ArtsJournal: Arts, Culture, Ideas

PEOPLE

Playwright Christopher Durang, 75

"In a career spanning (over) 40 years, he established himself as a hyperliterate jester and an anarchic clown. Regarding subject and theme, he pogoed from sex to metaphysics to serial killers to psychology; he had a way of collapsing high art and jokes that aimed much lower." - The New York Times

John Barth, Postmodernist Novelist, Is Dead At 93

"The playfully erudite author, whose darkly comic and complicated novels revolved around the art of literature and launched countless debates over the art of fiction, … was part of a wave of writers in the 1960s who challenged standards of language and plot." - AP

Maryse Condé, Award-Winning French-Caribbean Author, Has Died At 90

The Guadeloupe-born writer didn't publish her first book until age 40, and she came to international prominence in her 80s: in 2018, she won the New Academy Prize, which Sweden instituted when the Nobel for Literature was suspended due to an internal scandal. - AFP (Yahoo!)

The Rise and Fall Of Art Fraud Inigo Philbrick

Philbrick’s ascent paralleled a historic moment that Artnet writer Eileen Kinsella has called “the financialization of the art market.” Today, art is no longer merely displayed for admiration and pleasure but often tucked away in storage facilities from New York to Hong Kong. - Vanity Fair

Actor Bill Nighy Is Somehow More Charming Than You Might Even Have Imagined

Here is the actor, answering readers’ questions in a way that one can practically hear. Just wait for the phone book reading section. - The Guardian (UK)

Chance Perdomo, Star Of Gen V And The Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina, Has Died At 27 In A Motorcycle Crash

Perdomo, in a “Breakthrough Brit” video, talked about the power of art and acting. "There’s no point in just ranting at someone. … But if you can connect with them emotionally and have them think outside their peripheral vision to somewhere else, then that can change perspectives." - Los Angeles Times

Alice Rohrwacher Is A Director Who Didn’t Seek The Spotlight

Rohrwacher, who made the Oscar-nominated short Le Pupille, says, "Maybe my films are not perfect — maybe a machine could do that, but that’s not what I’m after. … What I’m after is making films that are alive and that are full of life." - MSN (Los Angeles Times)

Movie Producer, Hollywood Activist, And Studio Executive Paula Weinstein Has Died At 78

She oversaw the production of 9 to 5, helped produce Grace and Frankie, and got the HBO movie Recount made in 2008 - and much, much more in her life of activism for women in the industry. - The New York Times

Actor Louis Gossett Jr., 87

He was the first Black man to win a Best Supporting Actor Oscar (in 1983 for playing the drill sergeant in An Officer and a Gentleman), and won an Emmy for his role as Fiddler in the 1977 series Roots. His last screen role was in the 2023 remake of The Color Purple. - AP

Artist Robert Moskowitz, “A Rare Bridge Between Abstract Expressionism And Minimalism,” Has Died At 88

"Beginning in the late 1970s, (he) began painting the Empire State Building, the Flatiron Building and, most indelibly, the World Trade Center. Those three buildings appear over and over through the decades, … (with) the shimmering, self-contained quality of letters or numbers." - The New York Times

Ex-Art Dealer Inigo Philbrick Is Out Of Jail, Trying To Figure Out What’s Next

In 2021 he pled guilty in an enormous art-fraud case and was sentenced to seven years in prison. This past January he was released into home confinement. He's now searching for — if not redemption, a way to earn a living, as Hollywood fights over the rights to his story. - Vanity Fair

Richard Serra Made Modern Sculpture Exciting — By Creating The Feeling That It Might Fall On You

Sebastian Smee: "As an artist, he was no bully. Rather, he was a physicist. He wanted you to know, and to feel in your bones, that weight isn’t just a thing — it’s a force. It’s mass times acceleration. As such, it carries an inherent threat." - The Washington Post (MSN)

Richard Serra, 85

Serra’s most celebrated works had some of the scale of ancient temples or sacred sites and the inscrutability of landmarks like Stonehenge. - The New York Times

Sundance Loses Its Leader After Only Two Years

Joana Vicente came to Sundance from the Toronto International Film Festival and arrived as COVID had pushed the festival online for 2021 and again in 2022. - The Hollywood Reporter

Composer Peter Eötvös Has Died At 80

A tireless advocate for contemporary music over a six-decade career, Eötvös came to international attention as a member of the Stockhausen Ensemble (1968-1976). He later served as music director of the Ensemble intercontemporain and principal guest conductor of the BBC Symphony (1995-98). Between 1997 and 2023, he published 14 operas. - Limelight (Australia)

Our Free Newsletter

Join our 30,000 subscribers

Latest

Don't Miss

function my_excerpt_length($length){ return 200; } add_filter('excerpt_length', 'my_excerpt_length');