“‘I’m very honoured to be the first [woman in the post],’ she admitted, ‘but I’m also rather shocked that we can be in this year, in this century, and there can still be ‘firsts’ for women.'”
Archives for January 2018
Dancers Are Quitting English National Ballet, Citing ‘Hostile Work Environment’ And Boss’s Workplace Romance
“English National Ballet has lost a third of its dancers in two years amid claims of verbal abuse and a hostile working environment, with some former dancers claiming they felt pressured to work while injured … Sources said the dancers held Tamara Rojo, the artistic director, responsible for the company’s culture.” Adding to the problems, say some dancers, is Rojo’s relationship with dancer Isaac Hernández.
Indians Rioted Over This Movie Before It Opened – And People Who Saw It Say There’s Nothing Objectionable In It
“Moviegoers streamed out of heavily guarded movie theaters saying they liked the sets, the music and the grand Bollywood style of Padmaavat, a lavish saga about a legendary Hindu queen who may never have existed. But they couldn’t understand why so many people had violently objected to it.”
The Unknown, Gorgeous, Endangered Frescoes Of Rajasthan
“India’s Shekhawati province is in the northeastern Rajasthani desert and more than seven hours by car from Delhi. The region covers almost 5,000 square miles and hosts an estimated 2,000 frescoed buildings built from the 17th to the early 20th century. Many of them are abandoned and most are breathtakingly beautiful. Arguably the world’s largest collection of outdoor painting, Shekhawati is a treasure trove of startling architecture and adornment.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 01.29.18
See It Now–Michel Sittow, Extraordinary Painter
Hats off to Estonia, which in celebrating the 100th anniversary of its proclamation as an independent republic in 1918, following the dissolution of the Russian Empire, decided to honor its genius painter – Michel Sittow (c. 1469-1525) – with … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2018-01-29
A Japanese Company Brings a Forest to New York
Kei Takei’s Moving Earth Orient Sphere performs at New York Live Arts, January 25-27. … read more
AJBlog: Dancebeat Published 2018-01-28
Monday Recommendation: Crispell, MacDonald, Tremblay
Marilyn Crispell, Raymond MacDonald, Pierre Alexandre Tremblay: Two Duos, Three Trios (Bruce’s Fingers) … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2018-01-29
Jazz Congress, Winter JazzFest, shape of jazz to come
The Congress’s sessions included JALC managing and artistic director Wynton Marsalis speaking on race and jazz, women in jazz announcing “yes, we’re here,” and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar keynoting about his love of the music. … read more
AJBlog: Jazz Beyond Jazz Published 2018-01-28
Window Cleaner Rushes To Save Banksy Mural After It Had Been Painted Over
“I was just going to bed when I’d seen that it had been painted over, and someone had said it was still wet,” he said. “Banksy, love him or hate him, has international prestige and he’d gifted the city with his art.” The window cleaner already had his ladders and other equipment prepared for his Monday morning shift, so he headed straight to the bridge in an attempt to save the mural.
UK Government: Foreign Languages Versus Arts Education
Under their model, “modern foreign languages teaching hours are increased at the expense of subjects other than biology, chemistry, classics, English, geography, history, mathematics, and physics teaching hours”. Consequently, 51,000 more curriculum hours are being planned for languages by 2022, which is to be achieved, in part, by cutting hours for art & design, design & technology, drama and music by a collective 19,000 hours.
The Condescension Of Calling Something Out
When is the last time you heard someone say outright that someone else is watching wrong? These days, to call out wrongness or falseness or badness is to risk being accused of condescension. The desire to make such accusations is taken as a mark of unacknowledged privilege. It’s understood as likely to hurt someone’s feelings. People prefer to play it safe. They hesitate to make such critical judgments.
How Artificial Will Judge Us (The Star System? Really?)
The reputation economy is based on the simplistic, but effective star ratings system. Anyone who’s ever rated their Uber driver or Airbnb host has actively participated. But what happens when algorithms, rather than humans, determine an individual’s reputation score based on multiple data sources and mathematical formulas, promising more accuracy and more flexibility via machine learning?
The Curious History Of Cinerama Movies
Cinerama movies highlight some of the questions facing modern film preservation. Is it worth restoring films that can’t be seen properly? Only three theaters on Earth — in Los Angeles, Seattle and Bradford, England — can still screen the first form of Cinerama, which required three projectors running simultaneously, each aimed at a different part of an enormous screen.
How Artists Are Helping Rebuild Puerto Rico
Through decades of economic hardship, and years of financial crisis, the art world in Puerto Rico has had to learn to survive during lean times through a new artistic “sharing” economy — sharing knowledge; resources; and access to infrastructure, materials and spaces. Might these artists now serve as an example — and catalyst — for other communities?
The Great Art Of Monstrous Geniuses (What To Do?)
Despite ample evidence to the contrary, many people remain stubbornly inclined to believe that great artists like Levine are somehow immune to the temptation to conduct themselves contemptibly. So it will be interesting to see what happens when the attention of the public turns, as it undoubtedly will, to the misconduct of still greater artists of the past.
Canadian Theatre Pioneer Sean Mulcahy, 91
Mulcahy established Edmonton’s Citadel Theatre as a major hub. He doubled the subscriptions and the theatre was packed every night. Mr. Mulcahy was fired in 1972 for criticizing the theatre’s leadership. At the time, he said it was because of “several irritating dissatisfactions I am undergoing with the theatre’s administration.” Mr. Mulcahy was the artistic director at five other Canadian theatres, most of them in smaller cities, from Fredericton, where he was director of the Playhouse, to the Press Theatre in St. Catharines, Ont. He was co-artistic director of the Shaw Festival’s first professional season. He also continued acting.
