David Batchelor: “As with all prejudices, its manifest form, its loathing, masks a fear: a fear of contamination and corruption by something that is unknown or appears unknowable. This loathing of colour, this fear of corruption through colour, needs a name: chromophobia.”
SoCal’s Pacific Symphony Musicians Get New Contract – With A Real Raise
The agreement, which was agreed-on in principle in late October but took until mid-February to draft, increases musicians’ pay by 10.4% over its five-year term.
Marilyn Young, Historian Of And Challenger To The U.S.’s Forever Wars, Has Died At 79
“In one form or another, she explained in 2012, since her childhood the United States had been at war —’“the wars were not really limited and were never cold and in many places have not ended — in Latin America, in Africa, in East, South and Southeast Asia.'”
When Private Funding Drives The Arts, You Get The Mall Of America Writer’s Residency
No, that’s not a joke. Marie Myung-Ok Lee: “When I saw the ad promoting a residency at the Mall of America, my first impulse was ‘I must apply!’ See, a bunch of scenes in my novel take place in the freaking Mall of America! It had a nice honorarium ($2,500) for 5 days in residence at a connected mall hotel, plus a $400 food stipend, which is a lot of Cinnabons. But a quick look at the terms reveals the horrifying things the artist gives up in the for-profit residency: her art.”
The German Devil That Climbs Into Your Computer To Insert Typos
And that devil is a necessary creation, for spelling is important in Germany. “When you misspell to a German, you don’t just overlook the language: you libel it; you defile it; you annihilate it.”
A Guide To The Usually Overlooked Brutalist Icons Of Paris
“The hard lines and raw material of these buildings, captured in Nigel Green’s crisp photographs that accompany the map, seem out of place in this French city of past regencies and Haussmann’s 19th-century design,” but perhaps they show what Paris could, or should, be.
Theatre Could Act To Stabilize American Society, If Practitioners Decided To Commit
Jonathan Wei of the Telling Project: “Art can provide the opportunity for inquiry, immediacy, presence, receptivity, and vulnerability. It can provide a space for the expression of the primary desire to expand one’s world, to embrace rather than exclude, to experience rather than define, to immerse rather than to understand, and to contemplate rather than formulate.”
Sonia Braga Wonders If A Latinx Actor Can Get In On The Oscars Love
“The Oscars really only have four spaces for best actress, because one is always reserved for Meryl Streep.”
A Sonata Misattributed To Felix Mendelssohn Debuts Under Its Real Authorship
Written in 1829, the manuscript of “Easter Sonata” was considered “lost” for more than 140 years, until the original turned up in a French book shop bearing the signature “F Mendelssohn.” The collector who bought it concluded the “F” stood for Felix. It didn’t…
How Should We Think About Extinction Of A Species? The Answer Lies At The Intersection Of Science And Art
Should we be horrified by extinction? Charles Darwin didn’t think so. In On the Origin of Species, he mocked the catastrophist view of extinction as scientific illiteracy: “So profound is our ignorance, and so high our presumption, that we marvel when we hear of the extinction of an organic being; and as we do not see the cause, we invoke cataclysms to desolate the world!” Extinction was no cataclysm. Without it, the human species—along with all other life—would never have evolved.
Inside Palmyra After The Second ISIS Occupation
“Days before, these troops and other forces loyal to the Syrian government had recaptured the Roman city, a world heritage site and an important symbol of Syrian diversity, from Islamic State for the second time in a year. Graffiti at the entrance read: “No entry without Isis permission – not even brothers.” The Russians crunched up the piles of rubble and posed for triumphant pictures under the arch – all that was left of the central temple.”
“Once In A Lifetime” Find Of Goya Etchings
The library was full of handsomely bound volumes, but at the back of one shelf the owners found a drab ledger, holding a rather dull series of 90 French military prints – and a few pages further on, a complete pristine set of the first edition of Goya’s La Tauromaquia etchings, apparently forgotten about for more than 150 years.
