The Art Class

Agree with him or not, it’s impossible to argue that National Magazine Award-winning writer and editor Lewis Lapham ever talks down to a reader. In scores of columns for Harper’s, the magazine he edited for almost three decades, and in his own Lapham’s Quarterly, he demands to be met on his own singular level. Writing in the latest issue of Quarterly, for example, he lays out a history of the arts (and the politics and class surrounding them) in this country before observing the American present: “The opinion polls report two-thirds of the citizenry defining art as a necessity, but for the most part it is a constituency in the market for distraction, more interested in what Van Gogh’s deranged hand did to his ear than what his incomparable eye saw in the sunlight at Arles.” Tonight at the Kansas City, Missouri, Central Library (14 West 10th Street), Lapham expounds on that thesis, calling for a renewal of emphasis on the humanities in education. The talk starts at 6:30; to reserve a place, call 816-701-3407 or see kclibrary.org.

Wed., April 7, 6 p.m., 2010