Amanda Petrusich: “In the past decade, a spate of unconventional residency programs have offered unused (or otherwise flexible) space to artists starved for time, solitude, or simply a room of their own, and as a result artists have taken up residence on moving Amtrak trains, a barrier island off the coast of Texas, the tower of a bridge that crosses a shipping canal, and an oceanographic research vessel. I can’t decide whether the grimness of some of these places … is simply funny or an apt and horrifying reflection of how America presently esteems its artists.”
Tag: 08.29.18
As It Searches For A New Director, DC’s National Gallery Is A House Divided
“The search for the next director of the National Gallery of Art has revealed deep divisions within the federally funded institution, a palace of high art that is dogged by old-fashioned ideas about museum operations and staff claims of widespread mismanagement. … With [Rusty] Powell’s 26-year tenure coming to an end, the museum has the opportunity to revitalize its programs and modernize its operation, according to interviews with 22 current and former employees and industry experts.”
A.O. Scott On How 20 Years Of Tech Has And Hasn’t Changed Movie Reviewing
The biggest difference, says the co-chief critic of The New York Times, is the timing of writing and publishing reviews (with an obsession with spoilers as a consequence). What hasn’t changed? “I still go to screenings!”
J.R.R. Tolkien’s Final Book (And It Really Is The Last) Is Here
The Fall of Gondolin, though the last of Tolkien’s books to be published, was written early in his career, while he was recovering from the Battle of the Somme in 1917; it depicts an early stage in the history of Middle-earth, providing background for the tales that made Tolkien world-famous.
How Caryl Churchill Has Transformed British Theatre
As Churchill turns 80, writer David Benedict – with contributions from such luminaries as Vicky Featherstone, Rufus Norris, Lucy Kirkwood, and Dominic Cooke – takes an extended look at the powerful effect her work has had and the way younger playwrights have been influenced by her.
Two Major Dutch Museums End Partnerships With Shell Oil
“At a time of mounting protests over sponsorship by fossil fuel companies, Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum and the Mauritshuis in The Hague both terminated arrangements with the country’s largest oil and gas firm this summer.”
Warning: UK Theatre Audiences Are Becoming More Middle Class As School Visits Decline
“The danger, or the sad thing for me, is that the wonderful audiences that come [to children’s theatre] on the whole are quite middle-class – they are the type of parents who want their children to go to the theatre. What we all desperately want is children who are not automatically going to come to the theatre because their parents wouldn’t take them, and the schools are the ones that are going to bring them.”
Guest Columnist: Empty Room at the Top
Here is the latest piece by CultureCrash’s regular guest columnist, Lawrence Christon. Christopher O’Riley, of course, is best known to some of us for his classical-piano interpretations of Radiohead, Nick Drake and Elliott Smith.
On Rescuing a “Dead Art Form” — Take Two
It seems to me pretty obvious that nowadays it’s far easier to stage a successful Hamlet or Three Sisters than a successful Aida or Siegfried. And one reason is equally obvious: finding an actor to play Hamlet or Masha is no problem; finding a dramatic soprano for Aida or a Heldentenor for Siegfried is difficult to impossible
Philanthropist Gives $160 Million To Yale’s Peabody Museum
Edward P. Bass, a Yale alumnus, businessman and philanthropist, said his gift was motivated by a belief in institutions. “I see institutions as having the power to transmit and perpetuate a set of fundamental values, and to do so generation to generation,” he said in a phone interview. Yale, he added, is a particularly strong institution with a long history: “It’s been more than 300 years, so I have some faith.”