May 2011 Archives

Cleveland's David Franklin On The Not-So-Special Google Art Project; A TED Talk, Too

Snapshot

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This week's video: Peggy Lee sings "When the World Was Young" on "The Judy Garland Show" in 1963.

Almanac

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Today's entry: Wesley Stace on the problem of biography.

Woody and Gerty

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Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris" throws San Francisco's "Summer of Stein" into relief

Images in a dream

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Mahler's Ninth, a symphony with nothing stable in it, drifting in a sea of loss.
More safeguards in place, with PricewaterhouseCooper's appointment to monitor and issue public reports on workers' conditions. Will critics be satisfied?

What Is It?

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Art? Software? Graphics? Design? All of that? None of that?

Parsing capital

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Gil Scott-Heron followed from Edgar Allan Poe and Robert Johnson, Martin Scorsese, et al

A $300,000 NEH grant will support far-reaching Dvorak and Copland projects by orchestras in Buffalo, Louisville, North Carolina, and Orange County (Calif.).

Almanac

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Today's entry: Wesley Stace on writing a book to settle a score.
Cutting back on support staff has other costs, says a recent HBR article
A Few Thoughts On What The Met Might Do To Make The Most Of The Whitney's Uptown Building

American Ballet Theatre tries a mixed-repertory evening of Ratmansky, Wheeldon, Millepied, and Tudor

In memoriam

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Herbert von Karajan conducts the first movement of Verdi's Requiem in 1967.

Almanac

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Today's entry: G.K. Chesterton on courage.
On a post by Chad Bauman at Arena Stage asking what would happen if resident theaters cast off their NFP status
Death at age 62 of street-poet and prophet Gil Scott-Heron is a tragic, cautionary tale

Bud Shank's Birthday

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He flourished on the west coast in the fifties and went on to gain worldwide popularity.

London revelations (3)

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The Roundhouse presents classical music in a pop music space -- and gets a large, young audience.
The artist's largest, most prominent NYC show since the 1975 Whitney retrospective. Watch the scribe tribe at play with sculptures.
Stanford University's 2010-2011 Knight Fellows present 20 visions for the future of journalism
That Study Linking Consumption Of Culture To Less Stress...It's About The Mating Game, Too
Reviews of CDs by a saxophonist who contains himself, a singer and a pianist of one mind, and a versatile bassist
So far, it looks like American museums are turning their backs on the plight of Ai Weiwei.
From Chicago, the Court Theatre's "Porgy and Bess" and TimeLine's "Front Page" reviewed.

Almanac

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Today's entry: Cyrll Connolly on education.

London revelations (2)

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The Guildhall school teaches improvisation to classical music students, and has them work with actors, to learn to present themselves on stage.
An example --
Some things to consider for the music director who's had it up to here with the members of his or her amateur chorus
It's Much, Much Smaller Than MoMA's Landmark Exhibit. But Kimbell Has iCubist!

Preparedness

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We need to be ready not to get in the way of our own exceptional music making
Blandness of preliminary design for looming 225,000 square feet reminds me of Guggenheim's Gwathmey Siegel annex. But judgement is premature.
Here's my weekly theater guide.

Almanac

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Today's entry: Cyril Connolly on literature vs. journalism.

American Ballet Theatre's opening-night gala offered the season in a nutshell

London revelations

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How the London Symphony embraces alt-classical music, in ways a big American orchestra would never (so far) do.

Twitter Again

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Revisiting my recent, oddly-received blogpost about the social networking tool

Snapshot

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This week's video: Benno Moiseiwitsch plays Liszt's transcription of Wagner's "Tannhauser" Overture.

Almanac

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Today's entry: Peggy Lee on making artistic progress.
The Whitney Stages A Pep Rally, But The Result May Be A Good Thing -- Even Redemption For Piano?
Listening for the line between performance as political inspiration vs. the manipulative power of a good beat and a great designer.
No ground (or front-row dignitary) was broken during indoor "groundbreaking," reimagined by chorreographer Elizabeth Streb. See the new galleries.

Why they might be ahead

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Striking posters from the London Symphony and the English National Opera make classical music feel fully contemporary.
In Installment #3 of the World's First Animated Art Criticism Cartoon, the Art Cops take no prisoners. Graffiti Art? Deitch? Broad? L.A.?
Join me and the scribe tribe absorbing the aura of this mesmerizing piece, commissioned by Alice Walton's in-construction museum.
Barbara Hepworth Gets A New Museum, Designed By Chipperfield. Will It Change Her Reputation?

