Arts & Culture

In an inaugural exhibition from the Harvard University Archives, staffers bring a few dozen awesome oddities into the light of day.

The Woodberry Poetry Room is sponsoring a series focused on rethinking the possibilities of the creative-writing workshop.

Three Harvard faculty members divulge an influential book in this installment of Harvard Bound.

Christopher E.G. Benfey lectured on “America,” a wall designed by Josef Albers, as part of GSD’s “Then and Now” series.

Scholars, others gathered Tuesday to reflect on the life and legacy of the late Nelson Mandela.

A music professor and director of Harvard’s Studio for Electroacoustic Composition is indulging his fascination with the visual arts as part of a fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute. Hans Tutschku is showing a series of photographs created in collaboration with students from Harvard’s Office for the Arts Dance Program.

Harvard’s Busch-Reisinger Museum opened in 1903 as the Germanic Museum, but since then, in a restless shifting of fates that characterizes many museums, has experienced displacements in space, role, and identity.

Judy Chicago speaks about feminism and art education at the Radcliffe Institute. A video of the discussion is available.

Mexican actor Diego Luna came to town to premiere his latest film, “Cesar Chavez,” to the Harvard community before its nationwide release. The film marks Luna’s directorial debut.

For the past three years, a Harvard College junior has employed statistics and percentages to predict many winners at the Academy Awards.

Three documentary filmmakers up for an Academy Award this Sunday all have ties to Harvard’s Department of Visual and Environmental Studies, a longstanding, multidisciplinary program with a strong commitment to nonfiction film.

Artist David Taylor’s most recent work is a series of photographs that capture images of the monuments that mark the United States’ border with Mexico, as well as some of the people and activities he encountered in his work. “Working the Line” on display at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies.

Max Tan ’15 will be the featured violin soloist during a March concert by the Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra.

Bearing the lessons that long-term, immersive reporting can teach, journalist Katherine Boo, who writes about poverty, spent a week at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design as a senior Loeb Fellow.

Hip-hop star and actor LL Cool J came to Harvard over the weekend, pulling double duty as host of the Cultural Rhythms festival and the Harvard Foundation’s Artist of the Year.

An experience in Uganda helping orphans get schooling is at the heart of “Witness Uganda,” a new production directed by Diane Paulus at the American Repertory Theater.

Joint exhibitions at Houghton Library and Loeb Music Library mark the 300th anniversary of composer C.P.E. Bach’s birth and the first publication of his complete works, as well as discoveries and acquisitions that were made along the way.

“Fortunes of the Western,” a new series at the Harvard Film Archive, draws back the curtain on the golden age of Westerns following World War II. The series continues through March 22.

A new take on Black History Month at Harvard initiates a conversation about evolving black identity, through the lenses of Africa and art history.

Harvard’s Villa I Tatti, a treasure of Italian Renaissance scholarship since 1961, has launched an oral history site on its origins with Bernard Berenson, Class of 1887, and its transition from villa to a center for scholars.

In honor of Valentine’s Day, the Gazette partnered with the Woodberry Poetry Room in selecting a poem fitting of the holiday devoted to love.

Michael Kimmelman of The New York Times talks about the importance of public space, his role as a critic, and the art and beauty of architecture. Kimmelman spoke at the Radcliffe Institute on Feb. 6.

Photographer and arts historian Deborah Willis launches the Hutchins Center’s spring series of noontime lectures with a look at modern artists and their radical, racial alterations of iconic art.

Jazz pianist Herbie Hancock begins his post as the 2014 Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard with some wisdom from Miles Davis. Hancock’s next lecture, “Breaking the Rules” will take place Feb. 12.

“The Monuments Men,” a based-on-a-true-story World War II action film that opens in theaters Friday, depicts an international team of middle-aged art experts in uniform who are racing to liberate priceless art from the Nazis. Many of the real-life team members were Harvard-trained.

During Wintersession, nine College students traveled to New York City as A.R.T. interns to help Artistic Director Diane Paulus and her production team in the exciting, exhaustive process of bringing a new production to life. The musical “Witness Uganda” will have its world premiere at the A.R.T. on Feb. 4.

Wynton Marsalis and an all-star ensemble gave a capacity crowd at Sanders Theater a musical history of the roots of jazz in New Orleans.

A visit by a master of traditional Japanese carpentry launches an unusual Harvard exhibit of tools, techniques, and woods that have been used for centuries.

Lauren Greenfield ’87 spoke with a Harvard audience about her 25 years of experience as a photographer and filmmaker as part of the Office for the Arts’ “Harvard JAMS!” series. The sessions connect students and members of the Harvard community with alumni who have made a career in entertainment or the arts.

Broadway star Brian Stokes Mitchell delivers a master class on song interpretation as part of Harvard’s Wintersession program.