Yearly Archives: 2021
‘One Of Last Great Shared Texts In Our Culture’ (And It’s A 70-Year-Old Comic...
"In a highly polarized culture … the most recent and arguably final example of a great American work of art loved broadly and...
How To Use Boredom To Your Benefit
Technology might have moved on, but the role of boredom in motivating change is no different for us in the 21st century. Yet not...
Ellen Burstyn On Her Fame (She’s Been *Very* Fortunate)
"It was never really my intention to be a movie star," says the actress, who's probably about to get her seventh Oscar nomination at...
How Equitable Pay Leads To Better Theatre
"Since pay equity leads to higher quality work, any company interested in having the best product to share with their community will center pay...
What New Anti-Money-Laundering Rules Will Mean For The U.S. Art And Antiquities Market
One of the provisions added to the National Defense Authorization Act for 2021 makes antiquities dealers subject to the Bank Secrecy Act. One of...
How The UK Art World Will Change Post-Brexit
The symbolic implications of the UK leaving the European Union has hit the art world hard. But the deal will also have a concrete...
Could Percussion Ensembles Become The String Quartets Of The 21st Century?
After all, "in 2009, critic Allan Kozinn declared in The New York Times, 'If you think about it, drums are the new violins,' pointing...
How Pete Docter Is Healing Pixar After #MeToo And #TimesUp
Things might have seemed iffy for the multibillion-dollar animation powerhouse after its founding creative director, John Lasseter, abruptly left in 2017 amid allegations of...
‘Obscenities, Inanities And Treason’: A Critic On The Riot At The U.S. Capitol
Philip Kennicott: "The whole drama, the body language, the flags and the onslaught, was borrowed from other dramas — genuine displays of revolutionary fervor...
MD High Court Rules Rap Lyrics Can Be Used As Evidence Against Defendant
"Three weeks before trial, Montague used a jailhouse telephone to record a rap verse, which was then uploaded to Instagram. , the State...
The Stage 100 For 2021 Honors British Theatre’s Response To COVID
"Arts workers in the NHS, composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, actor Michael Balogun and theatre company 20 Stories High are among those recognised in this...
Parisian Billionaire’s Museum Is, At Last, Ready To Open
"At 84, the billionaire François Pinault will finally realise a 20-year plan to build a private museum for his contemporary art collection in Paris....
Orbán Gov’t In Hungary Fans Rightist Backlash Against Black Lives Matter Artwork
"Commentators on pro-government television chatshows threatened to pull the statue down if it was erected, and compared it to putting up a monument to...
The Organization Working To Reimagine Public Monuments
The goal is to assess the country’s landscape of public memory in a time when our shared identity as Americans feels strained, if not...
Ex-Employees Of The California Arts Council Speak Out
"When it comes to the arts program specialists, I and several of my former colleagues found it to be a space that causes fear...
After 40 Years Leading San Francisco Ballet, Helgi Tomasson To Step Down
Since being named to the position in 1985, Tomasson, 78, has been hailed for his success at combining excellence in the classical ballet repertoire...
The Fifteen-Minute City? Sweden Considers The “One-Minute City”
A plan piloted by Swedish national innovation body Vinnova and design think tank ArkDes focuses attention on what Dan Hill, Vinnova’s director of strategic design, calls...
Australian Artists: Why Did The National Government Forget Us?
"For some, state governments stepped up and provided support. But the message to artists from the federal government was: you are not important to...
Why Doesn’t The Entertainment Biz Give Proper Credit To Its Choreographers?
The Emmys and Tonys give their Best Choreography trophies without the TV cameras running; the Oscars don't even have a category for dancemakers, and...
Getting the Question(s) Right
As a blogger, I think I’m supposed to begin the New Year with reflections and projections. But the traumas of 2020 are still too...
Arts Organizations Turn To Stars For Fundraising
The pandemic has forced arts institutions on both sides of the Atlantic to swiftly up their online game. The New York City Ballet and...
Analyzing The Fallout From The New York Times’s ‘Caliphate’ Podcast
The Peabody- and Pulitzer-winning audio series lost much of its luster (and gave up its awards) when its primary subject was revealed to be...
What The Reality Of Cows Has To Inform Humans
A cow sporting VR goggles is comedic as much as it is tragic. There’s horror, too, in that it may foretell our own alienated...
Who Exactly Invented The Alphabet, And When?
The Sumerians had cuneiform and the Egyptians hieroglyphics, both complex and difficult to master, but who developed the system where each character represents a...
The Art World’s 12 Biggest 2020 Controversies
Museums and galleries faced financial challenges that threatened their very existence, as Black Lives Matter uprisings forced a reckoning with the art world’s structural...