The New York Times - USA (2020-08-07)

FRIDAY, AUGUST 7, 2020 C1

N

NEWS CRITICISM

3 BOOKS

‘Twilight,’ from

the vampire’s

perspective.

BY CONCEPCIÓN DE LEÓN

Meredith Bergmann with a monument

featuring the suffragists Susan B. Anthony,

Sojourner Truth and Elizabeth Cady Stanton

to be unveiled on Aug. 26 in Central Park. Page 5.

THE SHOULDERS

OF GIANTS

ABOUT 17,000 YEARS AGO,in the caves of Las-

caux, France, our ancestors drew on grotto

walls, depicting equines, stags, bison, au-

rochs and felines. They wanted to convey to

other humans a political reality crucial to

their survival: They shared their envi-

ronment with other beings that looked and

behaved differently from them.

Those early artisans drew these crea-

tures over and over, most likely fascinated

by their forms and their powers, but also in-

tuiting that whatever happened to the ani-

mals would almost certainly be a harbinger

of what would happen to humans. The pres-

ence of the bison and stags, their physical

fitness and numbers, their mass migra-

tions, would have indicated the onset of

plagues or cataclysmic weather systems.

Containing some 15,000 paintings and en-

gravings from the Upper Paleolithic era, the

caves in Southwestern France were not

simply an exhibition space for local talent.

They essentially constituted a public

square where a community shared critical

knowledge.

These portraits and discrete stories are

not very different from our contemporary

forums: the street art adorning boarded-up

storefronts in New York City. They tell us

about our shared political realities, the peo-

ple we coexist with in social space and the

Listen to the Thunder

Once scrawled in caves, urgent

messages now fill city streets.

SIMBARASHE CHA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

SEPH RODNEY CRITIC’S NOTEBOOK

Left, a detail from a

larger work of street art

featuring a protest

organizer, by Manuel

Pulla, on Crosby Street

in Manhattan.

CONTINUED ON PAGE C6

7 TELEVISION REVIEW

Setting phasers

on funny in the

final frontier.

BY MIKE HALE

10 FILM

With an Iranian

director, looks can

be deceiving.

BY BEN KENIGSBERG

YAEL MALKA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES