Yearly Archives: 2021
The 16 Defining Art Events of 2021
In-person gatherings return, NFTs (or the people involved) go nuts, $20 billion-with-a-b worth of art donated in South Korea, major new museums in Paris...
Canon Fodder: Classical Music’s Difficult Reckoning with Race
"More than anything, the artistic questions facing classical music today go well beyond the simple dualism of keeping or tossing the canon; they revolve...
A New York Times Entertainment Reporter Remembers His Childhood As A Real-Life Carny
As Guillermo del Toro's Nightmare Alley hits screens, Brooks Barnes takes the occasion to write about the corn dogs he dipped and unlimited snow...
How Elizabeth Alexander Is Transforming The Mellon Foundation
Alexander came to the organization with a specific mandate, she said, of “sharpening the focus—doing all the work, every penny, through a social justice...
A Major Black Theater Company In An Unlikely Place Bounces Back From The Pandemic
COVID arrived at a bad time for Sarasota's Westcoast Black Theater Troupe: it had just opened a new venue in February 2020. Luckily, "one...
Where The Main Thread Of American Opera Ought To Have Gone: “Porgy”
Joseph Horowitz teaches us to stop hearing “Porgy and Bess” narrowly, as a Black opera, or as some sideline oddity called a folk opera....
Taking On, And Having At, The Ballerina Mystique
Rachel Kapelke-Dale: "In the end, Ballerinas turned out to be about the violence that emerges from the rage of being trapped in someone...
Los Angeles Review Of Books Turns Ten
A self-described “cockeyed optimist,” Tom Lutz admitted he underestimated the volume of work required to launch the publication — not to mention the costs...
Spain’s Most Un-Francoist Filmmaker Finally Takes On The Franco Era
Pedro Almodóvar's Parallel Mothers starts out with a very Almodóvar situation, two single women about to give birth, but the movie’s really about the...
Doesn’t Seem Like It After 20 Years, But Peter Jackson’s “Lord Of The Rings”...
He'd made some comedy-horror mashups and one arthouse hit when he set to work on the Tolkien adaptations, so he wasn't someone you'd think...
Britain’s National Lottery Gave Blighted Towns $330 Million To Spend As They Wished. What...
While the specifics differ (as do outcomes, somewhat), the common thread seems to be that these towns built gathering places — community centers or...
The Bookstore That’s Helping Mosul Recover From Three Years Under ISIS
The Mosul Book Forum, which offers concerts and events along with books, opened three months after the city was liberated. Said cofounder Fahad Sabah,...
Robert Indiana’s Foundation Sues Publisher For Forgery
The Morgan Art Foundation's filing in US federal court accuses publisher Michael McKenzie of "allegedly forging Indiana's artwork, defaming the foundation, and intentionally interfering...
Afghanistan’s National Institute of Music Will Rebuild Itself In Portugal
On Monday, 273 teachers and students from the school flew from Qatar, where they landed at a US base after fleeing the Taliban, to...
Cleaning Staff At Guggenheim Bilbao Stage Performance Art To Protest Appalling Wages
The artist Lorenzo Bussi (alias "Art Builders Group") and the workers devised the action, titled "Is Everyone's Work Equally Important?", at the top of...
Why Podcasting Might Be A Passing Fad For Media Companies
For several years, a mixture of denial and deep optimism have kept up the facade. News outlet leaders believe that, since others are perceived...
Hong Kong’s M+ Was Ambitious. But Its Time May Already Have Passed
M+ seemed inevitable, so right. But if you looked closely enough, divisions between the city and its various cultural saviours were starting to emerge. -...
The Problem: A Tech Solution To “Solving” Democracy Is Problematic
Optimization cannot reconcile people’s conflicting world views. Though conflict has always been the meat of politics, political differences today mean that people not only...
Great Books And The Purpose Of College
In the old college system there were lists of books that every student was supposed to study—a canon. The canon was the curriculum. In...
Singers Who Have Found New Creative Life During COVID
As devastating as the pandemic has been to lives and livelihoods, a number of opera singers have found themselves emerging back into live performance...
How Paul Winter Redefined Ambient Music
No one in the music world has been more ambitious or creative in exploring the ways musicians can create soundscapes in dialogue with the...
Why Didn’t Lyric Opera Of Chicago Tell Anyone It Renewed Its CEO’s Contract?
Anthony Freud's term was to have expired this year; in October, LOC's board extended it for five years with no public announcement. When asked,...
Studies: More Education = Higher IQ For Longer Time
We consistently see that longer education does raise our cognitive abilities: a person’s IQ gains one to five points for each additional year of...
Bramwell Tovey Makes It Official: Artistic Director Of Rhode Island Philharmonic
The longtime music director of the Vancouver Symphony (2000-2018) has been the RI Phil's artistic advisor since 2018, and he is also music director...
Australian Artist’s Instagram Account Was @Metaverse. Then Facebook Booted Her Off
Early that morning, when she tried to log in to Instagram, she found that the account had been disabled. A message on the screen...