Sophie Haigney

Singleton, 51, had a stroke April 17 and was hospitalized in an intensive care unit. At the time, his family said in a statement that he was under “great medical care.”

A native of South Los Angeles, Singleton has directed more than 10 films and TV series, including the recent FX crime drama “Snowfall” starring Damson Idris. Singleton was nominated for an Oscar for best director for “Boyz N the Hood,” his debut feature film. He has also directed classics like “Poetic Justice” and “Rosewood.”

His mother, Shelia Ward, filed papers in court in Los Angeles on Thursday seeking to be named his conservator, or guardian. In the papers, according to The Associated Press, Ward said her son was in a coma.

The papers say that at the time of the stroke, Singleton was engaged in several business deals and had been set to sign a lucrative settlement agreement on or around April 30. The documents say that if a conservator cannot sign the papers on his behalf, it will mean a big financial loss.

In an email to The New York Times, his daughter Cleopatra Singleton disputed Ward’s claim about her father’s condition. “My father is not in a coma,” Singleton said. “My father had a stroke on April 17, 2019, and at this point we are optimistic about a full recovery.”

“Myself, several of my siblings, and my father’s father will oppose my grandmother’s application to be appointed my father’s legal conservator,” she continued.

She said that the family is to have a hearing Friday “on whether or not my grandmother should become the temporary conservator over my father’s personal and business estate.”

It is not the first time his family has feuded publicly — one of his sons wrote an open letter in 2016 accusing Singleton’s mother of being manipulative and controlling. Singleton’s lawyer, agent and manager declined to comment on his condition.

A lawyer for his mother did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/26/movies/john-singleton-coma.html" id="75d46b46-95f1-3e87-ac3b-87aa518eaba3">The New York Times</a>.

The family of John Singleton, the director, producer, and screenwriter best known for his 1991 film “Boyz N the Hood,” is fighting for control of his business affairs after he suffered a stroke. His mother is seeking to be appointed his temporary conservator and claims Singleton is in a coma, which several of his children dispute.

John Singleton's Family Fights for Control of His Affairs After Stroke

The exhibition, “Treasures From Chatsworth,” will open to the public June 28 in New York in Sotheby’s newly renovated galleries. Admission will be free.

Korins said his “aha moment” came last summer when he was staying at Chatsworth, home to the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, for several days as he was conceiving the exhibition. He had gotten up early and sat for a long time in one room.

“I began to really let my eyes wander around the room, and not just the big beautiful pieces of art but the furniture and the corners of the room,” he said. He realized that he didn’t just want to make the artwork and objects part of the exhibition; he wanted to include the details of the house itself. In the form of blown-up 360-degree sculptures, Korins will magnify small details — table legs, moldings, chair feet, corners of rooms — and use them as vitrines and set pieces for the artworks and objects on display.

The exhibition will feature 45 artworks, decorative objects, pieces of jewelry, clothing and archive materials — all drawn from the Devonshire Collection, accumulated over about 500 years by the Cavendish family and held at Chatsworth House.

The large stately home made was made famous by its use in the 2005 film “Pride and Prejudice” as Mr. Darcy’s Pemberley. (Some believe that Jane Austen originally based Pemberley on Chatsworth.) Today, the house is partially open to the public but remains a private residence for the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire.

Among the objects coming to the United States are a portrait by Rembrandt; two Canaletto paintings of Venice; a stunning veiled marble sculpture by Raffaele Monti; and two Lucian Freud portraits, of the 11th Duke of Devonshire and his wife, the duchess.

“The collection is really quite eclectic because different members of my family, different ancestors inevitably had different taste,” said Peregrine Andrew Morny Cavendish, known as Stoker, the current Duke of Devonshire. “An interesting thing about the collection is that it’s a continuum. It’s not just one or two generations, but nearly 500 years of them.”

He said that many things in the collection have gone through cycles of use and disuse, going out of fashion and coming into it again. He described a set of chairs by designer Joseph Walsh, which the family now uses most days in the dining room. One day, he said, “they’ll be put in a glass case.”

The Duke of Devonshire said he’s thrilled by Korins’ imaginative design for the exhibition. “I think he has a brilliant way of getting across a grand space in a smaller space,” he said. “I think the architecture of this exhibition will focus attention on the works, and we’ll look at them in a different sort of way.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/05/arts/design/sothebys-hamilton-chatsworth-house.html" id="e5f5845c-217c-33eb-a57e-0b05fb185bf6">The New York Times</a>.

David Korins, a creative director and designer whose work includes the set design for “Hamilton,” had a challenge: designing an exhibition for Sotheby’s from the large, varied family collection held at the historic Chatsworth House in Derbyshire, England. He said he wondered, “How can I bring the experience of a really permanent, physically permanent place to New York City and give guests the feeling of what it’s like in the DNA of that experience?”

'Hamilton' Set Designer Goes Whimsical

On the main plaza between 30 Rockefeller Plaza and the skating rink, seven sculptures appeared, among them a split stone, a door of sorts and a raised fist that morphs into a gramophone. On Fifth Avenue, a white head with disembodied hands over its eyes loomed at 28 feet.

Even the entrances to several buildings were made new overnight, with sculptures tucked into lobbies.

These pieces, all for sale by galleries, are part of the inaugural edition of Frieze Sculpture at Rockefeller Center, a public art installation that opened to the public April 25 and will be up until June 28. It features 20 sculptures by 14 artists, placed like Easter eggs around the whole of Rockefeller Center. The initiative, presented by Frieze New York and Tishman Speyer, which owns Rockefeller Center, is expanding the Randalls Island-based art fair’s footprint into Manhattan with work by artists including Hank Willis Thomas, Kiki Smith, Ibrahim Mahama, Sarah Sze, Walter De Maria and Joan Miró.

The display is meant “to do something outside of our five-day event where we engage with people in the city who may not be people who come out to an art fair,” said Loring Randolph, Frieze’s artistic director for the Americas. “This is a free, open-platform experience that anyone can go to and learn from.”

It was inspired in part by Frieze Sculpture in Regent’s Park, an offshoot of the London fair, but its highly urban setting, in one of the most heavily trafficked parts of the city, sets it apart. Brett Littman, director of the Noguchi Museum, is the curator.

Conversation around public sculpture has been fraught lately, particularly since the unveiling of Thomas Heatherwick’s much-maligned Vessel at Hudson Yards, which was called “ruinously manspreading” by Michael Kimmelman, The New York Times architecture critic.

Then there are those strange bronze rabbits and rhinos and dogs that keep popping up around the city, often through commissions from business improvement districts.

With all this in mind, curators of public sculpture are wondering how to do better. How can one bring public sculpture responsibly to a city that suffers from the homogenization of space? (“It’s a huge responsibility,” Randolph said. “We take that very seriously.”)

The Frieze installation’s approach is largely about balance, variety and small-scale sculpture. Littman selected a wide variety of artists — most of them living and working today — and placed them in conversation with the spaces they are in. In addition to the lobbies, he used the flagpoles and even a small space in a garden, where four of Rochelle Goldberg’s sculptures are displayed.

“As much as I love monumental sculpture, I think there is a great way of showing nonmonumental sculpture in the middle of the city, and to have quiet moments and contemplation,” Littman said. (There is a monumental piece, too, in the large head with covered eyes — Jaume Plensa’s “Behind the Walls,” which Littman noted would “probably be the most Instagrammed and photographed part of the show.”)

Littman’s approach was also in part about the history of public art in and around Rockefeller Center. Loring and Littman said their thinking about the fair began with Isamu Noguchi’s “News,” a bas-relief commissioned by The Associated Press in 1938 that depicts five journalists in action.

When it was unveiled in 1940 with great fanfare, it was the largest and heaviest stainless steel sculpture ever made.

The work inspired Randolph to ask Littman to curate the show because of his leadership of the Noguchi Museum. “I wanted to tie in a relationship with an object that had existed there historically,” she said.

The politics of sculpture in the center have long been complicated, too; Nelson Rockefeller had a mural painted by Diego Rivera at 30 Rockefeller Plaza destroyed in 1934 because it included a portrait of Lenin.

There are several overtly political pieces in the installation — including Mahama’s replacement of the United Nations flags, a critique of globalism that deals with labor, transportation of materials and the history of trade — that may not translate so obviously into an Instagram post.

Representation of artists was also an important part of Littman’s curatorial approach; he said he had to “actively fight” to have female artists represented in the show, after most galleries proposed men. Four of the 14 artists represented are women, which, Littman said, “is not a fantastic rate, but it’s better than zero.” Many of the artists featured are not white and not American. “For me, it was about democratizing the sculpture park,” he said.

