“The ABC is dismantling its historic sound and reference libraries across the country and making 10 specialist librarians redundant to free up floor space and save on wages. Radio National, Classic FM, JJJ and all the other ABC programs rely on the Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne, Perth and Hobart libraries, which are packed full of CDs and vinyl as well as books and journals after 85 years of collecting.”
Some Deep Thinking About What Enjoyment Is
Philosophers have puzzled over the question of what enjoyment is, proposing competing accounts of pleasure, but we can take a straightforward view that enjoyment is a distinctive state of finding an experience pleasurable. The hallmark feature of pleasure, in turn, is its feel-good quality. An enjoyable experience feels good. And it can be distinguished thus from a painful one, which feels bad. Does then the transitory nature of enjoyment undermine its worth? Or might that very brevity of enjoyment be part of its importance in human life?
Grammys In The Crosshairs After Last Week’s Malethon
Having apparently learned nothing from the many men forced to walk back tone-deaf commentary during the #MeToo movement, Recording Academy President Neil Portnow almost immediately made things worse. He responded to the hashtag by urging women to “step up.”
Ceramic Artist Dora De Larios, 84
“Throughout her career, De Larios’ work took singular forms – as small, sprightly sculptures of animals and towering goddesses – inspired by her interest in pre-Columbian craft and ancient Japanese design.”
Singapore Is Losing Its Place In The Art World To Hong Kong
“Hong Kong is a more mature market and the community is more spontaneous in terms of buying art. Singapore is a young market and apart from a small handful of established collectors, new buyers are a lot more considered, and they keep galleries on their toes.”
Portland’s Small Theatres Band Together To Cope With Soaring Rents
As with just about any cool city these days, real estate costs in the City of Roses have been rising faster than cash-strapped arts organizations can keep up with – especially for the clear-space buildings that theatres need. As several of Portland’s smaller companies lost their spaces at around the same time, they got creative.
The Crucial Quality Missing From Google’s Translator
The practical utility of Google Translate and similar technologies is undeniable, and probably it’s a good thing overall, but there is still something deeply lacking in the approach, which is conveyed by a single word: understanding. Machine translation has never focused on understanding language. Instead, the field has always tried to “decode”—to get away without worrying about what understanding and meaning are.
The “Best Person” Fallacy
The multidimensional or layered character of complex problems undermines the principle of meritocracy: the idea that the ‘best person’ should be hired. There is no best person. When putting together an oncological research team, a biotech company such as Gilead or Genentech would not construct a multiple-choice test and hire the top scorers, or hire people whose resumes score highest according to some performance criteria. Instead, they would seek diversity. They would build a team of people who bring diverse knowledge bases, tools and analytic skills.”
Does The Barnes Have The Highest Admit Price In America?
“At $30, it costs more to enter the Barnes than any other art museum in the country, according to a list compiled by Art News since the decision by the Metropolitan Museum in New York to end pay-what-you-wish ticket prices for out-of-state visitors. The Met now charges $25. But wait. That $30 Barnes ticket is not the “official” admission price — even though you can’t get in without paying it.”
Five Trends That Are Changing The Gallery World
If most longtime gallerists continue clinging to familiar patrons and familiar methods, then the art business, as physicist Max Planck once said of science, will only “advance one funeral at a time.” But either way the next generation appears ready to step up and reach out.
Hal Prince Is Turning 90, And He’s Serving Up Broadway Dish For His Birthday
Michael Paulson picks out some choice tidbits from a series of conversations Prince recorded with producer Jeffrey Seller (Hamilton, Rent). For instance, the M.C. in Cabaret was Prince’s idea.
Meet The First, And Greatest, All-Women Afro Drum Band In Brazil
Traditionally, the Afro-Brazilian drum bands of Bahia state were strictly male affairs. Then, in 1993, Neguinho do Samba – considered the father of the current drumming style in Bahia and former head of the standard-bearer of the form, the group Olodum – founded Banda Didá specifically for females. Reporter Shannon Sims goes to Salvador do Bahia to see and hear them. (includes video)
Musical Chairs: Keeping Track Of All The Music Director Changes At American Orchestras
“Chicago is secure [with Riccardo Muti] for the time being, but major orchestras in San Francisco, Atlanta, Dallas and Detroit are all looking for new maestros.” So are the opera companies in San Francisco and D.C. And Seattle, St. Louis, D.C. (again) and New York (opera and orchestra both) have recently acquired new music directors. Michael Cooper presents “your cheat sheet on the comings and goings on some of the nation’s top podiums.”
