“Jimmy Lee Sudduth, an African-American folk artist whose evocative, textured paintings made partly from Alabama mud were prized by collectors around the world, died last Sunday in Fayette, Ala. … A self-taught artist who began painting as a very small child, Mr. Sudduth was renowned for the effects he could produce with his own homemade paint, which consisted of mud blended with a variety of common substances — soot, axle grease, sugar, coffee grounds and much else — to lend it color and texture.”
Tag: 09.09.07
No More Park-And-Bark: Opera Singers Learn To Act
“Opera was born as a radical new form incorporating music and drama, but the partnership between the elements has been an uneasy and unequal one, with musical values having taken firm precedence through much of the art form’s history. For impresarios and generally for audiences too, superlative singing has always been considered to be of paramount importance.” But as standards evolve, acting skills are taking a more prominent role.
NY Choreographers Too Seldom Seen On Home Stages
“As dancegoing New Yorkers might hope, the living choreographers for whom their city is most renowned — Merce Cunningham, Paul Taylor, Twyla Tharp, Mark Morris — are all scheduled to present new works in the coming 12 months and to revive beloved works from their past. So far so good. But too little of it will open in New York City. And there is no knowing when or even if some of it will be seen here.”
Addition Lets Philly Museum Meet The People Halfway
“Nothing about the opening this month of the (Philadelphia Museum of Art’s) Ruth and Raymond G. Perelman Building – the first public addition since the opening of the neoclassical temple in the 1920s – makes the (institution’s) mission less serious. But the 173,000-square-foot expansion represents the museum’s only suggestion in decades that its art is not necessarily tied to a building, and that it is ready to come down off its pedestal, literally and figuratively, to become part of a city neighborhood.”
Who Needs Sartre, Plath And Kerouac? Not Knopf.
The Alfred A. Knopf Inc. archive at the University of Texas makes you wonder how Knopf ever published all those Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners. “The rejection files … include dismissive verdicts on the likes of Jorge Luis Borges (‘utterly untranslatable’), Isaac Bashevis Singer (‘It’s Poland and the rich Jews again’), Anaïs Nin (‘There is no commercial advantage in acquiring her, and, in my opinion, no artistic’)….”
Has NBC Dissed A Built-In “Bionic” Fan Base?
“Gays and the Bionic Woman? Love her! Gays and Isaiah Washington? Not so much. Thus you have one of the Great Pop Cultural Dilemmas of 2007: What’s a thoroughly postmodern gay to do when one of the iconic heroines of ’70s television is relaunched on a network that eagerly embraces an actor who gets dumped from his hit show on another network after proving himself all too comfortable with a certain homophobic slur?”
At The Movies, Boy Nerds Rule. Others Need Not Apply.
“Hollywood is fat and happy, but the Summer of 2007 left me (and maybe you, too?) feeling oddly alienated, as if the big party had been going on somewhere else. More than ever, if you don’t belong to one of Hollywood’s cherished demographic groups, you’re simply not invited to the dance. This summer, teens ruled, especially teen boys. And not just teen boys, but teen boys at their pimpliest, stutteringest and downright geekiest.”
Why We Love The Tenor High C (And Those Who Hit It)
“Tenor high C’s are scattered throughout the opera literature. Sometimes tenors transpose the aria down slightly or drop an octave, other times they fake it and edge into falsetto voice, where it is easier to sing. Just as often, they hit it, and hold it…. It is moments like those when opera, in addition to the aesthetic joys and emotional satisfactions, can seem like a spectator sport or a circus high-wire act.”
South Coast Rep Aims To Double Endowment
“South Coast Repertory on Saturday announced a fundraising campaign to nearly double its endowment to $50 million by 2010, a goal intended to secure the nonprofit theater’s financial future and safeguard its status as a leading incubator of new plays. The cornerstone of the effort is a $10-million gift….”
As Iraq War Rages, Hollywood Weighs In
“Hollywood didn’t seriously explore the Vietnam War until years after it was over. … Four decades later, filmmakers are responding to America’s various fronts in the ‘war on terror’ while the bullets are still flying and bombs exploding. Many of these stories are anything but black and white, with their murky moralities, shattered families and questioning of U.S. policy.”