Translator, Poet, Writer, Editor
It’s not an exaggeration to say that translators are obsessed with context. If you ask how to translate a word, a translator will almost invariably say, “What’s the context?” Why? Because words often have different shades of meaning — or even completely different meanings — depending on how they’re used. Context is necessary because words…
View post to subscribe to site newsletter.
Here are five museum shows in New York that I’m really looking forward to this summer, in no particular order: Age of Empires: Chinese Art of the Qin and Han Dynasties (221 B.C. – A.D. 220) currently on view at the Met Museum (through July 16) This show features over 160 objects from 32 museums and archaeological…
The Frick Collection has just received the largest gift in its history: a collection of portrait medals from the Renaissance onwards given by Stephen K. Scher and Janie Woo Scher. To celebrate this donation, a selection of 100 of these medals will be on view today through September 12, 2017. The exhibition is organized by Aimee Ng, associate…
The eight-episode Netflix documentary Abstract: The Art of Design launched on February 10, and the first episode profiles illustrator Christoph Niemann. The work of illustrators makes for better visuals than that of translators, no doubt, and, true to its subject, the show has captivating images and uses special effects and animated drawings to bring Niemann’s creative process…
Thomas P. Campbell, director of the Met, announced yesterday that the museum will make images of public-domain artworks in its collection available for free and unrestricted use. This is a real boon to bloggers, journalists, artists, and Internet users in general. Called Open Access, this policy uses the Creative Commons Zero designation and makes over 375,000…
I reported recently for Le Journal des Arts that conceptual artist Jenny Holzer is completing an installation commissioned by the Louvre Abu Dhabi, according to her gallery Cheim & Read. The Abu Dhabi museum is scheduled to open in December 2015. The Paris Louvre is currently hosting an exhibition called “Birth of a Museum” (up through…
During a talk on satellite museums sponsored by the French Embassy at the Guggenheim on April 24, Pompidou Center president Alain Seban revealed that the Pompidou Center’s first foreign satellite will open in Málaga, Spain (Picasso‘s birthplace) in early 2015. It will be housed in a contemporary building under construction at the entrance of the city’s…
In the New York Times yesterday, economist Robert H. Frank attempts to apply a cost-benefit analysis to one of the most iconic works in the collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts, The Wedding Dance by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. He thinks it would be great idea to sell it. But this approach is wrong —…
Seeing “City as Canvas” at the Museum of the City of New York, which opened yesterday and is up through August 24, was an unexpectedly rewarding, and even moving, experience. Not so much because of the quality of the art, some of which I was disappointed by, but because the show is so clearly a…
Translators always need to be aware of the nature of the message they’re translating. This may seem obvious, but different kinds of statements are aiming for different relationships to their audience. For instance, we usually think of clarity as a value in writing, and translators will even “clean up” the language a bit to make…