A Path Out Of The Classical Music Ghetto?
Frankly, I’ve never understood why there has—until recently—been such a demarcation between genres in music. As far back as I can remember, I’ve been enormously responsive to music, independent of genre. I know I’m not alone in this, especially in today’s eclectic musical environment, but for many people, classical music’s vaunted tradition excluded an appreciation of popular or folkloric forms—and heaven forfend that any classical composer should write something as shallow as film music!
More Oregon Bach Festival Stumbles: Hires, Then Removes Another Conductor
The Oregon Bach Festival, which last year fired its artistic director amid accusations of racism and sex discrimination, has hired a conductor for this summer’s festival who was reportedly dismissed from a guest conducting job with the Oberlin Baroque Orchestra in 2015 after complaints he used racial slurs at a rehearsal. Just two days later, his name was removed from the festival’s website.
The Berkshire Museum Problem
Nina Simon: Why wouldn’t they make the rational choice to get as much money as possible for their sins? Because their choice has consequences beyond their own self-interest. It exposes the fragility of the rule of deaccessioning, the thin line between “treasured public asset” and “hard cold cash.” The rule is built on a sleight of hand, a conceit that says that museums won’t acknowledge the market value of objects — until they will. As cultural theorist Diane Ragsdale put it, “When communities become markets, citizens become consumers, and culture becomes an exploitable product.”
Playwright’s Estate Accuses “Shape Of Water” Studio Of Stealing
David Zindel, son of the Pulitzer Prize-winning American playwright Paul Zindel, told the Guardian “he believes his father’s work Let Me Hear You Whisper, a play about a female janitor in a research laboratory who bonds with a captive dolphin and tries to rescue the creature, is a source of inspiration for The Shape of Water. Del Toro’s film was nominated on Tuesday for 13 Oscars, including best picture, best director and best original screenplay.”
Why Returning Indigenous Artifacts Is More Difficult Than An Agreement
“The University of Toronto embarked on a fourteen-year process of repatriating the bones of more than 1,700 individuals in its possession. But until recently, such agreements tended to be the exception, not the norm. In the meantime, the legal status of artifacts—which can serve as evidence in land claims negotiation—remains a long-standing sore point.”
America’s Decline Is Accelerating (Are People Noticing?)
American collapse is much more severe than we suppose it is. We are underestimating its magnitude, not overestimating it. American intellectuals, media, and thought doesn’t put any of its problems in global or historical perspective — but when they are seen that way, America’s problems are revealed to be not just the everyday nuisances of a declining nation, but something more like a body suddenly attacked by unimagined diseases.
Reading Linda Nochlin And Pretty Much Wanting To Boot Jeff Koons From The Museum
This is what happens when you go to the Art Institute of Chicago, or pretty much anywhere, after being trained by Nochlin to truly see. “How ought we read these works? Now that we know the assumed universality they project is specious, what do we do? Nochlin’s answer, in part, is to see the works in their own time, to lay bare their assumptions and examine them for ourselves. Meaning needs context. By looking at how artworks were situated in their own historical moment, how they resonated then and now, Nochlin takes charge of the interpretation.”
The Black Market Bot Factory That Inflates Celebrities’ Twitter Followers (By The Millions)
This doesn’t sound shady at all: “Devumi sells Twitter followers and retweets to celebrities, businesses and anyone who wants to appear more popular or exert influence online. Drawing on an estimated stock of at least 3.5 million automated accounts, each sold many times over, the company has provided customers with more than 200 million Twitter followers” – and at least 55,000 of the accounts are basically identity theft.
MoviePass Abruptly Canceled Some Big AMC Theatres, But AMC Shouldn’t Be Worried
Seriously, MoviePass, this supposed negotiation tactic doesn’t look like a good idea: “n fact, doing the math, it looks like MoviePass may account for less than 5 percent of the revenue AMC makes from ticket sales.”
Step Into The Artwork And Listen To The Tracking Signal Of 19 Satellites Orbiting The Earth
The mysterious, metallic nautilus shell is only one of the artworks that NASA’s Jet Propulsion Labs team of artists has produced. The artist team has “made travel posters for planets in distant galaxies, and they’ve simulated Jupiter’s churning atmosphere in a small room. They once drilled a hole in a grain of sand, then displayed it alongside six rooms filled with sand to give a sense of how tiny we are in the vast universe.”
So, Steven Soderbergh’s ‘Mosaic’: What Was That?
He insisted it wasn’t a “Choose your own adventure” TV miniseries/app. Instead, “it’s both a dazzlingly experimental work and a totally conventional murder mystery. It’s frank and secretive, flooding viewers with information without giving them the tools to make sense of it. The story has multiple different paths to follow but they all end up in the same place. Less a show than a television experience, it’s brilliant and exasperating.”
The YouTube Poet Who’s Calling Out Those Who Think Their Poetry Isn’t Political
Danez Smith’s poetry is part of a movement, or so it feels. “This is a significant moment for poetry. We are meeting days after Ocean Vuong (gay, Vietnamese and a friend of Smith’s) won the TS Eliot prize, and it is tempting to think poetry is at a turning point, belatedly diversifying, relaxing its borders. The reality is that there is still a long way to go, but this is a flicker of intent, the poetic ghettoising becoming less flagrant. It’s a mainstream momentum.”