Denzel Washington and Viola Davis in ‘Fences’

When Denzel Washington talks about challenging death to a wrestling match, you suddenly sense that everything’s going to be all right. Not for Troy Maxson, the character portrayed by Mr. Washington in the vibrantly acted Broadway revival of August Wilson’s “Fences,” which opened on Monday night at the Cort Theater; Troy might as well have “Warning: Explosives” tattooed across his forehead, with “Breakable” stamped on his back.

Portraits: Alice Neel’s Legacy of Realism

ALICE NEEL’S art is unmistakable, from her startling images of 20th-century art-world figures to her signature pregnant nudes. One of the first artists in the Works Progress Administration program of the Great Depression, Neel started out as a Social Realist and then defiantly painted figurative work during the height of Abstract Expressionism. She focused on the least fashionable of realist genres, portraiture, which had long since been declared dead, bringing to it an electrifying verve.

A Man Who Stopped Time to Set It in Motion Again

WASHINGTON — Technology moves fast, art slower. You could say that art is still catching up to Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904), a pioneer of stop-motion photography and early filmmaking.

A Touch-Screen Field Guide to the Birds, for Instant IDs

Dozens of buzzards have made my suburban Connecticut backyard their winter home in recent years. I have a neighbor with a soft spot for these beasts, which he attracts with meat scraps. The birds jostle and scavenge their way through the day.

What Climate Change Means for Wine Industry

John Williams has been making wine in California’s Napa Valley for nearly 30 years, and he farms so ecologically that his peers call him Mr. Green. But if you ask him how climate change will affect Napa’s world famous wines, he gets irritated, almost insulted.

Does anyone want to dress like Carrie Bradshaw any more?

The Sex and the City Look is a parody of itself. But grunge is back, which is good news for travellers stranded in airports

Interiors: a black and white Paris flat

Having found the ideal family home, the owner of this Paris flat did what any self-respecting perfectionist would do: he stripped out everything – floorboards and all – and started again. So was it worth it? Mais oui, says Muriel Zagha.

The joy of cubism

Intellectual attempts to understand the cubist world of Picasso and Braque are misplaced – we should just enjoy it

LCD Soundsystem

Having vowed to disband LCD Soundsystem when he turned 40, James Murphy – who reached that milestone in February – is currently on his (presumably) final tour with his perennially acclaimed dance-punk-funk group.

Jon Savage on song: Malcolm McLaren – Soweto

After the break-up of the Sex Pistols, their former manager pursued the spirit of punk in the music of South Africa with this blast of a tune