ArtsJournal - Newsside

Caravaggio’s Boyfriend Has Been Identified, It Seems

PEOPLE Posted:

Well, “boyfriend” may not exactly be the right word, as Jacob Mikanowski explains. But the evidence (a census and some 368-year-old gossip) indicates that young Francesco Buoneri lived and studied with Caravaggio for years, and his face appears in quite a few of the painter’s works.

Why Books Are More Important Than Ever Now

WORDS Posted:

“Reading gives you an opportunity to understand someone else’s perspective, no matter how much you disagree with it. I wish that everyone had the opportunity to try to inhabit someone else’s experiences for a few hours, and literature is a great way to do that. Books are especially useful because the depth of engagement that someone has with a book allows them to really stay with it and to spend some time with that different perspective. I wish I could give all of my friends and family members I have arguments with a book and say ‘read this and tell me what you think!’ They may not end up agreeing with me, but they might understand a bit better where I’m coming from.”

A Literary Magazine Produced By Homeless People

WORDS Posted:

“Writers Group, as it’s known in the community, is a space for the homeless writers of downtown Boston (“homeless, transitional, or recently housed” is the rubric), and we meet every Tuesday morning at 9:30, in the basement of the Cathedral Church of St. Paul on Tremont Street. Out of Writers Group comes The Pilgrim, a literary magazine that I’ve been editing for the last five years. Large chunks of The Pilgrim are summoned into being, conjured from the chaos-state of potentiality, by Robert’s magic coffee.”

Iowa State Legislators Want To Raid State’s Culture Fund To Cover State Budget Shortfall

ISSUES Posted:

“The Iowa Cultural Trust fund is on the chopping block as state lawmakers strive to cover a shortfall in the state budget for the fiscal year that ends in June. A tentative budget agreement would take the entire $6 million in the fund, and use it to offset cuts to a range of state agencies. The fund was established in 2002.   Lawmakers over time have appropriated money for the fund, with interest used for matching grants to artists and arts organizations.”

Karen Finley: Art Is At The Heart Of America. So How Are Going To Support It?

ISSUES Posted:

“Whether it’s transcribing Great Negro Spirituals, protecting indigenous Native languages, attending outdoor jazz concerts, preserving quilting by the Amish or the Gee’s Bend women, singing the Delta Blues, weaving narratives of neglected LGBTQ history, creating plays of the immigrant experience or collaborating across state lines, we are a country of expression. Art is the bridge when walls of fear keep us insulated and reactive. A society loses meaning, purpose and direction without it.”

Long-serving Mayor Of Harrisburg PA Worked On Museum No One Wanted, Then Stole Artifacts

PEOPLE Posted:

“The fact that no one seemed to share in his dream of making a less disturbing Westworld on the banks of the Susquehanna did not deter Stephen R. Reed. Nope. He employed that coal-mining country grit in every step of his totally un-mandated, batshit quest to built another Gene Autry Museum in Pennsylvania. And then he got really carried away, and purloined more than 500 items that were slated for the non-existent institution and paid for with public funds, storing them (accidentally! he claims) at his house.”

This Year’s Oscar Best Picture Nominees – Not Exactly Box Office Winners

MEDIA Posted:

“For only the second time in the last 10 years, none of the best picture nominees — at the time of nomination — has grossed more than $100 million domestically. And that first time was in 2015, and that’s only because American Sniper had just opened in wide release; it would go on to gross $346.7 million in North America.”

Russell T Davies: Theatre Is A Better Venue For Free Speech Than TV

THEATRE Posted:

“That’s generally why I am getting more and more interested myself in trying to find a voice for theatre. I’m definitely heading that way. I think you’ve got to – when you say that television can’t express certain things then you have to move beyond it. And I speak as someone who has got away with an awful lot on television.”

Jill Soloway Says Male Directors Should Just Stop Making Movies About Rape (Then She Womansplains Why They Do It)

MEDIA Posted:

On a panel at Sundance, the writer/producer (Transparent, United States of Tara, Six Feet Under) said, “We get it, guys. You want us to stay inside because you want us to be afraid we’re going to get raped. We get it! Stop making movies and TV shows about rape. Let women make those movies if they want to.” Then she started talking about why she thinks Paul Verhoeven made Elle …

BroadwayCon Makes Peace With Actors’ Equity

THEATRE Posted:

“After a short dispute, Actors’ Equity Association has lifted its ‘do not work’ order on BroadwayCon, a convention for theater fans scheduled to begin Friday. The contract disagreement between the two parties was settled on Monday, paving the way for such performers as Josh Groban, Kelli O’Hara and Laura Osnes to appear at the event.”

