“After scrapping the first design in July, the government Tuesday picked a less-costly and greenery-rich plan by architect Kengo Kuma for the new National Stadium that will serve as the centerpiece of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.”
Archives for December 2015
‘The American Matisse’: Jerry Saltz On Ellsworth Kelly
“A small confession: I came to appreciate the paintings of Ellsworth Kelly … in only the last ten or 15 years. Now, his work stuns me from its own Platonic eternity. I see one of his paintings, and I wake from my habitual self and feel like I’m in the presence of some shimmering undead vampire, something incessantly present.”
The Bookstore That Stocks Only One Book At A Time
Owned by experienced bookseller Yoshiyuki Morioka, the store opened in May, stocking multiple copies of just one title, which changes weekly. This bookstore that sells only one book could also be described as ‘a bookstore that organises an exhibition derived from a single book’.
In The Age Of Amazon, Used Bookstores Are Making An Unlikely Comeback
“Used bookstores, with their quintessential quirkiness, eclectic inventory and cheap prices, find themselves in the catbird seat as the pendulum eases back toward print. In many cities, that’s a de facto position: They’re the only book outlets left.”
The Most-Pirated Movies Of 2015 (And A HUGE Increase In Piracy)
“Some of the biggest blockbusters at the box office this year proved just as popular among torrent users: “Furious 7,” “Avengers: Age of Ultron” and “Jurassic World” were the top three worldwide, according to piracy tracking firm Excipio, which monitored activity from the beginning of the year through Dec. 25.”
This Was The Most-Pirated TV Show Of 2015
“Game of Thrones” easily surpassed runner up “The Walking Dead” (6.9 million downloads for one episode), despite the AMC zombie drama earning higher U.S. ratings than Thrones.
He Was A Major Violinist And Teacher, Now Stricken With Dementia; Language Has Almost Abandoned Him – Except When Coaching
Walter Levin escaped the Nazis as a child and went on to spend 40 years as founder and first violinist of the La Salle Quartet – and longer as a feared teacher. (He once kicked James Levine out for being unprepared.) At age 91, dependent on his near-superhuman wife, and barely verbal, music is his one remaining tether to the wider world. And when giving a lesson to a young quartet, we can see his faculties gradually revive. (includes video)
Broadway’s Hottest Choreographer Of The 21st Century
After The Apple Tree in 2006, “it was all upward – 2007’s In the Heights, for which he won a Tony; 2009’s 9 to 5; 2012’s Bring It On: The Musical (in which he debuted as a director), as well as the heralded revival of Annie that same year. And now there’s Hamilton.”
The Extraordinary Daring Of ‘Transparent’
“Jill Soloway’s stealth masterpiece … would have won polite praise even if it were merely a piece of well-made agitprop – a TED Talk on trans identity. Instead, it dived, quick and confident, into murkier waters, exploring themes less comforting but more interesting than ‘love makes a family’ sloganeering.”
Tufts Univ. To Take Over Museum Of Fine Arts Boston’s Art School
“The agreement, which has been initially approved by both institutions’ boards, would become effective June 30, paving the way for the art school’s more than 700 students and roughly 145 faculty members to come under the Tufts banner.”
Criticism Can Only Get You So Far. Are We Entering A Post-Critical World?
“Examining the limits of critique does not mean that we must abandon politics. It means that we must think about politics in a more rigorous way. It certainly does not mean that we must no longer be critical.”
This Theater Thought It Had Two Years Of Surpluses; It Actually Had A $1 Million Deficit
“On Monday, [Carolina Theatre’s] leaders announced they had run up an additional $800,000 in debt since July 2013, when they and the rest of the board thought the city-owned theater was making a profit. The city [of Durham] pays Carolina Theatre of Durham Inc. $654,000 a year to run the complex on Morgan Street.”
The ‘Digital Dissenters’ – They Come From The High-Tech World, And They’re Very Worried About It
Jaron Lanier, Astra Taylor, Douglas Rushkoff – even Gary Shteyngart and Pope Francis. They and their fellows are “unhappy about the way the tech revolution has played out. Political progressives once embraced the utopian promise of the Internet as a democratizing force, but they’ve been dismayed by the rise of the ‘surveillance state,’ and the near-monopolization of digital platforms by huge corporations.”
