New York fêted graffiti artists with two events this week: an auction of the work of 100 “night writers” and two gallery retrospectives. But, opinions still vary widely over whether graffiti belongs in galleries and museums at all or should be left alone on the streets. – New York Times
Author: Douglas McLennan
LETTING IT ALL HANG OUT
For more than 50 years, painter Alice Neel created provocative, painfully revealing – and often nude and famously unflattering – portraits of art-world insiders. On the eve of the Whitney Museum’s Neel retrospective, eleven of her former subjects reflect on what it was like to sit for “a genius at detecting her subjects’ inner lives and notorious for exposing – and exaggerating – her subjects’ flaws. – New York Magazine
NINA BALLERINA
Nina Ananiashvili is taking the US by storm on the Bolshoi’s current tour. After years of fighting for her artistic freedom, she’s now trying to juggle her “insane” perfectionism with a busy international career. – Los Angeles Times
DANCING ON EDGE
Just what do arts competitions really prove anyway? This week the New York International Ballet Competition begins. “All dance competitions have a paradox at their core: on one hand, the dancers struggle to ‘do it right,’ to understand what is expected of them, and on the other, the judges hope to find dancers who will deliver the unexpected within a formally controlled context.” – New York Times
THE LAND OF DISBELIEF
Who can believe anything you see in movies anymore? Special effects rendered by computer fill in any and all things needed for a scene. But it gets increasingly difficult to believe what you see, or – ominously – suspend belief. – Hartford Courant 06/18/00
MOVIE KILLER
The movie “Jaws” came out 25 years ago. “A myth has grown up around it as disturbing and predatory as that of the shark – the myth of Jaws’s lethal effect on modern film. Jaws is no longer just the movie that killed bathing. It has become the movie that killed movies.” – The Telegraph (UK) 06/18/00
THE CHANGING FACE OF THEATRE
“In 1974, the first gathering of commercial producers and leaders from the nonprofit regional theater was, by many accounts, a prickly session that featured name-calling, walk-outs and the feeling that there was nothing remotely in common between those two disparate sides of the American theater.” Now, telling the difference between the two is often problematic. – Hartford Courant
EMBARRASSMENT IN PRIME TIME
This year’s Tony Awards broadcast was a shambles. “The yearly bash celebrating Broadway’s best has surpassed fiasco. Fiasco is merely incompetence, but this year’s telecast was flat-out embarrassing. It’s time for those who think theater still has some dignity to stand up and be counted.” – Philadelphia Inquirer
THE LITTLE SHOW THAT COULD
“The Fantasticks” celebrates its 40th year in continuous production off Broadway. It’s given 16,500 performances in its 151-seat theater. The show has also played in more than 12,000 U.S. productions, and internationally in 900 productions in 69 nations, including Saudi Arabia, Japan, China, Zimbabwe and Afghanistan. The show’s original 44 investors have received a 19,465 percent return on their modest $16,500 total investment.” – Chicago Sun-Times
GETTY DIRECTOR RESIGNS
John Walsh announced he will step down this fall after heading the J. Paul Getty Museum for 17 years, during which he broadened the Getty’s collections and oversaw the museum’s transition to its lavish new Brentwood home two years ago. Getty chief curator Deborah Gribbon will step into Walsh’s position in September. – New Jersey Online (AP)