“You may have heard of the Blue Mustang, the infamous giant blue equine sculpture outside Denver International Airport. But the Blue Mustang is only one of many conspiracy theories circling the DIA’s artwork. When Leo Tanguma painted a series of murals for the Denver International Airport, he had no idea that they would become a lightning rod for conspiracy theories and controversy over the murals’ perceived meaning; despite his attempts to explain the true meaning behind the murals, the firestorm of negative conjecture continues to roll on.” – Atlas Obscura via YouTube
Author: Matthew Westphal
How We Moved An Entire Dance Festival Online
Cameron Ball, Festival Manager of the UK’s U.Dance National Youth Dance Festival: “The energy of sharing a studio space and the buzz of a live audience is hard to imitate, so inevitable compromises have to be made when access is via video conference or social media stream. But this jolt into a new format has some benefits and has revealed some ways to work technology into future events, which will be retained once the industry rebuilds.” – Arts Professional
Jazz Trumpeter Eddie Gale Dead At 78
“Gale walked on jazz’s cutting edge from his childhood. He was taught to play trumpet by bebop legend Kenny Dorham; as a teenager in the 1950s, he jammed with such titanic figures as Art Blakey and Jackie McLean; and he joined the Sun Ra Arkestra at 21. In addition to Ra, with whom he would work until the mid-1980s, Gale appeared on iconic and important recordings by Cecil Taylor and Larry Young before releasing two highly acclaimed albums of his own in the late 1960s on Blue Note Records. … Relocating from New York to San Jose in 1972, Gale built … a strong profile as an educator … [and] a passionate advocate and activist for musicians’ health and wellness.” – JazzTimes
Where Classical Crossover Is Headed Now
James Bennett, II: “First, we looked at the technology and market realizations that set crossover up for a late 1980s-90s boom. Then we explored how that bubble burst. But crossover today isn’t dead — it’s just assumed a new form, as it’s done throughout its long history. Now, it’s less opera-pop and more chamber covers of popular music. And if recent pre-COVID concerts are any indicator, concerts centered around popular film and television scores might be selling out for years to come. At least if you’re Hans Zimmer.” – WQXR (New York City)
The Trump Organization And Insurance Companies Kept This Film Off U.S. Screens For Four Years. Now It’s Finally Coming Out
Documentarian Anthony Baxter writes about how his 2016 film You’ve Been Trumped Too — which shows how the seizure of land for and the construction of Trump’s Scottish golf resort affected nearby residents, including one farm family whose water supply has been cut off ever since — was suppressed by legal threats from the Trump Organization and the exorbitant premiums demanded by companies for providing errors-and-omissions insurance. – The Guardian
Even Country Music Is Facing A Reckoning These Days
“How does a genre in love with routine respond to a moment in which everyone’s lives have been disrupted?… Country fetishizes the day-after-day realities of homes, highways, and beer halls. There are exceptions, but typically it’s a genre in which work and family and place all are held up as things that must be defended. … As a slew of recent scandals and scuffles have demonstrated, however, not even Nashville can maintain the status quo anymore.” – The Atlantic
France Begins Process Of Returning Looted Artworks To Benin
“The government examined the first draft of a law … which legislates that specific items known to have been looted must be returned permanently to their places of origin within one year. … The objects the law would see deaccessioned from French collections include 26 objects taken from the royal palace of Abomey in 1892, which are currently held at the Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac.” (There is also a historically important sword that would be returned to Senegal.) – Artnet
One Of Off-Broadway’s Top Theatres Announces A Season With Artists But Without Plays
“In place of what most theatergoers have come to regard as a ‘season,’ the New York Theatre Workshop — the birthplace of Rent [and Slave Play], among other landmarks — is offering what you might call a 2020-21 un-season. A programmatic embodiment of the possible, fueled by the percolating brains of more than two dozen playwrights, directors, actors and performance artists.” Peter Marks explains how it will work. – The Washington Post
‘Everything Is Up For Change, And Will Change’: New Wave Of Bosses May Finally Make Publishing More Diverse
“Over the last year, deaths, retirements and executive reshuffling have made way for new leaders, more diverse and often more commercial than their predecessors, as well as people who have never worked in publishing before. Those appointments stand to fundamentally change the industry, and the books it puts out into the world.” – The New York Times
China Starts Reopening Movie Theaters (For The Second Time)
“China will begin reopening cinemas in ‘low-risk regions’ from July 20, the China Film Administration announced Thursday, ending nearly six months of closures that left thousands of theaters bankrupt. … When a small portion of cinemas reopened briefly in March, business was dismal. Venues were unable to attract much of a crowd by offering stale local titles that most people had already seen. Fresh content will now be crucial to getting people through the door.” – Variety