Philip Kennicott: “The basic conservatism of the new museum, its Smithsonian look and feel, and all the trust that name inspires, will help many visitors grapple with the obvious, ugly and manifest truths of racism and its impact on black culture. But … in the years since the museum was authorized by Congress, perhaps the biggest change in American society is how many people have become comfortable with staring at the unpleasant and undeniable and saying, ‘That’s not what I see.'”
Author: Matthew Westphal
When The African-American Museum Presents ‘African-American Music’, What Exactly Will That Mean?, Asks Anne Midgette
“When it comes to musical performance, the Museum’s tacit mandate is to spotlight all of African American music – which is like trying to put a frame around a living person and call it a portrait. It’s tough to pick ‘African American’ music out of the fabric of American musical history, of which it is an essential, even dominant part. Concerts at the Oprah Winfrey Theater could conceivably range from opera to hip-hop, jazz to country, R&B to classical.”
The Long Arguments And Hard Work Behind An American Girl’s First Black Doll
“In 1993, the doll company set out to introduce its first black character. All she had to do was represent the entire history of black America.”
MacArthur ‘Genius Grant’ Winners Include Julia Wolfe, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Claudia Rankine
“The honorees include relatively well-known figures in the arts like the poet Claudia Rankine, 53, whose book Citizen, (2014) which explored racism in everyday life …; the essayist Maggie Nelson, 43, who won the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism for The Argonauts;” sculptor Vincent Fecteau; composer Julia Wolfe; graphic novelist Gene Luen Yang; playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins; cultural historian Josh Kun; and video artist Mary Reid Kelley.
Here’s The Full List Of 2016 MacArthur Fellows
From Ahilan Arulanantham to Jin-Quan Yu.
‘The Big Data Jukebox’ – AllMusic, The Project That Makes The Likes Of Spotify And Pandora Possible
“Discovering new kinds of music is easier than ever … But having all this music at our fingertips was only part of the equation – we needed to be armed with information.” And where is all that information kept? “Today, we talk about AllMusic, one of the internet’s first – and best – archival projects.”
Banksy Painting In Liverpool Parkng Lot Is Taken Away To Museum
“The work, dubbed the Love Plane, was painted in 2011 and showed a biplane leaving a heart-shaped trail behind it. The plane has now been removed from the wall of the outdoor car park on Rumford Street – but the heart has remained. The plane will be displayed alongside other Banksy works from Liverpool in an indoor gallery specialising in street art in the city’s Baltic Triangle.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 09.21.16
Four Forms of Inquiry
In my last post, I shared four forms of speech that define a richer and clearer palette of conversation in meetings (or in life). The two I find most absent or abused … in purposeful conversation are inquiring and framing. So I wanted to dig into each of them in turn. read more
AJBlog: The Artful Manager Published 2016-09-21
As it is? Pinter’s at his best in No Man’s Land
If you’ve ever doubted that Harold Pinter deserved his 2005 Nobel Prize, take yourself to see Sean Mathias’ production of No Man’s Land with the duo of theatrical knights, Sir Ian McKellen (as Spooner) and Sir Patrick Stewart (as Hirst) at Wyndham’s Theatre. … read more
AJBlog: Plain English Published 2016-09-21
“Polemical History Lesson”: Illustrated Companion to my WSJ Piece on Brooklyn’s American Rehang
There’s a difference between displaying political art and politicizing art. As I argue in “A Polemical History Lesson”, my piece in today’s Wall Street Journal, the Brooklyn Museum’s rehang and reinterpretation of its American art collection crosses that line. … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2016-09-21
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He Changed The Theatre, And He Changed America: Tracy Letts Remembers Edward Albee
Writes the playwright of August, Osage County and Killer Joe, also the actor who won a Tony for playing George in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, “His plays not only altered the trajectory of world theatre; their impact is felt beyond the scope of arts and letters. He affected attitudes about race, sex, class, marriage, family, addiction, illness, death. He helped shape the postwar American character. He partly defined the postwar American sense of humor.”
The World’s Longest Documented Family Tree, 78 Generations And Counting, Belongs To Confucius
“There are a lot of groups that trace their origins. But there are few that can actually point to genealogical records from the Song [Dynasty] that are then kept up and recompiled pretty continuously up to the present.”