For a play running at the Lincoln Center, actors and designers converged on New York from six different countris. “Under most circumstances, obtaining a United States visa is arduous. In the case of these visiting artists, the ordeal involved proving that they had a good reason to enter the United States, that they were not a security threat and that they had no intention of staying in the country. The Trump administration’s travel ban — and the legal turmoil around it — has made the whole process all the more bewildering.”
Author: ArtsJournal2
China’s Artists Defy Ban To Mourn Liu Xiaobo
Praying hands and candle emojis were banned from Weibo, but artists found creative ways to post. “Some posted the works of Liu Xiaobo’s poet and artist widow Liu Xia, who remains under house arrest, depicting mutilated dolls positioned in bleak landscapes. Paintings of empty chairs referenced the empty seat at Liu Xiaobo’s 2010 ceremony for the Nobel Peace Prize, which the Chinese government refused to release him to receive.”
What We Expect From Films Affects How We See Them, Says A Critic
Katie Walsh: “When studios drive a wedge between the two groups, claiming certain blockbusters are for ‘fans, not critics,’ it’s drawing a divide that shouldn’t exist. Ultimately, critics are fans. We want to like movies and we want them to be good. Just think of us as your helpful neighborhood expectation managers.”
George A. Romero, The Man Who Made ‘Night Of The Living Dead,’ Has Died At 77
The man who jump-started the modern zombie era didn’t like The Walking Dead and some other new zombie projects, even while he continued working in the genre (and in other genres). He once said of newer zombies, “They’re just dervishes, you don’t recognize any of them, there’s nothing to characterize them. … [But]I like to give even incidental zombies a bit of identification. I just think it’s a nice reminder that they’re us. They walked out of one life and into this.”
Top AJ Posts From The Weekend Of 07.16.17
New Musical Venues for a New National Moment
With classical music under siege, many are rethinking audiences and venues. Here in Manhattan, Geffen Hall – previously Fisher Hall, and before that Philharmonic Hall – has never been an inviting place in which … read more
AJBlog: Unanswered QuestionPublished 2017-07-15
Pears, Satie And A Phil Woods Story
Today’s early morning cycling expedition took me past a magnificent pear orchard in the hills west of town. Here is the orchard… …and here are pears taking on color and that lovely … read more
AJBlog: RiffTidesPublished 2017-07-14
My back pages
This blog is my diary, the only one I’ve ever managed to keep for more than a couple of months. It is, to be sure, a specifically public diary: there are any number of important … read more
AJBlog: About Last NightPublished 2017-07-14
The Hobby Lobby Cultural Looting Case Is Really Bad, Probably Worse Than You Thought At First
For instance, stop saying Hobby Lobby was funding ISIS: That’s not true, but also, “in West Asia, most looting and most damage to cultural heritage generally is not being carried out by ISIS. This is not to belittle the horrible acts culminating in murderous violence that are committed by ISIS. Rather, the problem is ignoring the massive scale of threats to cultural heritage by focusing solely on one entity.”
What Happened To Jane Austen’s Characters After The Books Ended? Joan Aiken Knew
Perhaps you missed this, but “in her expansive set of prequels, concurrent fictions and sequels, published between 1984 and 2000, she is particularly adept at picking out the characters one would wonder about most, and writes them so well as almost to make Austen seem remiss for telling us only one side of the story.”
Will Netflix (And Other Streaming Service) Password-Sharing Go Away?
Uh-oh. If people can’t share passwords with their families, will they still want Hulu or Amazon? (Netflix seems safe.) “Companies say they accept some sharing as a way to promote their programming to potential customers, but they also take steps to curtail blatant freeloading.”
Millions Of Text Messages Use Emojis To Beg SFMOMA For Art
Wow, 2017, you do have some pleasant surprises: “It’s far more popular than the museum ever imagined, with people indulging in a long back-and-forth, binge texting. And it’s also revealed something surprising about its users — about how, and when, they want to interact with art, and how much they crave a personal connection with cultural authority.”
Truly Looking At Boyle Heights, The L.A. Neighborhood That Protested Gentrification By Galleries
Artist Star Montana: “I want people to understand the narrative of Boyle Heights. A lot of these people, they are trying to navigate how to exist in these neighborhoods. These people represent communities and neighborhoods. They exist. And they are individuals. And their stories — each one of them — their narrative is important, too. It’s important for me to sit down with them, even if it’s just for a minute.”