Here’s a curated ’74Picks round-up of the best to read, watch, listen, and do this week. From the first ’74Escape Playlist curated by Demet Müftüoğlu-Eşeli, and our favorite Wim Wenders feature to our photography spotlight Jacques Henri Lartigue, and newly opened MONUMENTS NOW exhibition in New York City.
LISTEN: ’74Escape Playlist #1 by Demet Müftüoğlu-Eşeli
WATCH: Paris, Texas directed by Wim Wenders
On the event of Wenders’ birthday week, we are sharing with you our favorite film directed by him. Travis Henderson, a mysterious, nearly mute drifter tries to make right as he travels across the unforgiving Texas desert to reconnect with a son he hasn’t seen in years, who is living with his brother in Los Angeles, and then on to Houston in search of his estranged, missing wife.
LOOK: ‘74 PhotographerSpotlight: Jacques Henri Lartigue
Photographer and painter noted for the spontaneous, joyful photographs he took throughout his life, Lartigue enthusiastically photographed such subjects as automobile races, fashionable ladies at the seashore and the park, and kite flying. These photographs, with their informal approach to everyday subjects, reveal his free spirit and love of life, rather than a concern for photographic technique and craft, and often capture a sense of movement.
Lartigue was discovered in the early 1960s and shown at the MoMA exhibit in New York City in 1963. His photographs were acclaimed in part because of their departure from the formal, posed portraits that had been typical of early photography and also because of their ingenious charm.
READ: The Unnatural History Museum by Viktor Wynd
Lovingly produced by Prestel with a delicious deep red spine, this latest hefty volume in the Wynd bibliography should add a massive dollop of gravitas to the man’s standing; most importantly it will let people realize just what a good writer he is, an autobiographical wizard, especially when he deals so elegantly, even amusingly, with that black dog of depression which has so long run alongside him, dark double of his manic creativity, whose central place in his life he here acknowledges with a weary grace. There are also wonderful color photographs by the ace Oskar Proctor, worth the price of admission in themselves, as well as many dazzling drawings by ‘Theatre of Dolls’, a somewhat Swedish collaborative duo whose graphic genius is here given happy reign.
Last but altogether least this book will provide a sort of ‘portable Wynd’ for those who have not the time nor sizzle to dare venture forth themselves to delve into the physical reality of his Unnatural History Museum. Read Adrian Dannatt’s full review here.
DO: Now on show in New York City, open air sculptures at Socrates Park
In this turbulent moment when we find ourselves reevaluating American identity and values, the MONUMENTS NOW exhibition at Socrates Sculpture Park seeks to address the role of monuments in society and commemorate underrepresented narratives such as diasporic, Indigenous, and queer histories.
Part I of the exhibition kicks off with new commissions by Jeffrey Gibson, Paul Ramírez Jonas, Xaviera Simmons. This dazzling new piece by Jeffrey Gibson ‘Because Once You Enter My House It Becomes Our House’ is dedicated to honoring queer and indigenous cultures.