBODIAN

The origin was really trying to make sense of that 2016-2017 moment and to ask whether the alt-right was, as we were being told, a return to the 1930s, a kind of awakening of the sleeping beast of white supremacy armed in the streets in the United States. There are many explanations, but I decided to take this kind of curious route in with the distorted readings and reinterpretations of the works of people like Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek. As a scholar of comparative literature, I wanted to write a revision based on Crack-Up Capitalism.

What Do We Do with the One Life We’re Given? - Scientists, Writers, Philosophers & Changemakers Share their Stories

What Do We Do with the One Life We’re Given? - Scientists, Writers, Philosophers & Changemakers Share their Stories

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In this time of rapid technological change, how do we hold onto our humanity? How do stories, traditions, and community help us find meaning in loss and face an uncertain future? How can science, art, and spirituality open new pathways to understanding ourselves and the human experience?

Every Monument Will Fall - DAN HICKS Explores Remembering & Forgetting

Every Monument Will Fall - DAN HICKS Explores Remembering & Forgetting

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A Conversation with DAN HICKS on Remembering & Forgetting

I work in between archeology and anthropology in this field called either historical archeology or contemporary archeology. At the heart of that is the relationship between objects and humans. How do we write about the past or the present in terms of listening to human voices or evidence from things where maybe human voices have been erased or haven't left as much of a mark on the written records as others? Wrapped up with that, though, is always the risk of dehumanization, of the treatment of human lives as if the boundary between a subject and an object is one that is permeable, not in a sort of positive way, but in a more sinister way. There is a long history of people being treated as things. 

AI, UFOs, Perception & Reality with Artist, Geographer, Author TREVOR PAGLEN - Highlights

AI, UFOs, Perception & Reality with Artist, Geographer, Author TREVOR PAGLEN - Highlights

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At the core of the work is that sense of curiosity, that sense of joy, that sense of beauty, and that sense of learning. I've been fortunate to have all kinds of strange and interesting experiences, whether that's seeing weird things in the sky over secret military bases in the middle of the Nevada desert, going scuba diving and finding internet cables on the bottom of the ocean, or tracking spy satellites in the sky and being able to predict when they'll appear in a flash against the backdrop of stars. The world around us is extraordinary and embodied, right? It is not on screens, and I’m very privileged to have that be so much a part of my process.

How AI is Shaping Perception w/ Artist TREVOR PAGLEN, Author of Trevor Paglen: Adversarially Evolved Hallucinations

How AI is Shaping Perception w/ Artist TREVOR PAGLEN, Author of Trevor Paglen: Adversarially Evolved Hallucinations

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How Deception is Sculpting Our Reality
A Conversation Artist, Geographer, Author TREVOR PAGLEN

At the core of the work is that sense of curiosity, that sense of joy, that sense of beauty, and that sense of learning. I've been fortunate to have all kinds of strange and interesting experiences, whether that's seeing weird things in the sky over secret military bases in the middle of the Nevada desert, going scuba diving and finding internet cables on the bottom of the ocean, or tracking spy satellites in the sky and being able to predict when they'll appear in a flash against the backdrop of stars. The world around us is extraordinary and embodied, right? It is not on screens, and I’m very privileged to have that be so much a part of my process.

Art, Empathy & Resilience with CADY McCLAIN, Actor, Director, Writer, Artist, Musician - Highlights

Art, Empathy & Resilience with CADY McCLAIN, Actor, Director, Writer, Artist, Musician - Highlights

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A Conversation with Emmy Award-winning Actor, Director, Writer CADY McCLAIN

I won my first Emmy when I was 21, which was the result of absolutely devoting myself day and night for two years to doing all the scene work. I attended classes simultaneously and did plays until my mother died. I studied with Michael Howard for eight years. Even when I was so tired I couldn't get up to do a scene, he would say, "Get up and do a poem." It helped me enormously; it saved me. The way I was trained and how I train others is that you know when you’re in the zone. Oh God, it feels so good. It feels like flying. And that's what you want. You want to be so unselfaware that you're on liftoff?

A Life in Acting with Emmy Award-winning Actor, Director, Writer CADY McCLAIN

A Life in Acting with Emmy Award-winning Actor, Director, Writer CADY McCLAIN

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A Conversation with Emmy Award-winning Actor, Director, Writer CADY McCLAIN

I won my first Emmy when I was 21, which was the result of absolutely devoting myself day and night for two years to doing all the scene work. I attended classes simultaneously and did plays until my mother died. I studied with Michael Howard for eight years. Even when I was so tired I couldn't get up to do a scene, he would say, "Get up and do a poem." It helped me enormously; it saved me. The way I was trained and how I train others is that you know when you’re in the zone. Oh God, it feels so good. It feels like flying. And that's what you want. You want to be so unselfaware that you're on liftoff?