“Is artist defined by talent and skill, by length of practice or legacy? Are there common characteristics of all artists beyond the attempt to create? Do we include those only within our sphere or all of those beyond our recognition? If creation alone does not constitute conferring the appellation of artist, can one grow into the post? If art is a process, are you an artist only when you have practiced your “art” for a term? Or is the definition of an artist and art best left to each of us to ponder for ourselves?”
Tag: 07.15.16
We Live In A Public Time. So What Is The Role Of Public Intellectuals?
The real interest in the term “public intellectual” lies in what its usage can tell us about ourselves: how we imagine the links between politics and prose, thought and action, individual contemplation and social congregation. Why, for example, has the notion of publicness itself become such a high value for some, practically synonymous with benevolence, as if to attach “public” to the name of a discipline grants it a special dignity?
San Francisco Symphony Cuts Back On Community Outreach Projects
“The SFS Board of Directors is said to have voted to discontinue the Community of Music Makers (CoMM) at least temporarily, and make a deep cut in the Instrument Training and Support (IT&S) program for middle and high schools in San Francisco.”
Alvin Ailey Dancers – On Their Own Time – Create A Protest Dance Video To Beyoncé’s ‘Freedom’
Company member Sean Aaron Carmon, who conceived and choreographed the brief piece as a response to the recent shootings by and of police, talks about where his material came from and whether “Freedom” could become part of a larger project.
Carolyn See, 82, Novelist, Memoirist, And Washington Post Book Critic
“Dr. See was the author of 10 books, encompassing fiction and nonfiction, and was co-author of several more. For 27 years until her retirement in 2014, she was a regular book reviewer for The Washington Post. … ‘When I started to write I was relatively old, and lived in California. So I was the wrong sex, wrong age, wrong coast,’ she wrote in an essay. ‘Luckily I was too ignorant to know it.'”
After Ten Years, HD Opera Movie-Casts Still Prove Controversial
“Like so much new media in this era of rapid technological change, the HD broadcasts haven’t actually fulfilled the rosy expectations that once surrounded them. It is far from clear that they are the wave of the future.”
David Parsons Is Choreographing For Drones
“‘The drones also become personalities,’ he explained. ‘They become alive. They make decisions in front of your eyes, and so do the [human] performers onstage. So you get the feeling that they have artificial intelligence, that they are thinking. It’s spooky.'”
The Strand Bookstore’s Famous Quiz For Job Applicants (So Just How Smart Are You?)
“There are tests for driver’s licenses and citizenship, for New York City landmarks preservationists and sanitation workers. But a quiz for an entry-level retail job at a bookstore?”
Why Are So Many Artists Choosing To Be Anonymous?
“Welcome to the strange world of modern-day fame, when it helps to be a nobody if you want to be a somebody! In some ways, we are returning to the rules of the medieval world, when major works of art and technology were created by anonymous innovators. But there’s a difference nowadays: Today’s mystery artists cultivate their aura of secrecy. They prefer obscurity over the perks of celebrity status.”
Records: Art Looted By Nazis Sold Back To Nazis
“It turns out, the archives show, that hundreds of works were actually sold back at discounted prices in the 1950s and the 1960s to the very Nazis who had taken possession of them, including the widow of Hermann Goering, a senior aide to Hitler who pillaged art to amass a collection of more than a thousand works.”