Time Sensitive

From the archive: The late artist, jewelry-maker, and metalsmith Daniel Brush, who died on Nov. 26, 2022, at age 75, talks about memory (and interpretations of memory); his deep, monkish engagement with a wide variety …

For the American-born chef and restaurateur Ruth Rogers, owner of the Michelin-starred River Cafe on the north bank of the Thames in London’s …

One small step for Mikkel Vestergaard Frandsen, one giant leap for mankind. So goes the story of several of the entrepreneur, philanthropist, and humanitarian’s pursuits over the past three decades. At present the …

The artist Hank Willis Thomas is a voracious reader, not only of books, but of the world around us—and particularly, of images. Through his practice, …

The Swiss-born, Brooklyn-based designer Tina Roth Eisenberg has, over the past 15 years or so, built a cult following of creatives around the world …

Across his four-decade-long career in graphic design, Michael Bierut has amassed an impressively robust tally of bold-faced clients. From The New …

As the New York restaurant Le Bernardin celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, chef Eric Ripert humbly reflects on his three-plus decades there. …

The architect Brad Cloepfil views his work as less of a job and more of a calling. Sites speak to him. He listens with his eyes. When embarking on a project, Cloepfil slowly feels out the place, studying its …

To Annie-B Parson, choreography isn’t confined to the studio and the stage; rather, practically everything around us abounds with movement that’s worth paying attention to. In her new, aptly titled book, The …

If there were a bard for our bewildering times, Saeed Jones would be a fitting choice. In his newly released collection of poems, Alive at the End of …

Peter Saville is a man of the moment—and has been, again and again, throughout the past five decades. Raised in Manchester, England, in the …

Roxane Gay describes her wild trajectory as a multihyphenate writer-editor-publisher-professor-social commentator as “fairly bewildering.” And she’s …

For the past five decades, the British-born, New York–based artist Jamie Nares has been capturing the passage of time, the physics of motion, and the essence of self through a wide variety of mediums, including film, …

Xiye Bastida was quite literally born into environmentalism. Throughout her upbringing in San Pedro Tultepec, Mexico, and later in New York City, …

Fashion designer Rachel Comey has always done things in a tightly focused way—and on her own terms. For more than two decades, she has followed an …

For Céline Semaan, the founder of Slow Factory, a nonprofit dedicated to advancing climate justice and social equity, no obstacle is too big—or too conceptual—to surmount. Underlying all of Slow Factory’s efforts is the …

For writer, comedian, and cultural critic Baratunde Thurston, host of the How to Citizen podcast, humility is a tool to connect with people—and to …

Author and translator Jhumpa Lahiri grew up in what she has called “a linguistic exile.” Born in London to Bengali immigrants who moved to the United States when she was 3, Lahiri experienced a profound sense of …

Jancis Robinson wrote the book on wine. Literally. The author of the first four editions of the definitive Oxford Companion to Wine, she has also published some 20 books on the subject and more than 1,500 articles for …

Israeli singer-songwriter David Broza believes that music can unite people across cultures and has spent the past 45 years showing audiences how it …

If life is a garden, the writer, editor, and craftsperson Deborah Needleman certainly knows how to dig and cultivate it. Early in her career, she …

Bethann Hardison has, with great finesse, risen to become among the most vital voices in fashion. A self-described “advocate” who currently serves as …

There is perhaps no one on the planet with a bigger-picture view on the impact of design—in all of its manifestations—than Paola Antonelli. As the …

Alfredo Jaar illuminates truths that often escape popular consciousness. Through his work, the artist and filmmaker raises awareness about …

Dan Barber is on a mission to quite literally plant seeds for a better future. Around a decade ago, after learning that the nation’s largest food companies rarely breed food for flavor—and instead select for …

John Hoke, Nike’s chief design officer, intimately understands how to move design from an object to a feeling. At the company over the past three decades, he has refined his approach to center around creating designs …

Claudia Rankine cuts to the chase. She does not mince her words. The poet, essayist, playwright, and educator—whose recent body of work analyzes white supremacy in America—looks closely at its subtle and not-so-subtle …

Kenny Schachter has an insatiable appetite for all things art. The polymathic art dealer, curator, teacher, writer, critic, collector, and …

For Reginald Dwayne Betts—a poet, lawyer, and activist who supports and contributes to prison decarceration efforts—reading and writing have a mind-expanding power that never wanes. The author of three books of poetry …

Maggie Doyne, who co-founded the BlinkNow Foundation nonprofit at age 19, discusses how, over the past 13 years, she has developed a school, …

