Fran Hoepfner is still stuck on Brahms, luckily, since the orchestra was too: “The piano is to reckoned with. Maybe it’s a protagonist in the face of adversity. Maybe I’m projecting. Who’s to say? After almost ten years of knowing this piece — and this movement in particular — I don’t feel any closer to it than when I started. The more I learn about Brahms, the more unsettling it becomes. It’s a Rubik’s cube of a piece.”
Tag: 03.09.16
‘Dead Mammals Have Never Been So Mesmerizing’: A Badger Made Into A Theremin
“If you never in your lifetime imagined that you’d see a man in a bowtie and tailcoat playing Rachmaninov on a badger, well, now you have. You’re welcome.” (video)
You Complete Me (Why Art Critics Are Essential)
“There are no science critics… Science is not founded on a compact between maker and receiver. The art critic, however, formalizes and deliberately exemplifies the role of the spectator who realizes the artist’s work—not by leaving it just as it is, but by adding something to it, making a personal contribution.”
Four Questions For The New Head Of The National Book Foundation
Lisa Lucas: “I do think it matters that I come from outside of the publishing industry – it gives one a completely different perspective. It’s a boon to be able to learn from film, theater and publishing and to apply all these strengths to the task at hand. For instance, theater is incredible at audience development.”
Verbing Nouns: We All Do It, And Have Been Doing It For Centuries
“Some call it ‘verbing,’ which sounds like a new dance craze, while linguistic nerds call it denominalization. Benjamin Franklin preferred to call it ‘awkward and abominable’ … [but] Shakespeare was also quite the inveterate verber.” This very article, in fact, elbows its way through the controversy.
Where Trucks Are Becoming Mobile Street Art
“The Truck Art Project features work from leading contemporary Spanish artists on Spanish transport company Palibex’s fleet of trucks, thanks to an initiative from Palibex CEO and art collector Jaime Colsa in collaboration with Madrid’s Iam Gallery.”
The Mysteries Of Frank Gehry
“The real question his biographer needs to answer is the impossible one: how a sixtyish architect from Los Angeles ever came to imagine, much less build, the coppery metal carapace of the Guggenheim Museum in the heart of Basque country, in the declining port city of Bilbao. Before that 1997 project, and the subsequent plan to build a new concert hall in Los Angeles, Gehry was best known for constructing cheap buildings of cheap materials in the funky geometric shapes that began to punctuate the cityscape of Los Angeles in the disco era.”
The Syrian Refugee Who Conquered The Internet With Hugs
“Filmmaker Firas Alshater was imprisoned for his activism in Syria. He became a sensation on social media after blindfolding himself in a Berlin public plaza with a sign that read: ‘I am a Syrian refugee. I trust you – do you trust me?'” (audio; includes video)
New Service Would Offer Hollywood Movies For Home Viewing On Day They Hit Theaters
“Now, a startup backed by Sean Parker of Facebook and Napster fame … called the Screening Room … offers secure anti-piracy technology that will offer new releases in the home on the same day they hit theaters.” But it will cost a lot more than the price of two cinema tickets.
Time-Travel Ballet Is Meant To Heal Some Big Wounds In Canada
“It’s an opportunity to share one of our stories through an artform that isn’t ours, yet a lot of our artistic values and really critical messaging around Indian residential schools comes out in a very comprehensive way in this artform called ballet.”