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Episode No. 697 features curator Sarah Humphreville and author Marisa Anne Bass. With Eric Crosby, Humphreville is the co-curator of "Gertrude Abercrombie: The Whole World is a Mystery." The exhibition survey's Abercrombie's synthesis of surrealism, landscape, portraiture and still-life, and is the most comprehensive presentation of the artist's work to date. It is at the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh through June 1 before traveling to the Colby College Museum of Art. An excellent catalogue was published by the Carnegie and DelMonico Books. Amazon and Bookshop offer it for $50-55. Bass is the author of The Monument's End: Public Art and the Modern Republic, which was recently released by Princeton University Press. The book finds the origin of many of today's questions around monuments and memory within the early modern Netherlands. Among the artists Bass discusses are Rembrandt, Dirck van Delen, Hendrick de Keyser, Spencer Finch, Thomas Hirschhorn, and more. Bass is a professor at Yale University. Her previous books include Insect Artifice: Nature and Art in the Dutch Revolt and Jan Gossart and the Invention of Netherlandish Antiquity. Amazon and Bookshop offer "The Monument's End" for $20-42. Instagram: Sarah Humphreville, Marisa Bass, Tyler Green.
Spencer Finch - Rise Executive Partners Spencer Finch is a dedicated outdoor enthusiast, accomplished triathlete, and holds a Bachelor's degree in Marketing and Sales, supplemented with a minor in Entrepreneurship from Utah State University. As the founder of Mad Moose Rentals & Tours, he has leveraged his blend of business acumen and love for adrenaline sports to transform the adventure tourism sector in Utah and now works with other tour and attraction companies worldwide to help them scale. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/dylanconroy/support
This week on The Curatorial Blonde we have Allison Glenn. Allison Glenn is a New York-based curator and writer focusing on the intersection of art and public space, through public art and special projects, biennials, and major new commissions by a wide range of contemporary artists. She is a Visiting Curator in the Department of Film Studies at the University of Tulsa, organizing the Sovereign Futures convening, and Artistic Director of The Shepherd, a three-and-a-half-acre arts campus part of the newly christened Little Village cultural district in Detroit. Previous roles include Co-Curator of Counterpublic Triennial 2023; Senior Curator at New York's Public Art Fund, where she proposed and developed Fred Eversley: Parabolic Light (2023) and Edra Soto Graft (2024) for Doris C. Freedman Plaza; Guest Curator at the Speed Art Museum, and Associate Curator of Contemporary Art at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. In this role, Glenn shaped how outdoor sculpture activates and engages Crystal Bridges 120-acre campus through a series of new commissions, touring group exhibitions, and long-term loans. She also realized site-specific architectural interventions, such as Joanna Keane Lopez, A dance of us (un baile de nosotros), (2020), as part of State of the Art 2020 at The Momentary. She acted as the Curatorial Associate + Publications Manager for Prospect New Orleans' international art triennial Prospect.4: The Lotus in Spite of the Swamp. A Curatorial Fellowship with the City of Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, culminated with In the beginning, sometimes I left messages in the street (2016), a citywide billboard and performance exhibition. As Program Manager at University of Chicago's Arts Incubator, she worked with a team led by Theaster Gates to develop the emergent space, where she curated exhibitions and commissioned performances such as Amun: The Unseen Legends (2014), a new performance from Terry Adkin's Lone Wolf Recital Corps, that included Kamau Patton. Glenn has been a visiting critic, lecturer, and guest speaker at a number of universities, including The University of Tulsa, University of Pennsylvania, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Louisiana State University, and Pacific Northwest College of Art. Her writing has been featured in catalogues published by The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Neubauer Collegium, Counterpublic Triennial, Prospect New Orleans Triennial, Princeton Architectural Press, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Kemper Museum, Studio Museum in Harlem, and she has contributed to Artforum, ART PAPERS, Brooklyn Rail, Hyperallergic, ART21 Magazine, Pelican Bomb, Ruckus Journal, and Newcity, amongst others. She has curated notable public commissions, group exhibitions, and site specific artist projects by many artists, including Mendi + Keith Obadike, Matthew Angelo Harrison, Maya Stovall, Rashid Johnson, Basel Abbas + Ruanne Abou-Rahme, Lonnie Holley, Ronny Quevedo, Edra Soto, Terry Adkins, Kamau Patton,Shinique Smith, Torkwase Dyson, George Sanchez-Calderon, Hank Willis Thomas, Odili Donald Odita, Martine Syms, Derrick Adams, Lisa Alvarado, Sarah Braman, Spencer Finch, Jessica Stockholder, Joanna Keane-Lopez, Genevieve Gaignard and others. Her 2021 exhibition Promise, Witness, Remembrance was name one of the Best Art Exhibitions of 2021 by The New York Times. Glenn is a member of Madison Square Park Conservancy's Public Art Consortium Collaboration Committee and sits on the Board of Directors for ARCAthens, a curatorial and artist residency program based in Athens, Greece, New Orleans, LA and The Bronx, New York. She received dual Master's degrees from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Modern Art History, Theory and Criticism and Arts Administration and Policy, and a Bachelor of Fine Art Photography with a co-major in Urban Studies from Wayne State University in Detroit.
