“In their daily lives, people interact with all kinds of popular storytelling visual forms, most of which are maybe not what we have historically called fine art. Our purpose as a museum is to highlight and explore and celebrate the best of these forms, and to really unpack the way in which they work. We’re really interested in this through-line of narrative, the fact that so many artists in so many cultures, times, and places have been compelled to tell stories in different mediums. Why do we have this drive and how does it work?”
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Winner Of This Year’s Pulitzer For Fiction Tells You About All The Novels He Almost Wrote
Andrew Sean Greer: “I think every novelist has a list of novels they never wrote – and never plan to write. Some are impossible dreams. Some are good ideas over a bad bottle of wine. And some are, let’s admit it, just bad ideas. Really bad ideas. So for what it’s worth, a little advice …”
How Art Was (Mostly) Protected During World War II
In London, the Elgin Marbles were hidden in Aldwych tube station – although, alarmingly, it was later revealed it wouldn’t have withstood a direct hit. In Paris, the Louvre was emptied out in 1939, with 3,600 paintings packed off to safe houses. The Mona Lisa – now considered too fragile to be moved – was shuttled round the country five times, moving from chateau to abbey to chateau, to keep her one step ahead of the Nazis.
These Monks Meditate By Dancing
“In the West, our idea of monastic ritual involves prayer and quiet reflection. But there are monasteries in Assam, in the far reaches of northeastern India, where prayer has always been, and continues to be, expressed through dance. The monks in these communities, or sattras, perform with and for each other, and for the deity. Sattriya, as this dance form is known, became one of the eight official classical dance forms of India only in 2000 – since then, its visibility has grown beyond the monastery walls.”
The Art Of Nairobi’s Dancing Buses
Matatu are the privately owned buses that have transported at least 60 percent of Nairobi’s population since the early ’60s. The word matatu comes from the Kikuyu word for “three,” referring to the three ten-cent coins used to pay for a ride to the city when matatus first started operating.
How One Joke On ‘Roseanne’ Explains The Entire Show
Emily Nussbaum: “It would feel good to critique the new version [of the show] with a tolerant smile – to say simply that you shouldn’t judge any sitcom too harshly, early on. … I can’t write that review, though, and it’s because of zingers like the one above, dog whistles that won’t let you stay inside Roseanne.”
A Great Play About (Of All Issues) Urban Renewal – August Wilson’s ‘Two Trains Running’
“The narrow lens is one of the play’s surprises: It examines the titanic forces of urban renewal via a single establishment, never leaving the checkerboard-tiled stage of [Memphis Lee’s] diner. For a play about sweeping change, what emerges is a slow portrait, one that tries to convince you that everything depends on the fate of this single black-owned soul-food cafe in Pittsburgh. … Another surprise in Two Trains Running is how far the play’s fears still echo today, some 50 years after the events depicted (and nearly 30 years since its debut).”
How Did Kendrick Lamar Win The Music Pulitzer? Let The Pulitzer Prize Administrator Tell You
Dana Canedy: “In this case [the jurors] were considering a piece of music they felt had hip-hop influences and said, ‘Well if we’re considering a piece of music that has hip-hop influences, why aren’t we considering hip-hop?’ And someone said, ‘That’s exactly what we should do.’ And then someone said, ‘We should be considering Kendrick Lamar’ and the group said ‘absolutely.’ So then, right then, they decided to listen to the entire album and decided ‘This is it.'”
Robert Fairchild’s Blooming Post-New York City Ballet Career
“‘I would rather try and fail than not try,’ he says. He’s applied that same philosophy to his career: Last fall, he decided to leave life as a ballet star behind to find out what possibilities might lie in musical theater, TV and film. In the course of our conversation, he repeats the same sentence over and over, like a mantra: ‘You never know how far you’re gonna go if you don’t jump.’ This is his jump.”
Uh-Oh – After Seven-Year Ban, Lars Von Trier Is Returning To Cannes
“Von Trier was made persona non grata by Cannes after jokingly declaring himself a Nazi and expressing sympathy for Adolf Hitler during a 2011 press conference for his Palme d’Or-nominated film Melancholia. … However, speaking to French radio station Europe 1, festival director Thierry Frémaux suggested that negotiations to lift Von Trier’s outcast status were ongoing and that an announcement regarding his latest film, The House That Jack Built, would be made in the coming days.”