Category: people

Dorfman began with the giant Polaroids in a pushcart in Harvard Square. When the police tried to chase her away, she won a civil rights case against them. “Her work is widely praised for showing people unguarded, and many times joyful. It wasn’t unusual for her ‘sitters,’ as she called them, to say they enjoyed the posing as much as the portrait. Those sittings would include lots of banter and Dorfman’s infectious laughter.” – WBUR

As the pandemic has wiped out all cultural programming at Lincoln Center for months, Moss has been thinking harder about something she’d been considering long before Covid-19 hit the city. She says, “Now is the obvious time,” though that may not seem true to those who would like to see strong leadership during the crisis. – The New York Times

For Kramer, who died at age 84 in Manhattan on Wednesday, not speaking up was a signal of a dishonorable combination — of cowardice, willful blindness and greed. He was constitutionally incapable of self-serving apathy, but that’s not to say that he didn’t recognize the cost of his conscience to that quieter corner of his identity as an artist. – Los Angeles Times

“Mrs. Dew emerged in the early 1980s as part of a group of prominent female novelists that included her friends Louise Erdrich, Anne Tyler and Nancy Thayer, a onetime neighbor in Williamstown, Mass. A master at breathing life into flawed and complex characters, she had … ‘a special gift for charting the subtle tidal flow of emotions that make up daily life.’ She was 34 when she published Dale Loves Sophie to Death (1981), which won [what is] now known as the National Book Award for a first novel.” – The Washington Post

“[He] is most commonly associated with the Light and Space movement, which was pioneered by a group of artists working in California during the 1960s. … Alexander wound up producing understated, sleek objects that seemed at times to reinterpret Minimalism with a less chilly aesthetic. Often, the resin works take on semi-translucent cuboidal shapes, with colors that appear to fade depending on where the viewer stands with respect to the object.” – ARTnews

An author, essayist and playwright — notably hailed for his autobiographical 1985 play, “The Normal Heart” — Mr. Kramer had feet in both the world of letters and the public sphere. In 1981 he was a founder of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis, the first service organization for H.I.V.-positive people, though his fellow directors effectively kicked him out a year later for his aggressive approach. (He returned the compliment by calling them “a sad organization of sissies.”) – The New York Times

A self-taught engineer, AJ virtually created the rigging industry out of a background in theatre lighting. When he began, in the early 1980s, technicians still hung their own lights, but in the era of extravagant musicals, rock concerts and spectaculars AJ saw an opportunity within the gravity-defying ambitions of designers and directors. – The Guardian

A staff conductor at the Met for 21 years, Revzen served as artistic director of Arizona Opera (2003-2012) and Berkshire Opera (1991-2005) and was, from 2012, the founding artistic director of the Nevada summer festival Classical Tahoe. – The Strad

“[He] devoted his career to studying how some of the fundamental elements of art could be manipulated to create perceptual effects. His experiments with color led him to make paintings of geometric shapes that seem to vibrate and emanate light.” – The New York Times

“[He] came from a family of griots, the dynastic West African musicians whose songs carry news and chronicle history. Steeped in those traditions, he electrified the kora, the traditional griot’s harp, and he fused African music with styles and instruments from Western pop. … [His] 1987 single “Yé Ké Yé Ké” was a hit, first in Africa and then across Europe. It became the first African single to sell more than a million copies and has been licensed frequently for commercials and film soundtracks.” – The New York Times