“From documentaries to spoken-word performances, from urban revitalization actions to conventional gallery shows, they serve diverse ends that include raising political awareness, assuaging grief, anticipating long-term educational needs, and encouraging the resumption, as much as possible, of everyday life. Because normalcy, even when it’s far from easy, is a way of coping with crisis.”
Archives for May 2016
Tobias Picker Named Artistic Director Of Tulsa Opera
The 61-year-old American composer, who recently ended a five-year term as artistic director of Opera San Antonio, “will work with Tulsa Opera General Director and CEO Greg Weber on overall artistic vision for the company, selection of repertoire and production teams, and casting of singers.”
Complete Set Of Shakespeare Folios Sells For $3.68 Million
“A set of the first four editions of William Shakespeare’s plays – dubbed the ‘Holy Grail of publishing’ by Christie’s auction house – sold Wednesday for almost 2.5 million pounds ($3.68 million). [The volumes]… were sold as individual lots but all bought by a private American collector.”
Anderson Cooper And ’60 Minutes’ Report On The Knoedler Gallery Forgeries Case
“When one of the oldest and most respected art galleries in America, the Knoedler Gallery in New York, closed its doors abruptly in 2011, the art world was stunned. Not because the gallery closed, but by the discovery that over the course of 15 years, the gallery and its president, Ann Freedman, had sold millions of dollars in forgeries to wealthy collectors.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 05.30.16
What Is Manus x Machina Doing At the Met?
It was a hot Sunday afternoon on a three-day holiday weekend, and I decided to visit the Metropolitan Museum* to see Manus x Machina, the costume exhibition that occupies the Lehman wing. … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2016-05-30
Paul Desmond Remembered
Paul Desmond died 39 years ago today. Ten previous Rifftides observances of the anniversary have included passages from my biography of Paul and Desmond stories from an assortment of people who knew him. … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2016-05-30
Chastened and inspired
“I saw a woman in Central Park today wearing a T-shirt that said ‘America Was Never Great,’” a friend of mine tweeted over the weekend. I wasn’t surprised to hear it. My country contains many people … read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2016-05-30
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If This Is True About London, What Does It Mean For That City’s Arts?
“If I asked what is the most corrupt place on Earth, you might say it’s Afghanistan, maybe Greece, Nigeria, the south of Italy. I would say it is the UK. It’s not UK bureaucracy, police, or politics, but what is corrupt is the financial capital.”
The Monument To Fallen U.S. Soldiers Before They Actually Fall
“To many, a memorial with nearly half of its space reserved for upcoming conflicts is an eerie statement that such conflicts and casualties are an inevitable wave on the horizon.”
The Louvre’s Pyramid Has Disappeared
“JR, best known for mounting women’s portraits onto building facades in a Brazilian favela and his Inside Out global art project, had a specific idea in mind: to combat the selfie ‘phenomenon’ of tourists snapping themselves in front of the Louvre without really observing its architecture.”
Mashup: 57 Phrases From Famous Classical Pieces In A Six-Minute Video
Heresy, we know, but clever nonetheless.
Will The Geffen Hall Renovation At The Lincoln Center Ever Come To Pass?
“While officials have described the plan as likely to cost around $500 million, Ms. Farley said that the actual figure could be different. ‘It’s a number that passes the sanity test — it’s not a budget,’ she said. ‘You don’t know what it’s going to cost until you know what it is.'”
Fighting Through The ‘Traditional’ Noise To Get Unconventional Characters In Movies
Alice in Wonderland, Beauty and the Beast and Maleficent writer Linda Woolverton on working at Disney: “I wasn’t wanted. … And I was a girl. They were, like: Who the hell are you?”
Choreographing A Dance Party So It Looks Like It Just Kinda Happened
“The video features about a dozen dancers for whom the term ‘backup’ doesn’t apply. They are front and center.”
When Life Is Truly Terrible, Writing Dystopias Might Not Feel So Fictional
“Five years after the popular uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and elsewhere, a bleak, apocalyptic strain of post-revolutionary literature has taken root in the region.”
The Organizers Of Cuba’s First Electronic Music Festival Pulled Off A Massive Feat Of Logistics
“Nobody would ship there, so we either had to source everything locally or take it as check-in luggage on the plane. We had to be extremely frugal with what we were taking out to Cuba, but even then our small core team ended up taking 745 kg of additional check in luggage on top of our personal suitcases, including a 92-kg Roland M-5000 mixing desk.”
