Dawn Hudson, the new CEO of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, has been ruffling feathers – or roiling the board with her advocacy of diverse voices. “Diversity is not a strong suit of the academy’s governors; all but one are white, only six are women, and the average age appears to be over 60.”
Author: ArtsJournal2
Books Mean More Than Units Moved – In Some Places, They Still Mean Freedom
In Islamabad, a half-hidden culture of openness and ideas – and things like Playboy interviews – flourishes in secondhand bookshops.
Then Again, Arts Students Are Our Future. Shouldn’t We Support That?
“If universities have a primary purpose it is as forums of open curiosity and rigorous criticism, as microcosms of democracy and free inquiry,” says British commenter Tim Adams. “Students should be totally immersed in the here and now of what they might be capable of, and making money from it should not only be the very least of their concerns, but all the more likely the less thought they give to it.”
Hey Art World: You Eat Your Young (And Your Middle-Aged, And Your Elderly, Too)
Chris Kasper planned for a union for arts workers. Then he got his MFA and moved to New York. “When I would score jobs, I would just feel grateful to be working (no matter how insane or abusive the person or organization I was working for) at a rate of 15 to 20 bucks an hour. The people I worked next to were all in the same boat I was.”
The Fastest, Funniest Don Giovanni, Like, Ever
No matter what you saw in Amadeus, Mozart intended Don Giovanni to be a comedy. A damn fast comedy. One Canadian company tries to show that the proof of the pudding’s in the eating (or listening).
Some Writers Blank Out Of History. Why?
“Sometimes the public wrongly chooses what to venerate, and publishers are forced to decide if an author will be promoted, and who will die of oxygen starvation.” Will new publishing platforms save the once venerated who are now long forgotten? Maybe.
An Artist Gives The FBI Everything They Ask, And A Whole Lot More
In 2002, the FBI detained artist Hasan Elahi at the airport after a false report about his storage locker. Elahi started emailing the FBI his whereabouts and plans. Then things got more complex – and he reports everything about his life to anyone who wants to know. (And apparently the FBI, CIA and Department of Homeland Security have an interest.)
Movie Musicals Show A Lust For, And Celebration Of, Joy
Musicals mean far more than we want them to, says David Benedict, who loves Singin’ in the Rain. “It is not that musicals cannot work through narrative, it is that they choose a richer, more expressively full-blooded route consciously abandoning realism for idealistic fantasy.”
It’s A Little Stradivarious – The Size Of An Open Eye [Slideshow]
Former Royal Scottish National Orchestra cellist David Edwards gave up his music career for a life fitting out dollhouses.
Want To See Leonardo Exhibit In Your Skivvies? Cool. BYOB.
As a massive Leonardo da Vinci show opens at the National Gallery in London, people in the UK can watch a tour of the show in cinema houses – or in their own living rooms. “The appeal of these broadcasts is surely the sense of a great national occasion,” says Jonathan Jones.