“In the series [on the Bravo cable network], 13 contestants will compete for a gallery exhibition, a cash prize and a sponsored national tour. The artists will create works in the fields of sculpture, painting, photography, industrial design and more. Their completed works will be judged by a panel of art world figures including gallerists, collectors, curators, critics and fellow artists. The finalists’ work will be featured in a nationwide museum tour.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Project
Things Aren’t Really That Bad At The Belgrade Philharmonic
That newspaper ad last month offering the musicians’ services “at weddings, funerals, baptisms, birthdays, divorces and saints’ days”? The orchestra’s music director says, “This was our way of drawing the attention of a broader public to the problems of the Philharmonic, to somehow present our financial problems in an absurd, Monty Python way.” And it worked: “Within 36 hours a Facebook support group had sprung up with several thousand members … [and] the advertisement attracted a surge of support from new, younger music fans.”
Philip Roth, Dance Remix Sensation
When critic James Marcus interviewed Roth for an L.A. Times profile, the author gave a demonstration of what he described as “shouting. Jewish shouting.” (Roth was talking about the film version of Goodbye, Columbus.) Marcus liked the demo so much, he remixed it into a dance track. That track is now a “viral sensation” which has been blogged about by The New York Times, Gawker, The Guardian and MediaBistro. (And now it’s a ringtone, too.)
John Malkovich As A Latter-Day Jack The Ripper
In The Infernal Comedy: Confessions of a Serial Killer, a chamber music-theater piece opening this week in Vienna, Malkovich plays Jack Unterweger, an Austrian poet/journalist/murderer who was released from prison in 1990 following a campaign by “Viennese cafe intellectuals” – and went on to kill 11 prostitutes by strangling them with their bra straps. “[A]s a journalist for the state broadcaster, he was reporting on the very crime wave for which he was responsible.”
A ‘Bizarre Union Of Dr. Frankenstein And Georgia O’Keeffe’
“Forget the notion of a reverent nature photographer tiptoeing through the woods, camera slung over one shoulder, patiently looking for perfect light. Robert Buelteman works indoors in total darkness, forsaking cameras, lenses, and computers for jumper cables, fiber optics, and 80,000 volts of electricity.”
You Mean My Chaotic Brain Is A Good Thing?
“Though much of the time it runs in an orderly and stable way, every now and again it suddenly and unpredictably lurches into a blizzard of noise. Neuroscientists have long suspected as much. Only recently, however, have they come up with proof that brains work this way. Now they are trying to work out why. Some believe that near-chaotic states may be crucial to memory, and could explain why some people are smarter than others.”
Learn To Echolocate Like A Dolphin!
“Ordinary people with no special skills can use tongue clicks to visualize objects by listening to the way sound echoes off their surroundings, according to acoustic experts at the University of Alcalá de Henares in Spain. […] Martinez and his colleagues are developing a system to teach people how to use echolocation, a skill that could be particularly useful for the blind and for people who work under dark or smoky conditions, like firefighters – or cat burglars.”
New York International Ballet Competition: ‘A Deeply Depressing Affair’
Alastair Macaulay: “Not that its standards of delivery were low; what was dismaying was that the competition … elicited from the dancers a great deal of what is anti-artistic, sensationalist and trite about ballet.”
New Artistic Director Hopes To Calm Troubled Opera Australia
“[Lyndon] Terracini is expected to bring stability to the national company and wants to mend bridges. He is keen to see OA’s former music director Simone Young return as a guest conductor when he programs his first season in 2012. He also plans to introduce Wagner’s Ring cycle into the repertory, commission new Australian work, forge closer ties with arts festivals and develop ‘a family’ of young composers.”
Fabio Luisi Named Next Generalmusikdirektor In Zurich
“The Zurich Opera has named noted Italian conductor Fabio Luisi as its next general music director starting in 2012. Luisi, the current director of Dresden’s Semperoper, on Tuesday welcomed his appointment at a ‘wonderful house with an exceptional orchestra.'” He succeeds Franz Welser-Möst, the Cleveland Orchestra’s music director, who leaves Zurich for the Vienna State Opera in 2010.