[contextly_auto_sidebar] The second of my histories of the creative class just went up on the website for Radio Silence, the Bay Area journal dedicated to music and literature. Here's a passage from it: Greece saw a kind of civic society of music and dance. Every class from king to serf took part; the children of citizens were educated to sing and play the lyre; and guests at a drinking party … [Read more...]
Is European Arts Funding Doomed?
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="KkC7I9hLXMdSqZ9yVeCleKO4zeItPdkO"] ONE subject that comes up a lot on this site, especially in reader comments, is the public funding of art by European nations. That funding makes a lot of things possible -- including access -- that the market would not support. A new dispatch from Paris -- where a private museum designed by Frank Gehry has recently opened -- … [Read more...]
Artist-Activist Daniel Beaty, and Dismantling Libraries
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="fWCZOlqlcOkp84opgNwzY9TpfVFLSu9B"] CAN an artist -- in this case an actor and playwright -- be a healer at the same time? Do the two roles reinforce each other, or do they pull in opposite directions? These were questions I got into in a new story on Daniel Beaty, a remarkable guy who is closing out the LA run of The Tallest Tree in the Forest, a play about the … [Read more...]
Is Art Therapy? And, the Madness of Eddie Izzard
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="vfSOI90RO2KEYpq5eSwBZ2d7FDDUHrCx"] IT may be an unanswerable question, but it's one I've been brooding on a lot lately: To what extent is art a disinterested inquiry -- the search for some kind of human truth -- and to what extent does it offer some kind of extra benefit that soothes artist or audience? That issue, which I'll get into more fully in an upcoming … [Read more...]