Reporter James Barron follows Keith Christiansen, the chairman of the Met’s European paintings department, up into the rafters and onto the roof to see why the skylights need replacing, why the project will cost $150 million, and how the museum will shift around some of its most celebrated artworks as the work proceeds.
Author: Matthew Westphal
Why Everything These Days Is ‘Curated’, Even Bookstore Inventories And Beer Menus
“‘Curation’ lends to the proceedings a certain air of quasi-professionalism. It seeks to claim for the proprietors an exquisitely refined faculty of discrimination, a sense that ‘objective’ higher standards are being enacted and adhered to. The selection that has been made, we are being assured, was not a product of whim or fancy, let alone crass commercialism. It reflects deep wisdom and heightened competence, a sensibility like that of the museum curator or wealthy collector, or the sommelier who truly knows his wines.”
This Little-Known Paris Museum Doubled Attendance In Four Years
“The very day [in 2013] that Sophie Makariou took over as the director of Paris’s Musée Guimet, she met a young Indian doctor on a train. ‘I would love to see some Indian art while I am here,’ he said. ‘Go to the Guimet,’ responded Makariou, to which he replied: What is that?’ The fact that he had not even heard of the venerable institution, founded in 1889 by Emile Guimet and holding one of the world’s top collections of Asian art, showed Makariou the extent of the task ahead of her.”
Playing Othello As An Out Lesbian General
Says director Gemma Bodinetz, “I wanted to make a modern audience sit up and feel something of what a Jacobean audience must have felt at seeing a black man commanding an army.” Star Golda Rosheuvel: “Some men have a terrible fear of women, particularly powerful women. They would prefer not to see change, and this Othello is part of change. She is a woman who has power over all these men, all that testosterone. How does she negotiate that? Then she goes further and brings her lover – Desdemona – into that arena. It’s a scary thing to do.”
Choosing The Right Title For A Museum Show Is A Very Tricky Matter
“Depending on the institution, curators will go back-and-forth with artists, colleagues, advisers and, more frequently now, marketing and public relations staff. The case of [the abandoned title] Going Native also signals the stakes involved – the curatorial pitfalls and political landmines that may linger in words. But museums stress that the process is not algorithmic but the occasionally serendipitous pursuit of a magic phrase.” (And is it even possible to title an exhibition without using a colon?)
Why Choreographers Need Dramaturgs
“Clare Croft, a dance dramaturg and assistant professor of dance at University of Michigan, answers all our questions on what dramaturgs actually do, and how to best take advantage of one.”
Janka Nabay, Musician Who Brought Bubu Music Of Sierra Leone To The World, Dead At 54
“During the 1990s, Mr. Nabay took the speedy beat of music that had been heard for centuries in parades and celebrations and transferred it to Western instruments. His songs became hits as civil war tore Sierra Leone apart and were claimed by both sides, although his music increasingly held direct antiwar messages.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 04.03.18
Post-Racial? Puhleeze!
I recently attended a production of Our Town presented by Triad Stage, a professional theater company based in Greensboro, NC. It had been decades since I had seen the play but I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for it. I thought it was very well done, but this is not a review. What this is … read more
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2018-04-03
Morbid Fascination: The Undead Haunt the Met Breuer’s “Like Life” (with video)
“Ewww, gross!” exclaimed a seasoned critic (not me), disconcerted by one of many creepy, gruesome works that affront delicate sensibilities in the Met Breuer’s Like Life: Sculpture, Color, and the Body (1300–Now), … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2018-04-03
April 3 Birthdays, Scott LaFaro’s Among Them
The Jazz West Coast listserve often begins its posts with the names of jazz people born on the current date. The April 3 list is a profusion of such names. … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2018-04-03
Why Is Human Thought So Much More Complex Than Animal Thought? Tools
“The difference is due, [neuro-philosopher Andy Clark] believes, to our heightened ability to incorporate props and tools into our thinking, to use them to think thoughts we could never have otherwise. If we do not see this, he writes, it is only because we are in the grip of a prejudice – ‘that whatever matters about my mind must depend solely on what goes on inside my own biological skin-bag, inside the ancient fortress of skin and skull.'”
Meet The People Who Really Keep A Royal Ballet Performance Running: The Stage Managers
Senior stage manager Johanna Adams-Farley and deputy Sarah Woodward talk about their work at Covent Garden, from productions that have been the company has known for ages (“Manon has been in the rep for so long it almost runs itself”) to preparing world premieres.