“His argument goes like this: In economic terms, the arts are playing a losing hand; in almost every other industry, the costs of production are reduced over time, allowing for more goods to be sold at a lower price point. Innovation and commodification contribute to this process, enabling goods to be produced ever-more cheaply and distributed on a vast scale, which in turn allows for the increasing segmentation of consumer markets and real-time adaptation to changing tastes and expectations. Alas, almost none of this is true for the arts.”
Tag: 05.28.15
Rediscovering The Identities of Some Of West Africa’s Long-Anonymous Master Sculptors
“Some sculptors here, such as The Essankro Master and The Master of the Arched Back, are designated only by their region or style, but many others … now have names and stories (one, Kuakudili, has a face) and so they are slowly becoming known as individuals.”
How Bedbugs Get Under Our Skin And Into Our Psyches
They don’t transmit West Nile virus or Lyme disease or malaria, yet humans – especially city-dwellers – are terrified of them. Ashamed, too: If we get them, we’re reluctant to tell our friends, lest they avoid us. How and why do we give these critters such power over us?
When Tennessee Williams Took Up Painting
“On the patio of his cottage in Key West, with his most celebrated writing years behind him, playwright Tennessee Williams took refuge in painting … express[ing] his loneliness, sexuality, and loathing for Truman Capote in this personal pastime.”
Hilary Mantel – Once More – On Taking The Tudor Court From Page To Stage
“Inside my head, they are whirls and blurs of energy in a show that never sleeps, where even in the small hours the blood runs down the walls. I construct the scenery and source the props, arrange the sound effects: church bells, the cry of hounds. I am my own lighting expert.”
Dressing ‘Sleeping Beauty’ For The Ballet Theater At The Met
“Then there are the ornate headpieces and floppy, wide-brimmed hats. Everyone wears a wig. … There are 210 of them, three times as many as in any other Ballet Theater production, the head of the wig department, Rena Most, said. The Queen’s perruque towers above her like a sheaf of wheat, augmented further by a spray of giant feathers.”
Will The Protest Mattress – Remember, It Was A Senior Year Art Project – End Up In A Museum?
“Whatever its fate in art or social history, Mattress Performance could well live on in objecthood. But would a museum or gallery want it? On the phone from California, where she is visiting a friend in Laguna Beach post-graduation and luxuriating in the distance from the 50-pound mattress she hauled around daily since September, Sulkowicz says no one has approached her about the prospect yet.”
When The Only ‘American Girl’ Black Doll Is A Slave, We’ve Got A Problem
“If you were a white girl who wanted a historical doll who looked like you, you could imagine yourself in Samantha’s Victorian home or with Kirsten, weathering life on the prairie. If you were a black girl, you could only picture yourself as a runaway slave.”
What Happened When An Opera Company Opened Its Dress Rehearsal To Working-Class Students
“It was an extremely new experience to be sitting in the three-tiered performance hall, listening to the kind of song and live music that was so good it belonged on an album.”
Last Year The Baltimore Symphony Hired An Embedded Journalist To Cover The Orchestra (Here’s How It Turned Out)
I have a whole lot of editorial control as far as picking stories out. I would say probably 75 percent of what I do is unrelated to the orchestra; it’s just generally about classical music. Twenty-five percent relates the orchestra. But I don’t see it as a direct “try to sell this concert.”