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‘I’m trying to get into where the jazz musicians are – the immediate present.’
The Brooklyn-born artist Alex Katz has made a career of translating ephemeral experiences to the canvas. And, as he reflects in this short video, this approach requires both sensitivity and speed – for even staring out at a landscape is a moment in flux. Trailing Katz at his scenic studio in Lincolnville, Maine the short documentary explores how his style and subjects have evolved over the course of his eight-decades-long career, and why he’s driven to ‘paint the sensation of seeing’. Created by the Guggenheim Museum in New York City for the career retrospective ‘Alex Katz: Gathering’, which is on view at the museum until February of 2023, The Immediate Present evokes Katz’s meditative approach while offering a glimpse into his ongoing life’s work.
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Technology and the self
Greetings from Green Bank – the small town where modern technology is banned
10 minutes
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Stories and literature
What makes John Keats’s ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ so enduringly powerful?
10 minutes
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Human evolution
Far from frivolous, cuteness is a powerful – and still mysterious – force of nature
6 minutes
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Dance and theatre
How a Noh mask-maker summons a lifelike face from a single block of wood
16 minutes
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Family life
On a whirlwind morning, a couple learns if they’re facing an unplanned pregnancy
7 minutes
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The ancient world
What wine vessels reveal about politics and luxury in ancient Athens and Persia
16 minutes
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Art
David Goldblatt captured the contradictions of apartheid in stark black and white
15 minutes
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Philosophy of mind
Do we have good reasons to believe in beliefs? A radical philosophy of mind says no
5 minutes
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Love and friendship
When drawing your muse hundreds of times becomes an exercise in love
7 minutes