What Can A City Do With Old Shipyard Cranes? Use Them For Light Sculptures

VISUAL Posted: June 5, 2014 11:19 pm

That’s what the Croatian city of Pula did eight of the mammoth machines. Lighting designer Dean Skira’s Lighting Giants uses 73 LED spotlights that can be programmed to make about 16,000 different patterns. (includes photo essay and video)

Whole lotta Shakespeare goin’ on
In today’s Wall Street Journal I review Chicago Shakespeare’s Tug of War: Civil Strife and the Broadway premiere of Simon McBurney’s The Encounter. Here’s an excerpt. * * * The most important Shakespeare production of ... read more
AJBlog: About Last NightPublished 2016-09-30
Replay: Orson Welles meets the press in 1955
Orson Welles takes questions from a panel of British reporters on Press Conference, originally telecast by the BBC on January 14, 1955: (This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that ... read more
AJBlog: About Last NightPublished 2016-09-30
Almanac: David Mamet writes the perfect theater review
“‘I never understood the theater until last night. Please forgive everything I’ve ever written. By the time you read this I’ll be dead.’—Clive Barnes” David Mamet (originally published in Mary Ann Madden, “New York Magazine ... read more
AJBlog: About Last NightPublished 2016-09-30
“Art Is Good?” Not Much Of An Argument For Art Is It?
I suggested in a post this week that, based on the lack of any arts business before the 114th US Congress, that it appears that lobbying for the arts seems to be failing. Yes, the NEA/NEH budgets ... read more
AJBlog: diacritical | Douglas McLennanPublished 2016-09-29
Tech Crash at Metropolitan Museum: “Digital Underground” Buried?
While I’ve been distracted from blogging by mainstream-media assignments (one completed, the other in process), I’ve been itching to weigh in on several important museum developments. Let’s start with Metropolitan Museum President Daniel Weiss‘ tough-love strategies ... read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrlPublished 2016-09-29
Not so good planning
Let’s agree, first, on one thing. A gala that opens a symphony oorchestra’s season should feel like a gala. Should be fun and lively, with some glamour and glitz. But to create a gala like ... read more
AJBlog: SandowPublished 2016-09-29
Mysterious Beauty
Pam Tanowitz Dance kicks off “NY Quadrille,” a two-week season masterminded by Lar Lubovitch. Pam Tanowitz’s Sequenzas in Quadrilles. (L to R): Victor Lozano, Jason Collins, Sarah Haarmann, and Dylan Crossman. Photo: Yi-Chun Wu Over ... read more
AJBlog: DancebeatPublished 2016-09-29
Hands and Brains
Some months ago I attended a series of meetings hosted by the Mellon Foundation and The League of American Orchestras. The meetings were focused on how professional American orchestras might get more musicians from ‘underrepresented communities’ into ... read more
AJBlog: SongWorkingPublished 2016-09-29
So you want to see a show?
Here’s my list of recommended Broadway, off-Broadway, and out-of-town shows, updated weekly. In all cases, I gave these shows favorable reviews (if sometimes qualifiedly so) in The Wall Street Journal when they opened. For more ... read more
AJBlog: About Last NightPublished 2016-09-29
Almanac: Anne Morrow Lindbergh on gratitude
“One can never pay in gratitude; one can only pay ‘in kind’ somewhere else in life.” Anne Morrow Lindbergh, North to the Orient ... read more
AJBlog: About Last NightPublished 2016-09-29
Miles Davis: Long Time Gone
This is how co-host Renee Montaigne of National Public Radio’s Morning Edition opened one of the program’s hours this morning. We’re kind of blue. Miles Davis died 25 years ago today. It came as a ... read more
AJBlog: RiffTidesPublished 2016-09-28
What should Congress do about the arts?
Blog neighbour Doug McLennan reviews the recent Congressional Arts Report Card produced by the Americans for the Arts Action Fund PAC. He notes that there isn’t really a lot of material on which to base ... read more
AJBlog: For What it’s WorthPublished 2016-09-28
Snapshot: The Kinks sing “Sunny Afternoon”
The Kinks perform Ray Davies’ “Sunny Afternoon” in a 1966 promotional video: (This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday) ... read more
AJBlog: About Last NightPublished 2016-09-28
Almanac: Edward Gibbon on gratitude
“Revenge is profitable, gratitude is expensive.” Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire ... read more
AJBlog: About Last NightPublished 2016-09-28
Library Lessons
A July article in the New York Times (Adding Classes and Content, Resurgent Libraries Turn a Whisper Into a Roar) told of the resurgence of libraries in New York City. Many readers might focus on ... read more
AJBlog: Engaging MattersPublished 2016-09-27
Arts Congressional Report Card: Why The Arts Have No Political Clout
Americans for the Arts Action Fund PAC has released its 2016 Congressional Arts Report Card rating members of Congress on their support for the arts. Many lobby groups do such rankings as a way of ... read more
AJBlog: diacritical | Douglas McLennanPublished 2016-09-27
Met Layoffs Today: About Three Dozen People Let Go
Today, the Metropolitan Museum of Art* shed more staff–in the form of involuntary layoffs. As we’ve known for a while, the Met’s financial position has deteriorated: its operating deficit has been placed at anywhere from ... read more
AJBlog: Real Clear ArtsPublished 2016-09-27
Witnessing
When you think about it, the majority of my practice as an orchestral musician is witnessed. My performance practice (concerts) happen in public. Sometimes my rehearsal practice – as part of the ensemble – ... read more
AJBlog: SongWorkingPublished 2016-09-27
Abstract Expressionism Hits the Bull’s Eye
Helen Frankenthaler “Europa” 1957 This is the Tate website glossary’s definition: “Abstract expressionism is the term applied to new forms of abstract art developed by American painters such as Jackson Pollock, ... read more
AJBlog: Plain EnglishPublished 2016-09-27
Ten years after: on looking through my baby book
From 2006: The first item is a picture of me taken at ten-fifteen on the evening of February 6, 1956, thirty minutes after I was born. I weighed eight pounds and one-and-a-half ounces, and had ... read more
AJBlog: About Last NightPublished 2016-09-27
Almanac: Max Planck on scientific progress
“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” ... read more
AJBlog: About Last NightPublished 2016-09-27
Mike Zito: Keep Coming Back
After sideman work, then membership in cooperative groups with Cyrille Neville, Devon Allman and others, in 2012 the St. Louis blues guitarist and singer Mike Zito formed his band, The Wheel. Few dedicated jazz listeners ... read more
AJBlog: RiffTidesPublished 2016-09-26
Just because: Oscar Levant on What’s My Line?
Oscar Levant appears as the mystery guest on What’s My Line? (Levant’s segment starts 21:52 into the video.) This episode was originally telecast by CBS on October 17, 1965. The panelists are Milton Berle, Bennett ... read more
AJBlog: About Last NightPublished 2016-09-26
Almanac: Patrick Kurp on snobs and snobbery
“Snobs are always insufferable, even when they’re right, though holding strong opinions is not the same as snobbery. Some ideas and tastes are worthy only of contempt.” Patrick Kurp, “‘Sanding Off Such Pretense or Exploding ... read more
AJBlog: About Last NightPublished 2016-09-26
Pap goes the easel: Painting After Postmodernism, Belgium-USA
Paul Manes, Departure, 2013, oil on canvas, 264.1 x 396.2 cm Brussels—It’s being billed as a “manifesto exhibition,” and the curator, my friend, the art historian and filmmaker Barbara Rose, is happy to ... read more
AJBlog: Plain EnglishPublished 2016-09-25