Alva Noë: “Works of art, in all their variety, it seems to me, afford us the opportunity for boredom – and they do so when everything in our lives mitigates against boredom. Maybe this is one of art’s gifts? Could it be that the power to bore us to tears is a clue to what art is and why it is so important?”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Pitched Battles On The Board Of Irvine, California Arts Center
“For the Irvine Barclay Theatre, 2015 was supposed to have been a year of celebration – a 25th anniversary season spotlighting the company’s reputation as one of Orange County’s premier presenters of dance, music and theater. Instead, at least four prominent donors have said they are withdrawing financial support following a clash between board chairman Robert Farnsworth and former president Douglas Rankin.”
As Pittsburgh Center For The Arts Faces Deficit And Leadership Crisis, Donors Hold Back
“A $1 million deficit at Pittsburgh Filmmakers/Pittsburgh Center for the Arts plus the resignation of longtime executive director Charlie Humphrey have prompted one foundation to pause before investing more money in the nonprofit … Mr. Humphrey resigned Tuesday after a majority of staff told the arts group’s board that it had no confidence in his leadership. In June, he laid off 20 employees because of the deficit.”
We Pretty Much All Engage In Doublethink – It Makes Reality Manageable
“The economist who still insists that people really are economically rational agents displays a familiar contemporary version of that blindness. But since we all have to get along in a world that doesn’t work quite as our idealised misdescriptions say it ought to, we will somehow manage both to see things and not to see them.”
Here Are 10 Lies – Is Each Of Them Justifiable?
Gerald Dworkin: “I am not arguing for the view that lying is morally neutral. I accept the fact that there ought to be a strong presumption in favor of honesty. But it is a presumption that not only can be, but ought to be, overridden in many more cases than we assume.”
Harper Lee’s Christmas Memory
Truman Capote’s holiday memoir may be more famous, but Lee’s is arguably more heartwarming and certainly more momentous.
The Famous Actress Who (Unwittingly) Supplied The Nonsense Words In A Great Children’s Book
“When you are 8, one of the best parts of reading The BFG has to be the delightfully nonsensical words peppered throughout the story. The reader learns that one must not gobblefunk with words, for example, and how a few gollops of frobscottle is really all you need to feel hopscotchy again if you’ve been feeling sad. But the origin story behind the giant’s odd vocabulary is more serious and a little sadder than you might expect.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 12.14.15
Art Spaces as Places for Community Engagement
Over the course of our time together in the National Arts Strategies, Chief Executive Program: Community and Culture, a key point that emerged again and again was the disconnect between arts organizations and the wider, urgent questions being asked across society. … read more
AJBlog: Field Notes Published 2015-12-13
A Q&A on the Beauty Class with Students from the SAIC
Recently, I received an email from a student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, preparing for a seminar on Arts Organizations in Society. She asked if I would be willing to Skype into the seminar to answer a few questions about the beauty class … read more
AJBlog: Jumper Published 2015-12-14
What To Put On the Wall, Along With the Art
The perennially quotidian but important issue of museum labels has cropped up into several conversations I’ve had lately. That put me, for the most part, in mind of some quotes from an artist, none other than that conceptual artist and sometime prankster John Baldessari. … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2015-12-13
A New Christmas Classic?
New Christmas songs of quality are rare. Musician, composer, producer and lead sheet maven Don Sickler suggests that he has found one. The song began life with a title that hardly suggested Christmas. … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2015-12-13
Sotheby’s to Cut Some 80 Positions; Charles Moffett, Its Former Executive VP, Dies
In an amendment filed today to its Nov. 13 8-K filing with the SEC, financially challenged Sotheby’s revealed that its planned staff buyouts will result in a net headcount reduction of about 80 staffers. … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2015-12-14
[ssba_hide]
Top Posts From AJBlogs 12.10.15
Place, process and making your own reservation
When we asked Chief Executive Program: Community and Culture leaders what they saw as the most pressing issues in their field, many told us that they’d like to address the siloization of arts in communities … read more
AJBlog: Field Notes Published 2015-12-10
Beyond Financials
How might we, as leaders in the cultural sector, be critical, formative drivers of building the vision for a new economy? … read more
AJBlog: Field Notes Published 2015-12-10
[ssba_hide]
Mattiwilda Dobbs, 90, Pathbreaking African-American Opera Star
“Like many African American opera singers … she was first fully recognized for her talent not in the United States, but rather in Europe – an ocean away from the Jim Crow South where she had grown up.” In 1953, she became the first black singer in a principal role at La Scala; in 1956, she was the first African-American cast as a romantic lead – Gilda in Rigoletto, which she sang in whiteface – at the Met.