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      A Bronx Teacher Asked. Tommy Orange Answered.

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      When the author received an impassioned email, he dropped everything to visit the students who inspired it.Tommy Orange sat at the front of a classroom in the Bronx, listening as a group of high school students discussed his novel “There There.”A boy wearing blue glasses raised his hand. “All the characters have some form of disconnection, even trauma,” Michael Almanzar, 19, said. “That’s the world we live in. That’s all around us. It’s not like it’s in some faraway land. That’s literally your next-door neighbor.”The class broke into a round of finger snaps, as if we were at an old-school poetry slam on the Lower East Side and not in an English class at Millennium Art Academy, on the corner of Lafayette and Pugsley Avenues.Orange took it all in with a mixture of gratitude and humility — the semicircle of earnest, engaged teenagers; the bulletin board decorated with words describing “There There” (“hope,” “struggle,” “mourning,” “discovery”); the shelf of well-thumbed copies wearing dust jackets in various stages of disintegration.When Orange spoke, students paid close attention. Many identified with the characters in Orange’s book “There There” and with the world it portrayed. Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesHis eyebrows shot up when a student wearing a sweatshirt that said “I Am My Ancestors’ Wildest Dreams” compared the book to “The Road,” by Cormac McCarthy. When three consecutive students spoke about how they related to Orange’s work because of their own mental health struggles, he was on the verge of tears.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      American Ballet Theater Names Dance Veteran as Executive Director

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      Barry Hughson, a leader at the National Ballet of Canada, will join the company as it tries to get beyond financial woes.American Ballet Theater, one of the largest dance companies in the United States, has faced a series of challenges in recent months. Relations with the dancers have been tense, finances have been strained and the organization has lacked a permanent executive director.On Thursday, Ballet Theater announced it was bringing in a dance veteran as it tries to move beyond its woes: Barry Hughson, executive director of the National Ballet of Canada, will join the company in that role in July. He succeeds Janet Rollé, who resigned suddenly last summer after 17 months on the job.Hughson, 56, a former dancer, said in an interview that he was undaunted by Ballet Theater’s troubles.“A.B.T. has been a company that I’ve loved since I was a 10-year-old ballet student watching Baryshnikov,” he said, referring to the star dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov. “It’s such an important institution in American dance, and it’s a challenging time for the arts community right now.”Ballet Theater’s leaders said they chose Hughson, executive director at the National Ballet of Canada since 2014, because of his extensive experience in the field. He has held top positions at Boston Ballet and Atlanta Ballet, among other organizations. They said he also showed an eagerness to work with Susan Jaffe, Ballet Theater’s artistic director, who has served as interim executive director since Rollé’s departure.“I expect and I hope it’ll be a wonderful, cooperative leadership team,” Andrew F. Barth, chairman of Ballet Theater’s board, said in an interview. “We’re going to have the opportunity to examine how to bring our art, how to bring this beautiful cultural aspect, to more people in more ways that are financially sound.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Artforum Selects Tina Rivers Ryan as New Top Editor

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      The curator and essayist will become the magazine’s next leader after a period of turmoil.Artforum named Tina Rivers Ryan its next top editor on Thursday, selecting the curator to lead the prestigious magazine after a tumultuous year.“For decades, the editors at Artforum have ensured that this historic magazine has remained a trusted and indispensable resource for conversations about contemporary art and its role in the broader culture,” Ryan, who specialized in digital art as a curator at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, said in a statement.Five months ago, the magazine fired David Velasco, its editor in chief, after he signed and published a letter calling for Palestinian liberation shortly after the Israel-Hamas war began. Some staff members were upset with his termination; longtime editors resigned in protest and artists declared a boycott. Some writers pulled their essays and some advertisers pulled their spots in the publication, resulting in a noticeably slimmer issue after the events unfolded.Penske Media Corporation, which owns the publication, has spent the past several months attempting to rebuild.Ryan, who has contributed to Artforum over the years, gained notice for a popular essay criticizing the NFT boom. She later softened her stance and helped the Buffalo museum cash in on the craze by organizing an online exhibition and fund-raiser.“We could not be more excited for this next chapter of Artforum with Tina at the editorial helm,” the magazine’s publishers, Danielle McConnell and Kate Koza, said in a statement. “Tina is a brilliant writer and uniquely positioned to uphold the magazine’s reputation for publishing the highest quality long-form criticism, while also contributing to a dynamic vision of audience expansion via continued digital growth and live events.” More

