Word: motif
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Files, now in its eighth season, the drift had arguably already set in. It was among the most relevant dramas of the 1990s, a sleek buddy-cop variation whose conspiracy motif captured a mood of civic mistrust that ranged from Perotistas to militias. But last year the investigation by Duchovny's Fox Mulder and his partner Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) into a government-and-alien cabal went from teasingly ambiguous to meandering, and the stars seemed restless. "I was done. I wanted to move on," says Anderson, who says this season's changes have energized her. "Everybody...
...Characteristic of all the work is a certain distance," the catalogue claims, "from the particular places presented." This notion of distance is over-emphasized by the curators. Distance is a prerequisite for all modes of understanding landscape, and not a thematic motif peculiar to this exhibit. The thrust of From a Distance might more aptly be defined as a moral, ecological and sociological diagram of the tenuous and destructive relationship between humanity and nature in contemporary society...
...bursting with incongruous 18th century Palladian windows. Scratch pads--obtained by The Crimson from Mass. Hall wastepaper baskets--are covered by doodles of the distinctive window formation, in which a half circle sits above two tall panes. The windshield of the presidential limo has been etched in the Palladian motif, and, rumor has it, Neil and wife Angelica Zander sport matching his-and-her Palladian tattoos on their forearms...
...hilariously hapless heroes of the six stories in Pastoralia (Riverhead Books; 188 pages; $22.95) live as adults with their crotchety mothers or religiously obsessed sisters or a menagerie of squabbling relatives. The beleaguered breadwinner in Sea Oak works as a male stripper at Joysticks, a club with an aviation motif, and notes of his lodgings, "At Sea Oak there's no sea and no oak, just a hundred subsidized apartments and a rear view of FedEx...
...exhibit as a whole. The only exception to the excess of orthogonality is Haacke's diagonal placement of a framed copy of the First Amendment across the floor of the installation space. Had this object been better tied to Jasper Johns's down-turned flag, an interesting crucifixion motif might have been seen, with the twelve Rubbermaids as disciples, but as such this connection was barely noticeable...