Category Archives: Hedonism

Animator Sabine Saba pairs textural graphics with the dizzying metres of Ouda And The Strikers At Najd, a highlight from Ibtihalat, the debut album from musician, architect and researcher Mhamad Safa.

On Ibtihalat, Safa explores the percussive musical traditions from across north Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, wrestling with geopolitical complexity and musical migrations while at the same time gesturing towards possible future iterations of these sounds. From North Africa, Safa lifts elements from gnawa, West African, Islamic music with ritual significance that spread across the breadth of the continent via musicians forces to relocate to the Moroccan coast, amazigh, polyrhythmic music indigenous to the Berbers of north Africa, and ra, Algerian folk music notable for its anti-colonial lyrical content and its adaptation by women vocalists and performers (cheikas) as emblematic of sexual liberation and hedonism. From the Arabian Peninsula, Safa references Sea Music, more commonly known as Music of the Pearl Divers, work songs devised by the ship builders, seamen and pearl divers of the Arabian side of the Persian Gulf, laywa, ceremonial music from Bahrain, UAE, Oman and Basra, Iraq brought over during slave trades from Kenya, South Somalia and Tanzania, and samiri, music related to Zar rituals of exorcism and spirit expulsion. Drawing from a sprawling, yet intrinsically linked, patchwork of cultural exchange and musical tradition, Safa threads richly textured percussive compositions, headfuck assemblages of sound design, micro-sampling, algorithmic sound technology, psychoacoustics, field recordings, and their graphic interpretations.The album crafts a multi-patterned sonorous speculation, reflective of percussive musical traditions whose histories and presents shapeshifted with spatial and logistical yet celestial imaginaries, he explains.

For the dizzying visual accompaniment to the evocatively titled Ouda And The Strikers At Najd, which plays on the complex metres of gnawa, animator Sabine Saba layers graphical texture, manipulating imagery of rock formations, classical architecture and bisected fibre optic cables. This exerciseunsettles the proposal-driven use of computer graphics by examining existing georealities initiallymodeled into being, explains Saba. It peeks through their shifts and rifts to look for possible future encounters between humans and land. Like Safas production, Saba unpicks historical forms in order to speculate on future potentialities, blurring and blending environmental and technological progress over rapidly expanding and contracting timelines in the rapid evolution of his animations. As Ouda And The Strikers At Najd pinballs between low-slung lollop and high tension spring, drilling guttural vocal chops into many-metred percussion, robotic arms and precious metals are folded into an jittering landscape of ancient caves and rotating coliseums, shining chrome and sand-coloured stone.

Ouda And The Strikers At Najd is taken from Ibtihalat, which arrives on April 29 via Lee Gambles UIQ. For more information about Sabine Saba and her work you can follow her on Instagram. You can find Mhamad Safa on Instagram.

Watch next: Most Dismal Swamp slides into a mixed reality k-hole with MUSH

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Safa explores percussive musical traditions and potential georealities with Ouda And The Strikers At Najd - FACT

The dresses! The drama! The swooning declarations of love! Theres a reason we cant get enough of regency television, and it has to do with how we romanticize bygone times. When Matthew Macfadyen looked earnestly into Keira Knightleys eyes and said, I love you, most ardently, a generation of women collectively dissolved into puddles. A month ago, when Bridgertons famed viscount Anthony told Kate she is the object of my every desire, social media fan art promptly exploded. Now, the first look of yet another Regency romance, Mr. Malcoms List, starring Freida Pinto, has begun to make the rounds.

It has to do with a notion of romance that isnt compatible with the present. But for all that, what is it about this period of time that sets so many hearts aflutter? Its a period of romance, balls, hushed corners, social etiquette, and dazzling fashion. Theres an element of escapism here, yes, in that it appeals to the romantic side of all of us, Emma Butcher, a lecturer in 19th-century literature at Kings College London, told Cosmopolitan.

But, theres a caveat: Period dramas are dreamscapes, not documentaries Were attracted to the glitz and glamour of the period, but there are elements that are slightly unrealistic or reimagined, Butcher added. Indeed, the Regency era technically only spans a decade: between 1811 and 1820. It marked the rule nay, the regency of George IV, who took over after his father was declared too mentally unsound to rule. This period is said to have vastly improved things for the aristocracy making Regency stories all about the historical equivalent of the 1% today.

Its a bit like watching an un-ironic version of Succession, if the Roy family were robber barons from the 17th century instead. Except, this show exists already, and its called The Gilded Age.

Related on The Swaddle:

How Historical Fiction on TV Rewrites Race For Better and for Worse

We knew this already, but what does it mean for us to romanticize candyfloss about people who, had we lived alongside them, wouldnt have deigned to toss a fraction of a side glance at us? Its a strange combination of a warped conservative longing for the good old days, and an escapist tendency during times of duress. Take the fact that Downton Abbey became the most popular drama on television shortly after the 2008 financial crisis; or the fact that Bridgerton broke all streaming records when it was released during the thick of the pandemic.

We look to immerse ourselves in a world of hedonism and luxury when we ourselves are feeling at our lowest, it would seem. But the popularity of Regency dramas because of this is prompting a spate of historical reimaginings that are in line with calls for representation and diversity. There are more people of color populating the prim English landscapes we have come to love despite ourselves, and shows like Bridgerton have come to deliver just that. But this comes at the risk of glossing over some of the worst historical injustices to have ever happened, even sanitizing the historical record itself.