Susie Dureau is the first artist we have spoken to twice. She complete her masters at national Art school 2 years ago. She currently has a show on at Curl Curl Creative Space, Soundscapes, that runs until Sunday 29th October 11-4pm so get down there and check it out. Thanks Susie, great chat and wonderful exhibition. Susie Dureau website Spencer Finch https://www.spencerfinch.com/
We're between big holidays right now (yes, Halloween is a holiday) and Hollywood is taking a tiny break between superhero and action films to bring us some serious grown up stuff for a change. It won't last, but until then it's time to enjoy films like our first choice, "Belfast." It's writer/director Kenneth Branagh's story of growing up in Northern Ireland during the tumultuous period known as "The Troubles." We've also got "Spencer." It stars Kristen Stewart as Princess Diana, who, struggling with mental health problems, decides to end her decade-long marriage to Prince Charles. Or how about "Finch" which stars Tom Hanks and takes place on a post-apocalyptic earth, where a robot, built to protect the life of his creator's beloved dog, learns about life, love, friendship and what it means to be human. Neil Rosen tells us about "The Eyes of Tammy Faye," with Jessica Chastain as the infamous televangelist. On a more upbeat not, Bill McCuddy tells us about "Francesco," A documentary about Pope Francis. Oh, but there are more documentaries, including "Julia," about famed chef Julia Child and "Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road" about the famous Beach Boy. Then Bill Bregoli tells us the fascinating story of "Camp Confidential: America's Secret Nazis" As always, we're brought to you by The Accutron Show, so listen in!
In deze aflevering brengen Gudo en John een ode aan de filmrobot. Wall-E, Robocop en de Terminator zijn uiteraard memorabele machines, maar halen ze ook hun persoonlijke top 5-lijstjes? De aanleiding is een nieuwe film op Apple TV met slechts de aanwezigheid van Tom Hanks, een hond en...jawel, een robot. Naast een recensie van deze post apocalyptische Finch, een soort Cast Away 2.0, besteden de heren uiteraard ook aandacht aan de meest spraakmakende bioscooprelease van deze week: Spencer, over een pijnlijk en cruciaal moment uit het te korte leven van Prinses Diana. Wacht, speelt voormalig emo-vampier Kristen Stewart uit Twilight hierin de hoofdrol? Was dat een wijs besluit? 00:00 Introductie en Feedback 07:45 Recensie: Spencer 26:48 Recensie: Finch 39:25 Top 5: Robots 63:29 Vooruitblik Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/movieinsiders See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
This week on CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED, film critics William Bibbiani and Witney Seibold review Marvel's ETERNALS (Chloe Zhao's follow-up to the Best Picture winner NOMADLAND), the Pablo Larrain's Princess Diana biopic SPENCER (starring Kristen Stewart), the Tom Hanks post-apocalyptic dog story with a robot in it FINCH, the all-star badass western action spectacular THE HARDER THEY FALL, and the Benedict Cumberbatch cat painter biopic THE ELECTRIC LIFE OF LOUIS WAIN! Eternals - 1:47 Spencer - 33:28. Finch - 45:49 The Harder They Fall - 54:56 The Electrical Life of Louis Wain - 1:10:40 Review Round-Up - 1:18:29 Subscribe on Patreon at www.patreon.com/criticallyacclaimednetwork for exclusive content and exciting rewards, like bonus episodes, commentary tracks and much, much more! And visit our TeePublic page to buy shirts, mugs and other exciting merchandise! Email us at letters@criticallyacclaimed.net, so we can read your correspondence and answer YOUR questions in future episodes! And if you want soap, be sure to check out M. Lopes da Silva's Etsy store: SaltCatSoap! Follow us on Twitter at @CriticAcclaim, join the official Fan Club on Facebook, follow Bibbs at @WilliamBibbiani and follow Witney at @WitneySeibold, and head on over to www.criticallyacclaimed.net for all their podcasts, reviews and more! Support the show: https://www.patreon.com//criticallyacclaimednetwork See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Hey, a new Marvel movie! It is maybe the most divisive one of them all, Chloe Zhao's "Eternals." We dig into it! Also, Kristen Stewart as Princess Diana? Yeah, that's probably worth talking about: That's "Spencer." Then it's Tom Hanks, a dog and a robot, in Apple TV's "Finch." Timestamps: 11:12 "Eternals" 37:52 "Spencer" 59:23 "Finch" Thanks to Dylan Mayer and My Friend Mary, both of which are wonderful, for the music. We hope you enjoy. Let us know what you think @griersonleitch on Twitter, or griersonleitch@gmail.com. As always, give us a review on iTunes with the name of a movie you'd like us to review, and we'll discuss it on a later podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Sci-fi, princesses, and cats! Oh my! Tons to review this week including a spoiler free look at the latest Marvel film, Eternals. Kristen Stewart stars as Princess Diana in Spencer. Tom Hanks talks to a robot in Finch. Benedict Cumberbatch makes cats popular in The Electrical Life of Louis Wain. Mother daughter duo of Honor Swinton Byrne and Tilda Swinton take on art school again in The Souvenir Part II. Find us at: www.werewatchingwhat.com youtube.com/thedhk twitter.com/thedhk instagram.com/thedhk facebook.com/thedhkmovies --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app
