“If someone shows you a painting or a sculpture or a dress that he or she has made and says, ‘This is something I’ve been working a long time on, and it comes out of my love for the church or the way that my Catholic upbringing has affected me,’ you’re not going to say, ‘I reject this.’ It’s highly subjective. It’s also highly creative, and so we need to give the artist the benefit of the doubt. Moreover, many of these creations are simply beautiful. I didn’t find them offensive at all.”
Tag: 05.18.18
As The Podcast Boom Continues, Can Audio-Only Fiction Catch On?
“Gimlet Media, the podcasting startup based in Brooklyn, tapped the valve of radio drama in 2016 with Homecoming, the fictional thriller podcast brought to life by Catherine Keener, Oscar Isaac and David Schwimmer.” And more high-profile fiction podcasts are coming, with the likes of Kristen Wiig, Ethan Hawke, John Cameron Mitchell, Glenn Close, Cynthia Erivo, and Patti LuPone involved. But there’s one problem: “a vast majority of the audience is not listening in a concentrated way, like they would at home while watching a Netflix drama. Successful podcasts need to reach audience that is not 100% ‘with it’ the whole time, who get distracted. And that’s a real challenge when you’re dealing with fiction.”
Uh-Oh – There’s More Grey Gardens Footage On The Way
In 1972, three years before Albert and David Maysles made their now-famous documentary about “Big Edie” and “Little Edie” Bouvier Beale (Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’s aunt and cousin) and their rapidly decaying Long Island mansion, Lee Radziwill (Jackie’s sister) hired the Maysles brothers to visit the Beale homestead, where “they shot an hour of Big Edie and Little Edie squabbling with each other and the health officials threatening eviction.” That footage is now coming out in a documentary titled That Summer.
Can Theatre Critics Be Friends With The Artists They Review?
Mark Shenton: “The theatre world is quite a small one and I spend a lot of time immersed in it, both as a critic and an audience member. Over the years, I’ve become friends with some of those that make the art I love so much. Even though critics are sometimes seen as being on the ‘other’ side of the artistic fence, I don’t see it as an oppositional relationship. We both want the same thing: to be able to participate in the making and watching of great shows. … Being both a critic and a friend, however, is fraught with danger … For me, it depends on a lot of factors. And rules of engagement may need to be drawn up.”
We Form Intimate Relationships With Artists. And When They Die…
“I’ve been kept alive by music, and I’ve had friends who were kept alive by music. And the thing I know is that when a musician dies at the hands of their own demons, it makes the demons in your life—the ones that the musician helped you understand—seem briefly larger and more menacing. A person inspires you by enduring in the face of insurmountable pain, until they decide not to endure anymore. By virtue of having imagined yourself in the same boat, that death can become a fresh and dark isolation.”
How The Artworld Is Changing In The #MeToo Era?
Is it possible that our cultural #MeToo moment dampened enthusiasm for a painting of a nude girl by one of art history’s most reputed misogynists, an artwork the late writer Gertrude Stein described as lovely, complicated, disturbing and repellent?
Artist Amy Sherald, Who Painted The Portrait Of Michelle Obama, Has Won A Major Prize In Maryland
Sherald won the $40,000 Mary Sawyers Imboden Prize, capping off a couple of big years for the artist. “It’s only been in the past two years that the 44-year-old Sherald has received the career recognition of which most artists dream. In May 2016, she bested 2,500 other entries nationwide to win first place in the National Portrait Gallery’s Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition, which carries a $25,000 prize. In October the National Portrait Gallery announced that Sherald had been selected to paint the official portrait of former first lady Michelle Obama.”
How Homeless Youth Built A Score With (And For) The Seattle Symphony
Composer in residence Alexandra Garner worked with the youth over a few months. “The participants, she said, never wanted to talk much about whatever traumatic back stories they’d brought into the room. Instead, they wanted to make music about love and hope. ‘In one way or another, they all said ‘just because we don’t fit into other people’s boxes doesn’t mean we’re not people — we have a lot of love to share.’’ Once the musicians got the score, she added, ‘some were surprised that it was very sweet and beautiful — not the angry, thorny experience they expected it to be.'”
Will The European Union Kill Theatre Lighting?
Theatres might be saved – for now. “The organisations involved will now draft an exemption for entertainment lighting within the regulations, meaning that the sale of lighting fixtures for theatre will not be banned, even if those fixtures do not meet the required energy efficiency.” (For now.)
The Internet Surfaces Viral Illusions (You Know, Laural/Yanny And Blue Dress/White Dress), But Why?
“It all began in a simpler time—February 2015 — on an ordinary Thursday evening when a photo of a dress posted on Tumblr got picked up by BuzzFeed. Was the dress white and gold, or blue and black? The question pitted brother against brother, friend against friend, caused celebrities to weigh in, and basically ground the internet to a halt. The dress was actually blue, but that hardly mattered. … What mattered was that the chasm between perception and reality had opened up, and we found ourselves teetering on the edge.”