Word: abstraction
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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These so-called “Rothko-bumpers” immortalize the numerous well-intended but futile attempts made to safeguard five paintings given to the University by internationally renowned American Abstract-Expressionist painter Mark Rothko. His murals, designed to create a complete spatial experience for a viewer and ranking among the most valuable works of art owned by Harvard, ironically did so in a physical space that would eventually lead to damage and their removal...
...lived according to consistent precepts,” Zwick says of the bushido, “I think the idea of trying to codify an idealized way of life is a very beautiful thing to contemplate. Even if that only stands as an exemplar in the abstract, it’s still beautiful...
...enthusiasm for Japanese history and culture blossomed from an academic interest to an personal one that included trips to museums—the feel of fabrics and swords and a slew of conversations with historians brought to life what had, until then, existed for him only in the abstract. Eventually, he says, his interest brought him to Japan...
...accustomed to mocking, we might have seen a rebirth of faith in our music to tell us that what nearly killed us had made us stronger. But our startled leaders draped us in flags and led us into our history’s first war against an abstract idea, and our musicians captured our unredeemed state by summer...
Reading music in this way is, of course, an imprecise science. There are other ways to interpret our favorite bands shifting from bright to dark, or from abstract to political, other ways to read the rise of angry white rap; and there are, obviously, counterexamples. Marilyn Manson’s shock-rock, after all, peaked at about the same time as the internet boom. But Marilyn Manson is a countercultural figure, not a figure of the modern American Zeitgeist. Manson will be remembered as a diversion, but our memories of 2002 may well be soundtracked by Eminem, who tapped something...