“Over a career that spanned seven decades Shay pointed his lens at Elizabeth Taylor, Marlon Brando, Martin Luther King, John. F. Kennedy and Ernest Hemingway – to name a few – for Life, Time, Sports Illustrated and other publications. … He was maced outside the Democratic Convention in Chicago in 1968. And he flew to Memphis as soon as he heard the Rev. Martin Luther King had been killed. He photographed Hugh Hefner surrounded by Playboy bunnies and captured images of intimidating mobsters who, on at least one occasion, grabbed his camera and removed the film.”
Blog
Toronto Symphony Finds Its Next CEO In Philadelphia
Matthew Loden, currently one of the two temporary co-presidents of the Philadelphia Orchestra (and before that, VP for institutional advancement), takes over in Toronto in July. He succeeds Gary Hanson, the former Cleveland Orchestra chief who stepped in after Jeff Melanson was forced to resign in 2016.
NEA Chairman Jane Chu To Step Down
“National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Jane Chu said in a statement that she will resign June 4, after four years at the head of the federal arts agency. The Trump administration has twice targeted the NEA for elimination, but Chu made no reference to this turbulence in her statement, saying only that it has been an ‘honor and privilege’ to serve as the agency’s chairwoman.”
Jazz Saxophonist Charles Neville, Of The Neville Brothers, Dead At 79
“The group melded rhythm and blues, gospel, doo-wop, rock, blues, soul, jazz, funk and New Orleans’s own parade and Mardi Gras rhythms, in songs that mingled a party spirit with social consciousness. Charles Neville – who usually performed in a beret and a tie-dyed shirt, with an irrepressible smile – was the band’s jazz facet, reflecting his decades of experience before the Neville Brothers got started.”
Dancer Who Said Ballets Trockadero Discriminated Against Him For Being Too Feminine Joins English National Ballet
Chase Johnsey, a 14-year-member of the drag ballet troupe (and winner of best male dancer honors at last year’s UK National Dance Awards), quit the company
in January, saying publicly that he had been harassed for looking and acting too feminine. Now Tamara Rojo’s company has hired him at the rank of First Artist.
To Fight Money-Laundering, EU Tightens Rules On Art Sales
“The aim of the new rules, first proposed in 2016 in the wake of the Panama Papers scandal, is to increase transparency around financial transactions and require banks and vendors to verify clients’ identities and to report any suspicious behaviour. The regulations, which come into force in 2019, will cover all businesses selling works of art with transactions of €10,000 or more, irrespective of the payment method.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 04.30.18
On artistic leadership and aesthetic values in a changed cultural context: A new keynote address
Last week I had the privilege, pleasure, and honor to give the keynote address at the Canadian Arts Summit – an annual gathering of the board chairs, executive leaders, and artistic leaders of Canada’s major cultural institutions. … read more
AJBlog: Jumper Published 2018-04-29
Egypt: Breaking New Ground – Underwater
Like Gold, Picasso and Impressionism, Egypt has generally been a sure-fire subject for art museums. But, you may think, you know the story – basically. An exhibit at the St. Louis Art Museum will make you think again. … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2018-04-29
Civics is How We Take Care of the Space Between People
The most important thing I learned in a glorious Humana Festival weekend of theater – six new American plays and a lot of theater geeks – was not in a play at all. … read more
AJBlog: The Bright Ride Published 2018-04-30
From Cuba with Fervor and Vigor
Some of us may remember Carlos Acosta, when he was appearing with England’s Royal Ballet or, more briefly, as a guest artist with American Ballet Theatre. Princely. Virtuosic. … read more
AJBlog: Dancebeat Published 2018-04-29
How Many People in a One-Woman Show?
I love going to shows at Joe’s Pub for Dance Now’s Dance-mopolitan’s Commissioned Artist Series. But doing so takes a kind of expertise that I may lack. … read more
AJBlog: Dancebeat Published 2018-04-30
How AI Might Make The Vatican’s Amazing Archives Accessible
The Vatican Secret Archive isn’t much use to modern scholars, because it’s so inaccessible. Of those 53 miles, just a few millimeters’ worth of pages have been scanned and made available online. Even fewer pages have been transcribed into computer text and made searchable. If you want to peruse anything else, you have to apply for special access, schlep all the way to Rome, and go through every page by hand. But a new project could change all that. Known as In Codice Ratio, it uses a combination of artificial intelligence and optical-character-recognition (OCR) software to scour these neglected texts and make their transcripts available for the very first time.
At 83, Jacques d’Amboise Is Still Helping Kids To Dance
Even now, d’Amboise still comes to the Harlem building each day — that is, when he’s not traveling the country, visiting one of the 13 affiliate dance institutes (there’s also an exchange program in China) and working on fundraising. “Yes, he’s here every single day,” confirms Ellen Weinstein, NDI’s longtime artistic director, who met d’Amboise some 30 years ago as a student at SUNY Purchase, where d’Amboise was teaching “for a minute” (academics did not suit him). “And four to five times a day I get a call, ‘Ellen how about this?’ It’s always something exciting, always fabulous!” she laughs, mimicking her mentor’s enthusiasm.
What Larry Harvey Created With Burning Man
Burning Man is far, far, far from perfect. It’s still mostly hedonistic (with some awesome exceptions) and corny at times. It’s very white (The Root and The Guardian have both done great interviews with black Burners talking about why). There is always some percentage of douchebags (usually around 20-30 percent) who suck and do stupid things. And, sure, there’s plenty of sex and drugs and music, and some people can’t handle that in a mature way. But I can’t overstate how much I owe to Larry Harvey. Thanks to him, I learned what it is to be inspired by astonishingly creative people, weird people, sexy people, challenging people; to let go of the New York cynicism for a little while; to experience some of the most intense, vivid, and alive times of my life. I learned how to live.