PATERSON — In a narrow city apartment building, with at least one police officer looking on, a Paterson father engaged in a loud, profanity-laced cellphone conversation, expressing his anger and frustration over not being allowed to see his young children.For more than two minutes, the officer — whose name has not been made public — stayed away from the agitated man, seemingly employing de-escalation techniques that are supposed to prevent physical confrontations between cops and citizens.But in a matter of moments, the tense situation erupted in violence — a scuffle seemingly initiated by another police officer at the scene who hit the father and later kneed the man in the face while he was sitting on the floor of the hallway with his wrists handcuffed behind his back, the video shows.Mayor Andre Sayegh on Wednesday night made public the video that was recorded by the body camera of the officer who tried to calm the angry father in the May 26 confrontation. About two weeks after the incident, authorities arrested the other cop, 44-year-old Spencer Finch, an 18-year veteran of the Paterson Police Department, and charged him with assault, official misconduct and trying to conceal his actions by filing a false police report.The mayor said he decided to release the video after conferring with his municipal law director, Aymen Aboushi, an attorney who prior to taking the city job had filed in his private practice five federal civil rights lawsuits accusing Paterson police officers of using excessive force against the public.“That's why we pushed for body cameras, so people could see for themselves what happened,” Sayegh said on Thursday morning of his decision to release the video.Passaic County Prosecutor Camelia Valdes, who filed the criminal charges against Finch, did not respond to two messages from a reporter asking if she supported Sayegh's release of the video.Footage:Body camera video shows alleged assault that led to Paterson cop's arrestCriticism, praise surround excessive force lawsuitDiego Navas, a lawyer representing a Paterson man in a police excessive force lawsuit against the city, praised the decision.“I am glad to see the administration releasing the video and trying to be transparent but it is obvious this department has some deep-rooted problems,” Navas said. “They have to reconsider who they are recruiting as officers and how they are being trained if they ever want to turn this department around.”The video-recorded beating of Navas' client prompted the United States Attorney's Office to file criminal charges against those cops — Kevin Patino and Kendry Tineo.Finch's lawyer, Anthony J. Iacullo, has asserted his client's actions were “appropriate.”When asked by a reporter for further explanation, Iacullo said, “It is not my practice to comment on the specific allegations or potential evidence that may or may not be introduced at the time of trial.”“To do so,” Iacullo added, “would be an improper attempt to prejudice those individuals who may be called upon to serve on a jury regarding this very case. I feel this case is best left to be commented upon in the courtroom, not the press."The leaders of Paterson police unions declined to comment on the Finch video. But local Black Lives Matter leader Zellie Thomas called the events captured on the video “disgusting but not surprising.”“People in Paterson have been beaten by police officers using excessive force for years,” Thomas said. “What we're seeing in that video — while it's horrific — it's nothing new.”Thomas said city officials have tried to explain away other police brutality cases — like the seven Paterson cops convicted in recent years by the FBI — by citing the lack of law enforcement experience of the culprits. But Finch has been on the force for almost two decades, the activist said.“This shows that this type of behavior is part of the culture in the Paterson police department,” Thomas said. “The new officers are learning this from the ones who have been there.”Court records: Paterson officer never activated bodycamAfter years of delays, Paterson was last among New Jersey's major cities to equip its police officers with body cameras. The first Paterson cops got the recording devices at the end of last December and currently about 150 of the city's almost 400 officers have them.Court records say Finch never activated his body camera during the May 26 incident. But the prosecutor's office cited the video from another officer's device as evidence against Finch.The situation unraveled right after the unnamed officer tried to calm the angry father, saying, “Alright, c'mon.”“Are you a father?” the man asked the cop. “Are you a father?”“No,” the officer responded.“You're not a father, you don't understand,” the man shouted. “Three times, this is the third time my kids have been taken from me.”“Yelling ain't going to help,” said the officer.As the officer spoke those words, the cop whom authorities have identified as Finch brushed past his colleague, hit the man in the head and forced him to the hallway floor, the video showed.During the ensuing scuffle, a woman in one of the apartments — apparently the person who had been on the other end of the phone conversation — opened her door and started screaming at length.“That's it, we gave you [an expletive] chance,” said one of the officers.While face-down on the floor, the man objected to the cops' actions. “That's some [expletive],” he said.The woman told the man to stop resisting the officers. “I'm not, I'm not resisting,” said the man — whose name has not been made public — as the cops pressed him against the floor.“Yo, you saw him punch me in my [expletive], dog,” the man said to the officer wearing the body camera.“I know, but I need to get you up,” the officer responded. “Let's go.”While sitting upright on the floor, the man then said to Finch, “Look me in my eye.”At those words, Finch violently hit the man in the face area with his knee, the video showed.Authorities and city officials have not disclosed if Finch was present in the hallway during the entire time when the other officer tried to calm the angry father, or if he only arrived toward the end. Finch has been suspended without pay, but the city's police union contracts require he resume getting paid after 30 days.Thomas, the BLM activist, said he thinks the officer whose body camera recorded the incident also should get some type of penalty for not intervening.