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      Book Review: ‘Devout,’ by Anna Gazmarian

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      In “Devout,” an author who grew up in the evangelical church recounts her struggle to find spiritual and psychological well-being after a mental health challenge.DEVOUT: A Memoir of Doubt, by Anna GazmarianAnna Gazmarian did everything that millennial evangelicals were supposed to do: She wore a purity ring, listened to sanctioned bands and avoided Harry Potter. And yet, she believed, her faith was inadequate.Jo Lindsay CoIn “Devout,” Anna Gazmarian writes of being given a Christmas present she found impossible to keep: a pendant necklace holding a tiny seed. It was a reference to the passage in Matthew where Jesus tells his apostles that faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains.Gazmarian, struggling with bipolar disorder and an accompanying affliction of doubt, threw the necklace into the trash. It didn’t matter that it had been a gift from her well-meaning mother — what it symbolized was of no use to her. “I wanted a faith as large as a deeply rooted oak tree,” she writes, “the kind where you had to lean back to see the highest branches in the sky.”The evangelical Christianity Gazmarian had been raised in, which had taught her to see depression as a symptom of spiritual weakness — possibly even the work of the Devil — could not help her realize this vision, and in “Devout” she tells of how she eventually found healing for both mind and soul.In this, her first book, she does not condemn what wounds her. “I’ve been breaking down and rebuilding my concept of faith, searching for a faith that can exist alongside doubt, a faith that is built on trust rather than fear,” she writes in the preface. “A faith with room for prayer and lament.” “Devout” is both of these, “offered in the hope of restoration.”The memoir begins shortly after Gazmarian, having started college in her native North Carolina, receives a diagnosis of bipolar II disorder. She takes this as yet another sign that her faith is at fault — despite having done all the things that millennial evangelicals were told to do. She’d worn a purity ring, listened to the sanctioned bands and stayed away from the supposedly occult- glorifying Harry Potter books.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A Designer Makes Fashion Brands Pop

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      For about a decade, people in the New York art and fashion scene have relied on Eric Wrenn, an unassuming designer known for his minimalist touch, to help shape the images of their brands.Mr. Wrenn, 38, has worked on ad campaigns, logos, books, websites, stationery, business cards and invitations to runway shows. Through it all he has kept a low profile, but his client list reads like a who’s who of downtown bluechips.“Eric feels like an industry secret,” said Emily Bode Aujla, the designer and founder of the brand Bode.“He has an art-world sensibility, and talking with him about a project can feel more like a therapy session,” she continued. “I lean on Eric to help me conceptualize Bode’s entire brand identity. When I hear a brand is working with him, it’s like: ‘Oh, they know.’”Images from Mr. Wrenn’s recent campaign for the fashion brand Eckhaus Latta.Michael HauptmanMr. Wrenn’s chicly simple logo for Bode.BodeWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Museum of Chinese in America Names New Leader

