“Is artist defined by talent and skill, by length of practice or legacy? Are there common characteristics of all artists beyond the attempt to create? Do we include those only within our sphere or all of those beyond our recognition? If creation alone does not constitute conferring the appellation of artist, can one grow into the post? If art is a process, are you an artist only when you have practiced your “art” for a term? Or is the definition of an artist and art best left to each of us to ponder for ourselves?”
We Live In A Public Time. So What Is The Role Of Public Intellectuals?
The real interest in the term “public intellectual” lies in what its usage can tell us about ourselves: how we imagine the links between politics and prose, thought and action, individual contemplation and social congregation. Why, for example, has the notion of publicness itself become such a high value for some, practically synonymous with benevolence, as if to attach “public” to the name of a discipline grants it a special dignity?
San Francisco Symphony Cuts Back On Community Outreach Projects
“The SFS Board of Directors is said to have voted to discontinue the Community of Music Makers (CoMM) at least temporarily, and make a deep cut in the Instrument Training and Support (IT&S) program for middle and high schools in San Francisco.”
Alvin Ailey Dancers – On Their Own Time – Create A Protest Dance Video To Beyoncé’s ‘Freedom’
Company member Sean Aaron Carmon, who conceived and choreographed the brief piece as a response to the recent shootings by and of police, talks about where his material came from and whether “Freedom” could become part of a larger project.
Carolyn See, 82, Novelist, Memoirist, And Washington Post Book Critic
“Dr. See was the author of 10 books, encompassing fiction and nonfiction, and was co-author of several more. For 27 years until her retirement in 2014, she was a regular book reviewer for The Washington Post. … ‘When I started to write I was relatively old, and lived in California. So I was the wrong sex, wrong age, wrong coast,’ she wrote in an essay. ‘Luckily I was too ignorant to know it.'”
After Ten Years, HD Opera Movie-Casts Still Prove Controversial
“Like so much new media in this era of rapid technological change, the HD broadcasts haven’t actually fulfilled the rosy expectations that once surrounded them. It is far from clear that they are the wave of the future.”
David Parsons Is Choreographing For Drones
“‘The drones also become personalities,’ he explained. ‘They become alive. They make decisions in front of your eyes, and so do the [human] performers onstage. So you get the feeling that they have artificial intelligence, that they are thinking. It’s spooky.'”
The Strand Bookstore’s Famous Quiz For Job Applicants (So Just How Smart Are You?)
“There are tests for driver’s licenses and citizenship, for New York City landmarks preservationists and sanitation workers. But a quiz for an entry-level retail job at a bookstore?”
Why Are So Many Artists Choosing To Be Anonymous?
“Welcome to the strange world of modern-day fame, when it helps to be a nobody if you want to be a somebody! In some ways, we are returning to the rules of the medieval world, when major works of art and technology were created by anonymous innovators. But there’s a difference nowadays: Today’s mystery artists cultivate their aura of secrecy. They prefer obscurity over the perks of celebrity status.”
Records: Art Looted By Nazis Sold Back To Nazis
“It turns out, the archives show, that hundreds of works were actually sold back at discounted prices in the 1950s and the 1960s to the very Nazis who had taken possession of them, including the widow of Hermann Goering, a senior aide to Hitler who pillaged art to amass a collection of more than a thousand works.”
The Trump ‘Make America Great Again’ Hat Is Actually An Effective Piece Of Design
Design
“It’s infuriatingly good,” says famous New York ad man George Lois. “And at this point,” writes Carolina Miranda, “it’s unforgettable. The hat has become the ‘I Like Ike’ button and Obama ‘Hope’ poster of our time – the official objet d’art of an election that has turned into one long, bad-hair-day episode of reality TV.”
Published At 16, And Still Learning The Lessons About What Being A Writer Means
“With an odd, unjust circularity, being a published writer was the very thing that enabled me to continue to be one.”
Broadway’s Love Affair With Hip Hop Goes Way Beyond ‘Hamilton’
Or at least, hip hop’s love affair with Broadway goes back way before Lin-Manuel Miranda even had one major hit show (don’t miss that time rapper k-os opened a track with a sample from Sound of Music’s nun chorus).
The Best Photos Of The Century-Old Theatre That Became A Bookstore
“In 2008 El Ateneo Grand Splendid was named the second most beautiful bookshop in the world by The Guardian, and that’s no surprise.”
Visual Artists Respond To The Horrific Attack In Nice
“As was the case after the attacks on Charlie Hebo and Paris, the artwork is raw, cathartic, and essential.”
What’s The Point Of Australia’s Archibald Art Prize?
“One of the lessons of the Archibald prize is that it’s impervious to criticism. … The prize runs by its own rules, which are really just a set of guidelines – more like a surrealist parlour game where inclusions are governed by exceptions.”
This Author’s (Sexy) Debut Set A Record For A Book Advance
Sally Beauman “said she turned to fiction to spend more time with her son. Writing romances for Harlequin, she said, was a useful way to learn pacing, dialogue and how to make the plot move.”
The Comedy Troupe Made Up Of Actors With Asperger’s Syndrome
“Our original goal was, ‘Let’s entertain people who have our sense of humor — who like that wordplay, who like that absurdism,’… But then all these people showed up, as I predicted, who were there out of guilt or curiosity or a sense of ‘I want to learn more about someone in my family.’ We’re not writing for them, but we understand those people come and we’re happy to have them.”
A Lot Of Nazi Art Loot Was Returned … To Nazi Families
“New research in the yellowing archives here makes clear how relentlessly Nazi families pursued the Bavarian officials, badgering them, often successfully, to return art they brazenly continued to view as their property.”
Wait, The Emmys Got Most Things Right?
These 25 nominations were surprising – in a good way, for once.
Health Concerns For Estelle Parsons Abruptly Shutter Off-Broadway Play
“Her doctor advised her against returning to the show, and the Cherry Lane Theater decided to end the run, which had been scheduled to continue until July 31.”
What The Hell Happened To British Culture Between The London Olympics And This Brexit Disaster?
The man who wrote the opening ceremonies: “The ceremony didn’t depict a nation, it revealed it. It didn’t describe Britain, it WAS Britain – in the way that the Blitz spirit was or Dunkirk or The Last Night of the Proms. What. The. Hell. Happened?”
How Did Dudamel Do With West Side Story?
And, by the way, is it an opera or isn’t it?
Our Pop Culture Is Filled With Anger
Visceral and at times frightening narratives are running through our popular culture. We get Batman and Superman — once the extensions of our better selves — battling each other in a grim rain; the take-no-prisoners TV commentaries of Samantha Bee and John Oliver; abrasive, if clever, comics like Amy Schumer; rage and betrayal in Beyonce’s “Lemonade”; meth and degradation in “Breaking Bad”; beheadings, dragons, torture and wars for supremacy in “Game of Thrones.”
How Playwrights Do Anger
“The better playwrights are inevitably drawn more to questions than answers, but in turbulent times a God-like neutrality can seem like an abdication of responsibility. To put the matter in Yeatsian terms: Why should the best among us, our writers, lack conviction, while the worst, a tough call but let’s go with our representatives in Congress, be full of passionate intensity?”