“It's his duty, he's supposed to protect people,” Thomas said. “He should be disciplined.”City officials have not revealed whether the unidentified cop faces any punishment. Paterson has not yet released the police reports on the angry father's arrest in this case. He was charged with terroristic threats, resisting arrest and aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer, authorities said.Officials have not disclosed whether the man who was hit by Finch filed an Internal Affairs complaint or if the investigation started some other way.Joe Malinconico is editor of Paterson Press. Email: editor@patersonpress.com
In "Trying To Remember How We Saw Patients on That April Morning" by Mikkael Sekeres, an oncologist reflects on virtual visits during the COVID-19 pandemic. TRANSCRIPT SPEAKER 1: The purpose of this podcast is to educate and to inform. This is not a substitute for professional medical care and is not intended for use in the diagnosis or treatment of individual conditions. Guests on this podcast express their own opinions, experience, and conclusions. The mention of any product, service, organization, activity, or therapy should not be construed as an ASCO endorsement. [MUSIC PLAYING] SPEAKER 2: Welcome to JCO's Cancer Stories, The Art of Oncology, brought to you by the ASCO Podcast Network, a collection of nine programs covering a range of educational and scientific content and offering enriching insight into the world of cancer care. You can find all of the shows, including this one, at podcast.asco.org. SPEAKER 3: During the past few weeks, I have become a reluctant participant in virtual health care, not because of any Luddite tendencies when it comes to technology. I just miss the physical intimacy of my patient visits. The app on my phone buzzed and flashed a green banner notification that a patient had just entered my online waiting room when I was in the midst of an actual in-person visit. My in-person waiting room has soaring ceilings, well-spaced furniture, and muted color tones, and artwork by [INAUDIBLE] and Spencer Finch, whose Trying to Remember the Color of the Sky on that September Morning graces the National September 11 Memorial Museum. The tragedy of a cancer diagnosis, in which a rogue cell metes out punishment on an unsuspecting body, or of this pandemic, in which a virulent guerrilla virus exploits a naive immune system, and of the more than 2,500 people who died during the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, have their similarities. Everyone sitting in my in-person waiting room is now masked, captive to both the malignant golem of cancer and to the coronavirus pandemic that has already claimed more lives in New York than the 9/11 attacks. If only the mask could protect them from both. I imagine my virtual waiting room to be way groovier, though, with swirling, vibrant colors, a less hypervigilant, party-like atmosphere, and no masks. People can actually sit next to each other in my virtual waiting room, lean in as they engage in conversation, sotto voce, without masks, and appreciate seeing the subtle beginnings of a smile as the lips curl at a joke anticipated or bon mot received. You remember, like how we all used to interact only a few weeks ago. I said goodbye to my in-person patient as she walked to our infusion area to receive chemotherapy and left for an unoccupied exam room to greet my virtual patient. I pressed the Next Patient button in the app, and his face soon came into view, filling my phone screen. He's in his 60s and lives with his wife of about 40 years in northeast Ohio, where he's a minister at a small church. Another patient of mine, also a minister, had once described what I did for a living as being similarly pastoral to his own line of work, as I gave counsel, relieved suffering, and generally ministered to the sick. It was one of the nicest compliments I had ever received. My patient had myelodysplastic syndrome, which in its most aggressive forms can slay a life in a handful of months. Luckily for him, he had a lower risk version of the disease, one that was so indolent that he didn't even need treatment for it. Yet another patient had once referred to this flavor of MDS as Mild Displeasure Syndrome. He didn't enjoy fighting the traffic to come see me in Cleveland every few months, nor did he appreciate having to pay for gas or parking. Otherwise, though, the disease didn't afflict him too much. He had gone to a laboratory close to home a few days earlier to have his blood drawn, and his counts were unchanged from a few months earlier. He wore a dark fleece shirt and sat in what looked like a comfortable, ladder-back wood chair. A watercolor painting hung behind him on the wall of his home. I asked him how he was holding up in these strange times and realized I was still wearing my mask from the previous in-person patient visit. No risk of infecting my virtual patient, so I slowly removed it as he answered my question. [SIGH] OK, I guess, he grimaced, probably feeling the weight of all he had undertaken recently to modify his lifestyle. I stay in, mostly, and conduct services virtually now on Sundays. This was at a time when some states were still allowing religious gatherings, highlighting how science, politics, and theology can often be at loggerheads with each other. I think you're doing the right thing for the health of your parishioners and yourself, I told him, trying to be supportive. He grimaced again, the difficulty of the choices he was making evident. My focus