Music Across The (Uncrossable) Border Fence
“The fandango at the border did not start out as an overtly political act. But through the years, as the national debate over immigration has become ever more divisive and as violence in Mexico has continued, the event’s symbolism has deepened and grown more bittersweet.”
The Social Justice Architecture Of The Venice Biennale
“If ‘humanitarian architecture’ sometimes turns out not to be humanitarian, it is not always architecture either. In the urge to do good, or to be seen to do good, architects can forget their skills of making spaces and buildings that are desirable to inhabit.”
Frank Modell Was A Cartoonist For The New Yorker For More Than Half A Century
Modell, who just died at age 98, “had no illusions about the role his cartoons played at The New Yorker, well known for its long articles: to break up ‘great slabs of type,’ as he put it.”
What Happens To The United States When The Engine Of Mobility Starts To Sputter And Fail?
“‘We have gone backwards,’ said Frederick R. Brodzinski, a senior administrator and adjunct professor in computer science who plans to retire in September after 30 years at the university. ‘Morale is horrible on campus. There are too many highly paid administrators, and there’s a lack of clear leadership. We have stepped down on the ladder that we were climbing for about 10 years.'”
The Rise Of Pirate Libraries
“The creators of these repositories are a small group who try to keep a low profile, since distributing copyrighted material in this way is illegal. Many of them are academics. The largest pirate libraries have come from Russia’s cultural orbit, but the documents they collect are used by people around the world, in countries both wealthy and poor.”
How Hamilton Is Like The World Cup
“The thing about seeing Hamilton RIGHT NOW at its peak moment is that even before it begins, the entire theater is filled with wonder. Every single person would rather be here than anywhere else in the world. As a sportswriter, I often feel that sort of energy at the biggest events, at the Masters or the Super Bowl or the Olympics, but it’s even more pronounced in this theater. “
Top Posts From AJBlogs For 05.29.16
Stories Only Dance Can Tell
Juliette Mapp and Beth Gill present brave new works in New York. Juliette Mapp’sLuxury Rentals. (L to R): Levi Gonzales, Jimena Paz, Kayvon Pourazar, and Juliette Mapp. Photo: Ian Douglas, courtesy of Danspace Project… … read mor
AJBlog: DancebeatPublished 2016-05-29
Opening arguments
When Emma Rice was appointed artistic director of Shakespeare’s Globe earlier this year, it seemed an inspired choice. Irreverent, populist, she was director of Kneehigh. a company with a ballsy, outward-facing performance style splashed… … read more
AJBlog: Performance MonkeyPublished 2016-05-28
Shakespeare: The Miniseries
In today’s Wall Street Journal drama column I report on the premiere of Chicago Shakespeare’s Tug of War: Foreign Fire. Here’s an excerpt. * * * It’s become common—even fashionable—to mount Shakespeare’s history plays in… … read more
AJBlog: About Last NightPublished 2016-05-27
An Analytical Cornucopia, Wanted or Not
AJBlog: PostClassicPublished 2016-05-26 The Tosca effect
Implausible things in opera staging, things any TV show gets right, things that can mar even opera productions that, overall, are quite good — that was the subject of my previous post. This weakens us,… … read more
AJBlog: SandowPublished 2016-05-26
This Week in Audience: Is My Experience Cannibalizing Yours Edition
“Should we be investing in festivals rather than more arts buildings? Google’s hi-rez art cam is ingesting art from the world’s great museums. Some evidence that live-streaming might be hurting live audience box office. Some doubts about streaming as the future of how we get music. And the futility of chasing millennials.”
Five Highlights From Last Week’s AJ, Endless Arts Planning Edition
“When arts planning becomes the point rather than the process. Why your creativity may be dependent on being bored. Are MFA degrees a waste of time if you want to be an artist? Broadway breaks more records. And three new ways to see traditional art.”
A Centuries-Old Folk Theatre Tradition In India Is In Decline, And Actors Struggle To Survive
“This theatre style usually consists of four-hour-long, high-energy plays featuring loud music, harsh lighting and extravagant props played out on giant stages under open skies.”
Forty-Five Years With The National Symphony Orchestra (A Lot Has Changed)
“Copland was pretty good. He eschewed the modern fast tempos and loud playing. He’d say to the brass, ‘Noble, gentlemen, noble. I don’t understand why everyone takes this so fast.'”