“The mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, has announced plans to turn the French capital into a ‘refuge’ for items worldwide at risk of destruction, placing endangered objects in storage in secure buildings owned by the city authorities.”
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Top Posts From AJBlogs 05.07.18
Rocky Rockefeller Predictions: Estimated “in Excess of $500,000,” But Hyped as “a Billion-Dollar Sale”
With a lot riding on this week’s results of the David Rockefeller estate’s purported “Sale(s) of the Century,” several news publications have upped the ante, impetuously recasting the series of auctions, estimated by Christie’s … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2018-05-07
New York City Ballet Celebrates Jerome Robbins
I lived with Jerome Robbins for six years. (Forgive the startling opener; he was dead at the time, but liked a joke). … read more
AJBlog: Dancebeat Published 2018-05-07
Monday Recommendation: Todd Strait
Todd Strait, There’ll Be Some Changes Made (Todd Strait)
Drummer Todd Strait has spent significant stretches of his career in New York and Portland and freelanced with a cross-section of world-class musicians. … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2018-05-07
High School Dance Team Suspended After Controversial Dance
“As soon as the show was over on May 1st, we were hearing complaints that the administrative team did not like our dance at all,” said junior student Ibrahim Sesay. “Calling our whole performance nasty, calling us a disgrace to African culture, picking fights with one of our students and they were just attacking us and our whole performance.”
Why Christo And Jeanne-Claude Never Wrapped MoMA (Though They Wanted To)
It wasn’t a lack of vision or willingness that stopped them. In fact, the MoMA would have been the first public building the duo ever wrapped if the project had gone through in 1968.
What Scientists Learned About A Crocodile’s Brain When They Played Classical Music
Our brains are the product of millions of years of evolution. Scientists would very much like to know how some of the most ancient brains functioned and evolved over time, but that’s obviously not possible, owing to the complete lack of primordial brains to work with. As a good consolation prize, however, scientists can work with crocodiles—an animal that originated more than 200 million years ago, barely changing over the eons. Accordingly, scientists can study crocodiles to understand at which point certain brain structures and behaviors first emerged.
Jerry Saltz’s Advice For Artists
Saltz used himself as a case study in success for late bloomers—after all, this is a man who worked as a long-distance truck driver until the age of 41 and has ended up the Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic of a major magazine without formal academic training or a single degree. In the midst of his animated, sometimes rambling performance, there were some kernels of wisdom.
How John Luther Adams Became JLA
Adams asks for a different kind of listening. I heard the suggestion more than once that the most becoming presentation would have been simply a single concert devoted to Adams’ ocean and desert.
That brings up the major questions about Adams. Is his a music of enlightenment or escape? Is the attraction that of having sensations heightened or dulled, a dose of uppers for the ears, or downers? Is this for tuning in or chilling? The answers have to be personal and may not even be either/or.
A Famous Orchestra Moved Its Rehearsals Into A Poor High School. It Transformed The Community
Since then the school’s results have improved, its drop-out rates have fallen to less than 1% and the atmosphere in the wider neighbourhood has been “transformed”, according to Joachim Barloschky, a local official who oversaw a programme of renovation and regeneration in the area.
Why I’m A Fan Of Standing Ovations
“I think that watching theater is a lot like watching a national championship in that a production, win or lose, is filled with best efforts and spontaneous heroics, and jumping to your feet is a natural response to those valiant exploits. Standing puts actors and audiences on equal footing as partners in a shared experience, where we can finally face each other out of character and out of the darkness, respectively, for a moment of mutual admiration.”
What David Hockney Learned Painting 82 Portraits
From 2013 on, prominent cultural figures joined Hockney friends and family as portrait sitters at the artist’s brightly colored Hollywood Hills home and studio. There are portraits of his studio assistants, massage therapist, housekeeper and cook. Others depict Hockney’s siblings, the children and grandchildren of his friends, and art dealers such as London-based David Juda, New York-based Larry Gagosian, L.A. Louver’s Peter Goulds and the Ferus Gallery’s Irving Blum. So how did the pictures turn out? Very few sitters are smiling — it’s hard to smile for 20 hours — and Hockney says he has no idea of how they felt about their portraits.