I just returned from a Maine cabin by a large freshwater lake, where I was frightened of the water. Sharks might maul me, or if not sharks, then perhaps a large snapping turtle out of a Roger Corman film (not that I can recall a Corman film with a killer turtle).

Festival Director Dieter Kosslick. Photo: Amelie Losier. © Berlinale 2010

MoMA has described me as a Culinary Cineaste and given me Carte Blanche to select some of my favorite food films. My sincere thanks to MoMA and to Rajendra Roy for inviting me. What a pleasure and honor, because food is vital, and not just to me.

Installation view of Talk to Me: Design and the Communication between People and Objects at The Museum of Modern Art, 2011. Photo © Scott Rudd

The exhibition Talk to Me: Design and the Communication between People and Objects is up and running in our Special Exhibitions Gallery on the third floor. The public is behaving just the way we dreamt they would, not only diving into individual exhibits, reading, taking pictures and videos, clicking and dragging, and listening, but also taking full advantage of the interactive features in the galleries and beyond.

The multidisciplinary teams working on projects for the exhibition Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream have one month left in the workshop phase before the final public Open Studios at MoMA PS1 on Saturday, September 17, 2011. Here, they summarize their progress and outstanding concerns as they move towards finalizing their respective projects.

Clifford Owens. Anthology (Saya Woolfalk score). performance still

Clifford Owens needed help. Since May he has been in residence at MoMA PS1 where has been preparing for his fall exhibition Anthology. Owens has been interpreting and carrying out performance scores written by African-American artists. While most scores are written instructions for actions, Saya Woolfalk’s contribution is a graphical score that resembles a drawing complete with costumed characters and stick figures interacting with one another.

By the time you read this I will be roughly 36 hours away from getting married. Not that I’m counting. Needless to say, I have weddings on the brain. To call it a momentous occasion is something of an understatement; recent political and ideological debates over the very definition of marriage attest to the concept’s enduring impact. And it certainly seems like a big deal to me.

Creating designs that eventually disappear is both a relief and sad at the same time. It’s like rehearsing for a play for months and months, and then—poof!—the performance is over and only photos and memories are left. Exhibition graphics are similar.

The multidisciplinary teams working on projects for the exhibition Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream have five weeks left in the workshop phase. Here, they share the latest developments in their respective projects.

Henry V. 1944. Great Britain. Directed by Laurence Olivier

These notes accompany the screenings of Laurence Olivier’s Henry V on August 10, 11, and 12 in Theater 3.

I can’t recall an image of an auteur in action that is as stirringly visceral, dynamic, and, frankly, sexy, as Laurence Olivier’s Prince Hal in tights, rousing his army at Agincourt. (Mom, I don’t want to be cowboy or a policeman. I want to grow up to be an auteur!)

Sol LeWitt. Cubes in Color on Color. 2003. Portfolio of 30 linoleum cuts. Publisher: Arte y Naturaleza, Madrid. Printer: Watanabe Studio, Brooklyn, New York. Edition: 50. The Museum of Modern Art. Roxanne H. Frank Fund and General Print Fund

It must be the energy of summer that has thrown me into a general state of elation in which anything with a splash of color elevates my spirits. For instance, a recent trip to Dia:Beacon to see the exhibition Blinky Palermo: Retrospective 1964–1977 instantly brightened my experience there, in the same way that MoMA’s recently acquired work by Sol LeWitt, Cubes in Color on Color (2003) made my heart race with excitement.