Michael Murphy believes in architecture that promotes connectivity, collectivity, and health, in the broadest sense of the term. As the founding …

David Wallace-Wells, author of the best-selling book The Uninhabitable Earth and New York magazine’s editor-at-large, wields vivid language that …

Trumpeter and composer Wynton Marsalis, the managing and artistic director of New York’s Jazz at Lincoln Center (JALC), is a man bursting with …

When Siri Hustvedt was 12 years old, she began reading 19th-century novels by Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters, Charles Dickens, and Mark Twain that …

Throughout his life, Daniel Humm has constantly pushed himself to the edge. So when Covid-19 arrived, he understood the importance of a quick pivot. Forced to close Eleven Madison Park—his three-Michelin-star Manhattan …

The poet, educator, and scholar Elizabeth Alexander, president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, views her work as an urgent political act. …

Artist and designer Debbie Millman has been fascinated by the power of branding for most of her life. And as the host of the Design Matters podcast (which was recently translated into a book, out next month) and chair …

For curator and scholar Glenn Adamson, craft isn’t a quirky hobby that sits on the outskirts of contemporary culture. Rather, it’s a vital, timeless …

Trevor Paglen aspires to see the unseen. The artist explores the act of looking through various angles—such as how artificial-intelligence systems have been trained to “see” and categorize the world, or the disquieting …

When describing experiences, New York–based artist and author Maira Kalman almost always goes for the extremes: an instance can be at once stupid and …

Kevin Beasley thinks a lot about objects. In particular, specific objects that relate to notions of American-ness and Blackness—and ones that are …

For Grammy Award–winning singer and songwriter Rosanne Cash, processing the past is a constant, endless journey. She’d been thinking about race and reparations long before the Movement for Black Lives gained momentum …

Growing up in the 1950s in the only Chinese family in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey, Billie Tsien always felt like an outsider. She would seclude …

For 37 years, Eileen Fisher has faithfully followed a vision: to create simple, timeless clothes for women that make it easy to get dressed. …

Last year, after more than three decades of practicing and teaching Ashtanga yoga, Eddie Stern found himself wondering if he should continue in the …

Simon Critchley has seen his share of accidents. In his younger years, he damaged his hands while working in manufacturing plants, and ruined his hearing by rehearsing with a punk band in spaces with subpar acoustics. …

New York–based jewelry and object designer Monique Péan sees fossils and extraterrestrial materials as portals to another time, space, and place. …

Artist Dan Colen built Sky High Farm in the same way all his ideas are realized: intuitively, and with the faith to see it through. A 40-acre …

To make her namesake womenswear line, New York–based designer Angel Chang had to forget everything she knew about fashion. Her label’s clothing is …

Asked how the coronavirus pandemic has affected his relationship with time, Daniel Boulud chokes up. The New York–based French chef—who owns 13 …

Tom Kundig brings a refreshingly laid-back, aw-shucks, go-with-the-flow attitude to an industry that seems, on the whole, largely to lack that kind …

Over the past decade—and especially in the last year—the Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama has swiftly risen to become one of the most prominent African voices in art. At age 32, he has already exhibited at the Biennale of …

Julia Watson is really into TEK. Not necessarily the Silicon Valley variety of tech, but rather traditional ecological knowledge. An anthropologist, …

Since establishing the Pioneer Works nonprofit cultural center in Brooklyn’s Red Hook neighborhood in 2013, artist Dustin Yellin has slowly grown the …

Nathan Myhrvold is no ordinary chef. With two master’s degrees (one in mathematical economics, the other in geophysics and space physics) and a Ph.D. …

Since launching her eponymous label in 2015, the Uruguayan-born, New York–based designer Gabriela Hearst has become known for her sincere, forward-thinking approach to sustainability; her slow-growth business ethos; the …

In both his work and his life, Tony Fadell constantly imagines Version 2.0 (if not 3.0, or 4.0 and beyond). On a mission to shape the future through forward-thinking design, engineering, invention, and investing, he is …

Suketu Mehta tells a story about pinkie fingers, dancing and kissing. It is as confounding as it sounds. And utterly heartbreaking, too. In his assertive and essential new book, This Land Is Our Land: An Immigrant’s …

The Dutch-born trend forecaster Lidewij Edelkoort, founder of the Paris-based consultancy Trend Union, has a knack for being ahead of the curve. In …

Craig Robins strongly believes that all good things take time. Since launching his vast real estate enterprise Dacra in 1987, at age 24, he has, with …

