Choreographer and dancer Alexandra Pirici created her performance piece for the New Museum for five dancers, and a hologram. “‘The biological body wants toilet breaks,’ she said, ‘it gets tired, it decays.’ A hologram, though, makes no demands.”
Month: February 2018
The Biotic Portal Is What Happens When Two Poets Take Over The Garden
Poets Denise Newman and Hazel White won a grant to collaborate with the UC Botanical Garden in Berkeley. Then they created a massive collaboration. “Poetry is often so nearly silent, floating on the page, unseen and unheard by the vast majority of people, even those who read. I sense in Newman and White the desire to break down the barriers between poetry and the world, to get out there and chat, even as they undertake brainy inquiries about the nature of beauty and how a seemingly innocent activity, like collecting plants, can conceal human power dynamics.”
Abstract Expressionist Sonia Gechtoff Has Died At 91
The artist made a splash when she was a young painter in San Francisco, but she and her artist husband (James Kelly) left for New York and the Abstract Expressionist life. Using a palette knife instead of a brush, her technique “made Ms. Gechtoff stand out in a genre that was largely male.”
He Might Have Starred in ‘Get Out,’ But He’s Not Speaking For Anyone Except Himself
Daniel Kaluuya is nominated for an Academy Award, as is the movie, and now he’s in Black Panther as well. He’s glad to have his mom around to help him stay humble: “His mother finds acting too erratic a profession. ‘She calls me every time and says, ‘Have you got a job yet?’ And I haven’t. I can’t say to her, ‘You gotta wait – the nos mean something.’ I tell her I’m writing a script. She says, ‘Just type full stop.’’ [And] after the hype around Get Out, Kaluuya is more grateful than ever for his mother’s unhistrionic attitude. He calls this right-sizing.”
Massachusetts Bows To Berkshire Museum, And The Rockwell Can Be Sold
To be clear: The state attorney’s office says that the non-Rockwell pieces up for sale can go anywhere, but the Rockwell must be sold to another museum and remain on public view. “The agreement, which requires court approval, could end a contentious chapter in the history of the museum.”
Jóhan Jóhannsson, Composer For Movies Like ‘Arrival’ And ‘The Theory Of Everything, Has Died At 48
The composer was found dead on Friday in his Berlin apartment. No cause of death has been announced yet. Jóhannsson had just finished a score for the Rooney Mara film “Mary Magadalene.”
Five Things To Know About The Mellon Foundation’s New President
Elizabeth Alexander has been closely involved in one of the most important trends now shaping arts philanthropy: a growing focus on using arts and cultural grantmaking to advance social justice. You can bet that she’ll push Mellon to step up its own funding along these lines. It also seems likely that we’ll see a more powerful axis between Ford and Mellon that extends the influence of both institutions in the arts and cultural space.
Santa Fe Opera Restrutures And Appoints New General Director
Robert Meya proposed to the search committee that he be considered as part of a management “troika” that would divide administrative, artistic, and musical responsibilities among three people. This differs fundamentally from the company’s historic model, in which the general director has assumed lead responsibility for all of those areas. The Opera’s board is authorized to appoint only the general director and, as a matter of policy, does not act directly in other staffing decisions. Meya is accordingly being hired as general director with the understanding that his first act of business is to name Toronto’s Canadian Opera Company’s general director Alexander Neef to the newly created position of artistic director and Santa Fe Opera’s chief conductor Harry Bicket to be the company’s music director. The three members of the management team have all been acquainted with each other for years.
Time To Leave Bad-Acting “Geniuses” Behind
Roxane Gay: “We can no longer worship at the altar of creative genius while ignoring the price all too often paid for that genius. In truth, we should have learned this lesson long ago, but we have a cultural fascination with creative and powerful men who are also “mercurial” or “volatile,” with men who behave badly. There are all kinds of creative people who are brilliant and original and enigmatic and capable of treating others with respect. There is no scarcity of creative genius, and that is the artistic work we can and should turn to instead.”
Arkansas’s Crystal Bridges May Be The Most “Woke” Museum In America
Philip Kennicott: This may be the most “woke” room in any mainstream American museum today, with works by Native American, African American and female artists far outnumbering the only work by a white man, a virtuosic sepia-toned “landscape” of broken and toppled ancient statuary. But it’s not the crude metrics or race and gender that matter, rather, it’s the utterly new narrative of contemporary art that emerges from the museum’s conscious and thorough effort at inclusivity. And this applies not just to the identity of the artists on view, but to the kind of work they make, as well.