Learn-Unlearn
What the field needs to learn and “unlearn” about developing arts audiences by Jill Robinson … read more
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2015-11-17
In the wavelength
Audience engagement – it’s a weak strategy. Never mind that it can seem to work. A friend sent me notes from the National Arts Marketing Project Conference, with details of the Cleveland Public Theater, and its impressive season, full of plays on subjects that just seem to scream contemporary relevance. But still they wanted to boost attendance on slow nights. … read more
AJBlog: Sandow Published 2015-11-17
Tom Campbell of Metropolitan Museum Responds to L’Horreur in Paris (with video)
It wasn’t as scary as the sight of heavily armed police in a bullet-proof vests Saturday night at Lincoln Center … But (without giving away the details) it was clear to me, when I entered the garage of the Metropolitan Museum to attend its press lunch today, that security measures there had been tightened. … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2015-11-17
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Author: Matthew Westphal
Robert Craft, 92, Adviser And Steward To Stravinsky
“Called an elegant Boswell by his supporters and a calculating Svengali by his detractors, … Mr. Craft spent nearly a quarter-century as Stravinsky’s amanuensis, rehearsal conductor, musical adviser, globe-trotting traveling companion and surrogate son. After Stravinsky’s death in 1971, at 88, he was a writer, lecturer, conductor, public intellectual and keeper of the Stravinskian flame.”
Thomas Pynchon’s Puritan Ancestor Wrote The First Book To Be Burned On American Soil
“[William] Pynchon, a prominent layman with a devoted constituency, was charismatic enough to inspire a movement similar to the Antinomian debacle that had nearly brought the colony to its knees in the previous decade. Notwithstanding his lofty place in New England society, Pynchon and his book simply had to go. The ensuing controversy, placed within the context of Pynchon’s life, perfectly encapsulates the tenuous relationship between colonial New England’s people, its Church, and its State.”
The 2015 Word Of The Year Isn’t Even A Word
Casper Grathwohl, president of Oxford Dictionaries: “Traditional alphabet scripts have been struggling to meet the rapid-fire, visually focused demands of 21st Century communication. It’s not surprising that a pictographic script like emoji has stepped in to fill those gaps – it’s flexible, immediate, and infuses tone beautifully.”
Why TV Ratings Still Matter, Even Though They’re Becoming Less Accurate And More Meaningless
Nielsen’s figures include few of the people who watch a show in the days after it airs, and none at all who watch on a phone, a tablet, or Netflix. “If almost nothing is a hit anymore, why shouldn’t a hit be whatever we say it is? But that ‘we’ is exactly the problem.”
The Incredibly Weird Theft That Made Art History, Legal History, TV History, And Maybe Even Movie And Theatre History
What’s more, the alleged thief was acquitted of stealing the painting but convicted of stealing the frame, was sentenced to three months, and may not have been the culprit even though he turned himself in. As a bonus, the return of the painting was straight out of The Importance of Being Earnest.
America’s Cult Of The ‘Amateur’
The phrase amateur hour “now registers as an insult. But it has an older meaning, one that betrays America’s sincere enthusiasm for the utterly unprofessional. … The idea of effortless authenticity is so attractive that members of the American establishment have vied for more than a century to buy, cheat or counterfeit their way to amateur status.”
Mysterious Thief Demands Ransom For Klimt Painting Stolen In 1997
“An unknown Italian man identifying himself as a retired art thief has contacted the police in the northern city of Piacenza demanding €150,000 ($163,000) for the safe return of a Gustav Klimt painting. … The artwork disappeared from the Galleria d’Arte Moderna Piacenza in February 1997 while the alarm system was incapacitated due to ongoing renovation work.”
Can You Actually Get High From Looking At Art?
“Can it cause a chemical change in our body? Can it affect our perception of reality? Can it serve as a stimulant, a hallucinogenic, a depressant, or anything that mimics these effects? We spoke to a neuroesthetics expert, an art critic and a neuroscientist to find out.”
Real Literature Is About Losers, Says Umberto Eco
“Dostoevsky was writing about losers. The main character of The Iliad, Hector, is a loser. … Madame Bovary is a loser. Julien Sorel is a loser. I am doing only the same job. Losers are more fascinating. Winners are stupid … because usually they win by chance.”