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Viewing School Through a Biblical LensA visitor to the Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin’s new show of contemporary American art, Freeway Balconies, might be taken aback by the exhibition’s first piece: a luminous black-and-white photograph of a yarmulke-clad boy interacting familiarly with a girl who’s wearing a long skirt. The caption reads: “The Garden of Eden.” The photo is one of four by Rachel Rabhan in the exhibition of Jewish high-school students enacting scenes from the Bible. The photos, part of a larger a series called Divine Gesture, explore aspects of Jewish identity, storytelling and life at the Ramaz Upper School in Manhattan, where Rabhan teaches art.…Read more

Is He or Isn’t He?In the concluding scene of Richard Wagner’s “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg,” which will be performed at the Metropolitan Opera this month, the opera’s hero delivers a powerful monologue extolling the virtues of “Holy German Art” in the face of foreign influences. At the 1924 Bayreuth Festival — the first since the outbreak of World War I — the audience leaped to its feet and chanted the first three verses of “Deutschland über Alles.” In response to this interruption, Karl Singer, a conductor who attended the performance, wrote that “a hidden hand has ensured that the aura of the Festival shifts from the artistic to the political.”…Read more

A Witness To His Time‘A filmmaker must be a witness of his times,” said great French director Jean-Pierre Melville, widely acknowledged as the grandfather of the French New Wave, in an interview about his 1969 movie, “Army of Shadows.” The film, a gloomy existentialist set piece of espionage that details the heroism of French partisans in the face of certain…Read more

Wilder Times: A Life and Legacy‘A brain full of razor blades and a heart full of chutzpah.” That’s how filmmaker Billy Wilder described “Whiplash Willie” Gingrich, the opportunistic lawyer in “The Fortune Cookie” (1966). But those same words could well be used to describe Wilder himself. Wilder, the great American filmmaker who died in 2002, is best remembered for…Read more

Kubrick’s Unrealized VisionWhen Stanley Kubrick died in March 1999 during the post-production of his final film, “Eyes Wide Shut,” he left behind several pet projects he had been working on for decades. These included a science-fiction riff on “Pinocchio” (later finished by Steven Spielberg as “A.I.”), a historical biopic of the life of…Read more