Still, theres more to Regency dramas than just the dazzle and luster. Scholars note that, following in Austens footsteps, these dramas centralizefemalesubjectivity, desires, and apprehensions to an unusual extent. Indeed, characteristic of these plots are women with sparkling wit, who are equal to the task of banter and wisecracks, and who carry themselves with sophisticated self-awareness. There is also the female gaze which helps matters greatly: where charismatic heroes are looked at from the perspective of a womans desire.

We may have Austen and other literary influences to thank for this, too. But the popularity of the genre still begs the question: is a decade of aristocratic frolicking really the best we can do to undo the male gaze? At best, the fact that we find ourselves in what is being called the golden moment for period dramas can be put down to a pure want for escapism. At worst, it signals a subtle, conservative undercurrent running through the veins of liberal entertainment culture which would then call for more attention to the stories we tell about and to ourselves.

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Regency Dramas Have Conservative Undertones. Why Do We Love Them Anyway? - The Swaddle

If you remember the 60s, you werent really there. This famous quip says much about our rose-tinted nostalgia for the decade. The fun-loving hedonism of Woodstock and Beatlemania may be etched into cultural memory, but Andy Warhols Marilyn Monroe portraits reveal a darker side to the swinging 60s that turns our nostalgia on its head.

Warhols iconic Marilyn Monroe portrait Shot Sage Blue Marilyn, due to go on sale at Christies in May, is expected to fetch record-breaking bids of $200 million (153 million), making it the most expensive 20th century artwork ever auctioned. Nearly 60 years after they were first created, Warhols portraits of the ill-fated Hollywood star continue to fascinate us.

According to Alex Rotter, Christies chairman for 20th and 21st century art, Warhols Marilyn is the absolute pinnacle of American Pop and the promise of the American dream, encapsulating optimism, fragility, celebrity and iconography all at once.

Hollywood stars were great sources of inspiration for the Pop art movement. Monroe was a recurring motif, not only in the work of Warhol but in the work of his contemporaries, including James Rosenquists Marilyn Monroe, I and Pauline Botys Colour Her Gone and The Only Blonde in the World.

Born Norma Jeane Mortenson but renamed Marilyn Monroe by 20th Century Fox, the actress went on to become one of the most illustrious stars of Hollywood history, famed for her roles in classic films like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Some Like It Hot. She epitomized the glitzy world of consumerism and celebrity that Pop artists thought was emblematic of 1950s and 1960s American culture.

While Rotters statement may be true to some extent, there is also a sinister edge to the Marilyns because many were produced in the months following her unexpected death in 1962. On the surface, the works may look like a tribute to a much-loved icon, but themes of death, decay, and even violence lurk within these canvases. Clues can often be found in the production techniques. One of the collections most famous pieces, Marilyn Diptych, uses flaws from the silkscreen process to create the effect of a decaying portrait. Warhols The Shot Marilyns consists of four canvases shot through the forehead with a single bullet. In this, the creation of Warhols art is as important as the artwork itself.

At a glance, the surface level glamour of Warhols Marilyn immortalizes the actress as a blonde bombshell of Hollywoods bygone era. It is easy to forget the tragedy behind the image, yet part of our enduring fascination with Marilyn Monroe is her tragedy.

Her mental health struggles, her tempestuous personal life, and the mystery surrounding her death have been well documented in countless biographies, films, and television shows, including Netflixs documentary The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe: The Unheard Tapes and upcoming biopic Blonde. She epitomizes the familiar narrative of the tragic icon that is doomed to keep repeating itselfsomething that Warhol understood all too well after surviving a shooting by Valerie Solanas in 1968.

The death at the heart of Warhols Marilyns is not just rooted in grief but is also a reflection of the wider cultural landscape. The 1960s was a remarkably dark period in 20th century American history. A brief look at the context in which Warhol was producing these images reveals a decade plagued by a series of traumatic events.

Life Magazine published violent photographs of the Vietnam War. Television broadcasts exposed shocking police brutality during civil rights marches. America was shaken by the assassinations of John F Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr. Footage of JFKs death captured by bystander Abraham Zapruder was repeatedly broadcast on television. Celebrated Hollywood stars were dying young and in tragic circumstances, from Marilyn Monroe and Judy Garland to Jayne Mansfield and Sharon Tate.

President John F Kennedy in the limousine in Dallas, Texas, minutes before his assassination. [Photo: Walt Cisco/Dallas Morning News/Wiki Commons]This image of the 1960s is echoed by the postmodern theorist Fredric Jameson, who describes the decade as a virtual nightmare and a historical and countercultural bad trip. Stars like Monroe were not as flawless as they may appear in Warhols portraits, but were notorious cases of burnout and self-destruction.

Warhol understood this more than anyone. His Death and Disaster series explores the spectacle of death in America and affirms the 1960s as a time of anxiety, terror and crisis. The series consists of a vast collection of silkscreened photographs of real-life disasters including car crashes, suicides, and executions taken from newspapers and police archives. Famous deaths are also a central theme of the series, including portraits of Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, and Jackie Kennedy all of whom are associated with significant deaths or near-death experiences.

Death and Disaster came about in 1962 when Warhols collaborator Henry Geldzahler suggested that the artist should stop producing affirmation of life and instead explore the dark side of American culture.

He handed Warhol a copy of the New York Daily News, which led to the first disaster painting 129 Die in Jet!.