Almanac

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Today's entry: Marge Champion on star quality.
Hear me (audio embedded on CultureGrrl), along with book's co-author, Ralph Frammolino and the Getty's vice president, Ron Hartwig.
The vast majority of arts and arts education funders don't fund advocacy and remain leery of it.
No more use of acquisition endowments to back bonds, as at Cleveland. Clarification on antiquities acquisitions and directors' personal collecting.

Fun in England

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The classical music debate at Cambridge University -- fun, and the audience, just maybe, was right not to vote for my side!
Craven deference to totalitarian sensibilities. American museums cannot in good conscience continue their see-no-evil approach to Ai's detention.
Musings on various weekend cultural activities in the Bay Area
http://www.artsjournal.com/slippeddisc/2011/05/will-osb-crisis-undercut-rios-cultural-ambitions/
My three posts for Americans for the Arts' online discussion on the future of the nonprofit business model
During Its "Summer of China," Must The Museum Take Notice Of The Artist's Arrest?

The End Of Elaine's

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Now Elaine was furious and started yelling obscenities. Finally, she waded in, grabbed the brawlers by their necks and pulled them apart.
Celebrating 2010 - 11's best, Jazz Journalists Assoc. parties in NYC & beyond, June 11
Adventures of an itinerant drama critic.

Almanac

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Today's entry: George Orwell on the disadvantages of writing for a living.
For James Turrell's Academy Induction, Lapsed-Time Photos Of A Skyspace -- Eye Candy
Who can forget Wardropper's Whopper---Gauguin's "Faux Faun," the forgery he purchased for Chicago? An otherwise distinguished track record.
More government regulation? No thanks, say the two leading national professional organizations for museums. AAMD's latest gaffe.
From San Diego, my review of the American premiere of Alan Ayckbourn's latest play.

Almanac

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Today's entry: Evelyn Waugh on priggish critics.
Despite laudable intentions, Twitter's arts and social media event is a misfire
It's Official: The Frick Has A New Director.
Spokesperson declares: "That period is over; it is history." (Or is it?) No future antiquities-related difficulties foreseen by counsel.
What Happened When The Delaware Art Museum Asked Visitors To Guess The Sex Of The Artist
The true value of art cannot be measured in economics alone. If that were the case, we'd be in trouble. So why do we spend so much time coming up with new ways to talk abour ourselves using economics?
Here's my weekly theater guide.

Almanac

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Today's entry: Cyril Connolly on reputation and self-consciousness.

Summer of Stein

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Parallel Gertrude Stein exhibitions in San Francisco demonstrate how two large arts organizations can work together in perfect synchronicity
Some thoughts on not taking the joys of professional travel for granted.
..never meant to be more than a year's project, but something he noticed in the students who had been working on it made him extend it for another year, and then another, and then another, and then another.
New Deaccessioning Policy Is Measured, Reasoned, Not Perfect, But It Does Not Overreach

Snapshot

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This week's video: Cantor Josef Rosenblatt's on-screen appearance in Al Jolson's "The Jazz Singer."

Almanac

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Today's entry: Evelyn Waugh on learning a foreign language in adulthood.

Now This Is Rich

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Surely you've read the news that Gadhafi is being sought for war crimes. Unlike Gadhafi, our gang is above reproach.
Written story is already online. Former Assemblyman Richard Brodsky calls this "extraordinary moment in the cultural history of the state."
A new, overdue national model for the regulation of museum deaccessions, enacted today by the NY State Board of Regents.
Paging Dan Brown! Slate looks at how an ornately carved chapel ceiling may actually be a massive musical score.
Museums And Memory: ICOM Asks What's The Connection? Toledo Museum Provides Answers

Almanac

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Today's entry: Cyril Connolly on the ambivalence of the good magazine editor.

The Best of 2010

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Curators' Choice: Winning Exhibitions And Catalogues -- Trophies Go To MoMA, The Met, MFA-Boston, And...
If Ai were in poor physical condition, it's unlikely wife's visit could have happened. New York's see-no-evil installation.

Porn Palace

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An adult film company aims for transparency

Stay Down

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The piano is a device that never came with a set of instructions

Young Ella On Film

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...here is Ella Fitzgerald at 25 in 1942 in the Abbott and Costello Comedy Ride 'Em Cowboy
One Lost Case: A Documentary Chronicles The Place Where Mailer, Balanchine, Newman Et. Al. Lived

New York City Ballet pays Balanchine his due with a mini-festival of superb productions

Out of water

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A temporarily semi-retired boulevardier gets back in the game.