Looking At Carnegie Hall’s Wish List For A New Chairman
“The memo, obtained by The New York Times, offers insight into the institution’s thinking as it works to recover from the turmoil that burst into the public eye this fall when Ronald O. Perelman, the billionaire businessman, abruptly stepped down after eight months as its chairman.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 12.28.15
Performing arts and cities and (again) the creative class
A new study just published in the academic journal Economic Development Quarterly looks at the links between big (budget over $2 million) performing arts organizations and the change in the proportion of the metro workforce … read more
AJBlog: For What It’s Worth Published 2015-12-27
Monday Recommendation: Mette Henriette
The mystery, melancholy and minimalist magic of Mette Henriette Martedatter Rølvåg’s music stems in part from her family origins in the Sámi, the indigenous people of northern Scandinavia. … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2015-12-28
The Year in CultureGrrl, 2015 Edition
2015 was, for me, a high point of my CultureGrrl “career” – the only year when my dogged blogging was generously compensated, thanks to the munificent Art Writers Grant from Creative Capital | Warhol Foundation. This windfall … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2015-12-27
Shared Birthday: Crow, Budwig, Scofield & Dickerson
December 26th is the birth date of several notable musicians including Bill Crow (b. 1927), John Scofield (b. 1951) and Dwight Dickerson (b 1944). We wish them a happy birthday and remember Monty Budwig (1929-1992). … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2015-12-27
Immodest me, in Steve Cerra’s Jazz Profiles
Howard Mandel, photo by Salvatore Corso Thanks to Steve Cerra of Jazz Profiles for asking me a few questions by email, and letting me go on and on. Of course my answers are far from … read more
AJBlog: Jazz Beyond Jazz Published 2015-12-26
Smyth: Early, Late, and Best
I’ve found what I think is the best available music by Ethel Smyth: this recording of her Serenade in D (1890) and Double Concerto for Violin and Horn (1927). (Pardon the generic suffragette image on … read more
AJBlog: PostClassic Published 2015-12-23
Puerto Rican/European: Francisco Oller’s Hybrid Paintings at the Brooklyn Museum
Like the works of Archibald Motley, now featured at the Whitney Museum, the art of Puerto Rican painter Francisco Oller, subject of a concurrent retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum (to Jan. 3), inhabits two separate … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2015-12-23
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Midgette: This Year In Classical Music
Anne Midgette tracks the year’s highs and lows in classical music.
Taiwan Opens A Major New Branch Of Its Popular National Museum
“The flagship Taipei museum boasts more than 655,000 Chinese artefacts spanning 7,000 years from the prehistoric Neolithic period to the end of the Qing Dynasty in 1911. They were removed from the Beijing Palace Museum in the 1930s by China’s Nationalist government to prevent them falling into the hands of invading Japanese troops.”
Why It’s Healthy To Reconsider Our Statues And Monuments
“Mysteriously, even uncannily, an artefact, especially a life-like human figure, persuasively stands in for what it represents. When that stone phantom seizes you, the instinctive response is to struggle free.”
The Problem With Opera? The Way We Subsidize It!
“Enough already. The maxim that opera must not become a museum has made it one. Mess is not a message. Fifty years of patience with it are about 50 too many. The crutch has slowed us down.”
For 23 Years Christo Has Been Trying To Do A Project In Colorado. Coloradans Are Fighting Him
“They have been relentless and rude, insulting his hair and clothes, making fun of his accent at public meetings. They have forced him to invest more than $7 million on land-impact studies and lawyer fees to fight court challenges. They’ve called him a foreigner, which he’s not, and criticized his art, reminding journalists and elected officials repeatedly that they are too unsophisticated to actually understand his work, which is a polite, Colorado way of saying they think it sucks.”
Why Are There So Few Women Movie Critics?
“It’s been noted before that women write just 18 percent of the top reviews and constitute only 20 percent of top critics on Rotten Tomatoes—but it’s also the case that in four of the top film critics’ associations, women don’t even account for a quarter of the overall membership.”
How Scientists Are Using 3D Imaging To Record Endangered Archaeological Treasures
“Faced with the apparent impotence of governments and international agencies to stop ISIS’ fanatical levelers, other cultural organizations are trying to create 3-D records of heritage sites to preserve them, at least in digital form, for future generations.”
Why We Still Need Physical Bookstores (And Why They’re Not Going To Go Away)
Customers regularly threaten booksellers with Amazon, like it’s a weapon they can deploy to get what they want from us. “I could get this much cheaper on Amazon,” people tell me when checking out.
Studies: A Definite Link Between Intelligence And Longevity
“The link between IQ and mortality has now been replicated in upwards of 20 longitudinal studies from around the world, and has given rise to the field of cognitive epidemiology, which focuses on understanding the relationship between cognitive functioning and health.”
Researchers: Dance Helps Mitigate Symptoms Of Parkinson’s
“Academics from the University of Roehampton have found that ballet can have significant physical and emotional benefits for patients.”