“Our statuary is largely derived from and better suited to authoritarian societies than democratic ones because monuments require assent to a common proposition: This man was great. They are meant to put historical truths into final form, beyond debate, literally etched in stone.”
Tag: 08.13.17
Opera Superagent Bruce Zemsky Dead At 62
The co-founder of Zemsky Green Artist Management worked with some of the leading opera singers in the world today, among them Jonas Kaufmann, Anja Harteros, Brandon Jovanovich, and Pretty Yende.
Too Many Accountants In The Arts World Are Making It ‘Frightened’ And ‘Risk-Averse,’ Says Top UK Director
Dominic Dromgoole, who spent a decade as artistic director of Shakespeare’s Globe and oversaw that company’s worldwide tour of Hamlet: “Institutionally I think we have a problem that we have possibly over-stacked our governance areas with people from the world of … accountancy. They are entirely honourable and entirely nice people, but I think from the moment they begin working on things they’re always overly calculating risk and overly worried about danger. Their inclination is to say no to any venture that they can’t absolutely 100 per cent future-proof, … so that now you have an element of fear within a lot of organisations that doesn’t need to be there.”
The Jookin’ Swan: A Street-Dance Take On Pavlova’s Legendary Ballet Solo
Gia Kourlas offers a step-by-step analysis (with plenty of GIFs) of Lil uck’s revamp of The Dying Swan: “This eloquent combination of jookin’ – a Memphis-born style that relies heavily on footwork and comes from the Gangsta Walk – and Camille Saint-Saëns’s wistful strings gives the sensation that Buck is levitating.”
We May Not Know How New York’s ‘The Shed’ Will Turn Out Or What’ll Be Shown There, But Seeing Its Enormous Shell Glide On Rails Is Pretty Cool
“The gossamer-looking but gigantic structure [designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro] still weighs in at 8 million pounds but glides on a half-dozen exposed steel ‘bogies,’ or wheels, six-feet in diameter, with tapered bearings so meticulously engineered that the system requires just six 15-horsepower motors – in effect, a Toyota Prius engine moving a behemoth as finely-tuned as a Formula One car.”
Louisville Mayor Orders Review Of City’s Public Art For Racist Works
Mayor Greg Fischer announced today that he’s directing the Louisville Commission on Public Art to review its catalogue of public art to develop a list of pieces that can be interpreted to be honoring bigotry, racism and/or slavery. This is in preparation for a community conversation about their display.
Neon Is Suddenly Having A Moment In Art
Once neon symbolised vulgarity, sleaze, Las Vegas. Now it symbolises art. Artists have made luminous commercial signage so much their own that the new wave of neon in popular culture consciously apes that artiness.
New TV Shows Involving Racial History Spark Hollywood Debate About Who Can (Should) Tell History
HBO and Amazon’s dueling Civil War alt-history dramas have brought an age-old debate about art back to the cultural forefront: Who is “allowed” to tell certain stories, particularly those about marginalized communities? The question is prompting frank conversations among those in the TV industry.
Producers Cast An Asian-American Actress As Ariel In “Little Mermaid”. Some In Middle America Don’t Like That
One journalist from a southern publication, he added, asked him how it felt to be “saddled” with a non-white actor in the role of Ariel. “Saddled?” he responded, “I cast her!”
Negative Music Reviews Have All But Disappeared. Why?
“The dearth of negative music reviews is due to a number of factors. In the digital era, outlets covering music have become decentralized with fewer dominant players and more outlets running reviews. That’s helped create a new power dynamic between pop stars and the press—one where stars are less dependent on critics and critics are more eager to please artists.”