“The move followed an October decision by the Pittsburgh Art Commission, which found that the statue should be removed within six months and hosted in a private, ‘properly contextualized’ location. Many residents have held that the sculpture – showing a shoeless African-American banjo player seated at the famed composer’s feet – is condescending or outright racist. Speakers at commission meetings last year largely agreed.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
States Are Using Preservation Laws To Block The Removal Of Confederate Monuments
“Once a community decision has been made about a controversial monument, officials often have to deal with public preservation laws designed to impede the removal of historic monuments. Efforts to remove statues in places like Baltimore and Memphis have proven no more straightforward than what happened in Demopolis, Alabama.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 04.26.18
Homer And His Unique Way of Seeing
Winslow Homer has always been a complicated artist, and now he will be viewed as an even more complicated one. What’s going to do that is an exhibition opening in June at … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2018-04-26
A Dorough Tribute
In the aftermath of Bob Dorough’s death on Monday, increased attention is going to his extensive body of songs. Among Dorough’s greatest admirers is the Swedish trumpet player and singer Mårten Lundgren. … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2018-04-26
Athenian Symposia And Parisian Salons, Reinvented For Millennials
“On a mild spring evening, ten people gathered for dinner in a converted brewery in east London to speak of serious things. The event was hosted by Norn, a hospitality company that describes itself as an ‘offline social network’. Members can stay for a month or more in its houses in London, San Francisco, Berlin and Barcelona, and take part in salons and meals which come with conversation menus that prescribe high-minded topics for each course.”
You Can’t Do Philosophy Properly Without Considering Human Nature (This Should Be Obvious, But …)
“A strange thing is happening in modern philosophy: many philosophers don’t seem to believe that there is such a thing as human nature. What makes this strange is that, not only does the new attitude run counter to much of the history of philosophy, but – despite loud claims to the contrary – it also goes against the findings of modern science. This has serious consequences, ranging from the way in which we see ourselves and our place in the cosmos to what sort of philosophy of life we might adopt.”
Marvel’s Avengers Movies Have Begun Subverting Their Own Ideas About Superheroism
“After kicking things off with stirring origin movies like Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America: The First Avenger, the series has gradually started to examine the shaky underpinnings of its heroic Avengers, and is now laying the groundwork for their calamitous upending.”
A Ballet Danced By Snails Wearing LEDs
“On a Friday night in central London, 176 shelled gastropods ‘dance’ around me … to a stretched-out, 47-minute long looping rendition of Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, played at 35 BPM – the tempo of a snail’s heartbeat. The whole thing may sound like a Trent Reznor studio experiment (Nine Inch Snails, if you will), but this is in fact Slow Pixel, an interactive art installation that urges its audience to take life at a snail’s pace.”
Art History Gets The TED-Talks Treatment
“The [Heni Talks] website currently has 25 videos and plans to post new films once every two weeks. Many are presented by high-profile artists and art-world figures such as Damien Hirst, Jeremy Deller and The Art Newspaper‘s new editor, Alison Cole. … The video subjects range from important works such as the Mona Lisa, and the oeuvre of masters such as Cézanne, to art movements like Pop art and Modernism.”
Photographer Laura Aguilar, 58
“[Her] powerful, quietly beautiful photographs explored the lived realities of members of various marginalized groups, including women, lesbians, Latinas, the working class, overweight people, and those with learning disabilities.” (She was especially known for her nude self-portraits taken in desert landscapes.) “Long under-recognized by mainstream institutions, her work had a sudden resurgence in popularity last year thanks to her traveling retrospective and the inclusion of her work in several group exhibitions across the Pacific Standard Time program.”
How Pretty Yende Became The Star Coloratura Soprano She Couldn’t Conceive Of Being
The South African soprano was astounded when her coaches in the young artist program at La Scala told her to study the role of Lucia de Lammermoor. “I could barely sing a high C,” she says now – but also, as she asked her teachers, “Who looks like me and sings this repertoire?” (Kathleen Battle was not a star in 1980s and ’90s South Africa.) Here, she tells – and shows – Anthony Tommasini how she came to master the quintessential coloratura star vehicle.