It was also, he said, about shrinking the scale and exploring new spaces in the city-within-a-city that Rockefeller Center is. “In some ways, maybe New York City is the giant sculpture,” he said, “and maybe the sculpture in it doesn’t need to be giant.”

This article originally appeared in <a id="7e2d1e4c-ecbd-33b9-aa77-5c09f45f7eea" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/01/arts/sculpture-frieze-new-york-.html">The New York Times</a>.

With sculpture, Frieze expands to Manhattan

NEW YORK — Rockefeller Center was transformed over four nights. The flags of the countries in the United Nations, which normally surround the skating rink, were taken down and replaced with recycled jute bags once used to carry coffee, concrete and other materials.

<h1>Brooklyn, New York-based playwright Jackie Sibblies Drury won the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize on Monday for “Fairview,” her much-lauded play that deals with issues of race and family — and one particular family preparing for an important dinner.</h1>

The Blackburn Prize — which comes with $25,000, as well as a signed print by Willem de Kooning — is awarded every year to a woman who writes for the English-language theater.

Drury’s “Fairview” was co-commissioned by Berkeley Repertory Theatre in California and Soho Rep in Manhattan, and debuted to sold-out theaters at both places in 2018. Sarah Benson was the director. After its run at the Soho Rep was extended three times, “Fairview” will go to Theater for a New Audience in Brooklyn this June. It will also have its London premiere in November.

“It’s exciting, and it’s surprising,” Drury, 37, said in an interview Monday. “When we were working on the play, I think no one really had a sense of whether or not it would be received well. I was just excited to experiment, so to have it win a prize, and going to London is sort of surreal.”

“Fairview” was critically acclaimed and popular, but it is by no means a simple play. It starts as a family comedy, about an extended black family preparing for the grandmother’s birthday dinner. But, New York Times co-chief theater critic Ben Brantley wrote, it moves into unexpected and uncomfortable territory: “And then abruptly you’re free-falling down a rabbit hole, and there’s no safe landing in sight.” (He also called the play “dazzling” and “extraordinary”).

Along with Drury, nine finalists for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize were honored and received $5,000 each. Among the finalists for this year’s prize was Lily Padilla, for her play “How to Defend Yourself.” Last week, Padilla won the Yale Drama Series Prize for that play.

Past winners of the Blackburn Prize have included Sarah Ruhl, Annie Baker and Wendy Wasserstein. Last year, Alice Birch won for her play “Anatomy of a Suicide.”

Drury’s latest play, “Marys Seacole,” opened last week at Claire Tow Theater in a Lincoln Center production. “It has been a really exciting and slightly intense year,” she said. “I’ve never worked on two things so close together, so it will be exciting to take a moment and spend some time reading and thinking.”

This article originally appeared in <a id="1dcaa9d2-2407-48cf-9717-0d8352fb1af6" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/04/theater/jackie-sibblies-drury-blackburn-prize-fairview.html">The New York Times</a>.

Jackie Sibblies Drury Wins the Blackburn Prize for 'Fairview'

Drury’s “Fairview” was co-commissioned by Berkeley Repertory Theatre in California and Soho Rep in Manhattan, and debuted to sold-out theaters at both places in 2018.

Jackie Sibblies Drury wins the Blackburn Prize for 'Fairview'

<h1>A stunt that went wrong on the set of the TV show “L.A.&amp;#x27;s Finest” last week, leaving two producers injured, is the latest in a string of incidents that have drawn renewed attention to the dangers of stunt work. It came just days after the Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited a subsidiary of CBS for a stunt-related injury, and after a lawsuit was filed by the widow of a man who worked as a stunt double.</h1>

The “L.A.'s Finest” accident, which occurred Thursday on the set of the drama series, involved a stunt with a vehicle. “The vehicle’s trajectory led to a collision with set pieces in the safe viewing area,” said Philip Sokoloski, a spokesman for FilmLA, the official film office for the city and county of Los Angeles. The show is produced by Sony Pictures Television and is set to premiere this spring on Spectrum as the cable provider’s first original series.

The two producers who were injured were transported to two different hospitals in the area for treatment, Sokoloski said. He said that filming scheduled for Friday had been postponed.

The Sony Pictures Television president, Jeff Frost, and co-presidents, Chris Parnell and Jason Clodfelter, said in a statement: “Our hearts go out to our SPT family members who were injured, and we pray for a full recovery.” The California Division of Occupational Safety and Health, Cal/OSHA, confirmed that it was investigating the accident.

