The doubts engendered in me by the shifting ground (related to the proximity to the La Brea Tar Pits) under the cranes being used for construction of LACMA’s new Geffen Galleries caused me to reflect back on Govan’s spotty track record for delivering on his ambitious, provocative proposals. - Lee Rosenbaum
At this point I would implore arts organizations not to return to pre-pandemic practices with nothing more than modest tweaks. This is a time for serious reconfiguring. So let me suggest three categories for new or significantly expanded approaches. - Doug Borwick
When PostClassical Ensemble undertook our world premiere recording of the 1944 radio play Whitman, we did so believing that Bernard Herrmann's Whitman setting is a singular addition to the repertoire of “melodramas” – compositions for music plus the spoken word. - Joseph Horowitz
Matthew VanBesien, President of the University Musical Society of the University of Michigan, as he talks about the role of presenters in the arts. - Aaron Dworkin
In decades of covering museum buildings, I’ve mostly refrained from “reviewing” a building that hasn’t gone up yet. That’s why I’ve hung back from commenting on the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s capital project-in-progress. But an unsettling (literally) development led me to weigh in. - Lee Rosenbaum
An arts organization must come to matter to the community. When it matters, the community will support it. But how do arts organizations come to matter? The mindset that “We matter because we present great art.” does not cut it. It is only things that people see as important to their lives that fill this bill. - Doug Borwick
Laura Baptiste, the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s always-helpful chief of communications, found herself dealing with misinformation disseminated in a number of news reports after the inauguration festivities. - Lee Rosenbaum
“If we are empowered with creativity, with collaboration, with all of the skills that come from practicing the arts… that will lead to the breakthrough ideas.” Trey Devey, President of the Interlochen Center for the Arts, speaks to the power of arts education. - Aaron Dworkin
Throwing caution to the winds, the Metropolitan Museum today went beyond the more measured words of a few other museums in its angry call to “bring to justice those responsible” for the “criminal actions” at the Capitol on Jan. 6. - Lee Rosenbaum
The viability of our industry depends upon developing relationships — making connections — with many new communities. The bases for success are respect and humility. - Doug Borwick
This was a week when blogging-as-usual struck me as irredeemably frivolous. Trying to promulgate commentary about art and the artworld seemed fatuous, at a time when our nation’s adherence to the rule of law, reason and humane values (and even its very existence) seemed at stake. - Lee Rosenbaum
“If they were a strange sight to me, I was no less of a one to them. It was the first time that many of them had seen an ‘intellectual.’ I was being gradually drawn, you see, into the political struggle with the peasantry!" That’s Aaron Copland in 1934, reflecting upon addressing a Communist picnic in Minnesota. - Joseph...
