Alan Artner looks at “The Passion of the Christ” with an art critic’s perspective. “Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” is turning out to be many things to many people, but to me it’s primarily a film in a genre that has been deeply indebted to other forms of visual art: painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, printmaking.”
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Dancing In Your 40s – There Are Tricks To It
Dancing is a young person’s activitiy. But two forty-something dancers in the Joffrey Ballet, who take the floor daily with dancers half their age, credit their longevity to…
Demographic Gold (Really?)
What is it about males 18-34? “They are the most sought-after demographic – early adopters of technology, tastemakers and trend shapers who influence much of what we see on television, the Internet, billboards and in the movies. They are the muses for The Howard Stern Show and Jackass: The Movie.”
Activism And The Law
What is this “activist judges” charge that George Bush keeps flinging around? What he means, of course, are courts with whose rulings he disagrees. “Still, the charge isn’t going away. Though it is misused by partisans, scholars have for generations held serious debates about judicial activism – and have sometimes even found ways to embrace it.”
Taking On The WTC Memorial – Critics Get Organized
With a project so emotionally charged as the memorial at the World Trade center site, It had to happen of course; protests are pouring in about the winning design and the process to choose it. “The whole competition stinks of collusion, rule-breaking, and fraud,” is the general tone of criticism. “At least one organized group hopes to stop the winning design from getting built. Called the World Trade Center Memorial Focus Group, it consists of losing competitors and is led by an employee of the New York City transit authority named Jeff Johns.”
Albee Holds Forth
Edward Albee on writing for the theatre: “What’s the best way of dealing with audience expectations? Forget them. Write work that interests you. It’s an unfortunate trend, he says, that audiences think they know what they should see, and theater companies and playwrights respond.”
Met Opera Makes Public Appeal For Broadcast
The Metropolitan Opera broadcasts will continue next year, after the Met raised money to cover the costs. But the company says help will be needed from Met fans if the broadcasts are to continue beyond that. The Met says “the search for another corporate sponsor had been difficult. ‘The corporate community looks at the radio broadcasts and doesn’t believe it’s a good media buy, that we don’t reach enough listeners. They are better off having commercials on big sporting events.’ The Met broadcasts are carried on more than 350 stations in 42 countries, reaching 11 million people, the Met says.”
Is The TV Sitcom Dying?
It would certainly seems so, given what’s currently on the air. And there seems to be little creativity coming along to take the place of the shows going off the air. A panel of TV folk gets together to talk about the state of the art: “Though everyone agreed that the traditional sitcom was coming to the end of its dominant era, they said that what is ahead is visible only in fragments. Forces like talk radio and the Internet have made the tried-and-true development process too slow in responding to the cultural climate; the adult-content comedies available on cable have made conflicting demands on the networks, both to sauce up their offerings and to offer clean-cut alternatives. And financial pressures are always an issue…”
Another Whitney Whirl In The Wings
It’s time for the art world’s every-two-years’ food fight – the Whitney Biennial. “Some Biennials simply recap the commercial activity of the preceding two years. Others look ahead; the 2002 edition, for example, anticipated the current interest in youth culture, collectivism, sound art and craft-intensive, Pop-ish work. This year’s show will probably do both. Although much of the work comes straight out of recent gallery exhibitions, a substantial chunk is brand new and being shown for the first time. A few pieces have even been commissioned for the occasion.”
Hey – Could Ya Turn Down That Art Over There?
Contemporary art is getting noisier. “Almost regardless of medium, today’s art comes with soundtracks, voiceovers, loudly moving parts or interactive elements. The computer and the Internet have brought out the inner polymath in many artists, who often play in bands and now sample and splice sound and music as easily as they once cut and pasted magazine images. Exhibition catalogs incorporate CD’s. Speakers and headsets abound in museums, galleries and art fairs.”