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The Prescient Artist: Nam June Paik

Paik once said, “It’s an artist’s job to think about the future.” This compelling film underscores why Paik should be considered the progenitor of video art, his work prophesying an “electronic superhighway…where everybody will have his own TV channel” a decade before the internet even existed. - ArtsFuse

Breaking Boundaries: Tyshawn Sorey

A 2017 MacArthur fellow, Sorey is a musical universalist who has little use for categories and labels. He feels they are reductive and irrelevant in a post-genre world and often attaches a wary prefix to them: “so-called jazz,” “so-called classical,” “so-called hip-hop.” Nor does he care for the word “improvisation.” - Columbia Magazine

Cartoonist Sam Gross, Who Cracked Readers Up At Both The New Yorker And National Lampoon, Is Dead At 89

"(His) outrageous, sometimes shocking and occasionally — by today's standards — cancel-worthy cartoons are considered some of the funniest single-panel gags to ever appear in National Lampoon, The New Yorker and other magazines." - MSN (The Washington Post)

Beaux Arts Piano Trio Pianist Menahem Pressler, 99

The Beaux Arts Trio would go on to play more than 4,000 concerts throughout the world while recording virtually all the standard trio repertory. - Washington Post

Soprano Grace Bumbry, 86

Few audiences had ever heard a Black singer perform in an opera house when Ms. Bumbry was growing up in St. Louis in the 1930s and ’40s, the daughter of a railway clerk and a schoolteacher. - Washington Post

Painter Alfredo Arreguin Has Died At 88

Arreguín "fused the tools of classical oil painting with Mexican folk traditions, compressing fine art and ancient craft into stretched canvases that often stood taller than he did. ... For 60 years he painted with few pauses, channeling explosive energy into methodically composed canvases." - Hyperallergic

Laura Pels, Devoted And Determined Patron Of Nonprofit Theatre, Has Died At 92

Her foundation helped many a theatre in New York and beyond. "There were rules: Productions had to be run by accredited nonprofit theaters; a full script, along with a 500-word statement, had to be submitted; and musicals need not apply." - The New York Times

In Charles III, The UK Will Have A King Who Genuinely Loves The Arts

"Throughout his life, King Charles III has involved himself in British cultural life, not only a maker of art but as an avid spectator and patron. … (His) fascination with the arts and entertainment echoes the concerns of several much earlier holders of the throne." - The New York Times

When Jerry Springer Met The Creator Of “Jerry Springer, The Opera”

Writer-composer Richard Thomas (not to be confused with the actor) remembers how he forgot to ask for Springer for rights clearance, how the host came to see the show and wasn't at all a diva about it, and how he asked Thomas for changes in only two lines. - The Guardian

Yvonne Jacquette, Who Painted Dazzling Aerial Landscapes Decades Before There Were Drones, Is Dead At 88

"She crisscrossed continents for those brief glimpses of natural and man-made landscapes, which she often made into watercolors while on board." Sometimes she painted from the high floors of skyscrapers or even the sidewalk, but yes, she would hang out of planes and helicopters — a lot. - ARTnews

Three Years After His Death, Philosopher Roger Scruton Is More Influential Than Ever

Conferences on Scruton’s work are springing up like mushrooms across the continent. Budapest boasts a chain of Scruton cafes that hold regular discussions of his work. The flagship of the chain displays various bits of Scrutonia — books, records, an old-fashioned gramophone and even a teapot. - Bloomberg

Gordon Lightfoot, Hit-Spinning Singer-Songwriter Of The 1970s, Is Dead At 84

A major presence on the US charts and an even bigger star in his native Canada, he's remembered for "Sundown," "If You Could Read My Mind." "Rainy Day People," and "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald." - Variety

Scott Timberg’s Boom Times

That a collection is as well versed in Rechy as it is in Dudamel tells you a lot about the writer, as well as about the time and place in which he was writing. - LA Review of Books

James Harithas, Museum Director And Founder Who Brought Activism To His Work, 90

"He looked outside the art world and its hierarchies to a much larger pool of artists. ... It was his commitment to social justice, political change, the representation of minority artists that really made him stand out." - The New York Times

Beatrix Potter: Biological Illustrator, Entomologist, Mycologist, Sheep Farmer

The creator of Peter Rabbit was more than a writer of children's tales about fuzzy animals. She did professional-quality zoological illustration, carried out serious studies of insects and mushrooms, and was a landscape preservationist who bought many properties in the Lake District to keep them rural. - The New York Times

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