Jane Bua

1 week ago | newyorker.com | Vince Aletti |Brian Seibert |Jane Bua |Hilton Als

“Constellation,” a Diane Arbus exhibition at the Park Avenue Armory (through Aug. 17), includes more than four hundred and fifty famous, little-known, and unknown photographs from her brief career, cut short by suicide in 1971, at the age of forty-eight. Controversy dogged her posthumous shows and publications, and though it has mostly been replaced by a profound appreciation, Arbus isn’t easy to love. The work remains tough, provocative, and brilliantly dark.

2 weeks ago | newyorker.com | Jane Bua

At any given moment, there may well be a number of people named Naomi scattered across Prospect Park’s five hundred-odd acres. But, on a recent cloudy Saturday afternoon, the population peaked on a patch of grass labelled “Barbecue Area.” Sitting in a duck-duck-goose circle, on top of colorful blankets, were citizens tall and short, young and slightly older—all with one common denominator. “I’ve never met another Naomi!” one said, looking around the group.

3 weeks ago | newyorker.com | Michael Schulman |Sheldon Pearce |Jane Bua |Helen Shaw

With his sallow face and boulder-like forehead, John Cazale was one of the indelible character actors of the nineteen-seventies, but his career was tragically brief. He appeared in only five feature films—all Oscar nominees for Best Picture.

1 month ago | newyorker.com | Hilton Als |Dan Stahl |Jane Bua |Vince Aletti

I met Alva Rogers years ago, through a mutual friend, and her various incarnations—actress, singer, artistic director, writer, puppeteer—have always been remarkable to me. As a young woman, Rogers posed for the artist Lorna Simpson, and is the subject of Simpson’s photograph-based piece “Waterbearer” (1986), along with other early works, and, of course, she was the nominal star of Julie Dash’s film “Daughters of the Dust” (1991), a fascinating evocation of Gullah culture in South Carolina.

1 month ago | newyorker.com | Jane Bua

The rehearsal space for the Metropolitan Opera’s orchestra is three levels below a parking garage, amid a labyrinth of dingy hallways and exposed ceiling pipes. The room has the air of a high-school gym: scuffed wood floor, unyielding lights, and a big analog clock. One recent afternoon, something new and peculiar showed up there.