The people depicted in Rockwell’s famous series of paintings — as per the expectations of the time and the artist’s own lived experience — were almost all lily-white New Englanders. Reporter Laura M. Holson talks with artists who are restaging those images, often with the cooperation of the Rockwell Museum, with a more variegated cast of characters.
Tag: sj
V&A Museum Offers Special LGBTQ Tours
“Taking place on the last Saturday of each month, the tours are free to all and aim to uncover the queer histories of the objects in the museum’s collection.” For instance, the Flemish sculptor Giambologna’s marble of Samson slaying a Philistine (both unclothed) with the jawbone of an ass — an artwork that ended up in the possession of King James I’s boyfriend.
What’s Unacceptable Audience Behavior? People Have Been Fighting About That For Centuries
“[The larger issue is] what happens when a large number of people are concentrated together in a public space and have different ideas of how we should all behave. … We see these moral panics in other crowded spaces, too.” And sometimes the policing of behavior scares away the very communities that arts organizarions are trying to reach out to. Lyn Gardner meets Kirsty Sedgman, author of The Reasonable Audience: Theatre Etiquette, Behaviour Policing and the Live Performance Experience.
Theatre That Hired Director With White Parents For Minority Fellowship Defends Decision
Controversy broke out when Anthony Ekundayo Lennon was selected for an Arts Council England-funded program to train minority theatre artists as directors: While he says his skin coloring has caused him to be treated as black or mixed-race in the acting marketplace, he acknowledges that his parents were white. Now the director of Talawa, the black-led theatre company that took Lennon on as a trainee, has spoken up about the choice.
After Censorship Outcry, DC Arts Funder Backs Off Prohibition Of ‘Offensive’ Art
“On Monday, the city’s arts agency added sweeping language to already approved grants requiring that artists and arts organizations avoid producing work that could be considered lewd, vulgar or political or be at risk of losing their funds. The arts community protested, saying the amended contract infringed on their First Amendment rights. The [D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities] capitulated.”
Longtime Champion Of Latinx Plays Named Long Wharf Theatre’s Artistic Director
Jacob G. Padrón, a Yale Drama alum (as both student and administrator) who has produced more than 100 new plays and who founded the Sol Project to support and promote Latinx playwrights, succeeds Gordon Edelstein, who was fired early this year following accusations of bullying and sexual harassment.
‘Make More Money. Do More Good.’ — Years Of Austerity Have Put UK Theatres In An Impossible Position
“The problem is that, at the same time as having to boost income [because of subsidy cuts], theatres have faced increased demands to justify their funding. Organisations have had to diversify their audiences, artists and their personnel, to prove their social utility and inclusivity with access schemes and outreach programmes … Taken together, however, the two things add up to one hell of a paradox, which risks pulling theatres apart at the seams. Being dependent on both earned income and public subsidy, theatres are having to pull in two directions at once. Make more money. Do more good.”
Using Music To Help Rebuild Mosul, Ravaged By Three Years Under ISIS
The Iraqi city was the largest one that the violent extremist group conquered, and while it was liberated last year, there is still wreckage (physical and psychic) everywhere. Late last month, a group from the Iraqi National Symphony organized an orchestral concert in Mosul, and the city is hosting more cultural events as well — not least to get attention from international donors who could fund reconstruction.
How Political Should The Art World Be?
“There’s a tendency to see the art world as separate from broader cultural, social, or political worlds, which I think is not helpful or accurate. Particularly with protests against institutions we’ve seen that issues of class, race, gender, and access are vital. Protesters come to us because they see us as part of the world, and hold us to task accordingly. We have greater legitimacy and more importance than we sometimes think we do. We have a responsibility towards the public.”
An Orchestra Should Be A ‘Community-Building Mechanism’, Says Oakland Symphony Music Director
For Michael Morgan, “art and politics are, to varying degrees, indivisible: There’s no either/or. In the end, he’s interested in community, in blending cultures, the power of diversity, and the intersection of music and well-being, imagination, and hope. His obligation is to find that intersection over and over again — that’s his revolution.”