Stunt work is a sometimes dangerous and physically difficult subset of the entertainment industry. In a report in The New York Times in 2017, some stuntmen and women described a macho culture and a “gung-ho mentality.” Safety concerns have been raised for decades, especially after the death of an actor and two children in a helicopter crash on the set of “Twilight Zone: The Movie” in 1982, but there has been little success in efforts toward regulation.

Fatalities are uncommon, although in 2017, a stuntwoman died on the set of “Deadpool 2” and a stuntman died on the set of “The Walking Dead.” Data about injuries on sets are sketchy and unreliable, as are most workplace safety statistics, which largely rely on information self-reported by employers.

But recent regulatory action brought some safety issues to light again: Last week, OSHA cited Eye Productions Inc., a division of CBS, for “failing to protect employees from hazards” in August. A man was injured on the set of “MacGyver” while performing a stunt on a moving vehicle traveling at 18 mph; OSHA said he did not have “adequate head protection.” The proposed penalty is $9,472.

A representative for CBS declined to comment on the citation and the fine.

Also last week, the widow of former football player and stunt double Darryl Hammond filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court that named The Walt Disney Co., Paramount Pictures and Columbia Pictures as defendants, along with the Arena Football League. The suit claims that while filming movies including “The Longest Yard” and “Invincible,” Hammond, who died in 2017, suffered traumatic head injuries that exposed him to neurodegenerative diseases. It alleges negligence, wrongful death and breach of contract, among other things.

Representatives for Disney and Paramount did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the lawsuit; a spokeswoman for Sony Pictures Entertainment, of which Columbia Pictures is a subsidiary, declined to comment.

This article originally appeared in <a id="3957316a-9198-44ab-9248-9902d8df0a2e" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/25/arts/television/stunt-accidents-penalty-safety.html">The New York Times</a>.

An accident and a penalty renew attention to stunt safety

The “L.A.'s Finest” accident, which occurred Thursday on the set of the drama series, involved a stunt with a vehicle.

<h1>Four books by the widely celebrated artist and writer Tomi Ungerer, who died this month, will be rereleased this fall, in a revival of his oeuvre for adults.</h1>

Fantagraphics Books, a Seattle-based imprint that specializes in comics and graphic novels, will republish Ungerer’s “The Underground Sketchbook,” “The Party,” “Babylon” and “Adam and Eve,” beginning in the fall.

Ungerer was perhaps best known, especially in the United States, for his children’s books. He created the “Mellops” series, about a family of pigs and their misadventures, which included spelunking, striking oil and diving for treasure. He also wrote and illustrated the classic children’s book, “Crictor,” about a boa constrictor who manages to become a local hero.

But Ungerer also worked in decidedly adult realms: He made anti-war posters during the Vietnam War and in 1969 published “Fornicon,” a series of comical but erotic drawings that shocked the public and was removed from libraries. In 2015, some of this work was displayed at the Drawing Center in a survey, but much of it is out of print in the United States.

Gary Groth, the publisher of Fantagraphics Books, interviewed Ungerer last year for an issue of “Comics Journal” and was surprised by how difficult it was to find Ungerer’s books.

“Most of his books weren’t available in the States anymore, which was a terrible shame,” Groth said in an interview Tuesday. “I wanted to reintroduce the American public to his work, especially his satirical works.”

The four books will be released over the course of about 18 months, beginning with “The Underground Sketchbook” in October. That book, first published in 1964, is an exploration of Ungerer’s subconscious and worldview. When it was first published, The New York Times described it as “modishly macabre.” Groth said that its dark humor and visual puns “really did influence a generation of comics.”

Groth said that he is in awe not only of Ungerer’s drawing skill but also of his “conceptual skill, which was clever and ingenious and wildly outrageous.” Groth described his worldview as “nihilistic with a leavening degree of humor and pathos.”

This article originally appeared in <a id="1f68e852-2a3e-40a5-9a27-e178c217f7de" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/19/arts/tomi-ungerer-the-underground-sketchbook.html">The New York Times</a>.

Ungerer's books, for adults, to be rereleased

Fantagraphics Books, a Seattle-based imprint that specializes in comics and graphic novels, will republish Ungerer’s “The Underground Sketchbook,” “The Party,” “Babylon” and “Adam and Eve,” beginning in the fall.

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