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Sam Ben-Meir[/caption]
Sam Ben-Meir, PhD is an adjunct professor at Mercy College. His current research focuses on environmental ethics and animal studies. sam@alonben-meir.com
By Sam Ben-Meir NEW YORK — In the first episode of season three of The Kominsky Method (2021), there is a funeral service for Michael Douglas’ character’s lifelong friend Norman Newlander (played by Alan Arkin). By far the most inconsolable mourner to give a eulogy is Newlander’s personal assistant of 22 years who, amid a hyperbolical […]
Sleep No More: Capitalism and Insomnia Read More »
Opinion, Sam Ben-Meir, USABy Sam Ben-Meir NEW YORK — It is shameful and unconscionable that this country has allowed gun violence to become the leading cause of death among children in the United States – but that is the reality. The legislation, including gun measures, recently proposed by a bipartisan group of senators represents a step in the
Repeal the Second Amendment, Palladium of Death Read More »
Opinion, Sam Ben-Meir, USA
By Sam Ben-Meir NEW YORK — Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851), the English Romantic artist who lifted landscape and seascape painting to new and enthralling heights will never cease to amaze, inspire and make us question what we thought we knew about painting, about what colored pigment on canvas can do. “Turner’s Modern World” at
Harmonious Magic: JMW Turner at the Boston Museum of Fine Art Read More »
Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Sam Ben-Meir, USA
By Sam Ben-Meir Charles Ray (b. 1953) — undoubtedly one of the most conceptually and visually breathtaking sculptors alive today — is enjoying something of cultural moment at present, with four exhibitions on two continents, including “Charles Ray: Figure Ground” at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Throughout his career, Ray has been engaged in
Charles Ray at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Read More »
Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Sam Ben-Meir, USA
By Sam Ben-Meir NEW YORK — The Russian-born artist Vasily Kandinsky (1866-1944) was one of the early pioneers in the field of abstract painting – along with Kazimir Malevich, Piet Mondrian, and Hilma af Klint, among others. Through September 5, New York’s Guggenheim Museum is hosting “Around the Circle,” an immense retrospective of this extraordinarily
The Art of Transformation: Vasily Kandinsky at the Guggenheim Read More »
International, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Sam Ben-Meir, USABy Sam Ben-Meir This March 24 marked 50 years since the release of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather (1972), a film which has garnered such praise since it first appeared in theaters that it hardly seems necessary to rehearse its countless and well-deserved accolades. It is undoubtedly one of those few cinematic works of art
‘The Godfather,’ 50 Years Later Read More »
Sam Ben-Meir, Theatre, Film & BroadcastBy Sam Ben-Meir NEW YORK — With last week’s bombing of a maternity ward, the increased targeting of Ukrainian civilians, and the strike against a military base just miles from the Polish border, the brutality and audacity of Russian forces will only grow as Vladimir Putin becomes increasingly desperate to crush Ukraine’s government, its independence,
Where Will We Draw the Line in Ukraine? Read More »
International, Opinion, Sam Ben-Meir, USABy Sam Ben-Meir Over 2 million Ukrainians have now become refugees – each one a part of the largest dispersal of Europeans across the continent in decades. Over 1,000 villages and towns are without water, electricity and heat, while medical supplies are rapidly dwindling – swelling a humanitarian crisis that is rapidly growing worse by
For Ukraine, the Time is Now Read More »
International, Opinion, Sam Ben-Meir, USA
By Sam Ben-Meir NEW YORK — Currently on view at the Currier Museum, Philip Guston’s mural “Pulpwood Logging” (1941) is right beside its original partner, Musa McKim’s “Wildlife in the White Mountains” (1941). Both 14-foot murals were commissioned by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) — a federal program created by Franklin Delano Roosevelt to combat
Philip Guston and Musa McKim at the Currier Museum Read More »
Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Sam Ben-MeirTitian: Women, Myth & Power at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum consists of only six paintings, yet this one-room exhibition feels more like a six-course banquet. So overwhelming, immense and entrancing are the monumental canvases that upon entering the room one must literally catch one’s breath. Titian, greatest of the Venetian Renaissance masters, referred to these paintings, commissioned by King Philip II of Spain, as poesie (poems) and each depicts a different scene from stories in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. [Sam Ben-Meir, Ph.D]
Poems in Paint: Titian at the Gardner Museum Read More »
Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Sam Ben-MeirTo date, nearly two hundred million Americans – just over 60 percent of the population – have been fully vaccinated against Covid-19. Recent reports indicate that unvaccinated adults are more than three times as likely to lean Republican. In other words, for every unvaccinated Democrat there are roughly three unvaccinated Republicans. An important question then not only for bioethicists but for all of us is whether there exists a moral obligation to vaccinate. [Sam Ben-Meir, Ph.D]
Autonomy and the Moral Obligation to Get Vaccinated Read More »
Lifestyles, Sam Ben-Meir, Science, Medicine, & Education, USAIs it not extraordinary that in a country that claims to be as enlightened and advanced as ours that the combined wealth of three individuals – Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, and investor Warren Buffett – should exceed the total wealth of the bottom half of Americans? One has to return to the days of the pharaohs of Egypt to find a parallel to the extreme wealth inequality that we see in in America today. Such stark inequality, and the ever-growing concentration of wealth in the hands of a tiny few will only intensify if we continue as we have for the past 40 years. [Sam Ben-Meir, Ph.D]
OpEd: U.S. Should Put Caps on Income Read More »
Business & Finance, Sam Ben-Meir, USA
By Sam Ben-Meir, Ph.D NEW YORK — What are the aesthetic, sensuous, and expressive possibilities inherent in clay as a material substance in all its physicality? How is it possible that ceramics can restore, or rather reconfigure and remake our relationship to the natural world? These are among the fundamental questions posed by “Shapes from
Beyond Functionality: Modern and Contemporary Ceramics at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Read More »
Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Sam Ben-Meir, USAThe Museum of Modern Art is currently presenting an exhibition devoted to an in-depth review of Paul Cézanne’s drawings. If there is any criticism to be made of this extraordinary show, it is that it is frankly overwhelming: with roughly 280 pencil, ink and gouache drawings and watercolors (and even a handful of oil paintings), there is so much to take in that two or three visits to the exhibition may be required to do it justice. [Sam Ben-Meir, Ph.D]
Motion, Violence are Elements of MMA’s Cézanne Exhibit Read More »
Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Sam Ben-Meir, USA