Scorning the Great American Novel, and Assessing Beck
AJBlog: CultureCrash | Published 2014-02-28
Fundraising Tactic Worked!
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts | Published 2014-02-27
Corcoran Confusion: Bungled Rollout of Its “Wonderful News”
AJBlog: CultureGrrl | Published 2014-02-27
Minimum Viable Product
AJBlog: The Artful Manager | Published 2014-02-27
Droit de suite
AJBlog: For What it’s Worth | Published 2014-02-27
“A venue has four walls, but that doesn’t mean that your whole audience has to fit inside them.”
“Here was a company of astonishing dancers who continually circled the globe. But their repertoire did not always live up to their talent and range. The quandary? How do you maintain the Ailey’s identity, yet at the same time grow with the art form? How do you balance both the racial and “post-racial” nature of the world in dance terms?”
His rare guitar went missing at Chicago’s O’Hare airport. So he wrote a post about it on Facebook and…
“How does our thinking leap beyond our existing knowledge to make new ideas? The answer is that we blend multiple ideas that are already in our minds, and these blends contain new ideas that didn’t exist before.”
“Our members have told us that low and no pay work is a growing problem… and action must be taken, including by ACE, before the culture of working for free becomes so endemic that many artists are forced out of the profession.”
“How the brain processes musical discourse is not well-understood. Is music a language? If not, how can we still use it to communicate?”
“One disquieting finding from my research is that this year’s lead actors average 85 minutes on screen, but lead actresses average only 57 minutes.”
“Many of the 48 cathedrals in England and Wales are suffering as low interest rates hit investments and the cost of maintaining and repairing historic buildings rises.”
“The security officers employed by the Guggenheim, who comprise the majority of our front line security team, are paid competitively with their peers at other museums with comparable operating budgets and substantially more than the $10 quoted. As well, our Guggenheim security officers receive a benefits package that we offer to all our full time employees.”
“When silent films took off in the 1920s, Hollywood studios employed graphic designers to convey the glamour and excitement of new releases, and handmade billboards came to adorn theaters around the world. The rise of the automobile helped spur a booming industry of painted highway billboards across America, Europe, Africa and in Asia. But in an era of mass-produced printing, the practice has been all but snuffed out.”
“‘Gravity’? I’ve seen better things at planetariums,” while Julia Roberts “was horrendous” and Meryl Streep gave “a bottom-drawer performance” in “August: Osage County.”
“I have nothing to do with the workers,” said Hadid. “I think that’s an issue the government – if there’s a problem – should pick up. Hopefully, these things will be resolved.”
The project “received yet another setback last week when its architect, Frank Gehry, rebuffed calls from the Commission of Fine Arts to revise his designs.”
“It doesn’t mean that it is part of Standard English or any other recognised dialect. Still, if George W Bush can misunderestimate some things and Sarah Palin can refudiate others, then, like, whatever.”
“Vintage Books announced Wednesday that sales for E L James’ sexually explicit trilogy have reached 100 million copies and have spent 100 weeks on The New York Times’ paperback best-seller list.”
“Over the last 20 years, 11 winners of the best director Academy Award — arguably second in prestige to best picture at Tinseltown’s biggest annual show — have been from outside the United States.”
It was the video that launched a thousand riots (and, just maybe, in part, the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi). The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has ordered Google to remove all copies of the anti-Muslim potboiler from YouTube – on copyright grounds. (And it’s on copyright grounds that Google will appeal.)
Eugene Volokh explains the ruling point by point.
A group of Korean curators was examining uncatalogued works in the vaults of the Honolulu Museum of Art when they identified two ink-on-silk paintings from the late 16th century, an era from which little Korean art survives.
“The American Royalties Too Act (ART for short) recommends that artists should receive a flat 5% of the resale price for works sold at auction for more than $5,000.”
“Chicago investment executive Mellody Hobson and her husband, Star Wars creator George Lucas, are donating $25 million to the private University of Chicago Laboratory Schools to support the construction of an arts building.”
“It was just over 39 years ago that the Mead Art Museum at Amherst College experienced what was likely its worst moment: Thieves broke in on a winter night and made off with three centuries-old paintings valued at more than $400,000.” Two of the works were recovered in 1989; authorities now hope to locate the third.
“It was a stunt that Daniel Curry had performed many times before in the Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark: Plant himself firmly on a hydraulic lift in the pit beneath the stage, then remain steady as he rose a dozen feet to emerge for the start of Act II. … Then, in a split second, something solid pressed down against his right foot, then crushed it.”
“[John] Bant and his co-producer Gavin Kalin are seeking to raise £200,000 for The Pajama Game‘s West End transfer – about 14% of its total capitalisation costs – through the online crowdfunding platform Seedrs, which allows people to invest as little as £10. They hit £40,000 within 24 hours.”
He first became famous in the 1960s and ’70s, revitalizing flamenco music through his partnership with singer Camarón de la Isla. He went on to attract new fans by blending flamenco with jazz and Latin American music, and he was ultimately recognized as one of the world’s greatest guitarists.
JR, the French street artist whose installation on the floor of City Ballet’s home theater went viral, will choreograph a new piece for the company (with the help of ballet master Peter Martins).
“If anything betrays Whistler’s military background, it is his conception of the artist’s life as a series of frequent engagements with the enemy – hostile critics, backward-looking institutions, uncomprehending patrons, philistines in general. … Was Whistler just as belligerent toward his art as he was with the wider world into which he sent it? You might think so, judging from reports of how he went about making it.”
“Another day, another major award for playwright Lucy Kirkwood. Her smash hit Chimerica has picked up the prestigious Susan Smith Blackburn prize in the United States. Set up in 1978, the award is given annually to a female playwright working in English and it is deemed one of the most distinguished in America’s prize-heavy new writing culture.”
“Ballet is grace and perfection, but it’s also twisted ankles and stinky flats. We meet two young male ballet dancers whose passion for performance led them all the way to the State Ballet School of Berlin.” (audio)