The recent hype around the auctioning of the Marilyn portrait reveals as much about our time as it does about our nostalgia for the 1960s. We choose to remember the decade in all its glorious technicolor, but uncovering its darker moments provides room for reconsideration. Perhaps Warhols Marilyn is not just a symbol of the swinging 60s, but an artifact from a time that was as turbulent and uncertain as our own.

Harriet Fletcher is an Associate Lecturer in English and History at Lancaster University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Andy Warhol's Marilyn Monroe portraits expose the darker side of the ' - Fast Company

Written by Anthony Skelton, Lisa Forsberg, and Isra Black

Consider the following two cases:

Cynthias blood transfusion. Cynthia is 16 years of age. She is hit by a car on her way to school. She is rushed to hospital. She sustains serious, life-threatening injuries and loses a lot of blood. Her physicians conclude that she needs a blood transfusion in order to survive. Physicians ask for her consent to this course of treatment. Cynthia is intelligent and thoughtful. She considers, understands and appreciates her medical options. She is deemed to possess the capacity to decide on her medical treatment. She consents to the blood transfusion.

Nathans blood transfusion. Nathan is 16 years of age. He has Crohns disease. He is admitted to hospital with lower gastrointestinal bleeding. According to the physicians in charge of his care, the bleeding poses a significant threat to his health and to his life. His physicians conclude that a blood transfusion is his best medical option. Nathan is intelligent and thoughtful. He considers, understands and appreciates his medical options. He is deemed to possess the capacity to decide on his medical treatment. He refuses the blood transfusion.

Under English Law, Cynthias consent has the power to permit the blood transfusion offered by her physicians. Her consent is considered to be normatively (and legally) determinative. However, Nathans refusal is not normatively (or legally) determinative. Nathans refusal can be overridden by consent to the blood transfusion of either a parent or court. These parties share (with Nathan) the power to consent to his treatment and thereby make it lawful for his physicians to provide it.

According to the law in England and Wales, adolescents found to have decision-making capacity have the power to consent toand thereby, all else being equal, permittheir own medical treatment. However, adolescent refusals of treatment do not have the power to always render treatment impermissible; other partiesthat is, individuals who exercise parental responsibility, or courtsretain the authority to consent on the adolescents behalf. This is sometimes referred to as the concurrent consents doctrine.

The concurrent consents doctrine is puzzling, but intuitively attractive. It is puzzling because it is hard to grasp why an adolescents valid consent has the authority to permit treatment, while their valid refusal lacks the authority to render treatment impermissible. In the case of an adult who has decision-making capacity, both valid consent and refusal are normatively (and legally) determinate. The doctrine is intuitively attractive because it attempts to strike a balance between protecting potentially vulnerable adolescents and respecting their developing autonomy.

In our recent article, Overriding Adolescent Refusals of Treatment, published (open access) in the Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy, we develop a well-being-based view that might help make philosophical sense of the concurrent consents doctrine. Our account emerges from detailed criticism of rival frameworks thatmight be used to providephilosophical support to the law

We consider and reject two views (by Neil Manson and Faye Tucker) that argue for the sharing of the power to validly consent to treatment for a period between adolescents and their parents and courts under an arrangement of transitional paternalism. We then consider and reject a stage of life view (building on Andrew Franklin-Halls work) on which the mere fact that an adolescent is at a stage in life before assuming full responsibility for her life may warrant others consenting to treatment on her behalf.

We argue instead for a well-being-based view, which may justify the concurrent consents doctrine. On this view, facts about the nature of adolescent well-being may in some cases justify allowing consents but not refusals to be normatively determinative. We offer a deeper philosophical rationale that captures and explains the plausible elements of the views we reject while avoiding their infelicities and defects.

To set the stage for our view, it is important to clarify some philosophical terminology. When we appeal to the notion of well-being, we are appealing to what is non-instrumentally prudentially good for an individual, that is, what is beneficial for, or in the interest of an individual. Something (e.g., happiness) is non-instrumentally good for one when its possession makes one better off in and of itself; it is not worth having simply because it causes what is good for one in and of itself. We contend that what is non-instrumentally good for adolescents is distinct from both what is non-instrumentally good for adults and from what is non-instrumentally good for young children. More specifically, our view is that adult well-being is primarily subjective in nature while the well-being of young children is primarily objective in nature. Well-being is subjective if it is the case that for something (eg, a stroll in the park) to make an individual non-instrumentally better off it has to be valued (eg, wanted) by that individual or in some way resonate with her from her own point of view. Well-being is objective if it is the case that something can be non-instrumentally good for an individual even if it is not the case that it is valued by or resonates with that individual.

We therefore favour variabilism about well-being and reject invariabilism about well-being. Invariabilism is the view that the same theory of well-being is true for all welfare subjects (adults, children, newborns, non-human animals, and so on). An example of this might be hedonism about well-being, according to which all welfare subjects well-being consists in pleasure. Variabilism denies invariabilismwhat is prudentially good for an individual will be different for different welfare subjects. According to variabilism, for example, a view about of the nature of well-being may be true for adults but false for small children and vice versa. Hedonism might, for example, be true for young children while a desire satisfaction theory might be true of adults.

We think variabilism has the resources to make philosophical sense of the concurrent consents doctrine. Roughly, we hold that the well-being of adolescents includes both subjective and objective components. If an adolescent values or cares about something (e.g., athletic prowess), it is non-instrumentally good for her to possess it. Subjective goods might include getting what one wants or happiness. However, there are also certain so-called objective goods that are non-instrumentally good for adolescents (regardless of what they value or want). Objective goods might include knowledge and freedom.

