“You had Spider-Man dangling seven feet above the first two rows. It was the worst possible position because no one could reach him. One of the crew members fetched a stick to prod him with, but that didn’t help. It was like a live Spider-Man piñata. But we knew by the end of the night, well, that’s the worst it’s ever going to be. We’ll keep improving it and improving it, and it’s going to be duck soup by the time we open in January.” – BBC
Blog
Ancient Cave Art Masterpieces Discovered In Colombia
Hailed as “the Sistine Chapel of the ancients”, archaeologists have found tens of thousands of paintings of animals and humans created up to 12,500 years ago across cliff faces that stretch across nearly eight miles in Colombia. – The Guardian
Big Art Telling Big Stories
“The resurgence over the past two decades of artists working in the grand manner suggests that the energies inherent to this style didn’t disappear but were merely redirected: into cinema like that of Cecil B. DeMille; into cycles of narrative painting such as the African American history paintings of Jacob Lawrence; and even into political spectacle, lingering on in the rallies of President Trump. And now they are coalescing again into a coherent artistic form, with multiple offshoots and variations, including the works of Titus Kaphar and Kehinde Wiley.” – Washington Post
A Better Way To Give Concerts?
Stephen Hough: “One issue I wrote about that seems to have struck a chord with readers was the idea of removing the interval and having shorter concerts, lasting around 60-80 minutes, perhaps at different starting times, and even repeating them on the same night. Since the pandemic struck this shrunken format has quickly become the norm, a neat solution to comply with new health and safety requirements … and I’ve loved it.” – The Guardian
TikTok Users Are Creating The Ratatouille Musical Disney Never Did
But these aren’t just any TikTokkers. “Thousands of TikTok users, including many with Broadway credits, have paid homage to the 2007 Disney Pixar film, about a rat who dreams of becoming a French chef, by creating their own songs, dances, makeup looks, set designs, puppets and Playbill programs.” And Disney is apparently paying attention as well, according to its Tweets and its own TikTok contributions. – The New York Times
The Monolith Has Disappeared
And, just as quickly as we all learned about it, the monolith in the Utah desert is gone. “The Bureau of Land Management said it would not be investigating the disappearance because ‘crimes involving private property’ are managed by the local sheriff’s office. The San Juan and Grand County Sheriff’s Offices did not immediately respond to requests for comment.” – The New York Times
The Impossible Weight That Public Sculptures Of Women Must Bear
It’s not just the sexualized, weirdly tiny Mary Wollstonecraft; it’s not just the naked Medusa in the park; it’s not just that rather iffy sculpture of Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Sojourner Truth all sitting down to plan universal suffrage. No. It’s the arc of public art for its entire history – and we do mean history in this case. “Two millennia of European and American history could be told through a genealogy of equestrian monuments to men, from Marcus Aurelius to Gattamelata, from Confederate generals to Kehinde Wiley’s exhilarating riposte, Rumors of War (2019). (And that’s just one genre!) One reason Wiley’s monument succeeds is that it has a heroic model to subvert. But women have no such models.” – Hyperallergic
The Carols From Kings Will Go On, To An Audience Of No One
No one except the BBC, of course. “For many of us, it is the moment when Christmas really starts: the soaring voice of a boy soloist at King’s College, Cambridge opening its iconic Christmas Eve service with Once in Royal David’s City.” No one will be in the pews this year. – The Observer (UK)
When ‘The Last Gasp’ Isn’t The Final Breath For A 40-Year-Old Theatre Company
The 76- and 71-year-old women who founded and run Split Britches were in London when COVID-19 hit New York hard, so they didn’t come back for a while – but where to stay, and how to make the new work they were supposedly putting up at La MaMa in April and the Barbican in June? And where to stay in London? Enter an empty house with running water, electricity and one chair. – The New York Times
In Praise Of Classical Music Radio
Radio in particular – and Portland’s All Classical in particular. There’s a lot of media nowadays, and a lot of choices to make – perhaps too many. “Radio cuts through all that. You make one decision – tune to a station – and then passively take in whatever it has to offer. Maybe it’s a bunch of Haydn or Mingus, maybe it’s an hour of spooky Irish music, maybe it’s interviews with local composers you’ve never heard of playing music composed by kids who go to school with yours.” – Oregon ArtsWatch