Category: AJBlogs

Black Eye Porn
“Normally The Guardian publishes all of Rowson’s cartoons, but I don’t think this one. He mailed it to Heathcote who forwarded it to me. Heathcote wrote the lines when I asked him.” — Gerard … read more
AJBlog: Straight|UpPublished 2017-04-28

On charging admission at the Met
The New York Times reported that the Metropolitan Museum of Art is looking at options to make its “suggested” entry fee into something a little stronger than a hint, at least for people who live … read more
AJBlog: For What it’s WorthPublished 2017-04-28

Nora and the mansplainer
In today’s Wall Street Journal I review the Broadway premiere of A Doll’s House, Part 2. Here’s an excerpt. * * * Hugh Kenner defined conceptual art as that which, once described, need not be … read more
AJBlog: About Last NightPublished 2017-04-28

A failure of SHIFT — there wasn’t much buzz
Why I’m writing these posts about SHIFT, a festival featuring orchestras from around the U.S., coproduced in Washington by the Kennedy Center and Washington Performing Arts, with all tickets affordably priced at $25):  … read more
AJBlog: Sandow Published 2017-04-26

Out-of-Towner Downer: Metropolitan Museum Considers a Xenophobic Admission Policy
Saul Steinberg‘s famous New Yorker cover portraying how Manhattanites view the rest of the world came to mind when I read Robin Pogrebin‘s NY Times article about the Metropolitan Museum’s tentative (to my mind, wrongheaded) proposal to discriminate against out-of-towners in charging admission fees. … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2017-04-26

Sotheby’s Pumps A Nascent Market
It may have been just a matter of time: today Sotheby’s announced an inaugural sale of contemporary African art, saying that this market in recent years has undergone “a long-overdue correction.” … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2017-04-26

How Charles Lloyd stays marvelous
During the 50 years since his breakthrough album Forest Flower (released in February 1967, recorded live at the Monterey Jazz Festival the summer before) … saxophonist-flutist Charles Lloyd has been unusually popular for an adventurous jazzman. … read more
AJBlog: Jazz Beyond Jazz Published 2017-04-26

 

Combining Cultures
This year, Ballet Hispanico will celebrate its 47th anniversary. I know, I know. In the performing-arts world, we only go all out for a year that ends in zero or five. But what’s immodest about a company being proud of its achievements in other years? … read more
AJBlog: Dancebeat Published 2017-04-25

“Moral Obligation”: My Chat with Cleveland Museum of Art’s William Griswold (plus Benjamin & Rub)
William Griswold has no interest in leaving the directorship of the Cleveland Museum for Art any time soon – not even for the top spot at the beleaguered Metropolitan Museum (for which I had presumptuously nominated him). … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2017-04-25

Ella Fitzgerald At 100
It is impossible to find the perfect performance by which to remember Ella, … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2017-04-25

 

Who Gets What? David Rockefeller’s Art Bequests
Of all his art interests, we have long known that the Museum of Modern Art came first for David Rockefeller, who died last month. But there were in his will a few other bequests for museums. … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2017-04-24

Monday Recommendation: Krukowski, The New Analog
Book: Damon Krukowski, The New Analog (The New Press)
The introduction of the compact disc in 1982 made analog sound delivered by phonograph records and landline telephones obsolete – didn’t it? If not, then … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2017-04-24

 

Metrics at the museum
The Washington Post‘s Philip Kennicott decided to try visiting the popular Kusama exhibit at the Hirshhorn not as a critic, with all its special viewing privileges, but as an ordinary member of the public. The … read more
AJBlog: For What it’s WorthPublished 2017-04-23

Recent Listening: Cuong Vu Plays Michael Gibbs
Cuong Vu 4TET, Ballet (Rare Noise) Trumpeter Vu and three fellow Seattle adventurers explore pieces by Michael Gibbs. It was guitarist Bill Frisell’s idea to bring the British composer to the University … read more
AJBlog: RiffTidesPublished 2017-04-22

SHIFT — a weird PR gaffe
Resuming my blog after a gap… I’m sorry that I said some provocative things about the SHIFT festival in DC, and then fell silent. I hadn’t planned that. But life intervened, taking me by surprise, … read more
AJBlog: SandowPublished 2017-04-21

