The haunting work of photographer Gregory Crewdson has affected viewers for more than 20 years. With a cinematic, panoramic flair, he creates scenes that display the dark side of American suburbia, an alternate universe where ghastly realities lurk in the most bucolic of settings. Chiefly inspired by the masters of the moving image—Hitchcock, Spielberg, Lynch—Crewdson [...]

James Franco might be the ultimate contemporary hyphenate: Academy Award-nominated actor, author, conceptual artist, film director, college student, soap star, Oscar host, cultural provocateur, the list goes on. From big-budget blockbusters to small New York art openings, he puts a post-ironic spin on much of his work, defying social boundaries and re-interpreting his cultural touchstones. [...]

French luxury brand Dior has created a seven-episode web series that offers a behind-the-scene look into the life of Lady M, played by French actress Marion Cotillard, who won an Academy Award for Best Actress as Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose. She was also in Public Enemies and Midnight in Paris, among many [...]

In the 1957 film Funny Face, when Kay Thompson struts through the offices of Quality magazine as editor Maggie Prescott, flamboyantly instructing her readers to “Think Pink!”, those in the know knew she was basing her authoritative characterization on Diana Vreeland, the legendary fashion tastemaker then ensconced at Harper’s Bazaar. By 1966, when photographer William [...]

An international delicacy for centuries, smoked salmon is the ideal combination of land and sea. And among the few still practicing the hands-on craft of smoking is Norwegian Ole-Martin Hansen, whose grandfather invented a highly regarded recipe using beech and juniper woods more than 80 years ago in Finnmark, above the Arctic Circle. Now, Hansen [...]

  A blistering satire and celebration of Hollywood, Myra Breckinridge is perhaps Gore Vidal’s most wildly provocative novel. Myron, a mild-mannered film scholar, obtains a sex change to become Myra, a champion feminist who overpowers an outdated and misogynistic industry. (The opening line: “I am Myra Breckinridge, whom no man will ever possess.”) It’s truly [...]

We were saddened today to learn of the death of one of America’s greatest intellectuals. An aristocrat, political observer, novelist, playwright, screenwriter, essayist, television pundit and social force, Gore Vidal may truly be the only Renaissance Man of the latter half of the 20th century. His sweeping, magisterial historical novels attempted to trace the lines [...]

A cultural icon and pioneer in conceptual and performance art, Yoko Ono continues to inspire with her wide range of multimedia pieces. “To The Light,” a retrospective of Ono’s career currently showing at London’s Serpentine Gallery , invites the viewer to participate in an aesthetic and intellectual journey. With one of her newest projects, The Smiles Film, [...]