Bomblive!

The recipient of a 2007 MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, Peter Cole is the author of three books of poetry, most recently, Things on Which I’ve Stumbled. He has translated widely from Hebrew and Arabic, and has received numerous awards for his work, including the PEN Translation Prize and a Guggenheim Fellowship. His anthology The Dream of the Poem: Hebrew Poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain, 950–1492 received the university press book of the year award from the American Publishers Association. Co-founder and publisher of Ibis Editions, he divides his time between Israel and the U.S. Cole was interviewed by MacArthur Fellow Edward Hirsch, President of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and author of over ten books of poetry and prose, including the national bestseller How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry. Filmed live in front of an audience at the Brooklyn Public Library.

Anita Glesta’s Gernika/Guernica, shown in Lower Manhattan in Spring 2007, juxtaposed the provocative abstraction of Picasso's infamous painting with survivor accounts of the 1937 bombing of a Basque village. Ellen Driscoll's sculpture Revenant, a bridge made from hundreds of number 2 plastic bottles, was recently installed at the Nippon Ginko Bank in Hiroshima, Japan, one of the few structures to survive the atomic blast. The two artists discuss the power of memory and storytelling in this second BOMBLive! installment of “In the Open: Art and Architecture for Public Spaces” Series, recorded at Proteus Gowanus in Brooklyn.

Though Ned Smyth is best known for his public art projects, his studio work has been highly acclaimed since he began showing in the 1970s. He continues to produce both public and studio work today. His forthcoming public project, The Next Generation, will be installed at Lehman College in the Bronx. His recent show at Salomon Contemporary featured primal, found objects—such as stones, twigs and cast concrete—composed for private spaces. Fellow sculptor Keith Sonnier, known for his work with neon, visited Smyth at his Shelter Island studio early last summer. The two discussed their early days as artists in the SOHO scene in the '70s as well as the development of, and tension between, their public and studio art.

“The Figure in Narrative” series paired a prominent writer with an acclaimed visual artist for a discussion about the creative process. Painter Dana Schutz was interviewed by writer Mei Chin in Manhattan on November 2, 2005. The New York Academy of Art co-sponsored the event.

Award-winning authors A.M. Homes and Francine Prose discuss the overlap where memoirs, histories, and novels meet in this conversation presented by BOMB's Editor-in-Chief Betsy Sussler. Part of the 2nd Annual Brooklyn Book Festival, Fall 2007

Robert Polito's most recent books are the poetry collection Hollywood & God and The Complete Film Writings of Manny Farber (forthcoming August 2009). His other books include Doubles, A Reader’s Guide to James Merrill’s The Changing Light at Sandover, and Savage Art: A Biography of Jim Thompson, which received the National Book Critics Circle award in biography. He is the founder and Director of the New School Graduate Writing Program, and is completing a new book, Detours: Seven Noir Lives. David Trinidad's most recent book, The Late Show, was published by Turtle Point Press in 2007. With Jeffery Conway and Lynn Crosbie, he co-wrote Phoebe 2002: An Essay in Verse (Turtle Point, 2003), a mock-epic based on the 1950 film All About Eve. His other books include Answer Song (High Risk Books, 1994), Hand Over Heart: Poems 1981-1988 (Amethyst Press, 1991), Pavane (Sherwood Press, 1981), and Plasticville (Turtle Point, 2000), a finalist for the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize of the Academy of American Poets. With Den

“The Figure in Narrative” series paired a prominent writer with an acclaimed visual artist for a discussion about the creative process. Sculptor and writer Lorenzo Pace was interviewed by poet Patricia Spears Jones in Manhattan on November 9, 2005. The New York Academy of Art co-sponsored the event.

Honor Moore's father, the Bishop Paul Moore, captivated the nation by bringing political activism into the priesthood even while he struggled with a deeply guarded secret. Victoria Redel's fictional father, Itzaak, escaped from Nazi-occupied Belgium with his own haunting secret to keep, most especially from his daughter, Sarah. The two authors spoke about their books, The Bishop’s Daughter, a memoir, and The Border of Truth, a novel, before a live audience in lower Manhattan at Housing Works Bookstore, a non-profit organization that provides housing, health care, job training, advocacy, and other services for homeless New Yorkers living with HIV and AIDS.

