“The anonymous group … pledged to contribute up to $1 million to the Pittsfield museum if its board agrees to pause an auction of 40 works of art at Sotheby’s and to allow outside experts to provide a second opinion on the advisability of the controversial sale. Elizabeth McGraw, president of the museum’s board of trustees, said the offer falls short.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Houston’s Theatre District Swamped By Harvey’s Floodwaters
The downtown area that’s home to the city’s flagship performing arts organizations is adjacent to Buffalo Bayou and has seen severe flooding. Here are preliminary damage reports from the Alley Theatre and the venues that house the Houston Ballet, Houston Symphony, and Houston Grand Opera.
Houston’s Major Museums Are Holding Up Against Hurricane Harvey
The Menil Collection, Museum of Fine Art Houston, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, and Houston Center for Photography report no damage to their collections and relatively little to their buildings – so far. The Rockport Center for the Arts in Corpus Christi, alas, hasn’t been so lucky.
Enzo Dara, Great Buffo Bass, Dead At 78
“Over the … four decades of his career, Dara became one of the most famous Italian basses on the opera stage by portraying a small cluster of touchstone roles that highlighted his natural gifts for comedy, rapid-fire patter and innate bel canto technique.”
Moscow’s Pushkin Museum Tries To Crowdsource Purchase Of A Titian
“Previously thought to be a copy of Titian’s Venus and Adonis, experts at the Pushkin say it is the earliest surviving version of the work and now the Moscow museum wants to buy it through crowdfunding. It does not come cheap though – the painting is reportedly estimated to be worth between $10m-$20m.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 08.28.17
Hurricane Harvey & Museums: Houston MFA, Menil Collection in Relatively Good Shape
This just in from Gary Tinterow, director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, in response to my query about how his institution has been weathering the Hurricane Harvey maelstrom: … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2017-08-28
Brahms and Blood
A few months ago, I wrote about the music that concludes the film A Quiet Passion, and that brought to mind one of the most frustrating endings, musically speaking, that I’ve experienced in a film … read more
AJBlog: Infinite Curves Published 2017-08-28
Jazz/Improv Chicago: Wide-ranging talents, free fests, PoKempner pix
Chicago’s jazz/improvised music scene contains multitudes, last week ranging from the wild yet earnest Liberation Music Collective to veteran piano sophisticate Michael Weiss in trio, as two of Marc PoKempner‘s photos document … read more
AJBlog: Jazz Beyond Jazz Published 2017-08-28
Hotel Chain To Run John Cage’s Music On 24-Hour Loop
“On what would have been his 105th birthday, [a] national hotel chain is partnering with the John Cage Trust in what the hotel describes as a ‘listening event’ curated by Mode Records called ‘Untouchable Numbers.’ For 24 hours, Ace Hotel locations across the country … will fill their spaces with music by the late American composer.”
Brian Aldiss, Novelist Who Helped Turn Science Fiction Into Literary Art, Dead At 92
“Author of the classic Helliconia trilogy, and the story on which Steven Spielberg’s 2001 film AI: Artificial Intelligence was based, … he began publishing his stories in the mid-1950s, a time when SF was heavily dominated by US writers schooled in the markets of commercial magazines. Aldiss’s work came as a breath of fresh air to a genre beginning to suffocate in its own orthodoxies.”
The Blossoming Of ‘Documentary Theatre (Just Don’t Call It That)
Amelia Parenteau: “Of the seven contemporary theatremakers I spoke to for this piece, not one was happy with the term ‘documentary theatre’ to describe their work. … And yet each of these artists is undeniably engaged in creating some kind of documentary theatre, meaning that they draw from factual source material to craft their work and tell engaging stories in direct conversation with our present reality. Above and beyond holding a mirror up to society, as all art is charged to do, these theatremakers are finding ties to specific communities and stories, proving the old adage that truth is stranger than fiction.”
Four Leading ‘Documentary Theatre’ Artists Talk About How It’s Done And How It’s Changed
Steve Cosson of The Civilians (This Beautiful City and The Great Immensity), The Laramie Project head writer Leigh Fondakowski, KJ Sanchez of American Records (ReEntry and X’s and O’s (A Football Love Story)), and veteran Ping Chong join Amelia Parenteau for a roundtable.