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      The museum, which has been the site of protests in recent years, has chosen Michael Lee as its director as it focuses on rebuilding trust.The Museum of Chinese in America in the Chinatown neighborhood of Manhattan has experienced protests and resignations, a fire and legal problems. Now, the board has chosen a new leader who wants to move the institution forward and reconnect with the local community.Michael Lee, a nonprofit executive, will be the next director, the board announced on Tuesday. In an interview, he said, “At the end of the day, I want people to know that the museum is here for four things: to preserve history, promote culture, tell our stories and celebrate our accomplishments.”In 2020, shortly before the pandemic shutdown, a fire ripped through a building housing some of the museum’s permanent collection. Staff members were sifting through the ashes — about 5 percent of the collection was destroyed — as trustees were raising money to buy the main building, at 215 Centre Street, at the same time as the landlord was planning to sell it to developers.In 2019, the city awarded the museum $35 million through a program for community projects as part of a deal for a local jail — money that allowed the museum to buy the main building. Museum officials said they have opposed the jail’s construction. But some residents have remained skeptical of the museum’s position, and maintain that in taking the money, officials betrayed the neighborhood. Artists withdrew their work from a major exhibition, leading to its cancellation, and to demonstrations by another wave of activists.The frequent protests by several groups have continued. In February, nearly a dozen picketers from Youth Against Displacement, chanting, “Chinatown is not for sale” and “Boycott MOCA,” appeared outside of the museum’s Lunar New Year celebration.Eric Lee, a museum chairman, said the new director needed to be someone who could rebuild trust with the community. So he turned to Michael Lee.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      How to Grow Old Like Isabella Rossellini

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      If you go to Isabella Rossellini’s Instagram page — and I recommend you do — you will see the 71-year-old actress/director/model/farmer wearing a giant woolly hat and vest, beaming with joy in the sunshine at her farm on Long Island. Another photo shows her staring off into the distance, her face proudly unretouched. Scrolling through, I often wonder how Rossellini is so comfortable in her own skin at an age when many women struggle in theirs.Rossellini’s early life was, in some ways, defined by other people’s fame. She looks strikingly like her mother, the Swedish Hollywood star Ingrid Bergman. Her father, the director Roberto Rossellini, was a giant of Italian cinema. She was married to Martin Scorsese, and another partner, David Lynch, famously directed her in the 1986 film “Blue Velvet.” But she also built her own interesting and varied career, becoming one of the most recognizable models in the world as the face of Lancôme until, in her 40s, the beauty brand dumped her for being too old. Rossellini was suddenly faced with a question, she told me, that she’s still working through today: “Who am I, and how do I fulfill the rest of my life?”The short answer is that she wrote books, went back to school, bought a farm, learned to be single, got rehired by Lancôme and kept acting. In the film “La Chimera,” directed by the Italian filmmaker Alice Rohrwacher and opening in theaters on March 29, Rossellini plays a Tuscan matriarch who’s aging with a lot less equanimity than Isabella herself. (She also has a small part in the new film “Spaceman,” starring Adam Sandler.) Rossellini just started “a little experiment with sheep” at her farm, partnering with design schools to help students better understand wool, and describes herself as diligently following whatever amuses her. “I just play,” she says. “I’m playful. And I became increasingly more playful with age.”I will confess that I have been slightly obsessing over your farm, where you are right now. It’s clearly both a refuge and also hard work. Did you always think this is what you’d be doing in your 70s? Because when I dream of my 70s, I’m not working quite as hard as you are. Well, you know, I say you need two ingredients to open a farm: optimism and ignorance. Optimism is like: Oh, it’s a piece of a dream, wouldn’t it be great to have it? Sure, I can do a farm! And ignorance is how hard it is — how hard it is workwise, but also to make it financially viable. All these little farms in the Hudson Valley or in Long Island, we are all struggling. How do you make it? Yet it’s such a contribution to the community, and it opened up so many possibilities and fills my mind with wonder, and I have to study hard to understand how to run it well.What is it about the hard work that you find so compelling? There are little farms that don’t exist anymore, because there’s no money and it’s a lot of work. So why do it? It started with my love for animals. I always had dogs and cats, and then my father, when I was 14 years old, gave me Konrad Lorenz’s book “King Solomon’s Ring.” Lorenz is a founder of the science of ethology — the science of animal behavior — and I read that book. It was like an illumination. This is what I want to do. And when I became older and there was less work as a model and as an actress and my children were grown up, I thought, Well, maybe I’ll go back to school and study ethology. And so in my 60s, I signed up.Ingrid Bergman and Roberto Rossellini in 1954 with their children, Isabella, Ingrid and Roberto.Keystone-France/Gamma-Rapho, via Getty ImagesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More