Hardline Hindu activists, empowered by the 2014 election of Narenda Modi as prime minister, have been doing things like this to plays they deem unpatriotic: “Hours before the show was due to start, the crew said they were forced to escape the venue as a mob had gathered. They said they ran down back alleys and had to take side roads to avoid being attacked on a main road. ‘It wasn’t that people didn’t like our play, expressed their dismay and left. No. We were being hunted across the city,’ said Ashwath Bhatt, an actor in the play.” – Reuters
Tag: 05.16.19
What Does It Mean That Jeff Koons’ Bunny Just Sold For $91 Million? Anything?
Sebastian Smee: “What the sale of Koons’s “Rabbit” — an auction record for a living artist — is telling us with special force is that the question of valuation is not just about rationality or irrationality. It is, on a deeper level, redundant. It’s redundant because we are in a realm divorced from reality. Intentionally so.” – Washington Post
Musician Crowdfunding Site Heads To Bankruptcy And Musicians Scramble To Recover
The UK-Based PledgeMusic owes hundreds of thousands of dollars to artists and labels, many of them independents operating on small margins. An untold number of fans have also been shortchanged, because the projects they invested in remain unfinished, or caught in limbo. “There have been no good outcomes here,” Benji Rogers, a co-founder and former CEO of PledgeMusic, wrote last week in an open letter, “and I cannot bear that something that I created to benefit artists and fans has caused so much pain to so many people.” – NPR
Cincinnati Ballet Runs Classes For Children With Range Of (Dis)Abilities
“Ballet Moves began in 2014 when the father of a young girl with Down syndrome asked if any of the classes suited her needs. The answer was no. But Julie Sunderland, who trained with Boston Ballet’s adaptive dance program before coming to the Cincinnati Ballet 11 years ago, said she would start one. … Two years later, the class expanded to children with other disabilities after Sunderland saw a Facebook post about a man with cerebral palsy who used dance to create new neurological pathways and help him walk. And now there are a few classes, for boys and girls, ages 4 to 14.” – Cincinnati Enquirer
Art-Washing: Museums Face The Taint Of Donor Money
“Gifts that are not in the public interest.” It is a pregnant, important phrase. Coming on the heels of similar decisions by the Tate Modern in London and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the spurning of Oxy-cash seems to reflect a growing awareness that gifts to the arts and other good causes are not only a way for ultra-wealthy people to scrub their consciences and reputations. Philanthropy can also be central to purchasing the immunity needed to profiteer at the expense of the common welfare. – The New York Times
The Growing Wealth Inequality Gap Is Being Mirrored In The Contemporary Visual Art World
“Art that cost more than $1 million accounted for 40 percent of the market but just 3 percent of transactions. The disparity is most severe in the contemporary market, where living artists’ work is sold out of art galleries. In 2018, sales from the top 20 living artists accounted for 64 percent of the market. Bigger galleries, the top 5 percent in terms of turnover, accounted for more than 50 percent of sales. Sales at smaller galleries declined over the past few years.” – The New York Times
LGBT-Themed Film In Indonesia Causes National Moral Panic
“[Garin Nugroho’s] Memories of My Body follows four stages in the life of Juno, a young boy in a Central Java village who becomes infatuated by the lengger lanang, a traditional dance that often has male dancers taking the role of female dancers.” Indonesian films with LGBT themes have been released in the past with little incident, but this one has been banned by cities, denounced by politicians, and garnered its director death threats. – The Guardian
Florida Man Misunderstands Joke, Calls Cops On Comedian
Performing at a comedy club in Naples, Fla., “[Egyptian-American comedian Ahmed] Ahmed asked if anyone of Middle Eastern descent was in the audience. After a few people clapped, Ahmed replied, ‘Hey, it only takes one of us’ followed by a pause. As the audience began to laugh, Ahmed added ‘to tell a joke.'” One audience member decided this was a threatening joke about terrorism and called 911. (includes audio of 911 call) – CBS Miami
Series Of Titan Paintings To Be Shown Together For First Time In 316 Years
The six-painting series known as the poesie, commissioned by Philip II of Spain and based on Ovid’s Metamorphoses, were last displayed together in 1704. Five of them will be reunited and exhibited in London, Edinburgh, Madrid, and Boston in 2020 and ’21. (The sixth is in London’s Wallace Collection, which is forbidden to lend out its art.) – The Guardian
Karina Canellakis And Montreal Symphony Pull Off Enormous Program Change At Literally The Last Minute
The rising young maestra was about to make her Montreal Symphony debut on May 15 when she and the orchestra got word that pianist Daniil Trifonov, the soloist for the concerto that formed the entire second half of the program, had just been taken to the hospital. So, as one of the musicians posted afterward on Facebook, “We performed Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony. Cold. No rehearsing. In front of 2,000 ish people.” – CBC