Museum management said in a statement that “this auction allows us to deaccession a number of works in areas where we have significant breadth and depth and the proceeds will return to the Asian Art department’s acquisition fund.” – Chicago Tribune
Tag: 05.24.19
Tayari Jones On The Clear Before And After Dividing Line Of Reading Toni Morrison
The author of An American Marriage says she was 19 when she read Beloved, and it changed her life. “I hate to use such a chilly word to describe an experience that was spiritual, emotional and intellectual, but Beloved made me feel contextualised. That is the only way I can explain it.” – The Guardian (UK)
It was the first all-African American opera. And now, ‘Treemonisha’ is getting new life
“Despite not being staged while [composer Scott] Joplin was still alive, Treemonisha has had a lasting legacy. It was first performed in its entirety in the 1970s, and in 1977 Joplin posthumously won the Pulitzer Prize for music. It’s been staged again since then, but now, it’s being rewritten and expanded with an entirely new team at the helm. [The Toronto company] Volcano and … a multitude of [creators and] performers are reviving the opera for its premiere in 2020. The entire creative team — and the orchestra, once the opera goes public — is composed of Black women.” – CBC
How Peter Schjeldahl Illuminates The Art World
“What separates Schjeldahl is the tangible sense in nearly every piece in this book — say 85 of the 100 — that something existential is at stake as he writes. The same sensation is present in Barthes and Sontag, his closest analogues to my mind, writers who, whatever their subject at a given moment, are desperately attempting to make something lucid out of this indecipherable life they’ve received without asking for it.” – The New York Times
The ‘Goddess Of Democracy’: The 30-Year Afterlife Of The Statue That Symbolized The Tienanmen Square Demonstrations
The original statue, modeled on the Statue of Liberty, was crushed by a tank when the People’s Liberation Army wiped out the multi-day protest in Beijing on June 4, 1989. But every so often a replica appears, particularly in Hong Kong. – Global Voices
How I Found An Old Lady’s Diary In The Trash And Turned It Into A Hit Novel
Kathryn Scanlan found the journal in a bin of unsold items at an estate sale; it covered the years 1968-72. “Over the years, Scanlan ‘edited, arranged, and rearranged’ the contents, the product of which is Aug 9 — Fog. [In this essay,] Scanlan traces the discovery of the diary through the crafting of the finished, fictional volume.” – Publishers Weekly
A Skeptic Gets Convinced By The Modern ‘Translations’ Of The Play On! Shakespeare Project
Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, an editor on the Norton Shakespeare edition, wasn’t worried about profaning the Bard’s texts; he thought the playwrights were being told to stick too close to the original. When he heard the new versions read aloud, and when he considered the choices the playwrights involved made, he was hugely impressed. – American Theatre
A Dance Critic Kvells Over The Grace Of Roger Federer
Sarah Kaufman: “The subtlety, intelligence and beauty of Federer’s play can pull us into a direct and instant involvement with grace. We experience a dimension of humanness that feels perfected and free, even close to divine. Great artists can do this to us.” – The Washington Post
Louvre Will Offer Off-Hours Tours At €30 A Head
The stated idea behind the tours is to attract Parisians who avoid the museum because of the massive crowds of tourists. If that’s the case, though, why are the tours being offered through Airbnb? – Hyperallergic
Don’t Push: Generalists Versus Specialists – One Leads To The Other
In online forums, well-meaning parents agonize over what instrument to pick for a child, because she is too young to pick for herself and will fall irredeemably behind if she waits. But studies on the development of musicians have found that, like athletes, the most promising often have a period of sampling and lightly structured play before finding the instrument and genre that suits them. – The New York Times