Artist Kehinde Wiley recently spoke with The Economist about a new series of his immediately recognizable portraits, made during his travels in Israel.  Part of his World Stage series, the new works explore new facets of the complex mesh of ethnic identities and personal politics at play in the Middle Eastern state.  “Mostly I worked with friends of friends,” Mr Wiley says. “I wanted to work with males, ages 18 to 35, who in some way were dealing with or challenging the anxiety and narcissism of youth-entertainment culture.” (more…)

The Economist reviews art collector and businessman, Eli Broad‘s new book ‘The Art of Being Unreasonable: Lessons in Unconventional Thinking.’ “His personality comes through clearly enough, though one can quibble over whether his choice of ‘unreasonable’ to describe it is exactly right. Mr. Broad means it in the same way George Bernard Shaw did, when he said that the unreasonable man ‘persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends upon the unreasonable man.'”

(more…)