Almanac

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Today's entry: Cyril Connolly on the function of art.
The complicated set's sensor, not conductor's aching back, reportedly caused 40-minute curtain delay. "Spider-Man the Opera" shouldn't happen.
Was it a convertible...and who are those boys?
More than a curtain, this talented choreographer's stage needs a rhizome barrier.
Does the Met have enough important contemporary pieces to fill another museum? Maybe large-scale sculptures. (Chillida is at Nasher.)
Let's acknowledge that change is hard to achieve and harder to sustain

Aaron Pike

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On a promising young composer's graduate recital
The Museum As A Film And Theater Experience: Are These The Galleries Of The Future?

Funky Friday

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Taking a trolley to nowhere ... I don't think Tony Bennett's nostalgia quite applies.
Begins May 16
Young was that rare combination, a great lead trumpeter who was also a soloist of exceptional imagination, taste and humor.
"A Minister's Wife" and "King Lear" reviewed.
In praise of shorter attention spans.

Almanac

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Today's entry: Evelyn Waugh on crime and art.
44 pages of essential tools for parents to use to support arts in the schools, made in America, by PS203 in Queens!!

New York City Ballet revisits the seven deadlies

Does spending six years studying 17th century French theatre really make someone an appealing hire for Silicon Valley tech companies?
A perfect storm of disgraced patron, unsold air rights, anemic attendance, general economic slump and, especially, inadequate planning, devastated AFAM.
A Heartening Fable About Charity Art Sales: Lichtenstein Drawing Zooms At Christie's
16-minute slog for a Warhol self-portrait tested auctioneer's patience: "I can't stand here doing nothing!" View my video.
A little taste of a great jazzman.
Here's my weekly theater guide.

Just because

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See Peter Pears and Benjamin Britten perform Britten's "Michelangelo Sonnets" in 1956.

Almanac

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Today's entry: Evelyn Waugh on teaching and totalitarianism.
Bacigalupi asserts his museum "can't do anything about legal contract" to pay $30-million for half-share of Stieglitz Collection.
Internationalistic sax/flute modernist from Africa's southeast tip, Zim Nqgawana felled by stroke
SAM's Derrick Cartwright Quits; Yet Another Top Museum Is Leaderless; No Interim Appointee
Last words on a nasty man.
Musicians influenced by the power and daring of his work are honoring the late saxophonist and composer.
"By the Way, Meet Vera Stark" and "The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide" reviewed.

Snapshot

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This week's video: Evelyn Waugh talks about the modern novel in 1964.

Almanac

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Today's entry: Cyril Connolly on the sense of proportion.
Hear the Trust's communications VP discuss how Cuno finessed his extremist cultural-property stance during job interview. Podcast on CultureGrrl.

Black-tie splendour

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On Thursday (5/12) you can watch me live, debating the future of classical music at Cambridge University. Or watch an archive of the stream later. Details in this blog post.
The Bay Area is going gaga for Gertrude Stein this summer, apparently just for kicks.
http://www.artsjournal.com/sandow/2011/05/cost_squeeze_--_further_though.html
How lack of interest in classical music makes things worse. Plus links to Tony Woodcock's blog, with support for what I say, and inspiration for change.
What we traffic in is memories. The arts are representations of parts of this world, pushed out from artists to audience with the goal of sticking in the head. So how do we make sticky memories?
Time For The Webby "Best Of the Web" Trophies. This Year, Very Few Arts Winners

Richard Serra, Drawing

After sealing off abstract sculpture and claiming ownership of its final phase, Serra now owns drawing -- and destroys that, too.
What director would serve under a president with extremist views on cultural-property issues that have roiled the Getty?
An itinerant drama critic's summer travels are about to begin.
Some thoughts on the New York Drama Critics' Circle Awards.

Almanac

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Today's entry: Evelyn Waugh on why novelists envy painters.

A bridge to the future

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My talk at New England Conservatory, to a group of graduating students. With a link to a recording, and a summary of what I said.
Here's my guest editorial from the May/June Education Update. Sometimes it feels good to speak plainly...

