Ali, who won an Oscar for his work in the 2017 movie Moonlight and just won a Golden Globe for Green Book, had been tooling around as “the black guy” in movies for years. Then the script for Moonlight came up. Did he want to play a drug dealer? Turned out he did. – The Guardian (UK)
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How Can Artistic Leaders Focus On Culture, Not Just Their Institutions?
Not to be melodramatic, but, well, “This is a moment where we can either save the world or we don’t.” – HowlRound
An Ugly New York Society Divorce Has A Lot Of Warhols At Its Center
Sure, the Mugrabi divorce is tawdry and full of allegations of sexual impropriety, drugs, and a lot more, but “more than a tabloid story, the divorce also threatens to expose the private dealings of one of the wealthiest and most influential families in the art world.” – The New York Times
A Classic Theatre Story, Missing Some Grit
Can you tell the story of Harlem’s Apollo Theater without being a booster? Nope, at least not in graphic novel form. “The remarkable institution is a microcosm of the world of black popular culture in all its highs and lows, achievements and setbacks — not to mention sustaining myths and necessary lies.” – NPR
Alfred Glancy III, A Detroit Businessman Who Helped Save The DSO, Has Died At 80
Glancy “was perhaps the best example in his time of a Detroit business leader who took on important civic roles.” His leadership helped bring the orchestra back from an underfunded brink in the early 1990s. – Detroit Free Press
Quit Using ‘Relatable’ As A Criterion To Judge (Women’s) Writing
“The point of this is—women own the things that happen to them, even if these things happened between them and much more powerful or well-known men. Writing about these things does not make women narcissists.” – LitHub
Propwatch: the dagger in The Double Dealer
When a young comedy writing “springily reinvents the rules,” daggers may follow. – David Jays
The Warhol Foundation Ends Its Smithsonian Ban
The ban started in 2010, when the National Gallery removed (aka censored) a video by artist David Wojnarowicz because of conservative political pressure. Every year since then the Foundation has reviewed its decision. “We thought that a period of time has to go by before you know whether someone has really changed,” says the Foundation president. – The New York Times
Abstract Dejection
What happens when a critic decides an exhibition will be good before she goes to see it? – Lee Rosenbaum
Why In The World Would Anyone In Hollywood Hire John Lasseter Again?
Is it that other Hollywood guys simply don’t give a damn what kind of damage the former head of Pixar did with years of harassment? Uh, basically. “With Lasseter’s return, Hollywood can finally get back to the business of celebrating all those geniuses who just happen to be male because so many of the women have left the room to avoid being groped and/or ejaculated in front of.” – Los Angeles Times