was on the physical health of my community, but his was on the spiritual health of his flock, people whose need for his leadership had become acute. It's hard, you know. I FaceTime members of my congregation, which has been fine. He didn't sound convinced of the ability of the technology to transcend his usual connection with the members of his church. But I held a graveside service last week, and people just can't help wanting to be next to each other and me at a time like that to comfort and console. If this had been an in-person visit a few weeks earlier, we would have been chatting at a distance of a couple of feet, and I would have grasped his arm to support him, to let him know that I understood this pain. That's what we do for our patients. Instead, I nodded, smiled warmly, and again tried to support him with words. But I missed the physical contact. I asked my usual questions about any symptoms of his MDS, which remained non-existent, and about the precautions he was taking to guard against COVID-19. I told him his laboratory values looked great. Then my eyes drifted again to the painting on the wall. I asked him about it. For the first time, his face relaxed into a natural smile. Oh, my father painted that. Here, let me show you. He lifted his phone up and focused it on the painting, which now filled my screen. It's a fishing shack in Turbat's Creek, Maine. He paused, giving me time to absorb the image of the ramshackle building with red wood lap siding, by what may have been Cleeves Cove decades ago. One advantage of these virtual visits is how I get to make virtual house calls and see how my patients really live. It's beautiful, I told him, calming. A simpler life, he answered, as we reflected on the difficult decisions we both had to make in the midst of the pandemic. It was really good to see you, I told him, meeting him in the eye as best I could. It had helped me spiritually to know he was OK. You too, he said sincerely. I hoped I had done the same for him medically. LIDIA SCHAPIRA: This is Lidia Schapira, your host for Art of Oncology, Cancer Stories. With me today is Dr. Mikkael Sekeres, who is a professor of medicine and the director of the leukemia service at Cleveland Clinic. Welcome, Mikkael. MIKKAEL SEKERES: Thank you, Lidia. It's a pleasure to be here. LIDIA SCHAPIRA: It's a pleasure to have an opportunity to chat with you. And today's talk is about your most recent work published in Journal of Clinical Oncology about practicing oncology in the COVID era. Tell us a little bit about your reflections and what led you to write this piece. MIKKAEL SEKERES: Well, I embarked on this piece based on a patient interaction I had where I saw somebody in person, and as we're learning how to provide virtual care to people, we have interspersed with our in-person meetings virtual meetings. I specialize in leukemia, as you mentioned, so most of my interactions are in person because people have to get blood drawn. And as much as virtual technology has progressed, we still can't draw blood over Zoom. I'd seen a patient in person and then switched to this virtual world and realized actually how dystopian our lives have become. Not only are we trying to treat a terrible, terrible diagnosis of cancer, this malignant golem that ruins people's lives and causes everyone to hit the reset button, but we're also doing it in the midst of a pandemic. And we're struggling to do this while we're also newly wearing masks and sometimes face shields and trying to navigate technology, multiple serious diseases, and provide personal care. So this piece started with an interaction over video. And part of it involves this fantasy about what our actual waiting room is like and what our virtual waiting room could be like. Our actual waiting room people cautiously sitting, separated by at least 6 feet, covered with masks, not making eye contact, nervous about being in an enclosed space with other people, as opposed to a virtual waiting room, where, my word, we're actually doing things like sitting next to each other and interacting and whispering things to each other and actually laughing. And it's amazing how much laughter has not been part of our patient interactions because we've been so nervous and our patients have been so nervous. And then in the piece, of course, I get into what it's like to have a virtual visit with a patient. LIDIA SCHAPIRA: That's so interesting. So much to unpack there. Let's talk a little bit about the stress that you feel conducting these virtual visits. Can you tell me a little bit more about that and how that has evolved over the last three or four months? Because let's remember, you wrote this when it was still fresh. And now, unfortunately, we've all become more experienced in conducting these virtual meetings. MIKKAEL SEKERES: One of the biggest stress points for me-- and I don't think I'm unique in this aspect of caring for patients-- is the inability to touch somebody. I think a lot of us go into oncology-- and let's face it. We are staring down the scariest diagnosis a person can get. And I always tell the story about how when I a long time ago wrote a book about cancer, I, being a good Jewish grandson, of course, the first thing I did was give it to my Jewish grandmother, so she could fell over it with her friends. I hand it to her. She saw that it had "cancer" on the cover and immediately hit it in her bookshelf. Because it was from a generation when they never mentioned cancer above a whisper, for fear of invoking it. So we're facing this. And I think the reason we take this on, in addition to the fact that I think we're good people, is because we like that intimacy. And there's an intimacy in caring for a person with cancer, where they are letting us in to probably the most momentous