Trust the young

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An inspiring visit to New England Conservatory, where students are building the future.
Student ideas and labor make Taliesin West more than a museum

Piano Vocal

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Does a pianist's speaking voice influence the way they make music?
Update on student work --
Hot young players, a hot old player, a pianist's nocturnal musings, A Brazilian among the Swiss, viva Hampton Hawes

Sancton On Stage

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Tom Sancton makes a stage production of his book about coming of age in New Orleans
National Archives' New International Research Portal For Nazi-Looted Art Will Help, But Isn't Perfect
My message to Rollins College's Class of 2011.

Almanac

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Today's entry: Evelyn Waugh on truth in newspapers.
On the turnaround at Columbus Symphony and its partnership with PACA
Isn't editorializing in a news story supposed to be out of bounds at The New York Times?

Beatles man dies

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Examining Stuart Davis Painting For Today's WSJ, Informed By Hearing The Master's Voice
My brief comment on Alice Walton's $800-million museum for "Marketplace" program. You can hear me now---my sexiest sentence.
Reinvesting in Arts Education: Winning America's Future Through Creative Schools...Right On!!
Sneak peak of monumental interiors. Workers toil till 2 a.m. to meet Nov. 11 opening date. CultureGrrl soars over it.
They are here to stay and it would do us all good to recognize them as a fully built leg of an unfortunately unsteady table
Is the volume of information we are constantly consuming in brief online snippets eroding our deeper intellectual instincts?
David Ives' "The School for Lies" reviewed.

Almanac

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Today's entry: Hugh Kingsmill on the idolization of writers.
Jazz is New York City's soundtrack and lingua franca, so get hip to the June jazz fests here
What They Have To Say About Technology And About Museums: Well, It's "Raw"
Here's my weekly theater guide.

Almanac

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Today's entry: Hugh Kingsmill on renunciation.
In case that's not enough, other donors are stepping up to the plate. My on-site video of the exterior.
Cash Crunch Coming, Embarassing Retreat From Venice Biennale, Now Director Resignation
Why orchestra expenses keep rising -- which creates a squeeze as income falls.

Snapshot

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This week's video: Noël Coward, Lauren Bacall, and Claudette Colbert perform the seance scene from "Blithe Spirit."

Almanac

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Today's entry: Christopher Hitchens on a lesson of middle age.
Caravaggio Gets On The Single-Painting Bandwagon -- Or Rather The Speed Does
It's no more than a coincidence: Bin Laden was killed on this year's Holocaust Remembrance Day. But it's worth noting.
The digital robots play around with the Tristanoites. Lennie Tristano just plays.

Fakin' it

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"Daniel Barenboim" Tweeted today. Should artists have their teams Tweet for them, or does that miss the point?

The Paris Opera Ballet's celebrated academy showcases its dancers of tomorrow.

Met's installation is a coup de théâtre. "Romantic" it's not---more Poe than Wordsworth. Designs are often unwearable but unforgettable.

Just because

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See Josh White sing "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out."

Almanac

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Today's entry: Christopher Hitchens on the evil of perfectionism.
Falling donations are another reason why orchestra finances are looking bad.
...on yesterday's events, courtesy of W.H. Auden.
Apropos of "Danse Russe," last thoughts on a first night.
Osama's death postpones Mayor Bloomberg's launch of Ai Weiwei's "Circle of Animals" in jubilant New York City. Not rescheduled yet.

Just because

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See Louis Armstrong and the All Stars play "Muskrat Ramble" in 1958.

Almanac

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Today's entry: Evelyn Waugh on the need for vacations.

Reading Room

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Two New Books: Bearden Gets Scholarly Treatment; A More Popular View Of Joan Mitchell...Summer Reading?
Watch the video. Listen to the music. Cheap trash that ruins your mind? Don't tell your mama.
A minor rant on the funder-driven 'innovation in the arts' bandwagon
Sung by a trombone, Schubert's "Der Doppelganger" transfixes and amazes.
Will thousands of brides wear the same dress? Will it be a McQueen Halloween? Where will original gown be exhibited?
Applying ideas and methods from complexity science to the work of problem solving
Nanos Valaoritis's 'Endless Crucifixion': Proust crucified on his memory. Rimbaud crucified on his leg. James Dean crucified on his car.
Kronos, So Percussion, eighth blackbird & Bang on A Can Allstars give Reich's pulse life

About this Archive

This page is an archive of entries from May 2011 listed from newest to oldest.

April 2011 is the previous archive.

June 2011 is the next archive.

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