Turns Out Philly’s ‘LOVE’ Sculpture Has Had The Wrong Color All These Years
“The work by Robert Indiana was first installed [near Philadelphia’s City Hall] on loan for the U.S. bicentennial celebrations in 1976 and was repainted twice using – in addition to its dominant red and green – a blue paint that turned out to be the wrong color.” When it returns from its yearlong renovation in two weeks, the right color will be there. (And that color is?)
This Dancer Has Been A Star In His Company For 20 Years – And He Got His Job By Sneaking Into An Audition
The company is Evidence, choreographer Ronald K. Brown’s troupe, and the dancer is Bessie winner Arcell Cabuag, now the company’s associate artistic director. In honor of Cabuag’s 20th anniversary with Evidence, Brown is creating a new duet for the two of them – and Gia Kourlas went to their studio to talk with the two of them about it.
UK’s Costa Book Of The Year Prize Goes To Helen Dunmore, Who Died Last June
“Inside the Wave considers [Dunmore’s] terminal cancer diagnosis and impending death. … [She] is only the second posthumous winner of the book of the year category in the prize’s history, after her fellow poet Ted Hughes won for Birthday Letters in 1998.”
A New ‘Porgy And Bess’ With A White Cast Raises Eyebrows, Even In Europe
“The decision [by the Hungarian State Opera] to use white singers is contrary to the clear wishes of George and Ira Gershwin, whose estates stipulate that the opera be performed only by black casts,” and all publicity for the production now reflects that. At least they’re not using blackface (as the company did during the Communist period): the production concept sets the opera in a refugee camp, with the characters as migrants.
Scotland’s Arts Funder Calls ‘Emergency Meeting’ After Cuts Get Serious Pushback
“Under-fire arts quango Creative Scotland has been forced to hold crisis talks to “review” controversial funding cuts. An emergency board meeting is to be held within days to ‘take stock’ of the fall-out from moves to strip 20 companies of long-term funding. The Scottish Government has revealed that the summit has been called to ‘review certain decisions,’ raising the prospect of an embarrassing climbdown for the quango.”
Bénédicte Pesle, Who Brought American Avant-Garde Performance To France, Dead At 90
“[She] did her work behind the scenes, eschewing labels like ‘producer’ and ‘presenter’ while performing a wide array of functions – go-between, convincer, fund-raiser and more – that might in fact have fallen under those job descriptions. When pressed, she would use a humble term to characterize her role: ‘secrétaire d’artistes‘ – secretary of artists.” Among those artists were Merce Cunningham, Trisha Brown, Meredith Monk, Richard Foreman, Philip Glass and Robert Wilson (she engineered the commissioning of Einstein on the Beach).
Top Posts From AJBlogs 01.30.18
Share What You Have
This is part of a series, introduced in Baby Steps, about arts organizations’ initial efforts in community engagement. … The essence is that simple, inexpensive initial steps offer the best way to embark upon community engagement. … read more
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2018-01-30
Correspondence, Illustrated: Shoemake On Nash
Vibraphonist Charlie Shoemake has instructed hundreds of aspiring jazz musicians in the techniques and mysteries of improvisation. Among his early students was Ted Nash, who as a young man … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2018-01-30
Joe Henry, Poetry, and The Blues
Like a lot of listeners, I’ve long considered Joe Henry to be a smart and vaguely literary songwriter – smart, more-or-less sensitive, good with words. But I was pleasantly surprised when Joe … read more
AJBlog: CultureCrash Published 2018-01-30
New Research Suggests Medical Students Do Better With Art
“The humanities have been pushed to the side in medical school curricula,” said Mark Kahn of the Tulane University School of Medicine, the paper’s senior author. “Our data suggests that exposure to the arts is linked to important personal qualifies for future physicians.”
Turkish Military Destroys Significant Ancient Syrian Temple
The Turkish air strike hit near the main doorway to the temple, causing severe damage to the central and southeastern parts of the building. The site appears to have no military significance and the fact that the bombs destroyed the temple entrance suggests that the archaeological site was directly targeted. If so, this would be a breach of the Hague Convention on the protection of cultural property during armed conflict.