part of their lives to be a part of it, reluctantly. They don't want us to be a part of something that involves cancer, but they're letting us in. And we're seeing them make decisions and address these events that people really only face once or twice in a lifetime and be a part of those decisions and those events. And I think we're drawn into this empathically and want to touch them, want to hold their hand, want to hug at the end of a visit. And amidst COVID, we can't do that anymore. So there's this artificial separation that none of us is used to. And I think that's why I've seen some of the smiling and some of the laughter disappear from these visits. LIDIA SCHAPIRA: In a way, the laughter and the smiling can be present when you're doing it remotely through video and not when you're physically with somebody because you have to keep your distance and your masks. And yet it's bizarre because you can actually see that with a camera focused on somebody's face, you can see their expressions. But there's something that's just missing that we can't do. As you said, we can't draw blood through Zoom, and we can't touch through Zoom. And many of us have gotten to rely on our ability to touch patients to convey some of our good positive feelings towards them. And so we're left without that. And I think that is stressful as well. Tell me a little bit about how you process some of these experiences and the role that writing has in your life as a means to help you process some of these experiences. I mean, clearly you write also to share with others. But writing also, for many of us, has a way of helping us sort of understand what happened and has some sort of a therapeutic value, wouldn't you say? MIKKAEL SEKERES: I think writing is the way that a lot of us process this deluge of humanity that we're faced with every day we see patients. Right? It's an incredible experience to be part of somebody's life when that person is facing down the scariest thing we can imagine. And it really is. We use the word "privilege." We say it's a privilege to be part of their lives. But in this case, it really is. We're invited into a person's life in a way that they really only invite their closest family members. So when we face this all day long, I think we need a way to process it. And sometimes we process it by decompressing with a colleague or going home and venting with a colleague. Hopefully we don't process it in ways that are dangerous to ourselves through substance abuse, but that really does happen. I process it through writing. And I know that I have to write about something when I leave a patient's room and my stomach turns. And my stomach turns because there's a point of tension. And I think all writing starts at a point of tension. And it's turning because I can't figure out something that happened in the room. It's something that bugs me. And maybe it's the way I reacted to something that a patient says. Maybe it's the way they reacted to me. So I know that when that happens, there's a story there that I need to process. Or at the very least, there's something I need to process and talk through with a friend or with my wife. And stories start at that point of tension, and ideally they work backwards and forwards. Because the point of tension isn't starting point zero in a story. It's somewhere in the middle. And it's our job to figure out what preceded it and then what's going to follow it. LIDIA SCHAPIRA: That's amazing. So it requires a measure of self-awareness that you've probably cultivated over time. When did all of this become so clear to you, that when you feel that there's something about that visit that you need to process that triggers the physical sensation, that that sends you to your desk and to your keyboard? MIKKAEL SEKERES: I don't think there's one seminal point when you have insight into yourself. I think over a lifetime, you hope you get better insight into yourself. But I'm constantly reminded that there are blind spots that I have, as I'm sure everyone has. When I was a resident, I had this wonderful attending. And there was one point I came out of a patient's room, and I said to her, you know, there was this interaction that occurred, and I just don't feel comfortable with that. And she said, ah, your Spidey sense went off, didn't it? And I said, what do you mean? And she said, well, it's just like Spider-Man. When Spider-Man senses danger, his Spidey sense goes off, and he needs to investigate what's going on. She goes, always pay attention to your Spidey sense because it means there's something you have to unpack there. So I think it really started very early in my career when I realized that she called it a Spidey sense. I call it that turn in your stomach. There's something you have to unpack, you have to explore. And maybe in doing so, you recognize something that's there in your patient that you never knew was there before. But more often, you're recognizing there's something in yourself that you hadn't seen before. LIDIA SCHAPIRA: My follow-up question to that is, when do you decide that you want to share it with others and publish it, and when do you decide that this is just for you? This is just helpful for you to vent or process. MIKKAEL SEKERES: Well, as you know, I have had the extreme pleasure of being one of your editors for Art of Oncology, so we all see a lot of essays, a lot of people who write about experience. Because there are a lot of people who are processing this deluge of humanity that they see. There are certain essays where someone is processing, and they successfully process it but haven't communicated it effectively to an audience. And I think the reason is that when we're writing-- and I'm sure you do this too-- the most important person in the essay is your patient. It's