We argue that one such objective good is shielding, which consists in being insulated from the full brunt of, the full responsibility for, action on autonomous aims. Shielding is a variety of freedom: freedom from making certain kinds of decisions in the absence of a safety net of scrutiny and possible limitation on action.

How might the appeal to a distinct view of well-being for adolescents justify the concurrent consents doctrine?

Acting on autonomous aims is developmentally important for adolescents. Being able to exercise autonomous choice at least to some extent is useful from the point of view of preparing an adolescent for the kind of decisions she will have to make as an adult. When Cynthia and Nathan consider treatment, they contemplate whether to consent to or to refuse treatment (and which option to pursue in cases in which more than one intervention is offered). This involves exercising a broad range of skills, including understanding the facts of the situation, applying these to themselves, and taking a decision based on a sober assessment of what they most value. One might think, therefore, that the rule according to which adolescent medical consents always have the power to render treatment permissible is justified by the fact that it involves promoting instrumentally beneficial exercises of autonomy without the threat of serious costs. This account can explain why the power to consent is normatively determinative, namely, because the opportunity to consent allows the considerable instrumental benefits of the exercise of autonomy to accrue to the adolescent.

The instrumental benefits of exercising autonomy may also accrue in the case in which an adolescent refuses treatment. This may provide a reason to consider the refusal normatively determinative. However, it seems more plausible to attribute refusals lesser weight. This is because it is prudentially good for an adolescent to be shielded from making the decision without a safety net. In addition, the (sometimes) provisional nature of the values on which an adolescent acts and the fact that action on them may be very costlyespecially in the cases such as Cynthias and Nathans, which involve life-prolonging treatmentprovide a further reason not to give refusals full power. These various factors together provide strong reason to protect an adolescent from the consequences of deciding alone. These values seem to provide us with reason to sometimes treat refusals differentlythat is, as not always capable of rendering treatment impermissible.

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New Publication: 'Overriding Adolescent Refusals of Treatment' | Practical Ethics - Practical Ethics

But bridges are an obvious headline theme for Novi Sads Capital of Culture programme. Unlike some of the naval-gazing concepts championed by previous recipients, the structures have relevance and meaning for a city that has a fair bit to talk about. Sitting at a crossroads of Europe, Novi Sad was a trading post, a refuge for migrants and the first line of defence for the Austro-Hungarian Empire, forever embroiled in a religious war with the Turks. The battering and bruising continued through two world wars up until 23 years ago, when Novi Sad bore the brunt of NATOs campaign against Serbian aggressor Slobodan Milosevic.

Novi Sad means new plant, tour guide Ljiljana told me as we strolled through Dunavska Streets jolly, 19th-century pastel-hued buildings, built after the place was flattened. If the roots are healthy, it can flourish again. Mustering a population of less than 300,000, its hard to call the place a city. Too small to merit an airport, its international gateway is Belgrade, an hours taxi drive away which will double the cost of your Wizz Air tickets. But tiny means easily navigable; so easy, in fact, you could risk doing it all in less than a day.

Fearing Id struggle to fill a weekend, I stretched out activities by doing everything on foot, abiding by the Vojvodinia mantra of moving slowly. On a stroll to the drunken clock, the Novi Sad mascot found on T-shirts, magnets and mugs, Ljiljana proudly explained why the hour hand is uncharacteristically long. Here the hours matter more than minutes, she mused.

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The obscure Eastern European city break that promises both culture and hedonism - The Telegraph

If you remember the 60s, you werent really there. This famous quip says much about our rose-tinted nostalgia for the decade. The fun-loving hedonism of Woodstock and Beatlemania may be etched into cultural memory, but Andy Warhols Marilyn Monroe portraits reveal a darker side to the swinging 60s that turns our nostalgia on its head.

Warhols iconic Marilyn Monroe portrait Shot Sage Blue Marilyn, due to go on sale at Christies in May, is expected to fetch record-breaking bids of $200 million (153 million), making it the most expensive 20th century artwork ever auctioned. Nearly 60 years after they were first created, Warhols portraits of the ill-fated Hollywood star continue to fascinate us.

According to Alex Rotter, Christies chairman for 20th and 21st century art, Warhols Marilyn is the absolute pinnacle of American Pop and the promise of the American dream, encapsulating optimism, fragility, celebrity and iconography all at once.

Hollywood stars were great sources of inspiration for the Pop art movement. Monroe was a recurring motif, not only in the work of Warhol but in the work of his contemporaries, including James Rosenquists Marilyn Monroe, I and Pauline Botys Colour Her Gone and The Only Blonde in the World.

Born Norma Jeane Mortenson but renamed Marilyn Monroe by 20th Century Fox, the actress went on to become one of the most illustrious stars of Hollywood history, famed for her roles in classic films like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Some Like It Hot. She epitomised the glitzy world of consumerism and celebrity that Pop artists thought was emblematic of 1950s and 1960s American culture.

While Rotters statement may be true to some extent, there is also a sinister edge to the Marilyns because many were produced in the months following her unexpected death in 1962.

