“At the premiere two weeks prior, at the Kaufman Music Center, the grown-ups had shot down some of Paris [Lavidis’s] most rascally ideas: using firecrackers as percussion, smoking a hookah onstage. So he’d improvised, substituting a whip for the fireworks and handing out kazoos instead of pipes. But the compromise had stolen some of his thunder.”
As The Recent Met Show Proves, Museums Need To Step It Up Around Native Art
“That a show of that size and scope wouldn’t include Native American curatorial partners is indicative of a museum system that has for centuries seen Indigenous people as subjects. In the United States, where most of the large encyclopedic art museums were formed in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries, legacies of putting Native cultures on display are deep-rooted and not so easily given up.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs For 06.28.15
Ornette Coleman, Traditionalist
Are Children’s Books The Next Frontier For High-Quality Nonfiction Illustration And Writing?
“For a long time it has been thought that publishers serve fiction well, while non-fiction has been dominated by glossy reference books. But we are currently seeing a boom in beautifully illustrated narrative non-fiction – and this Greenaway win marks a high point in the trend.”
A Five-Hour Dance Performance Becomes An Endurance Test
“Even watching ‘Still Life’ is an act of endurance. Without a narrative arc or the traditional performance signals of beginning, middle and end, the experience of being in the audience demands a particular focus and attention.”
Richmond Symphony And Its (Literal) Big Tent
“‘The reason we’re excited about the big tent is because it allows us to go out into the community for audiences that may not traditionally go downtown for concerts,’ Dodson said. ‘We wanted to make this as much of a community project as possible.'”
Happy Pride, And Here’s Some History Of Censorship Of LGBTQ Art
“The artist’s digital print was included in the 2001 show ‘CyberArte: Tradition Meets Technology’ at the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, but religious activists fervently called for its removal. The print, which visually referenced queer Chicana culture, was also censored in exhibitions in Cork, Ireland, and Oakland.”
You Can Debate The Meaning Of Life With Google’s New Chatbot
“It reads like a scene from a classic sci-fi flick. But it’s not. It really is a human talking to a machine—a machine built by Google. And there may be good reason it sounds like a movie. Part of the trick is that this machine learned to converse by analyzing an enormous collection of old movie dialogue.”
Why A Massive Trade Partnership Could Endanger Culture In Europe
“European artists are concerned that a model like the one that exists in the US — with artists catering to the market, taking second jobs, and relying on grants from private foundations — could become the standard across all TTIP countries, while the inverse transmission of cultural funding models — with the US adopting a more European system and increasing the level of public funding to the arts — seems utterly improbable.”
Finally – Disney Bans Selfie Sticks
“Beginning Tuesday, “The Happiest Place on Earth” will check for selfie sticks during routine bag checks when visitors enter its grounds. The ban will extend to California’s Disney Resort, as well as the company’s parks in Paris and Hong Kong.”
Twerking? That’s Sooo 1800s!
“Researchers found the word, one of 500 new dictionary entries, was first used in 1820, spelt twirk, to refer to a twisting or jerking movement or twitch. The verb is believed to have emerged later in 1848 and the twerk spelling was used by 1901, the dictionary says.”
PBS Withdraws Program Over “Undue Influence” By Ben Affleck
“On Wednesday, PBS said that an investigation into the controversy showed that Mr. Affleck had exerted “improper influence” over the editorial process and that the producers of the show, Mr. Gates included, had erred by not informing the network of the actor’s “efforts to affect program content.” PBS said it would postpone the third season of the show until a fact-checker was hired and an “independent genealogist” was added to the show’s staff. PBS also will not show Mr. Affleck’s episode anymore and removed it from its online archive.”
Kennedy Center Gets An Artistic Planner (Its First)
“In the newly-created role of Senior Vice President of Artistic Planning, Robert van Leer will coordinate the programming of the arts center and its resident companies, the National Symphony Orchestra and the Washington National Opera. The managers who previously reported to the president will now report to him.”
A “Golden Age” For University Presses?
“The mainstream may be getting dumber by the day, but we are living in what looks like a golden age of publishing for, of all people, the university presses.”
The Difference Between Rating A Movie And Passing Critical Judgment
“So much of what passes for critical thought these days puts numbers ahead of words, as consensus trumps individuality. Who are we to argue with a score on Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic, its main rival? (Jurassic World scored a so-so 59 per cent on Metacritic.) What you see happening are a lot of movies being critically deemed good (or good enough) but far fewer that are unassailably considered great.”