According to Stephan Trüby, a professor of architecture at the University of Stuttgart, the Garrison church plan is an example of what he claims is now a disturbing pattern. “We can currently witness a cultural tendency of using seemingly harmless terms like identity’, ‘tradition’ and ‘beauty’ to establish an idea of ethnic purity protected by a fortress Europe,” he says. Elsewhere, writers wield terms such as heimat (home) and boden (soil/earth), which have both a long tradition in German thought and specific far-right meanings.
Blog
Sell Art Work To Fund Chicago? It’s A False Debate
“I get why the city sees a solution in selling the work. How else can a bureaucracy generate so much cash so quickly from such a modestly sized asset? But it also perpetuates a disturbing mentality that I’ve found myself writing about again and again this year: namely, that culture—particularly in underserved neighborhoods—is only a priority if and when the costs can be covered by private-sector patrons.”
The Planet Is Dying. So How Do You Write About That?
Hope and its doleful twin, Hopelessness, might be thought of as the co-muses of the modern eco-narrative. Such is the world we’ve created—a world of wounds—that loss is, almost invariably, the nature writer’s subject. The question is how we relate to that loss. Is the glass ninety-five per cent empty or is it five per cent full?
Zimbabwe Has Never Had A Ministry Of Arts. Should It?
For 38 years since Zimbabwe’s independence, there has never been a single government ministry dedicated to the arts only. Yes, we understand the need for government to trim down its Cabinet and to save money, but if they ever thought that the arts were an important societal need, a separate ministry for the arts would have been created.
Are Orchestras Culturally Specific? And So…
“Given my experiences in Mexico, my lingering question has been, “Who decided, or why do we feel, that we must upend our programming in order for people of targeted ethnicities to comprehend and enjoy classical music played by a live orchestra?” It strikes me as suspiciously odd that, for all our talk about the universality of classical music, administrators, and, certainly some musicians, when they think of specific ethnic groups, must suddenly condescend to them, patronizingly and awkwardly changing what we do to suit all the clichés.”
Is Twitter A Malign Influence On Theatre?
“The whole idea that you have a medium that is based on rapid response, and yet has lack of nuance built into its form, is very difficult, and is leading to a very binary culture, which I think makes it difficult to be truthful in art. I think that for a writer, you have to be constantly aware of how unbinary and complex every issue is, so the loss of nuance generally I think is quite dangerous.”
The near-accidental eloquence of The Mile-Long Opera by David Lang
I thought I knew what opera is. Well, the definition didn’t change. But The Mile-Long Opera, performed last week on New York’s High Line, changed the boundaries of opera, theater and artistic expression, and in ways that I couldn’t have imagined before taking the elevator up three floors and then trudging from 14th to 34th Street.
Glenstone: It’s Wonderful, Marvelous. BUT
The private museum owned and operated by Mitchell and Emily Wei Rales opened to the public on Oct. 4, and in many ways it is an excellent example of a private museum. So what’s wrong? There is one problem that can be fixed – and maybe a fix is already in the works.
Monday Recommendation: John Scofield Quartet
John Scofield, Combo 66 (Verve)
“I Can’t Dance,” guitarist Scofield proclaims by way of his new album’s opening track. It may be the rare listener, however, who won’t be moved by his quartet’s rhythmic blandishments.
Do You Recall Matthew Shepard?
None of us can control how we’re remembered, though we may try to live in ways that minimize the dancing on our graves. Yet a special place should be made for those who are memorialized not for how they lived, but how they died. Their daily voices, their quirks and smiles, their plain ambitions and ordinary loves risk being overwhelmed by the drama of their end.