On the surface, the works may look like a tribute to a much-loved icon, but themes of death, decay and even violence lurk within these canvases. Clues can often be found in the production techniques. One of the collections most famous pieces, Marilyn Diptych, uses flaws from the silkscreen process to create the effect of a decaying portrait. Warhols The Shot Marilyns consists of four canvases shot through the forehead with a single bullet. In this, the creation of Warhols art is as important as the artwork itself.

At a glance, the surface level glamour of Warhols Marilyn immortalises the actress as a blonde bombshell of Hollywoods bygone era. It is easy to forget the tragedy behind the image, yet part of our enduring fascination with Marilyn Monroe is her tragedy.

Her mental health struggles, her tempestuous personal life and the mystery surrounding her death have been well documented in countless biographies, films and television shows, including Netflixs documentary The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe: The Unheard Tapes and upcoming biopic Blonde. She epitomises the familiar narrative of the tragic icon that is doomed to keep repeating itself something that Warhol understood all too well after surviving a shooting by Valerie Solanas in 1968.

The death at the heart of Warhols Marilyns is not just rooted in grief but is also a reflection of the wider cultural landscape. The 1960s was a remarkably dark period in 20th century American history. A brief look at the context in which Warhol was producing these images reveals a decade plagued by a series of traumatic events.

Life Magazine published violent photographs of the Vietnam War. Television broadcasts exposed shocking police brutality during civil rights marches. America was shaken by the assassinations of John F Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. Footage of JFKs death captured by bystander Abraham Zapruder was repeatedly broadcast on television. Celebrated Hollywood stars were dying young and in tragic circumstances, from Marilyn Monroe and Judy Garland to Jayne Mansfield and Sharon Tate.

This image of the 1960s is echoed by the postmodern theorist Fredric Jameson, who describes the decade as a virtual nightmare and a historical and countercultural bad trip. Stars like Monroe were not as flawless as they may appear in Warhols portraits, but were notorious cases of burnout and self-destruction.

Warhol understood this more than anyone. His Death and Disaster series explores the spectacle of death in America and affirms the 1960s as a time of anxiety, terror and crisis. The series consists of a vast collection of silkscreened photographs of real-life disasters including car crashes, suicides and executions taken from newspapers and police archives. Famous deaths are also a central theme of the series, including portraits of Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor and Jackie Kennedy all of whom are associated with significant deaths or near-death experiences.

Death and Disaster came about in 1962 when Warhols collaborator Henry Geldzahler suggested that the artist should stop producing affirmation of life and instead explore the dark side of American culture:

Maybe everything isnt always so fabulous in America. Its time for some death. This is whats really happening.

He handed Warhol a copy of the New York Daily News, which led to the first disaster painting 129 Die in Jet!.

The recent hype around the auctioning of the Marilyn portrait reveals as much about our time as it does about our nostalgia for the 1960s. We choose to remember the decade in all its glorious technicolour, but uncovering its darker moments provides room for reconsideration. Perhaps Warhols Marilyn is not just a symbol of the swinging 60s, but an artefact from a time that was as turbulent and uncertain as our own.

Excerpt from:

Andy Warhols Marilyn Monroe portraits expose the darker side of the 60s - The Conversation

Between the 1958 Lebanon Crisis and the countrys 15-year civil war that started in 1975, Beirut experienced a period of relative tranquility in the 1960s. In years that have come to be seen as a moment of excitement and hedonism, the Levantine metropolis was at the peak of its creative output.

The exhibition Beirut and the Golden Sixties: A Manifesto of Fragility, showing at Berlins Gropius Bau museum, brings together hundreds of archival materials and artworks from dozens of artists to reflect on the heyday of the citys cultural scene.

In a time where coups, revolutions and wars roiled across the Middle East and North Africa, Lebanon was a safe haven for uprooted political dissidents, intellectuals, artists and foreign capital.

Lebanons banking secrecy law, under which banks did not declare the names of deposit holders, earned it a reputation as the Switzerland of the Middle East. Money flowed into the culture sector, supporting a thriving scene of art, cinema and theater.

But there was more to Beirut than casinos, night clubs, neon lights and the glitz of high society, which were always exclusive and exclusionary.

The painters Paul Guiragossian and Rafic Charaf cast their eyes instead on the marginalized inhabitants of Beiruts slums and Armenian refugee camps, and the impoverishment of the nearby Beqaa Valley.

Neither was Lebanon as stable as it seemed. The US invasion of 1958 to prop up its government revealed how fragile it was, and Israels decisive victory in the Six Day War of 1967 pushed a new generation of Palestinian refugees into Lebanon, and with them the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, which would use it as a base of operations.

After all, if these were the golden years, how does one explain what followed them? How did sectarian tensions grow so violent they could no longer be contained?

There must have been something festering beneath the surface, exhibition curator Sam Bardaouil, who was born in Lebanon, told DW.

Formal invention

The artistic output of Beirut in the 1960s is remarkable for its formal diversity. Artists adopted and refashioned techniques and styles taken from local or international sources, often a consciously political act.

A vibrant ecosystem of patrons, galleries and institutions supported the citys avant-garde, including the Sursock Museum, opened in 1961, which championed abstract painters like Huguette Caland and Aref El Rayess; and the Centre dArt, which displayed notable international surrealists like Max Ernst and Andre Masson.

Artists also drew on rich histories of Sumerian, Mesopotamian or Phoenician art; Islamic calligraphy, architecture and poetry. Here they flowed together, or struck against, Western ideas of abstraction, kinetic art and surrealism.

