Author: ArtsJournal2

Is Contemporary African Art Being Gentrified?

A big sale at Sotheby’s shows off the new potential and new collector interest in modernist African art. But while Western collectors drive up the money for those artists, “whole countries in Africa cannot boast of a single art museum of any renown. On other continents, you might expect to see at least one public art museum in any city big enough to have a sports team. But good luck trying to find a museum in Lagos, one of the world’s largest cities, that displays the work of a big-name Nigerian artist.”

The Ringmaster’s Last Day

Ringmaster Johnathan Lee Iverson is Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus’ first African-American ringmaster, and as the circus runs its last performance on May 20, he’s the circus’ final ringmaster as well. “Ironically enough, I will be the very last voice in the 146-year history of this show, so I will be the last person you hear to speak of ‘The Greatest Show on Earth’ — which is a wild little paradox, to be a first and a last at the same time.”

Putting The Rainbow Into Reading With Drag Queen Story Hour At The Library

The kids love the story hour, which started in San Francisco and spread via social media to New York. “As is the case with all readers, library staff members taught Ms. Sunbeam how to engage the children, with questions (‘Who likes rainbows?’) and to manage crowds of often restless youngsters. However, the differences between a rowdy drag show audience and a group of kindergartners are not as pronounced as one might imagine. ‘Little kids can be crazy,’ Ms. Shapiro said. ‘We like to joke that they’re kind of like drunk adults.’ When asked to pinpoint the main difference between story hour and an evening drag show, Ms. Sunbeam said jokingly, ‘I’m sober.'”

Striving To Revive The Ghostly Sounds Of Electronic Music Composer Maryanne Amacher

The composer created experiences that are hard to recreate: “A student of Karlheinz Stockhausen and a collaborator with John Cage and Merce Cunningham, Amacher had some of her greatest successes with huge sound-design installations tailored for specific spaces. These ‘linked room’ works exploited psychoacoustic effects that she pioneered: A foyer might hit the spectator with high-pitched tones meant to excite strange inner-ear responses. An adjoining space could feature quiet, slowly fading bass frequencies, lingering at the edge of auditory perception.”

How A Seattle Production Of Seagull Turned Into A Troupe Devoted To Chekhov

The artistic director of the group’s patron and incubator, ACT: “When they called me in 2011 and said, ‘We want to do the Ring Cycle of Chekhov and take it around the world,’ I was terrified, and told them so. … They loved it. ‘That’s the response we want,’ they said. Eventually, I fell deeply in love with the author—and the company too.”

The Night Solange Knowles Took Over The Guggenheim (And Got A Young, Racially Diverse Audience Into The Museum)

It was performance art with an extremely cool audience (and an extremely cool performance group): “At times, the event took on a mystical cast, Ms. Knowles and her troupe extending their arms toward the crowd in a kind of benediction. The effect was moving, the show itself museum-worthy. As Nat Trotman, the Guggenheim curator of performance and media, noted, it was part of a tradition that dates from the late 1960s, when Meredith Monk first performed in the rotunda.”