“The arrival of Feature, brainchild of the Montreal-based Association des galeries d’art contemporain (AGAC), was, in fact, described largely positively, as ‘a welcome evolution,’ in the words of Art Toronto director Susannah Rosenstock.”
Comedies Are So Over – It’s All About The Dramedy Now
“If we’re really going to move forward, we need to embrace a broader idea of what comedies are capable of. If you think that isn’t a big obstacle … well, how many times have you seen someone complain an episode of, say, Parks and Recreation was terrible because it ‘wasn’t funny enough’ when it really just dealt with weightier material or took a breather to develop its characters?”
Stop Waiting For Someone Else To Do It, And DIY Theatre
“DIY is making a show in a bar when theatres refuse to programme your work or starting your own artist-led space to provide opportunities for yourself, but also crucially for others.”
15th-Century Sculpture That Was Smashed To Pieces Back On Display At Met Museum
“On the evening of 8 October 2002, the Metropolitan Museum of Art suffered what its former director Philippe de Montebello described as the ‘single worst thing that has ever happened at the museum’. One of its greatest treasure, Tullio Lombardo’s life-sized marble sculpture of the nude Adam crashed to the stone floor as its medium-density plywood stand buckled and collapsed.”
Plug Artist Strikes Back At Parisians Who Were So Mean To Him
It’s not enough that Paul McCarthy had to endure protests and mockery for his Tree in the Place Vendôme. It’s not enough that vandals cut the piece down. He was actually slapped in the face by a passerby. So McCarthy is preparing an “aggressive” response to be added to his soon-to-open installation Chocolate Factory.
The Strange Life And Dramatic Death Of An Avant-Garde Hero
“Even today, no one is sure if Fred Herko intended to kill himself when he jumped out of the window” – naked, with Mozart blasting away – “of his friend Johnny Dodd’s Greenwich Village apartment in 1964. The 28-year-old dancer and performer – one of the central figures of New York’s 60s avant-garde and a star of Andy Warhol’s first movies – was high on speed, and possibly LSD.”
First-Ever Kirkus Prizes, $50K, Go To Chast, King, Samworth
“Roz Chast took the nonfiction prize with her graphic memoir, Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?. The fiction prize went to Lily King for her novel Euphoria. The prize for young readers’ literature goes to Kate Samworth, author of Aviary Wonders Inc.”
Newly-Found Videotapes Feature Cleese and Chapman, Pre-Python
“Two episodes of 1960s TV comedy At Last The 1948 Show, which starred pre-Monty Python John Cleese and Graham Chapman, have been found after almost 50 years.”
13th Grade: We Should Add An Extra Year Of High School
Several school districts in Oregon are offering a fifth year of high school. Rebecca Schuman makes the case for doing it nationwide.
Meet The People Who Keep Porn Pics And Beheadings Out Of Your Social Media Feeds
Companies like Facebook and Twitter have to deal with “the Grandma Problem” – making their services safe for wholesome regular folks who “won’t continue to log on if they find their family photos sandwiched between a gruesome Russian highway accident and a hardcore porn video.” So there’s now a small army of content moderators – many of them low-paid workers in the Philippines – zapping the nasty stuff out.
Top Posts From AJBlogs 10.23.14
Neuberger Museum Changes Directors–Fast
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2014-10-23
Lonnie Johnson’s Guitar
AJBlog: CultureCrash Published 2014-10-23
So you want to see a show?
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2014-10-23
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Why Don’t Men Read Romance Novels?
“Men are put off because of what romance novels symbolize, then, rather than by anything in romance novels themselves.”
Study: Are Musicians Better Multi-taskers?
“The study, published in the journal Cognitive Science, explored whether two groups of people would perform better than average at task-switching: musicians, and bilingual individuals. Since members of the latter group can, and sometimes do, switch back and forth between languages, it seemed logical that they would also do well on other tasks involving quick mental transitions.”
Departing Chicago Humanities Festival Director Reflects On The Enduring Appeal Of Live Events
“We live in an age where a million things are easily accessible online, including videos of just about anyone we bring in,” Matt Bunzl says. “One could fear that no one would move their butt to our events. But the opposite seems to be the case. In a world where everything is so easily attainable, there’s a new premium on the in-person experience. The sense of community that is created when people are sitting in a room together—because of the digital universe we’re in—that has actually become more attractive.”
Tate Boss Tops Art World’s “Most Powerful” List
“Sir Nicholas Serota, 68, who has appeared in the top 10 of every list since it launched in 2002, is the first representative of a public museum to reach the top spot.”
We Have Two Rivals For 2014 Word Of The Year
“Described as ‘beautifully British’, the ‘subtle yet devastating’ put-down overshare was today named word of the year by the Chambers Dictionary. Collins, however, has plumped for photobomb as its choice, citing the words 100% increase in usage over the past year.”
The Wrong Opera At The Wrong Time? The “Klinghoffer” Controversy Isn’t Really About Klinghoffer
“Clearly, last summer’s war in Gaza and the rise of brutal ISIS in Iraq and Syria ambushed the Met production, in the planning for years. … The larger picture, though, shows what happens when an artistic vocabulary is scrutinized out of context by hostile parties.”
The Trouble With Manhattan
Zadie Smith: “To find your beach you have to be ruthless. Manhattan is for the hard-bodied, the hard-minded, the multitasker, the alpha mamas and papas. A perfect place for self-empowerment — as long as you’re pretty empowered to begin with. As long as you’re one of these people who simply do not allow anything — not even reality — to impinge upon that clear field of blue.”