Figures like the writer and multi-disciplinary artist Etel Adnan moved freely between form and medium, ranging from abstract tapestries to accordion-fold books, known as leporellos, which contained painted and written observations.

This freedom to mix, reshape or reinterpret, is what defined the cultural moment, said Bardaouil.

Artists were conscious and very aware of so many sources that they very confidently and freely decided either to associate with, or to borrow from, or to work against, explained the curator.

Feminism and sexuality

The effects of the global sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s were clearly visible in Beirut.

Debates about radical feminism challenged traditional social mores and women played a leading role in the flourishing art scene, for example by founding galleries and literary publications.

Queer and non-gender conforming artists also found greater space to express themselves freely in communities that rejected the boundaries set by bourgeois society.

A new confidence in the portrayal of the female body can be seen in the work of Lebanese painter Huguette Caland. Her nude self-portraits are fragmented and abstracted until body parts are barely recognizable and the artist is seen finally on her own terms.

The end of an era

The onset of the Lebanese Civil War, which began in 1975 and would last until 1990, tore apart the fragile bonds that held together Beiruts cultural scene.

Galleries, cinemas, artists studios and museums were cut off from each other, often physically, as neighborhoods were segregated along ethnic and religious lines.

Some artists joined left-wing militias like the Lebanese National Movement, while others left to settle permanently in Europe, the US or the Persian Gulf.

The networks and communities that had existed across sectarian lines were suddenly completely ruptured, said Bardaouil. Artists adopted smaller, more portable mediums, as well as starker black-and-white color tones.

For example, Jamil Molaebs series Civil War Diary 1975-1976 documented the horrors as they piled up.

In his drawing titled April 13 the day of the 1975 Beirut bus massacre, which went down in history as the begin of the Lebanese Civil War corpses hang limp from the windows of a bus, a portrayal of the deadly clashes between the Phalangist militia and Palestinians in the suburb of Ain el Remmaneh.

Though the civil war is long over, Lebanon remains deeply divided and has faced a series of political and economic crises in recent years, all compounded by the explosion of a huge quantity of ammonium nitrate at Beiruts port in August 2020 that destroyed a significant part of the city.

Some of the art shown in the exhibition was itself damaged in the explosion. An immersive multimedia piece by the Lebanese duo Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige synchronizes footage from 14 CCTV cameras at the Sursock Museum, the citys iconic center of modern art, at the moment of the blast.

In a moment windows shatter, artworks are blown off the walls, an eerie dust blows through the wreckage, and the art of Beiruts golden age is marked by yet another tragedy.

The exhibition Beirut and the Golden Sixties: A Manifesto of Fragility is on show at Berlins Gropius-Bau museum until June 12, 2022.

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Between the wars: The revolutionary art of Beiruts golden 60s - The Indian Express

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ZAGREB, April 15, 2022 After a two-year break from touring in Croatia, big international music names will return this year to stadiums and indoor venues the the country, starting this spring.

Starting in April, promoters LAA are brining names like Franz Ferdinand, Skunk Anansie, Simple Minds, Placebo, Whitesnake, Dream Theater, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, Gojira and Lorde to Zagreb and the coast Zagreb this year.

Just before the arrival of the first big act, Scottish rockers Franz Ferdinand, all measures that were in force for the past two years were abolished in Croatia, so all the concerts will go ahead at full capacity and without the need for any Covid passes.

Franz Ferdinand (Photo: Donald Milne)

Franz Ferdinand will be the first big indoor foreign act in Croatia in two years. The Scottish rock band will be at Dom sportova on April 25, playing the greatest hits from their two-decade-long career.

The Hits To The Head tour brings rock classics Take Me Out, Do you want to, No You Girls, Walk Away, This Fire, Love Illumination, Michael, Ulysses , The Dark Of The Matine , and Glimpse of Love , and will show why Franz Ferdinand has become one of the biggest rock bands and music institutions.

Skunk Anasie

British rock group Skunk Anansie will play at Dom sportova on May 13, for the second part of the big celebratory tour 25 Live @ 25. Their return to Zagreb will mark all the most important songs from the repertoire, including singles such as Hedonism, Weak, I Can Dream, Twisted, Charlie Big Potato, Secretly, Secretly, Because Of You, Brazen. (Weep) , Charity , Tear The Place Up , Secretly , The Skank Heads , Yes Its Fucking Political and the latest singles What Do You Do For Love , This Means War . Tour reviews say the band embodies the power of rock and continues to show the best of themselves.

Prog rock titans Dream Theater are brining their big world tour Top Of The World to Dom sportova on Friday, May 27th. They are bringing their complete production to Zagreb, which includes sound system, lighting and video walls, so fans will enjoy the audio-visual spectacle. The performance comes after winning a Grammy for Best Metal Performance of the Year for the single The Alien, and will be joined by Canadian prog metal singer and guitarist Devin Townsend.

Lorde

One of the biggest pop stars of the new generation, New Zealander with Croatian roots Lorde, will perform in Croatia for the first time at the Fortress of St. Mihovil in ibenik on June 18 and 19, and both concerts are sold out.

The multiple Grammy winner and one of the youngest performers to top international charts will recall some of her mega hits from the first two albums, but also present the new studio release Solar Power.

Placebo (Photo credit: Mads Perch)

English art-rock greats Placebo will play at Zagrebs alata Stadium on June 27 as part of a major world tour, as well as the promotion of the long-awaited album Never Let Me Go.