Almanac: Igor Stravinsky on music critics
“I had another dream the other day about music critics. They were small and rodent-like with padlocked ears, as if they had stepped out of a painting by Goya.” Igor Stravinsky (interviewed in the Evening … read more
AJBlog: About Last NightPublished 2017-04-21

Smart Move In Brooklyn
A lot of people today are interested in “design.” Unless they are furnishing a home, not all that many are interested in “decorative arts.” They are, of course, fraternal if not identical twins. Yet decorative … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear ArtsPublished 2017-04-20

Smart Move In Brooklyn
A lot of people today are interested in “design.” Unless they are furnishing a home, not all that many are interested in “decorative arts.” They are, of course, fraternal if not identical twins. … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2017-04-20

Miles, Cleanhead, Sonny And “Four”
“Four” is one of the best-known jazz tunes attributed to Miles Davis. He may actually have written it, although a substantial number of musicians maintain that the composer was the alto saxophonist … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2017-04-20

 

Doin’ It: Performing Arts
In my last three posts I have been exploring participatory experiences as being an important element in the work of arts organizations. This week I want to talk about participatory experiences in the performing arts. … read more
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2017-04-18

Butch Morris’s workbook for spontaneous composition published
The deathbed wish of composer-cornetist Lawrence Douglas “Butch” Morris (1947-2013) was that his detailed documentation of Conduction®, the method he devised to enable spontaneous composition for ensembles of literally any type employing codified hand-signals, be published … read more
AJBlog: Jazz Beyond Jazz Published 2017-04-18

Amidst Villar Rojas’ Chaotic Ruins on Met’s Roof Garden, Dan Weiss Sets Me Straight (with video)
“Barratt’s Back,” I announced in the erroneous headline of a recent post. It seems that she never left. … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2017-04-18
 

The Met’s new Rosenkavalier: Hello Robert Carsen, goodbye (maybe) to Renée Fleming
So personal is the relationship between Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier and its admirers that the arrival of a new production at the Metropolitan Opera is like having your living room redecorated: It has to happen every so often but disrupts your inner and outer world … read more
AJBlog: Condemned to Music Published 2017-04-17

American Watercolors: Excellent Exhibition, But…
American Watercolor In the Age of Homer and Sargent, now on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, is an exhausting exhibition, in a good way. It displays more than 170 artworks and covers the … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2017-04-17

Monday Recommendation: Mosaic’s Savoy Bebop Treasury
Classic Savoy BoBop Sessions 1945-49
Just a quick run-through of the names involved in this ten- CD set might be enough to whet the curiosity of the uninitiated and the appetites of … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2017-04-17
 

What We Learned About Audience This Week: Is Streaming Good For The Arts? How About The Death Of Retail?
This Week: Is streaming performances good for the arts?… Why Are we still allowing ticket surcharges?… Another study tells us how to build arts audiences… TV’s audience base is slipping away… How will the … read more
AJBlog: AJ Arts AudiencePublished 2017-04-16

Welcome to the Ride
Waaaaaay back in 2011, as communications and research VP of a newly re-launched arts funding organization old enough to be an antique, I devised (with friends and colleagues) a bike ride that we named … read more
AJBlog: The Bright RidePublished 2017-04-16

 

Weekend Extra: Bud Freeman With Art Hodes
Coleman Hawkins made the tenor saxophone a jazz instrument. Bud Freeman (1906-1991), two years younger than Hawkins, followed as another of the horn’s early masters. Freeman (pictured) started on C-melody saxophone and … read more
AJBlog: RiffTidesPublished 2017-04-15

 

Blogback: Francis Naumann on Duchamp’s Remakes of the “Fountain” Readymade
Art historian and gallerist Francis Naumann responds to Plumbing Duchamp’s Urinal: How Erudite Art Historians Piss on Simplicity: As you can well imagine, I took considerable offense in your remarks, as you go on to … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrlPublished 2017-04-15

 

The Late, Great Derek Walcott
Folks, This week CultureCrash guest columnist Lawrence Christon looks at the legacy of the Saint Lucia-born, US-residing poet Derek Walcott, who died March 17. I share Christon’s fondness for DW’s verse, and was pleased … read more
AJBlog: CultureCrashPublished 2017-04-14

At The Met, A Most Timely Acquisition
Maybe I should not admit this, but I never heard of Luisa Ignacia Roldán until a few weeks ago, when I learned that the Metropolitan Museum of Art had recently purchased a polychrome terracotta sculpture by her. … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2017-04-13