“Although a few museums will be pleased to be able to exhibit the original works — as reminders of the fanatic cult of heroism that led to the deaths of millions of people — the artistic value of the bombastic sculptures is debatable at the very least.”
Why The World Needs Women Rock Critics
“In the effort to prove the burgeoning rock scene of the sixties a worthy subject of critical inquiry, rock needed to be established as both serious and authentic. One result of these arguments—the Rolling Stones vs. Muddy Waters, Motown vs. Stax, Bob Dylan vs. the world—was that women came out on the losing side, as frivolous and phony. Whether a teen-age fan or a member of a girl group, women lacked genuine grit—even female critics thought so.”
Turmoil At Actors Equity Union (So Now What?)
“Its heavy-handed approach to the Los Angeles theater community reveals serious flaws both in Equity’s vision of the future and its ability to implement any vision at all. From the beginning, Equity misread the sentiment of its LA membership — perhaps out of a myopic view of LA theater — or simply out of ignorance.”
Do We Truly Believe In Freedom Of Expression? Trying To Make Sense Of The PEN Protests Of Charlie Hebdo
“It was no small thing to observe a couple of survivors of the Charlie massacre make their way to New York, a mere four months after the slaughter, and be greeted with jeers and a boycott. A supremely chilly heart is needed to mount such a protest. And yet, a couple of hundred warm-hearted American writers lent their names to the chilly protest.”
Academy Of Motion Pictures Faces Challenges, Contemplates Changes
“Behind closed doors — where leaders of the 6,000-member film Academy do most of their deliberating — paid staff, elected governors and committee members have been looking to shore up the annual awards show, which saw a drop in TV viewers of almost 15 percent to 36.6 million in the last year. As that happens, they are dealing with other challenges, expected and otherwise.”
More Audience Engagement? Audiences Need To Reassert Themselves
“Aside from the artist’s responsibility, Don Roth has come to believe that audiences need to do a better job of reasserting themselves. They need to spend more time preparing for a concert, discovering or rediscovering the music, as well as finding out about the musicians. Audience members also need to disconnect themselves, literally and figuratively, from daily life, and be open to a musical experience that’s simultaneously emotional, intellectual, and spiritual.”
Photographer Mary Ellen Mark, 75
“Her portraits of celebrities, street people, and prom-goers are familiar to many Americans who saw her work in Life, National Geographic, Vogue, the New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, or one of her 18 published photo collections.”
Zaha Hadid’s Library Design For Oxford Shocks Planners
“Hadid’s building is the most radically designed modern college building in Oxford since the love-it-or-hate-it cliff face of James Stirling’s Florey building at Queen’s College. This is undoubtedly Hadid’s most intriguing small building, one that she originally described as “a soft bridge”.”
More On The “Radical” New Barenboim Piano Design
“Designed by the Belgian instrument maker Chris Maene, the Barenboim has straight parallel strings instead of the diagonal-crossed ones of a contemporary piano. The wooden soundboard veins go in different directions. The bridges, ribs and bracings are specially-designed and the hammers and strings (yellow brass rather than red brass) have been repositioned.”
Choice Of New Director For The Proms Is A Surprise
David Pickard is “bound to face challenges. The BBC licence fee is due for a rethink next year; any changes to the funding model can scarcely not affect the Proms. At Glyndebourne, he presided over an institution that receives public funding only for educationwork and touring – the opera festival relies entirely on private money. He will now need to apply the diplomatic skills honed dealing with sponsors, donors and patrons to fighting the Proms’ corner in the boardrooms of the BBC.”
USC Dean Refuses To Accept MFA Class’s Withdrawal From Program
“Most notably, the Dean refused to acknowledge that the students were even dropping out, saying “we have not recorded your withdrawal. Instead, we have granted each of you a two-year leave of absence.” Given the clear sense of betrayal felt by the USC7, it seems unlikely that they would choose to return to the program.”
London’s National Gallery Suggests Priceless Paintings Might Belong To Ireland
“The 39 paintings, including some of the most celebrated works of the French artists Renoir, Monet and Manet, were left to the gallery by the art collector Sir Hugh Lane, who was killed on the Lusitania when it was hit by a German torpedo 100 years ago this month. In a codicil to his will, Lane made it clear that he wanted the paintings to go to Dublin, but because the amendment was unwitnessed the collection stayed in London.”
