Word: abstract
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Once in a while, a fellow forgets where he is. "Americans," wrote Thornton Wilder, "are abstract." For the most part, he believed, we identify ourselves more by our future than by our circumstance. "I am I," Wilder said, "because my plans characterize me." Strangely enough, it seems to be to this principle that the Hasty Pudding entertainment devotes itself: to the confidence that the money will always be there, to a tradition rigidly in place for years after its power to amuse has ended, not so much to the idea of men in women's clothing, but to just which...
...trying to make. Letting the women speak for themselves is admirable; getting caught up in their personal lives to the extent that their stories obstruct analysis verges on bathos. Howe's descriptions come perilously close to true confessions--and this tendency becomes an overly heavy counterweight to abstract statistics. Her opening and closing chapters raise questions about the societal foundations underlying women's place in the labor fore, and the in-depth vignettes on each occupation bring up points of special concern to each realm of work. But the cinematic style--emotion-laden frames in sequence, too many, often...
...first impression is of peach-fuzz abstract expressionism-big, suave, one-color surfaces. But the sunset colors -mauve, rose, gray and a rich ecclesiastical red-are neatly tuned by Dine's drawing, which gives exactly the right definition to the edge of a sleeve, the correct visual weight to the shadow in a fold. It is beaux-arts drawing applied with a kind of gentle irony to the ma trix of abstract-expressionist style. Dine's older paintings of robes in the '60s were done with acrylic and house paint; they had the "industrial" look common...
...Whirligogs," an early work, exhibits the same concerns. Lubovitch, exploring the ways shape and emotional suggestion interrelate, relies on representational gesture just verging on the abstract. Accompanied by Berio's voice collage "Sinfonia," black-hooded dancers appear, then a man and woman in bared dress. The hooded dancers return unmasked, later reappearing disguised, only to toss their masks defiantly to the side, and then again appear as dark spirits surrounding and overwhelming the lovers. Lubovitch uses his costume flexibly, allowing the masks to suggest rather than to define possibilities. He realizes the unanticipated. As a voice in flat monotone recites...
...from the first section continue--rounds of stamping and shuffling in place of musical rhythm, and repetitive actions with time-measures of their own. Yet in the second half these movements take on more incisive implications, an edge of irony. Here gesture approaches metaphor while retaining its interest as abstract action...