Artists Need Day Jobs (No, It’s Not Surprising; Yes, It’s Hard On The Art)

“Is it possible, in the current economic climate, for someone working in the creative arts to make a living from it? Unless you have the good fortune to be a Damien Hirst or a JK Rowling, the answer increasingly seems to be no. For artists who are already faced with low job security and the absence of company benefits such as pensions or paid holidays, the impact of the global financial crisis has been keenly felt.”

Opera Gone Wild: The (New) Baroque In Europe

“Nothing had prefigured the opera’s Bacchus as she sauntered toward the audience: an immensely large, nearly naked woman — so large that my first thought was that her enormous breasts were prostheses. When she had nearly reached the edge of the stage, she stopped, silent and self-satisfied, as the chorus stood around her and caressed her, rubbing her breasts as they invoked the god in song. This was not the Baroque of waistcoats and powdered wigs, of delicate dances and imperiously raised index fingers.”