not you. So I recognize-- I hope I recognize when I write that if I have an instance where it's about my patient, I'm really celebrating people, not saying, oh, this was a really hard patient to deal with. A hard patient to deal with, that means that I'm having trouble with it. That doesn't mean my patient is a hard person. And taking ourselves out of those essays and out of those experiences and focusing on just the wonders of humanity is when there's an essay that should be shared with other people. If it's about my problems and how I screwed up during the patient interaction, then I think it's worthwhile sharing with other people also if I'm exposing my own vulnerability. The time it's not OK to share with other people is if you're blaming the patient. Patients are blameless. The original definition of cretin and cretinism, they were Christlike. They were born without sin. Our patients are not born of sin. They have a terrible diagnosis. It's our job to try to fix it or to try to help them along a journey where they've made decisions that align with their goals. They're never to blame. So if an essay comes out and a patient is blamed, that's when you put in a drawer, don't let other people see. LIDIA SCHAPIRA: I see. Putting it in a drawer just dates us, right? MIKKAEL SEKERES: [LAUGHS] LIDIA SCHAPIRA: I have said that to some aspiring young writers. I said, you should put this in a drawer for six months and then revise it. And then I realized that it sort of fell flat. It did not land in the way it was intended. Tell me a little bit more about what writing means in your life. And I have a very specific question, which is that you published a lot of research. So for original research, we cultivate a certain writing style, and we are sort of in a hurry to get it published as quickly as possible, whereas with these reflections, the writing is different. The style is different. And we need that little extra processing time or maturity, and so sometimes it's better, actually, to wait. How do you think about these things? MIKKAEL SEKERES: So I don't make as much of a division between scientific writing and creative writing because there's creativity in scientific writing. And I look at it-- it's almost like a game. How efficiently can I communicate information and waste as few words as possible in a manuscript? And how can I communicate something that I think is just amazing, this scientific finding or this nuance of a study, to somebody else so they'll think it's amazing also? I think those aspects are actually very similar between scientific writing and creative writing. The difference, as I think you're leading up to, is that often, we write something creatively, and we've processed. We feel so much better after it. And I've been guilty of this also. You feel as if it's just been handed down from the mount. This is the word of God on paper or on your screen, right? And it is perfect. And any ability, any attempt to modify it would be like modifying the Ten Commandments. But in reality, first drafts are just that. They're first drafts. I once heard from somebody-- I love this concept that writing-- in most of life, we have these George Costanza moments. So remember in Seinfeld, George Costanza would be in an interaction. There was one episode, and then afterwards, he would go, oh, I wish I had said this instead. Oh my God, as he's complaining to Jerry and anyone who's listening to him. He wishes he had the chance to modify that instead. Writing is the only time we can undo those George Costanza moments. Where we put things down in our first draft and we think, oh, this is the word of God. Put it away. Put it in your electronic drawer. Then go back to it a week later and you read through it and you go, oh my God, this is embarrassing. I wish I had said this instead. Well, you can say that. You can change it. So my advice to writers, particularly creative writers, is don't submit it immediately. Put it in your electronic drawer for a week, two weeks. Go back to it. Look it over. You'll have that George Costanza moment during that time when you can correct things. Then go back to it again and make it something that's really special to submit. LIDIA SCHAPIRA: And my last question, to wrap it up, is have you thought about writing for a lay audience or for a broader audience? I know you've published a lot of assays in journals and that you write for The New York Times. What is the next step for you? MIKKAEL SEKERES: So I write in that way because I am the product of two English majors. I'm the only doctor in my family. And when I went to medical school, I learned all these complicated Latin terms and put on my armor of being a medical student with these new terms but who really didn't know what he was doing and would use these terms around my parents. And they would regularly rebuke me on the phone for using complicated language and tell me I had to simplify things and explain things clearly. So I gravitated towards writing for a lay audience because I am the product of a lay audience and had to speak to them. I have written a book called When Blood Breaks Down, Life Lessons from Leukemia, with the MIT Press, where I write in long form about three patients who are composites of patients I've seen over my career who have different types of leukemia. But really to get to that nugget of how we communicate with patients, how these conversations actually go, and how people make decisions, and how being part of our patients' lives makes us such better human beings. LIDIA SCHAPIRA: Well, thank you so much for that. I look forward to reading the book. Is it out yet? MIKKAEL SEKERES: It is. It's out now. LIDIA SCHAPIRA: Excellent. I'll need an autographed copy, sir. So thank you so much for chatting with us. This ends our podcast today for Cancer Stories, The Art of Oncology, in a wonderful conversation with Professor Mikkael Sekeres. Thank you so much, and I'll see you next time. SPEAKER 2: Until next time, thank you for listening to this JCO's Cancer Stories, The Art of Oncology podcast. If you enjoyed what you heard today, don't forget to give us a rating or review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. While you're there, be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. JCO's Cancer Stories, The Art of Oncology podcast is just one of ASCO's many podcasts. You can find all of the shows at podcast.asco.org. [MUSIC PLAYING]
