“In the 19th century, when photography was developing into a mass medium, a few intrepid early adopters pointed their glass plate cameras at one of the most intimidating natural forces on Earth.”
The Joy Of Crooked Buildings (Eat Your Heart Out, Leaning Tower Of Pisa!)
“The buildings that often get the most praise (one famed tower in Pisa not withstanding) are those that stand up straight, refuse to bend or bow over time. But those buildings are boring. The really compelling constructions are those buildings that, despite looking like they are slowly keeling over, continue to stand, and continue to be used.”
Stolen Edvard Munch Recovered After Seven Years
The lithograph, titled Historien, “shows an elderly bearded man speaking to a young boy and was valued at the time of its theft at 240,000 euros ($244,000).”
Doin’ It All Night Long: London To Launch A Version Of Paris’s Nuits Blanches
“For one long rapturous night, artists will wrest Westminster from the clutches of politicians, creating art from dusk till dawn in public spaces and very private ones … Plenty is programmed, even for the sad suburbanites who have to catch the last tube home, including installation art, theatre, film and dance, and a giant exercise class.”
Nigeria’s Booming Literary Genre: Romance Novels
“The books shift between morality tales and classic pulp romance. Often written by hand in small composition books, the books are sold in crowded marketplaces, where you can buy thousands of different titles for a dollar or two.” (text and audio)
Inge Hardison, 102, Sculptor Of African-Americans Heroic And Ordinary
“A former actress, artist and photographer, Inge Hardison sculpted a cast-iron collection in the 1960s that she called Negro Giants in History, which included George Washington Carver, W. E. B. Du Bois, Paul Robeson and Harriet Tubman. She titled another series, featuring relatively obscure black inventors, ‘Ingenious Americans’.”
The GIFs Take Famous Paintings To Their Illogical Conclusions
“Goya’s Saturn devours his son on a park bench, flinging chunks of arm to a flock of pigeons; the lady in pink of Edward Hopper’s Morning Sun snaps out of her reverie when a bird crashes into her bedroom window; the raining men of René Magritte’s Golconda jump out of a plane and splatter bloodily on the ground, alarming local newscasters.”
Even Vanity Fair Says Justin Peck Is Making Ballet Cool
“Last year, for example, he commissioned Shepard Fairey – of Obama-Hope poster fame – to design the set for his Miami City ballet, Heatscape, and collaborated with Opening Ceremony for their New York Fashion Week show.”
Philadelphia Museum Of Art Launches Pop-Up Art Shows
“Pop-up art exhibitions will begin to appear throughout the region Wednesday, when high-quality reproductions of artworks from the Philadelphia Museum of Art will be installed in public places from Coatesville to Doylestown.”
This Year’s Pritzker Prize Winner Makes His Low-Cost Housing Plans Available For Free
“Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena … is releasing a number of his residential designs as an open-source resource to help tackle the global affordable housing crisis. … The aim is to provide the material to government agencies and developers who might think it’s ‘too expensive’ to invest in well-designed social housing.”
Why Comedians Don’t Care About Reviews
“I also heard more than once that a lot of stand-ups think that nobody in the mainstream media gave a darn about their art form before it broke out, so why should they now be accommodating when they get no financial benefit? Good point.”
The Largest War Ever Fought On The Internet (So Far)
“EVE Online is a massive multiplayer online game – a single environment shared by thousands of players, like World of Warcraft or Second Life – that has been in continual operation since 2003. … And in the latter half of the 2000s, those people engaged in an enormous conflict: The Great EVE War.”
This Woman Wants You To Dance Every Single Day At 3:15 PM
“[Choreographer Meg] Foley and three collaborators committed to creating an improvised dance at precisely 3:15 p.m. each day for six months, and documenting the results in writing, photos, or video. … Members of the public also are urged to do their own 3:15 dances – and document, upload, and hashtag them as part of the project.”
