[contextly_auto_sidebar id="gWxP2UlWmS5c3mIiMDSg5QhfQpx7pxO7"] OFTEN I wonder how the pressure on today's musicians and artists to constantly promote themselves would allow a musician like Eric Dolphy -- an introvert dedicated to his craft and someone who remains a kind of enigma -- to have a career and achieve even the low level of fame he had in the '60s. I'm still wondering, but I'm glad to … [Read more...]
A Return in Minnesota, and Kushner and Rodrick in Paperback
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="9ERXa4nuBab6v5CPcvsEksqMFVDobHPt"] ONE of the unpleasant recent developments in classical music -- the 16 month (!) lockout of the musicians in the Minnesota Orchestra -- may be resolving. But it may not go entirely smoothly. A report just today from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune describes newly restored music director Osmo Vanska. “We are terribly behind and must do … [Read more...]
Housing for Artists, Upcoming Doc and What Twain Tells Us
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="hLRQi16APGHGAa7vr6agsGJdgdO8X6ef"] IT’S taken a while, but as rents and real estate prices have surged over the last few years, the issue of living space for artists has started to get the attention it deserves; David Byrne and Patti Smith have helped shine a light on the plight of creative folk in New York. A new story by fiction writer Catherine Lacey highlights … [Read more...]
Do Visual Artists Still Need Galleries? And, Outsider Artist in Texas
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="xuel5RALWv2asRk33q0uxqd8UbYD0j58"] OVER the last few years, there's been a lot of talk about disintermediation -- removing the middle man. Digital technology makes this easier, and we've seen the self-publishing model expand for artists for authors, musicians, journalists and others. Will artists abandon galleries and try to reach collectors directly? Some already … [Read more...]
Remembering Mike Kelley, and an Inscrutable Indie Rocker
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="uhn6cUcVr5hepNR0gearR5lZEvN3qK1j"] MONDAY sees the opening of the Mike Kelley retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. The museum is only a few miles from where Kelley lives and worked. His work remains stirring and bitterly funny, and there was much good cheer from old friends and admirers excited to finally see so much work in the same place. … [Read more...]
The Irreverent Genius of Jeremy Denk
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="W81pySFXa3drR3WTlrmSjqp0w13uJQpJ"] The classical pianist Jeremy Denk has just won the Avery Fisher Prize, which caps what's been a very good year or so for him. (He's working on a memoir for Random House, among other things.) I met Denk in 2010 and was immediately impressed with playing and thinking. (His commitment to Ives was palpable.) My story looks at his … [Read more...]
Dave Eggers on Artists in the Digital Age
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="Sgct1PtiO3Y0LbD66DOqZ5sXTeAmgc4p"] FOR reasons I half understand, Dave Eggers's recent novel The Circle was dismissed and ignored in some circles. The book's not perfect, but works beautifully as a fable about what we're willing to give up to live in a digital utopia. The book's protagonist, Mae, lucks into a job at a Google-like campus in Northern California and … [Read more...]
Jazz Telepathy: Fred Hersch and Julian Lage
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="WMgTBTUIttMzmXda37fW7vFebFeMPq8h"] LAST night I was lucky enough to catch jazz pianist Fred Hersch and guitarist Julian Lage in the kind of duet setting that captured not only what's best about jazz, but about chamber music and "Americana" as well. For two chordal instruments to stay out of each others' way is not easy, but this exceeded my high expectations, … [Read more...]
Scorning the Great American Novel, and The Return of Beck
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="Jai56XiddmTkDBhUq1fwtKRmcQk3eCCw"] WHO wrote the Great American Novel? Does such a category make any sense? Did it ever? A provocative essay argues that we've outgrown the term, and that it was wrong to begin with. Whether we're talking about Melville's Moby Dick or Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, my old colleague David Ulin writes, we're missing the real point of … [Read more...]
Artists in the Digital Age, and Falling in Love with Technology
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="qC3vge9cgA87c22YRZr5Mjkjf9EcoUPy"] HOW will the digital age shape the livelihood of artists, writers and musicians? There’s a new story in The New York Times that everyone who cares about the subject should read. It’s by Robert H. Frank, one of my favorite economists and the sharpest observer of the winner-take-all phenomenon, which may seem to have little to do with … [Read more...]