Jake Romm
By Jake Romm
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Culture Why The Big Basquiat Sale Is Art’s Capitalist Apocalypse
An untitled painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat sold on May 15th for $110.5 million at a Sotheby’s auction. To which the only sensible response is – so what? Imagine for a moment that it was not a painting that had been purchased, but rather a yacht. Suddenly the interest, for most people, is gone – “billionaire purchases…
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Culture This Painting Was Stolen 200 Years Ago – That’s Why We See It Differently
There are two great paintings titled “Return of the Prodigal Son,” one by Rembrandt and one by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo – neither of which is housed in its painter’s country of origin. The Rembrandt version is housed in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, while the Murillo is housed in the National Gallery in Washington D.C….
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Culture Why Trump Must Not Meet With Sudanese President al-Bashir
President Trump, you may have heard, is soon embarking on the first international trip of his presidency – to Saudi Arabia, Israel, The Vatican, Italy and Brussels. What you may not have heard is that while in Saudi Arabia, there is a possibility that Trump will not only meet with King Salman, who is currently allegedly…
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Culture The Female Nude Is Triter Than Ever — Just Look at Anselm Kiefer
Much of German artist Anselm Kiefer’s work can be captured (to the extent that art can ever be described with total accuracy) in a single word: ruin. Kiefer, born in southwest Germany in 1945 just two months before the end of World War II, has dedicated a large portion of his oeuvre to reckoning with…
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Culture Why These Cutesy Putin Articles Must Stop
Footage of Vladimir Putin playing the piano prior to his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping has recently been making its way across the internet. He sits down, haltingly taps out a couple sentimental Russian tunes, smirks at the camera, and then we’re off. An article in the Huffington Post reads, “The Russian leader isn’t…
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Fast Forward Chicago Architects Tigerman & McCurry Close Office
The husband and wife architectural team of Stanley Tigerman and Margaret McCurry recently closed their Chicago “Tigerman McCurry Architects” office – stating, simply, “we’re retiring.” The two have designed numerous high profile projects including the Holocaust Memorial Foundation of Illinois, The Anti-Cruelty Animal Shelter, and The University Club of Chicago. As Dennis Rodkin for Crain’s reports,…
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Culture Irving Berlin Is 129 Today — This Is His Most American Song
I’ve always been dubious of the idea of “American Culture.” America, being, since its inception, a land of immigrants constantly in demographic and ethnic flux. And this is a good thing, indeed, the idea of a country founded upon legal and philosophical principles, as opposed to ethnic or linguistic concerns, is the fundamental promise of…
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Culture The Velvet Underground & Nico: A (Belated) 50th Anniversary Reading List
I remember the first time I ever really listened to Lou Reed. I was around 12 years old and I had recently come into possession of one of the old record players collecting dust at my grandmother’s house. I owned (really, stole from my dad) three records – “Nancy Wilson and Cannonball Adderly,” “Led Zeppelin II,”…
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