Christian Madsbjerg makes sense. Literally and figuratively, in all the definitions of the phrase. With roots in philosophy and political science, …

Many people turn to spiritual professionals such as astrologists and tarot card readers to help answer life’s most essential and cosmic questions. …

Growing up in Evanston, Illinois, the artist Rashid Johnson had a “mixed bag”—racially, at least—of close friends. There were, he says, “four black guys, two Asian guys, two Jewish guys, a white English guy.…” They …

It’s safe to say that, if it weren’t for art historian RoseLee Goldberg, performance art would not be what it is today. Not even close. The founder …

Daniel Brush’s acute eye for detail, as well as the rigor and vigor he brings to his craft, comes through loud and clear in all of his creations. A poet of materiality, he is at once a metalworker, a jewelry-maker, a …

Inge Solheim is a free spirit, a new-age explorer, and a wilderness guide-guru whose sense of freedom hinges upon not caring, at all, about what …

David Duchovny may be swooned over as the hunky special agent Fox William Mulder in The X-Files and Hank Moody in Californication, but it should be …

Jesse Kamm and her beloved waist-hugging, wide-legged “Kamm pants” embody minimalism. A proponent of producing fewer, better things, Kamm has committed to supporting local craftspeople by making all of her garments in …

Sophia Chang pulls no punches. As the self-described (and indeed) “first Asian woman in hip hop,” Chang carries herself—happily, proudly—with the …

Kim Hastreiter identifies as a “punk at heart.” The co-founder of Paper magazine, which she started in 1984 with David Hershkovits, she served as the publication’s co-editor-in-chief until handing it off, in 2017. At …

Cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel has no style. No singular aesthetic, mood, or technique. Rather, his focus is on storytelling. From being the …

Neri Oxman is simultaneously a hardcore ecologist, evocative futurist, meticulous artist, and abstract scientist. The 43-year-old Israeli-American …

Valerie Steele’s deep contextual dives into the history of fashion set her apart from other academics and curators—two identities she embodies in equal parts. The chief curator and director of the Museum at the Fashion …

Michael Kimmelman does nothing in half measures. For more than 30 years, he has brought his assertive, culturally astute, historically sensitive …

Andrea Illy breathes coffee. Not literally, of course, but coffee has indeed been a part of his being since birth. The third-generation head of Illycaffè, he is the company’s chairman and, with CEO Massimiliano …

New Jersey native Maggie Doyne was age 18 when she arrived in Nepal, 19 when she had co-founded the BlinkNow Foundation nonprofit to support children in the district of Surkhet, and by 25, she had become a mother to 40 …

Thirty years ago, on July 19, 1989, at 37,000 feet in the air, the titanium fan disk in the tail-mounted engine of United Airlines Flight 232—a DC-10 …

Few executives have the profoundly spiritual presence of Ivy Ross, who more than five years ago joined Google as a vice president, helping to lead the launch of the second edition of Glass at Google X and for the past …

For the past two decades, Andri Snær Magnason has been on a quest for language that truly gets at the heart of the climate crisis—the images, …

When Elizabeth Diller graduated from Cooper Union with a degree in architecture in 1979, she had no intention of necessarily becoming an architect. …

Ten years ago, the Austrian-born, New York–based graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister—famous for his attention-grabbing exhibitions, posters, and books, as well as for his impeccable album covers for bands like The …

Uzodinma Iweala’s journey to becoming the CEO of the Africa Center, a culture and policy institution located on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan at the …

The media tends to hyperbolize and boosterize technologists and the work that they do, creating all kinds of absurdly over-the-top titles for them. …

Teresita Fernández defies expectations. For more than 20 years, the Miami-born, Brooklyn-based artist has pushed boundaries, literally and …

Bjarke Ingels communicates the value—and world-changing potential—of architecture with the giddy enthusiasm and excitement of a sci-fi obsessive …

Kate Young, the stylist for red carpet luminaries such as Selena Gomez, Margot Robbie, and Michelle Williams, has one of the shrewdest eyes in the business. Given her background—she comes from a family of competitive …

Jon Gray, the CEO of the Bronx-based food collective Ghetto Gastro, describes himself as a “dishwasher.” It’s a cheeky description, but there is a …

The actor Peter Sarsgaard cannot be pinned down. He may be best-known for his portrayal of John Lotter in 1999’s Boy’s Don’t Cry. Or as Charles Lane …

“Why make a podcast right now?” So begins this 10-minute introductory episode of Time Sensitive, a conversation between the show’s two co-hosts, Spencer Bailey and Andrew Zuckerman. Time Sensitive is the debut platform …