The artist, writer, and AIDS activist “was only 37 when he died, but he left behind an extraordinary body of work, particularly considering the uncongenial circumstances of much of his short life. A refugee from a violent family, a former street kid and teen hustler, he grew up to become one of the stars of the febrile 1980s East Village art scene, alongside Kiki Smith, Nan Goldin, Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat.”
Tag: 05.13.16
This Civil Servant Wrote A Guide Based Entirely On Public Information – And Was Charged With Revealing Government Secrets
Said the magistrate, “This is one of the clearest cases for [an acquittal] that I’ve seen in my 26 years being here.”
Yes, We Need Shocking Theatre – But In Limited Doses
Michael Billington: “Several recent experiences have led me to believe there is a vital distinction to be made between the moral awakening that comes from shock and the visceral impact of unmitigated horror.” (E.g., King Lear versus Titus Andronicus)
Arts Funding Bloodbath In Australia: 65 Orgs Lose All Federal Grants
“More than half the applicants failed to receive organisational support from the Australia Council’s four-year funding round, and 65 previously-funded organisations no longer have funding.”
What Makes An American Essay ‘American’?
“The essay, in its American incarnation, is a direct outgrowth of the sermon: argumentative, insistent, not infrequently irritating. Americans, in my observation – and despite our fetish for the beauties of individuality and personal freedom – are always, however smilingly, trying to convince somebody, somewhere, of something, and our essayistic tradition bears this out.”
D.C. Dance Critic Jean Battey Lewis Dead At 91
“[She] oversaw The Washington Post‘s dance coverage for nearly 15 years during a modern-dance boom in the city and later worked for the Washington Times as its dance critic.”
Met Opera’s Young Artist Program Has A New Boss
“For 3½ years, Michael Heaston, 37, has been an artistic power behind the throne at the Washington National Opera, running the Domingo-Cafritz program and the American Opera Initiative … As of this month, he has started in an advisory capacity as executive director of the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, and will take over the position full time Aug. 29.”
When Every Book Suddenly Had To Get Five Stars
“I was shaking my pom-poms for books. However, I wasn’t doing so because I was an industry shill, shallow, or self-interested. I failed to provide meaningful criticism, information, or recommendations because I was, like so many of my colleagues, frightened about the future of books and publishing. In desperate times, the desperate tilt at windmills.”
Will – Or Should – People Buy Two Seasons Worth Of Theatre Tix In Order To See ‘Hamilton’?
“Is this price gouging, or the arts equivalent of blackmail? The problem is a by-product of the escalation of ticket prices for theatre everywhere. The result is that it now costs many hundreds of dollars for a single subscription to a Broadway touring series, let alone a pair for those who don’t like to see theatre alone.”
Print Was Never Dead, But It’s Rising Again Anyway
“Publishing, like other industries before (and since), suffered a bad attack of technodazzle: It failed to distinguish between newness and value. It could read digital’s hysterical cheerleaders, but not predict how a market of human beings would respond to a product once the novelty had passed. It ignored human nature. Reading the meaning of words is not consuming a manufacture: it is experience.”