ReadyMade: Instructions for everyday life

Greetings, ReadyMade readers.

I’m thrilled to be blogging about cultural matters. Not culture as in a colony of bacteria, but art, music, books, film—that sort of thing. I’ve written for the Los Angeles Times, ARTNews, Spin, Interview, Vogue, the San Francisco Chronicle, Elle Decor, and other publications. I’ve also edited a number of anthologies, which you can check out on Amazon.com.

I live in Brooklyn, New York, which is home to a vibrant and diverse scene of poets, novelists, visual artists, and musicians. There’s no shortage of ways to turn on your brain around here.

In his 1948 book Notes Toward a Definition of Culture, T.S. Eliot wrote that culture “may be described simply as that which makes life worth living.” I can’t think of a better way to define it.

Here’s what I’m excited about right now: The love-it-or-hate-it Whitney Biennial, on through May 30th. A band from L.A.’s Silver Lake called Local Natives. A band from Baltimore called Beach House. And a UK band called Noah and the Whale. (Do you like music rife with heartbreak? Then their latest CD is for you.) The ongoing exhibit “Action! Design Over Time” at the Museum of Modern Art, which explores our relationship to objects beyond their aesthetic or functional qualities. And a monograph forthcoming from the awesome artsy publisher Prestel International, Various Illuminations (of a Crazy World), covering the work of Maira Kalman, the brilliant artist, designer, and illustrator whose accomplishments include New Yorker covers, children’s books, a gorgeous and witty edition of Strunk & White’s classic Elements of Style, and sets for the choreographer Mark Morris.

This beautiful book accompanies Kalman’s first retrospective, on now at the University of Pennsylvania’s Institute of Contemporary Art, running through June 6. Along with more than 100 paintings and drawings, it features her lesser-known work in textiles, embroidery, and the clocks and other objects she designed with her late husband, Tibor Kalman.

That’s about it for now; I haven’t had my cup of Culture yet today, so I’m a bit groggy and off to get my fix.

I look forward to sharing my cultural peregrinations with you, and I’d love your suggestions, comments and questions as well.

Thanks for reading,

Carmela