Brooklyn-based Spencer Finch recreates or approximates many different phenomena, both manmade and natural, visual and physical. Poetry is a great influence on his work and even a model for creating forms, experiences and installations that are as succinct and evocative as a string of words seemingly effortlessly stitched together, but to great effect. In this conversation with Mackie Healy, recorded in his studio in Gowanus, New York, Finch discusses his discovery and love of Dickinson’s work alongside that of WH Auden and James Schuyler among others. In addition to being an artist-in-residence at Emily Dickinson's home in Amherst, Massachusetts, Finch has in the past made many homages to her poetry including the short verse, Before I got my eye put out, for which he measured the sunlight in her garden and recreated the effect of a passing cloud by means of fluorescent tubes covered in gel and suspended theatre filters. The resulting work is entitled Sunlight in an Empty Room (Passing Cloud for Emily Dickinson, Amherst, MA, August 28, 2004) (2004). He also created a monumental public work of coloured glass panels for the Morgan Library and Museum’s Gilbert Court, titled 366 (Emily Dickinson’s Miraculous Year) commemorating the year 1862, in which Dickinson completed 366 poems in 365 days. Although all of her 1,800 poems were published posthumously, Finch still consider Dickinson a rich archive of ideas, as well as an important moral guide: “Almost all of my titles of the past five years come from Emily Dickinson, it is an endless source.” Poem excerpts: WH Auden, The Shield of Achilles (1953); The Cave of Making (1965) Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), There's a certain slant of light; She sweeps with many coloured brooms; This is the land the sunset washes; The grass so little has to do; The outer from the inner; The brain is wider than the sky; A bird came down the walk; If I can stop one heart from breaking
Fredagstaler nr. 69 er Marie Nipper som taler under overskriften: LIGHT AND SPACE – lys og rum i kunsten fra 1960erne til i dag. Med afsæt i den minimalistiske pioner Dan Flavins værker med neonlys fra 1960erne, skabte en gruppe californiske kunstnere i 1970erne en ny bevægelse kaldet Light & Space Art. Kunstnere som Robert Irwin, James Turrell, Maria Nordman og Douglas Wheeler eksperimenterede med en rumkunst, der var baseret på lys. Marie Nipper, mag.art og direktør Copenhagen Contemporary, vil tale om, hvordan de historiske Light and Space-kunstnerne har påvirket nogle af nutidens mest populære samtidskunstnere som Olafur Eliasson, Jeppe Hein og Spencer Finch. Talen er nr. 69 i rækken af Fredagstalere, og fandt sted i Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskabs Gamle Mødesal i Carlbergfondets domicil i København d. 3. maj 2019 Teknik og produktion: Villiam Bartholdy Optagelse: Nicolai Lynge Nielsen Speak: Villiam Bartholdy Musik: Anders Lundager Madsen
Artist Spencer Finch is in conversation with writer, critic and curator Sacha Craddock. Audio recording
This week: Duncan and Richard talk to Spencer Finch about his current exhibition "Study for Disappearance" at the Rhona Hoffman Gallery. What is the color of the threshold - of that liminal space before day plunges into night? Spencer Finch attempts to answer this question through his most recent body of work created specifically for Study for Disappearance, his fourth solo exhibition at Rhona Hoffman Gallery. Each watercolor diptych in this new series individually renders violet, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red as they appear on objects in his Brooklyn studio. On one side of each diptych, Finch has labeled the swatches of varying hues of a single color according to the object that bears them: “candle,” “brick sample (Baltimore),” and “bull-fighting poster” to name a few. This study is paired with that of the identical collection of objects observed as the colors shift to grayscale with the dimming daylight. Slowing down the viewer’s process of seeing, Finch guides us through the nuances of the fading light and the stages of visual perception. Accompanying the watercolor diptychs is a new light box piece, Color Test 600, comprised of various multicolored squares layered together to create an abstract study of darkness. The ephemeral light of dusk is a seductive territory for Finch and such fleeting scenarios fuel his artistic process. Artworks such as the light installations West (Sunset in My Motel Room, Monument Valley, January 26, 2007, 5:36 – 6:06 PM) and Dusk (Hudson River Valley, October 30, 2005) have transported the light quality of a specific place during that transitory magic hour to the setting of art galleries and museums worldwide. Once again, for Study for Disappearance, Finch has succeeded in blending scientific method with a poetic sensibility to both record the light and color of the physical world and simultaneously explore the intangible and ethereal essence of a place. This time, Finch generously offers an intimate look at the enchanted and often confidential space of the artist’s studio.
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