Zagreb will be among the first to hear Placebos new sounds on, and the band will also play hits from their career spanning two and a half decades such as Every You Every Me, Pure Morning, Special K ,The Bitter End, English Summer Rainor Special Needs .

Simple Minds (Photo: Press)

Simple Minds will play in Zagreb on Thursday, June 30. The legendary rock band led by Jim Kerr will perform at the alata Stadium as part of the big tour 40 Years Of Hits.

The Scottish rock greats will mark four decades of work with a concert featuring all the most important songs from the rich opus such as Dont You (Forget About Me), Alive & Kicking, Belfast Child, Mandela Day, Promised You A Miracle .

Whitensnake (PR)

The legendary hard rock band Whitesnake is embarking on a big world farewell tour throughout 2022, and Zagreb will have the opportunity to see them for the last time on Saturday, July 2, at the alata Stadium.

David Coverdale, the frontman of these rock giants and one of the greatest rock vocals in history, will be joined by the talented Croatian Dino Jelusick, a new member of the Whitesnake touring line-up. They bring hits from a rich career such as Here I Go Again, Is This Love, Still Of The Night, Give Me All Your Love, Crying In The Rain, Slow An Easy, and they are also performed by glam metal legends Steel Panther.

The French metal machine Gojira is coming to Zagrebs Dom sportova on July 30th. One of the most important metal bands of the last ten years, with a background of seven albums, will present their impressive opus in a long world tour, combining elements of death, math, progressive and post-metal genres with themes of philosophy and environment.

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard

Psychedelic Australian rock masters King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard are coming to Croatia for the first time on August 2 and 3, 2022 at the Fortress of St. Mihovil in ibenik.

Known for constantly changing the set list and unpredictable live performances, it is to be expected that the band in ibenik will perform something similar to their famous residences. Tickets for the first date are sold out and are only available for August 3rd.

There will also be a number of International acts performing at clubs. On May 2, Julien Baker is at the Tvornica Kulture, and on May 3, the Lemonheads are coming to the Vintage Industrial Bar. The Eagles of Death Metal are coming to the Tvornica Kulture on May 8, and William DuVall will perform at the same venue on May 11. On June 28, Mastodon, Kvelertak and Baroness come to the Tvornica Kulture.

The official points of sale of tickets for all gigs are Dirty Old Shop (Tratinska 18), Rockmark (Ulici Hrvatske bratske zajednice 4), Aquarius CD Shop (Varavska 13), Dancing Bear CD Shop (Gundulieva 7), Dallas Music Shop Rijeka (Splitska 2a), all Eventim sales points and online at http://www.eventim.hr.

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Big international music concerts in Croatia in 2022: Lorde, Whitesnake, Franz Ferdinand and more - Croatia Week

Express News Service

CHENNAI: Rohit Sharmas most common expression while on the field in the first innings was to furrow his brows. A bowler bowls a wide? An annoyed expression. A bowler not bowling to his field. A frowning forehead. An overpitched hit me half-tracker? A grimace. As Punjab Kings, who threatened to score more than the 198 they ended up with after being inserted in, continued with their hedonism, one bowler acted as the speed breaker: Jasprit Bumrah.

His excellence hasnt been a secret but its what makes his appointment viewing in the first place. Especially in 2022, because hes now firefighting for the franchise, waging a lone battle in a team that has lost its two other principal pacers over the years (Lasith Malinga and Trent Boult).

After making his breakthrough with Malinga at the other end and polishing his skills when Trent Boult routinely picked up new-ball wickets, the franchise has opted for a bit of a gap year in this regard before Jofra Archer joins in 2023. Ergo, more pressure on Bumrah to be a better version of himself.

Even as Mumbai have made one of their worst starts to the season, he has ably shouldered the responsibility without any teething troubles. Put it this way. If Mumbai was an IPL stock, it would be trading at its lowest-ever price but investors would still look to buy Bumrah. Under the lights at the MCA Stadium against the intent machine aka Punjab, he composed poetry even as the other bowlers went for plenty.

In the other 16 overs, Mayank Agarwal & Co. scored at 10.62 runs per over. Bumrahs four went for seven RPO. Theres a similar disparity when you compare the same numbers over the five matches Mumbai has played so far this season. All the other bowlers have given 9.63 RPO, while Bumrah has conceded less than eight (7.96 to be exact).

While that is higher than his career economy (7.02) in the format, context is everything. Teams have cottoned to the fact that Mumbais bowlers in the current edition dont possess the same variety or skill set. Shikhar Dhawan, who top-scored for the Kings with 70, epitomised this new approach that teams may embrace even against Bumrah. He walked down the wicket in his first over to try and upset his rhythm. Off the next ball, Mayank Agarwal, who made a fine half-century, drove him on the up over point for a boundary. Usually, Bumrahs first overs are watchful affairs. Not on Wednesday night.

On a belter of a surface, Mumbai needed Bumrahs nous if they had any chance of breaking their four-match duck. Thankfully for them, he found his mojo. Off his next 18 balls, there was one boundary, one wicket, multiple yorkers and 11 singles.

Even if he hasnt been amongst the wickets this year, he removed the dangerous Liam Livingstone to put the skids on the scoring rate. He also produced a near-perfect 19th over four yorkers and one low full-toss to lighten Sharmas mood a touch.