San Francisco Ballet To Mount Major International Festival Of New Works

DANCE Posted:

“Full festival details, including associated activities and events, will be made public at the time of the 2018 season announcement three months from now, but the list of participating choreographers has been announced: David Dawson, Alonzo King, Edwaard Liang, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, Cathy Marston, Trey McIntyre, Justin Peck, Arthur Pita, Yuri Possokhov, Dwight Rhoden, Stanton Welch, and Christopher Wheeldon.”

Has South Korea’s Leading Soprano, Sumi Jo, Been Blacklisted By China?

MUSIC Posted:

A coloratura who’s had a big international career (including numerous appearances in China) for 30 years, Jo had been planning to appear with three of the country’s major orchestras next month; over the weekend, all three orchestras announced that she had been “forced to withdraw.” Other South Korean musicians have had performances in China cancelled as well, and they fear that it’s because of tension between Seoul and Beijing over a missile system.

Top Posts From AJBlogs 01.24.17

AJBlogs Posted:

Days of tension, anger and (thank God) New York Polyphony
Post-inauguration Saturday wasn’t the easiest time to be in New York City. Whatever side you were on politically, the streets in much of mid-town were closed off. Police were everywhere. Cars seemed not to know … read more
AJBlog: Condemned to Music Published 2017-01-24

What Goes With Gouthière?
Why Marivaux, n’est-ce pas? A year ago, many of us had never heard of, or heard much about, Pierre Gouthière, the master gilder many of whose works are now on display at the Frick … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2017-01-24

Privilege/Encumbrance: Part II
This post is the second of a three-part series that is not strictly about community engagement. However, to engage with communities with which one is not familiar it is essential to understand the dynamics of … read more
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2017-01-24

Recent Listening: New Old Brubeck
Dave Brubeck Quartet With Paul Desmond At The Sunset Center 1955 (Solar) … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2017-01-24

 

Amazon Makes History With Oscar Nomination

MEDIA Posted:

To be sure, “Manchester By the Sea,” up for awards including lead actor, lead actress and director, is not streaming yet on the Amazon Prime service. Unlike Netflix, Amazon’s movie business follows the traditional windowing model where movies run exclusively in theaters before landing on home video outlets.

Sundance Festival Shows Virtual Realities Challenges, Suggests Potential

MEDIA Posted:

“While New Frontier has shone a spotlight on VR for the past five years, 2017 represents a particularly crucial juncture for the technology. This year’s showcase comes after a full year of availability for all sorts of hardware dedicated to VR viewing. What throughout its tortured history seemed about as commercially viable as jetpacks is now a reality, bringing a newfound urgency to the content exhibited at New Frontier.”

The World’s Tiniest Art Biennale (On An Island That’s Disappearing)

VISUAL Posted:

It’s on the tiny Ilet La Biche, a tiny spit of land off the coast of the main islands of Guadeloupe in the West Indies, is rapidly being subsumed by the sea. “There is no land, really. You can walk around the structure but you walk in the water, basically.” The idea, he added, is that “each artwork will die on the island.”

Matthew VanBesien To Leave The New York Philharmonic

MUSIC Posted:

Matthew VanBesien, 47, who has been with the Philharmonic for nearly five years, has said “he will leave to become the president of the University Musical Society of the University of Michigan, a respected campus-affiliated arts presenter. His decision to step down before his contract is up in 2018 leaves the Philharmonic with vacancies in its top managerial and artistic ranks as it prepares to face its biggest challenge in decades. The turnover at the orchestra is staggering, which threatens to make the planning process more chaotic, and give potential donors pause.”

This Year’s Oscar Nominations – Some Surprises

MEDIA Posted:

“Amid all the yuk-yuks and song-and-dance numbers, there are some highly-coveted gold-ish statuettes to be handed out, and this year the largely white, largely old, largely male Academy, which has taken recent steps to diversify, seems to have learned a lesson from the loud #OscarsSoWhite backlash: black stories matter.”