In An Age Of Instant Availability Of Movies, We’re Losing Some Classics
“The digital technology that was supposed to rescue the back catalogue from oblivion, restoring and preserving fragile celluloid for future generations, poses as many problems as it solves. The digital age is full of false assumptions about access and availability, and film is a fleeting medium, its materiality under more direct assault than ever before.”
Blindsight – When Your Brain Sees What You Don’t
“Blindsight offers a tantalizing hint about human consciousness. It demonstrates the difference between merely processing visual information in the brain, like in a computer, versus having a reportable conscious experience of it.”
Look, Thomas Jefferson Was Neither (Just) A Founding Father Deity Nor A Slave-Owning Monster, Say Historians
Peter S. Onuf: “Every Jefferson biography on the shelf is a polemic, one way or another, but we wanted to get beyond that.” Annette Gordon-Reed: “People read history the way we watch movies, where you have a good guy and a bad guy. What’s the point of even going to the library to do research if you already know what you think?”
Atlanta Considers Fate Of Its Breuer-Designed Library
“To suggest that a building of such architectural merit is not worthy of being preserved and reused in a new capacity is shortsighted at best and downright flippant at worst. Suffering from neglect and a rather unflattering interior renovation in the last decade or so, the building would require a commitment by the city to restore and maintain the facility.”
Why Musicians Turn To Bach In Times Of Public Trauma
“Not every composer writes music with medicinal effects. Mahler’s darker symphonies could make a bad day even worse. Yet Bach … is described by passionate advocates as music for times of modern-day crisis. Says pianist Alexandre Tharaud, “When I play Bach, my hands feel better, my body feels better, and my heart feels better.”
Panama Papers Claim Their First High-Profile Arts-World Scalp
“The Oscar-winning Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar has canceled publicity events linked to Friday’s release of his latest movie, Julieta, after reports that he and his brother, a movie producer, were named in the … leaked documents.”
Half Of Brits Don’t Want To See A Female Hamlet
“When asked about a female Hamlet, 48% did not like the idea. This contrasts with only 15% who were in favour, and 28% who were ‘neutral’. … Of the same sample, nearly a third had positive feelings about a black or minority ethnic Hamlet, compared with 20% who felt negatively about it.”
Another Step Forward For Women Conductors At L.A. Philharmonic
“Finnish conductor Susanna Malkki will become only the third person ever appointed principal guest conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.” Her two predecessors are Simon Rattle and Michael Tilson Thomas.
The Whitney Names Its New Building After Donor Who Didn’t Want The Museum To Move
“Leonard A. Lauder, the Whitney Museum of American Art’s chairman emeritus, initially opposed the museum’s move downtown to its new home in the Meatpacking district from the Breuer building on Madison Avenue. Now, that new home will bear his name.”
Boss At London’s Royal Opera Says His Final Production Will Take Direct Aim At His Critics
Kasper Bech Holten’s tenure as artistic director, which ends in March of next year, has seen more controversy over stagings than is usual at Covent Garden. So, he says, “what could be more fitting for my last show in London than to do a comedy about how hard it is sometimes for audiences and artists to find the right way to communicate with each other?”
Antonio Pappano To Be Longest-Serving Music Director In Covent Garden’s History
“Talking this morning about his decision to stay on [until 2020] … Pappano said simply ‘I don’t want to go to any other opera house’.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 04.06.16
Risk management
New ballets are risky endeavours, requiring significant investment in talent, time and money. Yet do classical companies give them the best chance to shine? Performance Monkey asks companies around the world about previews, rehearsals … read more
AJBlog: Performance Monkey Published 2016-04-06
At the NEA’s Jazz Masters Ball
The Kennedy Center was filled Monday night with VIPs, devotees and artists across disciplines for the 34th annual celebration of Jazz Masters by the National Endowment of the Arts. Here’s my coverage for DownBeat magazine on the … read more
AJBlog: Jazz Beyond Jazz Published 2016-04-06
Snapshot: Neil Young sings “I Am a Child”
Neil Young sings “I Am a Child” in concert in 1978: (This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.) … read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2016-04-06
[ssba_hide]