Urban planning is having a bit of a hard time with Covid-19 hitting Britain’s corporate-driven main streets and malls – but better spaces are possible, says critic Owen Hatherley, when small crafts get involved. “The notion of community wealth building, rather than disconnected projects, is so important.” – The Guardian (UK)
Author: ArtsJournal2
Movie Musicals Like ‘The Prom’ Do A Massive Disservice To The Shows’ Stage Actors
The movie, which premiered on streaming December 11, is an ode to the power of Broadway. Its journey from stage to screen, though, “underscores the inequities underneath the surface of Hollywood’s shiny stage musical adaptations, which often leave the original cast members hanging — and render invisible the work they’ve done to make the production what it is in the process.”- Los Angeles Times
Othella Dallas, Who Kept The Flame Of Katherine Dunham’s Dance Technique Burning, 95
Dallas taught Dunham’s dance style, “a polyrhythmic style rooted in early Black dance that Dunham developed through her ethnographic research in the Caribbean in the 1930s,” well into her 90s at her studio in Basel, Switzerland. “You feel it like a religion. … It’s in our bloodline. You live with it when you teach it. You respect it. And then you give it to someone else, so they may have the honor of teaching it and seeing the genius of Dunham.” – The New York Times
Artist Sues The City of Los Angeles For Throwing His Work Away
David Lew, aka Shark Toof, created a piece for the Chinese American Museum in 2018. “Eighty-eight empty canvas sacks were adorned with hand-applied gold leaf paint and suspended on burlap twine with wooden clothespins. It was meant to evoke the history of Chinese immigrants in the laundry business.” Maintenance workers took them down and threw them away. – Los Angeles Times
A Dutch Investigation Finds That Its Art Restitution Panel Sides Too Often With Museums
Not only does the panel side with the already powerful institutions too much, the investigators found, but there’s little empathy for the victims of Nazis. “The findings were provocative enough that two of the panel’s seven members, including its chairman, immediately resigned.” – The New York Times
Stop Trying To Understand Contemporary Poetry
Critic Ron Charles says the key is simply to read it – perhaps out loud – and enjoy. “Gradually poets I’d once considered impenetrable filled me with awe instead of bafflement. Rather than trying to manufacture some strait-laced summary, I followed their twisting ironies and witty observations.” – Washington Post
The Not-So-Hidden Literary Heritage Of Harriet The Spy
An ode to Dorothy Sayers’ Harriet Vane? You bet. But also, “Harriet is a writer devoted to routine. She loves her tomato sandwiches, her egg creams, and her spy route and notebook both because they give her a lot of pleasure and because they ground her. Like a working artist, she doesn’t want to think about the mundane details. That’s what a parent—and later, a partner—is for: somebody who can deal with practical things so an artist doesn’t have to. When Harriet’s routines are disrupted, all hell breaks loose. A thousand more writers would call that realistic.” – LitHub
A Forgotten Literary Star, And Anti-Fascist Activist, Is Finally Getting Her Due In Spain
The writer María Teresa Léon was a good buddy of Lorca, married to poet Rafael Alberti, and took part in rescuing art from the Prado as Franco bombed Madrid. Then she, and Alberti and many other anti-fascist writers, fled to live in exile in France and Italy – and her writing and her power were remembered less and less as the male writers’ fame grew. Now her memoir is being republished, with a new introduction and a new appreciation. – The Observer (UK)
Can The Great British Bake Off Survive Global Warming?
Nope. “The heat has become an increasingly familiar character. The camera pans over shot after shot of the searing sun. The judges explain an upcoming challenge, once again emphasizing that the heat will make it even more difficult. (Butter, the star ingredient of many baked goods, turns into liquid at 94 F [34 C], and starts to soften long before that.) To cool down during challenges, the bakers have started wearing wet rags around their necks that leave damp patches on their aprons.” – Wired
The Artist Trying Damn Hard To Save Other Artists
Guy Stanley Philoche figured his fellow artists shouldn’t suffer so much because of COVID-19 and the associated shutdowns. “The art world is my community and I needed to help my community. … People say New York is dead, but it’s far from that. There’s an artist somewhere writing the next greatest album. There’s a kid right now in his studio painting the next Mona Lisa. There’s probably a dancer right now choreographing the next epic ballet. People forgot about the artists in these industries.” So the painter has spent $65,000 to help others. – CNN