The V&A’s collection of women’s hats from the time has a lot of feathers, and those feathers were preserved in arsenic salt. Yikes. – The Guardian (UK)
Author: ArtsJournal2
Hikers Recently Found The Skeleton Of An Artist Who Went On A Painting Walk Out From A WWII Japanese American Internment Camp
Giichi Matsumura died during a freak summer snowstorm when other members of his hiking group went on to fish in a lake, and he stayed back to paint. Though the family knew roughly where his grave was, the area is remote – and hikers stumbled across the cairn of stones atop the grave in October of 2019, bringing it to the attention of local authorities. – NBC (AP)
When Writers Become Perfume Consultants On Twitter
Well, one writer: Rachel Syme, who, every once in a while, calls herself the Perfume Genie – and people on Twitter ask her for recommendations. She thinks, “When people are saying, I want to smell like this, they’re actually thinking, I want to appear like this to myself, which is a really interesting prompt because I think a lot of people are saying, oh, I want everybody to think I’m glamorous or take me seriously – but people aren’t going to know that through your perfume.” – NPR
Comedian Kate McKinnon’s Golden Globes Speech Was Raw And Honest About Lesbian Representation On TV
The speech, which introduced Ellen DeGeneres as that comedian won the Carol Burnett Award, made it clear that Ellen was a trailblazer. McKinnon said, “She risked her entire life and her entire career in order to tell the truth, and she suffered greatly for it. Of course, attitudes change, but only because brave people like Ellen jump into the fire to make them change.” – The New York Times
How Can Theatre Move Into A New Decade With Any Hope Of Success?
Christopher Acebo, who spent 14 years working with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, starting the Latinx Play Project and and helping found the Latinx Theatre Commons, says the only way forward is through serious commitment to equity – extending the invitation to underrepresented groups in theatre, and following through. – Oregon ArtsWatch
In A Series Of Tweets, The U.S. President Threatens Major Cultural Heritage Sites In Iran
Legal observers warn that the tweets themselves could be considered threats of war crimes; “the 1954 Hague Convention, of which the US is a party, bars any military from ‘direct hostilities against cultural property.'” – EuroNews (AP/AFP)
How Does Baritone Peter Mattei Become Wozzeck?
Mattei’s voice and stage presence have made him a popular Figaro or Don Giovanni, but the 54-year-old “was cast against type as Wozzeck, a soldier who is ground down by poverty and oppressed by sadistic authority figures before he descends into hallucinatory madness, murder and suicide.” How does he transform? – The New York Times
Terry Gilliam Calls The Me Too Movement ‘A Witch Hunt’ And Says That He’s Tired Of Being Blamed For Things
As they say, he could just have said nothing, and no one would have had to figure out that complicated dance of dealing with sexist whining from a(nother) beloved filmmaker. Instead, he”has invited renewed backlash after repeating his claim that he is a ‘black lesbian in transition,’ assailing the #MeToo movement as a ‘witch-hunt’ and asserting that some of Harvey Weinstein’s alleged victims are ‘adults who made choices.'” – The Guardian (UK)
John Baldessari, Conceptual Artist Who Helped Transform Los Angeles, Has Died At 88
Baldessari’s decades of teaching and witty art-making in Los Angeles helped define it as a visual arts cultural capital. “Inspired by the spirit of Marcel Duchamp, who overturned traditional definitions of art in the early 20th century, and by L.A. artist Edward Ruscha’s imaginative combinations of pictures and words, Baldessari explored language and mass media culture in text-and-image paintings and photo compositions derived from film stills, magazines and other sources.” – Los Angeles Times
Does The Museum Model Work Anymore?
And really, did it ever? The problem (in the U.S., at least): “Though exhibitions might have a progressive point of view and artists themselves might be making radical statements, as institutions, museums often possess retrograde politics, beholden to traditional forms of influence and power.” Oof. Can they change? – Jezebel