Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Iceland all helped Washington State gather info and collections for the revamped and massively expanded Nordic Museum, which was originally founded to tell the stories of the fishing communities of Ballard. Things have changed a bit: “Our story in the old museum was from about 1880 to 1920, mainly the immigration story. But here the story goes all the way back in time, starting when the ice recedes in the Nordic country.”
Author: ArtsJournal2
New Voices Enhance, Instead Of Diminishing, The ‘Classics’ Canon
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen: “It’s too late to get rid of all of us. We are here because white people were there, invading — sorry, civilizing — our countries of origin. Americans descended from Vietnamese refugees, undocumented Nicaraguan immigrants and African slaves cannot unlearn English. In my case, I love English and will not leave it, even if some people use it to say, ‘Go back to where you came from.’ (They can’t say ‘Speak English,’ since I teach it.)”
A Theatre Company In Maine Advertised A Show Highlighting The ‘Charms’ Of The Confederacy
Uh: “A Springvale variety show recalling ‘a pretty, gallant world … a time of knights and ladies, slaves and masters’ has been canceled following accusations that it promotes racism.”
Top AJBlogs Posts For The Weekend Of 05.06.18
Is TEFAF New York A Success?
That depends on how you measure success. There was a lot of doubt and even some worry that TEFAF, the world’s best art fair, would not be able to make a go of it here … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear ArtsPublished 2018-05-05
Weekend Listening Tip: Ellington’s “Such Sweet Thunder”
Following up on our April 24 remembrance of Duke Ellington’s 70thbirthday party at the White House, Jim Wilke has prepared a special Ellington broadcast on his Jazz Northwest. Here is part of … read more
AJBlog: RiffTidesPublished 2018-05-04
Two Takes on How Christie’s Won the Rockefeller Consignment (plus: CultureGrrl’s Video Tour)
How did Christie’s manage to best Sotheby’s in landing the hotly contested, monumental David Rockefeller consignment? That trove goes on the block next week, led by this waif, who carries the sales’ heftiest presale estimate … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrlPublished 2018-05-04
Replay: Jack Benny appears on The Lawrence Welk Show
Jack Benny appears as a guest on an undated 1971 episode of The Lawrence Welk Show: (This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each … read more
AJBlog: About Last NightPublished 2018-05-04
The Steep Rise And Massive Fall Of Brazilian Art Patron Bernardo Paz
Paz created a huge open-air museum in a complex of botanical gardens. “With 500 artworks ranging from three multicoloured Volkswagen Beetles to a swimming pool-cum-address book, and 140-hectare gardens boasting 5,000 plant species, Inhotim has been heralded as the finest art destination in Latin America.” Then he was indicted, and sentenced, for money laundering.
There Are Only Three Women Directors At Cannes
However: “The 2018 juries feature two female heads this year (Cate Blanchett and Ursula Meier), and the festival has announced efforts to gain parity in its administrative staff.”
Why A Pulitzer-Winning Critic Would Write About Michael Jackson
Margo Jefferson, whose On Michael Jackson is being republished with an updated introduction, explains: “He was the best performer at his peak – an all-encompassing dancing, singing artist in the theatrical tradition of Fred Astaire, Sammy Davis Jr, Jackie Wilson, James Brown, with an acute sense of the mise en scène. He craved omniscient superstar status – a need to top himself with more record sales, bigger audiences, than the last time. By the time I was writing this book, he had become emblematic of complicated dilemmas, cultural obsessions, racial, gender and body metamorphoses.”
Was It Weird For The Jim Crow U.S. To Send African American Musicians Out Into The Cold War World As ‘Jazz Ambassadors’?
Yeah, it was. But that came about thanks to House Rep Adam Clayton Powell Jr., who was married to jazz pianist Hazel Scott. “As the State Department is sending some American cultural exports like the Boston Symphony, or acapella singers, or folk dancers around the world, he says, hold on, why don’t we send jazz musicians? There, an art form that’s native to the United States, that no one else can compete with.”
When Changing The Museum’s Collection Means Letting Go Of (Some) Warhols And Other Works By White Guys
The Baltimore Museum of Art has plenty of art by Warhol, Rauschenberg, Kline, and other artists, but it’s selling some of their works in order to fund the purchase of art by artists of color both male and female, and by women of all races. Why? “The massive overrepresentation of white, male artists is a problem the BMA shares with galleries all over the western world, and cuts to the heart of a UK museum heritage that grew out of 19th-century philanthropy, endowments and bequests.”
What Groundbreaking Author Alexander Chee Means To Other Writers
Author and cultural commentator Nicole Chung on why Chee’s work resonates so much with her: “Alex said he ‘wanted to plant that flag in the culture,’ and until he said that I don’t know if I’d thought about it as a reason to write. The need to exist in the canon, in the literary world. I found that very powerful, and very brave.”