Netflix To Introduce Interactive Storylines
“This new way of watching television will allow viewers the ability to control the fate of their favorite characters and make decisions on key plot points.”
Sacramento Ballet Dancers Fight Back Against Board’s Firing Of Artistic Directors
“Despite an order threatening ‘disciplinary action’ for any ballet employees who speak to the media, four company dancers blasted the board via email over their opting not to renew the contracts of co-directors Ron Cunningham and Carinne Binda beyond the 2017-18 season … The dancers also accused the board of mismanaging the company, questioning its ability to decide what’s best for the ballet.”
Using Shakespeare To Help Heal Veterans’ Trauma, Onstage And Off
Laura Collins-Hughes profiles Stephan Wolfert, who teaches acting classes specifically for vets, and who performs a solo show combining Shakespeare texts with his own memories of the military.
Louvre Staffers, Sick Of The Vermeer Show Chaos, Go On Strike
On Thursday, more than 70 attendants at the Paris museum followed through on a threat to strike in protest of the disastrous planning for the big Vermeer exhibition that opened there in late February.
Painter Howard Hodgkin Dead At 84
His brightly colored paintings on wood made him one of Britain’s most popular living artists. While most of them appeared abstract, he insisted for his entire career that he was a figurative painter.
New York Times Critic Bonds With Taxi Driver Over Classical Radio
Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim writes about the immigrant cabbie who ended up recommending to her a composer she’d never before encountered.
The Political Drama That’s Dividing France
“How much is at stake in France’s upcoming elections has become evident again in recent weeks as controversy has erupted over the new arthouse film This Is Our Land (Chez nous). … The debate stems from a supporting character named Agnès Dorgelle (Cathérine Jacob), a blonde leader of a far-right party associated with nationalism and anti-immigrant sentiment, much like the real-life politician and presidential hopeful Marine Le Pen.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 03.09.17
Female Power (from Medusa to Merkel)
I love reading Mary Beard. She may be a professor, the highest of high-brow professors, but she writes — and speaks (albeit with a British accent) — like an actual human. Enjoy. … read more
AJBlog: Straight|Up Published 2017-03-09
The Ideas That Kill Great American Cities
“Believing that hipsters can reverse the consequences of late-stage capitalism is a more attractive thought for city planners in cash-strapped cities than realizing that many American cities are, for now, screwed thanks to postindustrial decline and growing inequality. Gentrification may provide a new tax base, but it also reshapes what cities are, turning them into explicit supporters of inequality, reliant on it to self-fund, yet still unable to meet the needs of their poor. A real solution to the economics of American cities would require more work—more taxes, more laws, more intervention from the federal government. Those things are hard. Gentrification is easy.”
Art Market Slump? This Week’s Auctions Suggest Otherwise
“Three major contemporary art auctions this week brought a total of 229 million pounds, or about $280 million — a sharp increase over the £152.2 million raised by equivalent events in February 2016. The sales at Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips suggested the world’s wealthiest collectors were eager enough to spend money in London.”
Martin Filler: How The New World Trade Center Ended Up A Great Big Mess
“Who was really in charge of the undertaking remained a persistent and vexing question. As the latest studies make abundantly clear, the transformation of the World Trade Center site was hampered to a shameful degree by the intransigent self-interest of both individuals and institutions. As a result, an effort ostensibly meant to display our country’s unified spirit in response to an unprecedented calamity instead revealed that communal altruism of the sort that helped America to survive the Great Depression and triumph in World War II had largely become a thing of the past. Although all major construction schemes face tremendous problems, the World Trade Center rebuilding encapsulates everything that is wrong with urban development in a period when, as in so many other aspects of our public life, the good of the many is sacrificed to the gain of the few.”
The Rebuilding Of The World Trade Center Reveals The Glaring Failures Of Our New Cities
“Although all major construction schemes face tremendous problems, the World Trade Center rebuilding encapsulates everything that is wrong with urban development in a period when, as in so many other aspects of our public life, the good of the many is sacrificed to the gain of the few.”