Can The ACLU Prove Hollywood Discriminates In Hiring Women? (Doubtful)
“Attacks on industry-wide practices are harder than on a single, outlier company, since an outlier exists against a backdrop that shows its possible to do better. In industry-wide cases, it becomes more challenging to prove that there is an adequate supply of qualified and interested candidates to begin with.”
Why There Are So Few Women Rock Critics
“The problem for women is that our role in popular music was codified long ago. And it was codified, in part, by the early music press. In the effort to prove the burgeoning rock scene of the sixties a worthy subject of critical inquiry, rock needed to be established as both serious and authentic. One result of these arguments—the Rolling Stones vs. Muddy Waters, Motown vs. Stax, Bob Dylan vs. the world—was that women came out on the losing side, as frivolous and phony.”
Playwright Sam Shepard Arrested In New Mexico
“Shepard was arrested on a charge of aggravated driving while intoxicated outside La Choza restaurant in downtown. The restaurant’s security called police about 7:45 p.m. Monday concerned about an intoxicated driver, Dobyns said. The man was trying to leave in the pickup, but the vehicle’s emergency brake was engaged.”
Numbers Are In: Broadway Had A Great Year At The Box Office
“The Broadway League said Tuesday that box offices reported a record total gross of $1.36 billion — up from $1.27 billion from the previous season. The trade association for theater owners, operators and producers said attendance was up 7.3 percent to 13.1 million.”
Sexism In The Art World: Here Are The Numbers
“The more closely one examines art-world statistics, the more glaringly obvious it becomes that, despite decades of postcolonial, feminist, anti-racist, and queer activism and theorizing, the majority continues to be defined as white, Euro-American, heterosexual, privileged, and, above all, male. Sexism is still so insidiously woven into the institutional fabric, language, and logic of the mainstream art world that it often goes undetected.”
Feminism In Art – We Were Making Progress And Then…
“We are now once again hard put to find at the big institutions feminist shows or exhibitions of works addressing gender, sexual, and other interrelated social inequities.”
Listing And Ranking Women Artists Doesn’t Help The Cause Of Women Artists
“Where notions of gender and success are concerned, the list, by virtue of its very format, embodies the crux of the problem: a litany of names and capsule bios, peppered with personal anecdotes and external endorsements, in lieu of analysis of enduring inequities and systemic biases.”
Memorial Day Weekend Movie Box Office Worst Since 2001
“This year, the industry’s estimated take between Friday and Monday in the U.S. and Canada was $190 million, according to Rentrak. That is the lowest since 2001—particularly bad when considering that average ticket prices have risen 44% over that time, according to the National Association of Theatre Owners.”
Daniel Barenboim Designs A New Piano (With “Improvements”)
Barenboim was inspired to experiment with the design after playing Franz Liszt’s restored grand piano during a trip to Siena, Italy in September 2011. “The warmth and tonal characteristics of the traditional straight-strung instruments is so different from the homogenous tone produced by the modern piano across its entire range,” he said.
Librarian: Here’s Why Libraries Will Outlive The Internet
“Our commercial partners in the information delivery space do wonderful things and we couldn’t live our lives without them. But the time frame we think on, centuries back and centuries into the future, allows us to think about trust in its highest sense, and authentication and provenance of information, and digital information in particular. Those are hard-won privileges and values and they’re worth defending.”
How YouTube Is Redefining Celebrity
“In its 10-years of existence, YouTube has evolved from a playground for kitty videos to a $20 billion visual menagerie. Along the way, it’s also become an incubator for a new type of celebrity — a digital Brat Pack that’s leveraging smartphone stardom to write books, drop albums, design products and break into Hollywood.”
Boom Times For Independent Bookstores?
“Core membership of the American Booksellers Association grew from 1,664 companies last spring to 1,712 this year, the trade group told The Associated Press on Tuesday, the day before the BookExpo America publishing convention and trade show begins in Manhattan. The association also benefited from the recent trend of sellers opening new branches, with ABA members now in 2,227 locations compared with 2,094 in 2014 and 1,651 in 2009.”
Poetry As Essential Medicine
“Indeed, he used his writing to keep himself alive, to soothe himself when spinning out of control, and even to fuel his psychosis when he drifted into madness. Most of all, however, poetry kept him connected to others.”