Log24

(Continued)

Click a course description below for some related material.

See also Strike That Pose and Gone to China.

Truth and Style

From today’s New York Times obituary for Amy M. Spindler, former fashion critic of The New York Times and style editor of its magazine, who died yesterday at 40:

“Anna Wintour, the editor in chief of Vogue, whom Ms. Spindler regarded as a competitor when she became style editor of The Times Magazine, in 1998, said: ‘She took criticism in a new direction. She wasn’t afraid to tell the truth.’ “

“I don’t believe in truth. I believe in style.”
— Hugh Grant in Vogue magazine, July 1995

Again from Spindler’s obituary:

“In a front-page article on Sept. 5, 1995, she [Spindler] noted a new piety on parade, marked by store windows and catalogs full of monastic robes, pilgrim’s boots and dangling crosses. Perhaps, she wrote, ‘the financially strained fashion industry is seeking salvation from above.’ “

Perhaps.

Amy M. Spindler

See also
Strike That Pose (August 1995)
and the two previous log24.net entries
on art and religion at Harvard.

For even more context, see
Truth and Style: ART WARS at Harvard.

ART WARS at Harvard

From today’s Harvard Crimson:

“The VES [Visual and Environmental Studies] department is still recovering, both internally and in public perception, from the firing of former chair Ellen Phelan in spring 2001. Phelan, a distinguished painter who brought in top New York artists, was replaced by Kenan Professor of English Marjorie Garber, an English scholar with no formal background in the practice of visual arts.”

Here’s more on Phelan and art at Harvard (rated R for colorful language).

See also Strike That Pose.