“Next month, … educator, activist, and ballplayer Octavius V. Catto will be honored by the city where he was murdered with a full-blown sculptural commemoration in bronze and granite on the southern apron of City Hall. Amazing to say, Catto will then become the first named African-American to be memorialized on public land in [Philadelphia’s] history.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Yayoi Kusama Built Herself An Entire Museum While We Weren’t Looking
The five-story building in Tokyo’s Shinjuku district was actually completed in 2014, with installation going on since. The museum, which opens October 1, will have rotating exhibits changing twice a year, a separate floor for the Infinity Rooms, and a library/archive; timed tickets will cost ¥1,000 (just over $9.00).
What Michiko Kakutani Meant For The Times, And Where Its Books Coverage Is Headed Without Her
Boris Kachka investigates how the notoriously publicity-shy critic worked and what she’s like as a person (no mean feat, that), and he looks at how changes in both the Times approach to her beat and her own interests seem to have led to her decision to take a buyout.
Michael Moore Puts His Broadway Audience On Buses And Takes Them To Protest At Trump Tower
“Like any Broadway spectacle, the excursion was a splice of authentic emotion and fabrication. It seemed equal part an earnest bid to get people off the sidelines and into a picket line and equal part showbiz hoopla aimed at bolstering a show that opened last week to mixed reviews and that has not yet caught fire with ticket buyers.”
Unknown Bootlegs From Bob Dylan’s 1965 Tour Surface – And They Were Made By Allen Ginsberg
“With some interruptions, they document two Dylan shows from 1965, near the beginning of that fateful tour: one in San Francisco on September 11, 1965, and the other in San Jose from the following evening. As you might expect, the performances are enough to knock you out, but the sound quality is up and down.” (Alas, they’ve been removed from YouTube.) Andy Cush tells the story.
‘Newfields’: Indianapolis Museum Of Art Rebrands Its Grounds And The Many Things On Them (Because People Don’t Know They’re With The Museum)
“During springtime, the Indianapolis Museum of Art welcomed you to friendlier weather with thousands of color-drenched blooms on its outdoor campus. A beer garden and, later on, 18 holes of mini-golf designed by artists kept you coming back. Starting in mid-November, … the museum’s gardens will be illuminated by millions of lights that dance along to the music of the Nutcracker Suite. You’ll have your choice of drinks and firepits to roast s’mores. These are the type of cultural experiences Indy residents are drawn to. It’s just that when it comes to perception, market research shows people don’t necessarily connect them to the IMA.”
What the NYC Cultural Plan Means for the Dance Community
“While there is nothing specifically dance-related in the plan, many dance companies and artists within marginalized and lower-income communities stand to benefit from increased funding. Here are the key takeaways.”
Thieves Are Stealing Paris’s Favorite Street Mosaics (And It Seems To Be A Custom-Order Job)
About 15 works by the street artist known as Invader have been removed from the walls of buildings by two men in yellow jackets who claim to be city workers (and then drive off in a Mercedes).
Opera Superagent Bruce Zemsky Dead At 62
The co-founder of Zemsky Green Artist Management worked with some of the leading opera singers in the world today, among them Jonas Kaufmann, Anja Harteros, Brandon Jovanovich, and Pretty Yende.
Too Many Accountants In The Arts World Are Making It ‘Frightened’ And ‘Risk-Averse,’ Says Top UK Director
Dominic Dromgoole, who spent a decade as artistic director of Shakespeare’s Globe and oversaw that company’s worldwide tour of Hamlet: “Institutionally I think we have a problem that we have possibly over-stacked our governance areas with people from the world of … accountancy. They are entirely honourable and entirely nice people, but I think from the moment they begin working on things they’re always overly calculating risk and overly worried about danger. Their inclination is to say no to any venture that they can’t absolutely 100 per cent future-proof, … so that now you have an element of fear within a lot of organisations that doesn’t need to be there.”