“Officially unveiled last month, StoryCorps’ One Small Step initiative seeks to help people with opposing political views who don’t know each other have civil, personal conversations. Participants can record face-to-face conversations using the StoryCorps mobile app or by visiting a StoryCorps booth. … Facilitators will encourage participants to discuss questions that could help them find common ground.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Michelle Dorrance Gets ABT Sliding Into Tap (Which Just Isn’t Easy)
“The new work in rehearsal, Dream within a Dream (deferred)< .em>, which will open [American] Ballet Theater’s fall season Oct. 17, is a hybrid of tap and ballet. And that’s a combination that almost never works.” Brian Seibert explains why that is, and he watches how Dorrance and the ABT dancers are facing the challenges.
Banksy Declares His Shredded Painting A New Work Of Art, And Buyer Agrees To Pay For It
“‘When the hammer came down last week and the work was shredded, I was at first shocked, but gradually I began to realize that I would end up with my own piece of art history,’ the anonymous [purchaser] said in a statement. Banksy has in turn agreed to ‘re-authenticate’ the piece with a new title, Love Is in the Bin (2018). (It is currently unclear which came first: the collector’s decision to keep the work or Banksy’s decision to re-authenticate and rename it.) Sotheby’s, for its part, is making the most of its publicity coup, describing the work … as ‘the first work in history ever created during a live auction.'”
Can We Just Admit That Banksy’s Self-Shredding Painting Did Its Job(s) Extremely Well?
Ben Davis argues that all those folks fulminating over this event — and there are a lot of them, with many different takes (“There are full-on Truthers out there, scrutinizing every frame and angle of the whole thing, as well as Denialists, doubting that it even happened at all”) — are missing the Banksyan genius of it. “A very important concept in street art is placement. Street art fans will be very impressed by where and how a tag was placed … Obviously, the Sotheby’s prank has to be appreciated mainly, simply, as a great placement.” What’s more, it has placed the auction house smack in the middle of the Liar’s Paradox.
Chicago Lyric Opera Musicians Reject Management Offer; Sides Battle Via Press Release
“In a press release sent out Thursday evening, the company bitterly criticized the musicians’ union for rejecting the proposal and, for the first time, raised issues about the company’s financial stability and future viability. … The musicians responded by calling the offer ‘a bogus PR stunt.'”
Lyric Opera Of Chicago Is Trying To Solve Its Money Woes The Way The Airlines Did
“Abandoning its past practice of adding competitive routes and bigger planes on a whim, the likes of American and United now have figured out that in order to be profitable they must limit capacity. Better to charge more per seat than risk a half-empty plane. … That’s exactly what the Lyric Opera of Chicago has been trying to do” — and it’s what its orchestra musicians are striking over. Chris Jones points out that, when it comes to culture in a city like Chicago, the economic arguments for limiting supply are not the only important factor.
Fyre Festival Producer Gets Six Years In Prison For Fraud
“Fyre Festival founder Billy McFarland was sentenced to six years in prison Thursday for multiple counts of fraud, including the failed festival in the Bahamas last year where the 26-year-old lured hundreds of millennials with the help of celebrity investors like Ja Rule and Instagram celebrities like Kendall Jenner and Bella Hadid.”
Met Museum Says ‘Heavenly Bodies’ Is Now Most Visited Show In Its History
According to the museum’s final attendance figures, the Costume Institute show of couture inspired by Roman Catholic vestments was seen by 1,659,647 people. (What, did they count every person who walked past a pope dress in the Medieval Sculpture Hall or The Cloisters?) That number exceeds the 1,360,957 viewer figure for the 1978 “Treasures of Tutankhamun” show.
New Ethnological Museum Sparks Furious Debate In Berlin
“A new museum crammed with jewels of non-Western art and culture in the center of the reunified capital seemed a good idea: It would show Germany as confident and open to the world. … But the Humboldt Forum has upset a lot of people. … One protester bellowed into a microphone, saying that, no matter what the founders had intended, the museum would forever be associated with the blood of empire.”
Helena Almeida, Portuguese Artist Who Painted On Photographs, Dead At 84
“[She] was widely considered one of Portugal’s most significant postwar artists, and … earned international recognition starting in the 1970s for her striking black-and-white images, which often portrayed impossible acts — the artist with pen making lines midair, or erasing herself with blue brushstrokes — to challenge the limitations of media.”