Rick Moody is an author, musician, and blogger who is best known for his novel The Ice Storm. He is the recipient of PEN/Martha Albrand Award for the Art of the Memoir for his 2002 Memoir The Black Veil. He has also received the Addison Metcalf Award, the Paris Review Aga Khan Prize, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, Esquire, Conjunctions, Harper’s, Details, The New York Times, and Grand Street. Most recently, his short story “Some Contemporary Characters” was published via Twitter through a number of literary publications' Twitter feeds. Darcey Steinke is a journalist and the author of four novels and a collection of essays, which she co-edited with Rick Moody. blindspot, her web project, was featured in the 2001 Whitney Biennial.

Tom Kalin is a filmmaker, teacher, writer, and activist, based in New York. His film credits include directing Swoon, executive producing I Shot Andy Warhol, and Co-Writing with Cindy Sherman Office Killer. Kalin has also created short film and video pieces which are held in the collections of Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris and MoMA, New York. His critical writings have been published in a wide range of publications. Bette Gordon is a New York based filmmaker, and teacher at Columbia. Kalin's 2007 film Savage Grace, tells the tale of socialite Barbara Daly Baekeland's infamous 1972 slaying and the incestuous family dynamics surrounding her murder. Kalin discusses the film with his colleague and BOMB contributing editor Bette Gordon, in front of an audience of Columbia University film students. A Q&A session with the director followed the interview.

Listen to a BOMBLive! podcast of Thelma Golden interviewed by Glenn Ligon & Betsy Sussler at The New Museum for Contemporary Art in the Fall of 2002. Part of the BOMBLive! Artists & Curators' Series.

“The Figure in Narrative” series paired a prominent novelist or poet with an acclaimed visual artist for an intimate discussion about the creative process. Novelist A.M. Homes interviewed painter Eric Fischl in Manhattan on Oct. 26, 2005.

Rackstraw Downes is a British painter and author whose obsessively detailed realist landscapes have earned him a MacArthur Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and induction into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He’s had work published in The New York Times, Art in America, Art News, and The New Criterion, among others. Phillip Lopate is an author and media critic whose work has appeared in numerous publications. His most recent essay collection, Notes on Sontag, was published by Princeton University Press in 2009.

Novelist Peter Carey has a conversation with poet Robert Polito in which they discuss Ned Kelly, Australian history, and Carey’s book, True History of the Kelly Gang, at The New School in the fall of 2001.

Chris Albani, a Nigerian novelist and poet living in political exile here in the US, is the author of the novels Master of the Board, The Virgin of Flames, and Gracelend, which won the 2005 PEN Hemingway Prize. He has also written several poetry collections and the novellas Song for Night and Becoming Abigail, a poets novella in its dream-like juxtapositions and stepladder flow. His other prizes include a PEN Freedom-to-Write Award, a Prince Claus Award, a Hurston/Wright Literary Fellowship and a Lannan Foundation Literary Fellowship. He Lives and teaches in California. Colm Tóibìn is an Irish novelist, journalist and playwright. His novels include The South, The Heather Blazing, The Story of the Night, and The Blackwater Lightship, which was shortlisted for the 1999 Booker Prize. His latest novel, The Master, aptly titled in reference to its protagonist, Henry James, and for the masterful writing deployed in conjuring him, was shortlisted for the 2004 Booker Prize and named the Los Angles Times Novel of the

Deborah Gans Studio works on the landscapes of refugee camps and is featured alongside the CLUI in the U.S. Pavilion at the 2008 Venice Biennale. Much of the work generated by the Gans Studio is devoted to re-thinking how architecture can participate in the invention of new social forms, often by focusing on extreme situations that yield insights for everyday life. She is a professor in the architecture school at Pratt Institute. Matthew Coolidge is a founder and director of The Center for Land Use Interpretation, an organization dedicated to improving the collective understanding about humans and the landscapes that they inhabit. The Center makes exhibits, publications, tours, and web resources about the built landscape of the Unites States at museums and other non-commercial venues. Matthew is the author of several books, three of which include Overlook: Exploring the Internal Fringes of America with the Center for Land Use Interpretation, The Nevada Test Site: A Guide to America’s Nuclear Proving Ground,