However, one can safely assume his default expression the furrowed brow was etched on his face by the time Mumbai lost the match by 12 runs. Brief scores: PBKS 198/5 in 20 ovs (Dhawan 70, Agarwal 52; Bumrah 1/28) vs MI 186/9 in 20 ovs (Brevis 49, Smith 4/30).

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IPL 2022: Boom amid the darkness - The New Indian Express

Few are the men who take risks and who risk themselves for others. As the poem says: Few are those who flee from the noise of our world and follow the hidden path. Where they have gone, the few wise men of our world have been. (Fray Luis de Len). This is because we are accustomed to protecting and caring for ourselves in a frenzy of selfishness and narcissistic hedonism. For this reason, the few men and women who go against the current, who leave the mold, those who understand life as a gift to serve others, make such an impact. Jesus of Nazareth was one of these people.

Holy Week is also called the Semana Mayor the most important week of the year by Catholic Christians. Within Holy Week, three days stand out: Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night, known as the Easter Triduum.

I want to refer to the meaning that this has, not only for Catholics or believers in Christ but for all humanity, the annual commemoration of the passion and death of Jesus Christ on Good Friday.

In a world of inconsistencies between what is said and what is done, the figure of Jesus of Nazareth stands out authoritatively and draws attention, even today, dividing history into two parts, with his absolute transparency and consistency between his life and his preaching, through his deeds and with his words, between what he announced and denounced. He faced his death on the cross to the very end.

The figure of Jesus of Nazareth stands out authoritatively and draws attention, even today, dividing history into two parts

Passion and death were the fruit of his choices; all of them originating in his acknowledgment of God as Father and of all men as brothers, and, also, from his absolute certainty that happiness and the meaning of human life are achieved, not in the search for the power to crush and trample or in seeking ones comfort and pleasure, or in the accumulation of material goods, but, rather, in the generous giving of life in love, forgiveness, service, and solidarity with all, especially among those most in need: whoever selfishly guards and squanders his life loses it, but whoever spends it in love and service to others gains it forever (Cf. Mk 8:35).

That is why the Christian life, the life of those who, 2,000 years later, confess Jesus, the Christ, as their way, truth, and life (Jn 14:6) and who follow him as his disciples, is above all a way of life: the same life that He lived and that follows a logic that does not coincide with and instead contradicts the logic of the world: Because you are in the world, but you are not of the world (Jn 17:15).

In this clash of criteriabetween the world and the Gospel of Jesus persecutions are born and with the persecutions, the cross: Whoever wants to follow me must take up his cross (Mt 16:24); the same cross that He faced with complete authenticity, courage, and fidelity to his convictions and his commitments to God: Do not make my Fathers House into a den of thieves (Mt 21:12); his commitments with man: Because the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath (Mk 2:27); with the truth: For this I was born to testify to the Truth (Jn 18:37); with freedom: Woe to you hypocritical Pharisees (Mt 23:13), When he saw that they wanted to proclaim him king, he fled (Jn 6:1), Go and tell that fox that I continue on my way (Lk 13:32); with justice: I want to give the same to the last as to the first (Mt 20:13) and fraternity: There is no greater love than to lay down ones life for ones friends (Jn 15:13).

For all these reasons, his preaching was rejected (No prophet is accepted in his own native land) (Lk 4:24). He was sentenced to death as a blasphemer and a false prophet, and he experienced the profound crisis of his sufferings and his death on the crossas a free gift and a total surrender: Father, into your hands I commend my spirit. (Lk 23:46)

The life of Jesus, like that of no other person in history, is marked by contrasts, by the disconcerting, by paradoxes, as a permanent sign of contradiction (Lk 2:34):

As has been said, his life and uninterrupted sequence of paradoxes reach their maximum expression in the events that we remember during Holy Week. Now, we can mark this annual commemoration as a walk through a museum of antiquities, a memory, and lamentation for unjust events that occurred in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, without implying, affecting, or transforming our present.

But there is an authentic way to commemorate the passion, death, and resurrection of the Nazarene and, more than that, to make his lifes work more valid and current today. This consists of remembering what happened in the past to Jesus, the person, butat the same time and in that lightto review, challenge, question, and renew our entire present, to build a better future.

Because that Friday, 2,000 years ago, continues impacting our lives today in the sufferings of those who commit themselves to carry their own crosses and those of others, and in the lives of the Cyrenians and Veronicas who lighten the lives of others.

Because all the events that happened to Jesus, the person, repeat today and shed light on the lives of those who are capable of washing the feet of their brothers and of building fraternity by breaking and sharing bread or in the death sentences and the unjust deaths of so many innocents. Because that Friday, 2,000 years ago, continues impacting our lives today in the sufferings of those who commit themselves to carry their own crosses and those of others, and in the lives of the Cyrenians and Veronicas who lighten the lives of others. Because the falls experienced by Jesus, on his way to Calvary, clarify our falls and because his nudity illuminates the lives of the millions of dispossessed in a thousand ways in the world.

Today, although we have become accustomed to a thousand forms of suffering and death, we are called to build a world in which the perfection of man is found in the new commandment of love, according to the ideals, values, and criteria of He who was crucified by his hanging from a tree (Acts 5:30).

~

Mario J. Paredes is the Executive President of SOMOS Community Care, a network of 2,500 independent doctorsmostly primary care doctorswho attend to approximately one million Medicaid patients of limited resources in New York City.

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How the contrasts of Good Friday reach beyond believers - Aleteia