When Anna Bergmann became the director of the playhouse at the Badisches State Theater in the German city of Karlsruhe, “her first major decision … was downright radical: Tired of hearing that theaters would like to hire female directors but could find few, she said she wanted women to lead most of the productions during her first season at the helm. The State Theater’s general director … proposed going further: Why not exclusively use female directors, for once?”
Author: Matthew Westphal
How The British Art Market Is Preparing Itself For Brexit
“As with other markets, the UK and Europe’s art trade has been held in a state of prolonged uncertainty, an uncertainty now shifting to rising unease at the spectre of March’s looming deadline. But, politics and panic aside, what practical issues will art market professionals face after 29 March 2019, whatever the outcome: hard, soft or no-deal? Costs, paperwork and potential shipping delays at borders are the three areas of most concern and uncertainty, along with the future of London’s art agents who have benefitted from the UK having the lowest import VAT rate in the EU.”
Jack Whitten’s Sculpture Show Uncovers his Secret Strengths (& the Met Breuer’s Hidden Weakness)
As an admirer of the late Jack Whitten’s paintings, I welcomed the chance to see his little-known, previously unexhibited wood sculptures and mixed-media assemblages now on view in the Met Breuer. But the considerable pleasures to be derived from this admirable show were partly undermined by its subtle but substantive commercial overtones.
Propwatch: the handkerchief in ‘Othello’
No, not that handkerchief, the one that convinces Othello that his wife has been unfaithful.
Unconvincing
You’d think I might love it when the Met Opera and the New York Philharmonic hyped their new seasons with these posters, done in the most up to date corporate marketing style. But I don’t love it. To me these posters don’t, simply as advertising, do much to make their case. And they promise things that aren’t going to happen.
What Do Humans Need Religion For? Managing Our Emotions
“How we feel is as important to our survival as how we think. Our species comes equipped with adaptive emotions, such as fear, rage, lust and so on: religion was (and is) the cultural system that dials these feelings and behaviours up or down. We see this clearly if we look at mainstream religion, rather than the deleterious forms of extremism. Mainstream religion reduces anxiety, stress and depression. It provides existential meaning and hope. It focuses aggression and fear against enemies. It domesticates lust, and it strengthens filial connections. Through story, it trains feelings of empathy and compassion for others. And it provides consolation for suffering.”
‘I Went To As Many Instagramable ‘Museums,’ ‘Factories’ And ‘Mansions’ As I Could. They Nearly Broke Me.’
Amanda Hess visited the Museum of Ice Cream’s New York pop-up, the Rosé Mansion, Candytopia, Color Factory, 29Rooms, and even a preview party for the upcoming Museum of Pizza. “I realize that I have a ‘fun’ job that it’s annoying to complain about: Oh no, I have to drink free wine and eat ice cream. But as my summer of pop-ups dragged on, I began to dread my evenings. What began as a kicky story idea became a masochistic march through voids of meaning. … And yet, the ‘experience’ has emerged as among the defining fads of my generation.”
The Strange Story Of The Movie That Francisco Franco Scripted, Had Filmed, Released, And Then Destroyed
In 1940, just after the Generalissimo and his fascist forces won the Spanish Civil War, he wrote the screenplay for a film titled Raza, a self-justifying combination of allegorical propaganda and autofiction. Ten years later, in the wake of World War II, Franco censored his own film and remade it.
Composer And Flutist Katherine Hoover, 80
“[She] began writing music in earnest in the early 1970s, a time when few women were having success in the male-dominated world of classical composing, and she was still creating new works into this decade. … Her best-known work, though, was probably Kokopeli (1990), a piece for flute that was inspired, as were a number of her other compositions, by American Indian music and culture.”
The Art World Had Its Own Alan Sokal, Back In The 1920s
“In 1924, American literary scholar and author Paul Jordan-Smith adopted a new identity: Pavel Jerdanowitch, an avant-garde Russian artist whose visceral paintings would beguile modern art critics. Parading as Jerdanowitch for the next three years, Jordan-Smith gained traction at the helm of his one-man art movement, which he called Disumbrationism. But Jordan-Smith wasn’t a brooding artist from Moscow, and Disumbrationism was less of an aesthetic than it was a practical joke intended to shame the art world.”