Plumbing Duchamp’s Urinal: How Erudite Art Historians Piss on Simplicity
When pondering the meaning of enigmatic artworks, critics and scholars often mix factual knowledge with leaps of interpretive imagination, conveyed through highfalutin verbiage. Thus it was when … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2017-04-12
Doin’ It: Museums
In my last couple of posts, I introduced the idea of participatory experiences as being a potentially critical element in the work of arts organizations … In my next two posts I want to focus on examples of both the practice and practitioners of this type of work. … read more
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2017-04-11
Can You Spot the Fake?
The exhibition that Winterthur recently unveiled, Treasures on Trial: The Art and Science of Detecting Fakes, comes at an opportune time. … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2017-04-11
What I learned in El Paso
In the musical part of my visit … read more
AJBlog: Sandow Published 2017-04-11
Correspondence: About A New Jazz Club
Rifftides reader Arthur Hill writes from somewhere in Oregon:
Yes, Virginia – there is a jazz club in Salem, Oregon, called Christo’s, … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2017-04-11
Cunningham Redivivus
Compagnie CNDC Angers – Robert Swinston bring three dances by Merce Cunningham to New York. … read more
AJBlog: Dancebeat Published 2017-04-09
Entertaining Consent — Seriously
Nina Raine’s new drama, Consent, can now be seen in a stunning in-the-round production at the National Theatre’s small Dorfman auditorium – but the play is so good (and has been so well reviewed) that it will not be surprising if it transfers to the West End. Or even to Broadway, despite its essential Englishness. … read more
AJBlog: Plain English Published 2017-04-10
Extraordinary UTEP
I could say many things about my two days last week at UTEP, the University of Texas at El Paso. … What I most took away was what I learned about the university itself. Certainly one of the most inspiring stories in higher education. … read more
AJBlog: Sandow Published 2017-04-10
Jeff Parker and Jazz Guitar
For months now, one of the most intriguing instrumentalists in Los Angeles has been unspooling his style for the price of a drink in a small bar in Highland Park. … read more
AJBlog: CultureCrash Published 2017-04-10
The thirty-day movie challenge
The response to my recently posted list of my favorite films from each of the sixty-one years of my life today was so favorable that I decided to respond to yet another popular movie meme. … read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2017-04-10
Lines For Mulligan, With Video
The press of Art Pepper business distracted Rifftides from noting that yesterday was the birthday of Gerry Mulligan. He would have been 90. On the occasion, Franca Mulligan sent news about an … read more
AJBlog: RiffTidesPublished 2017-04-08
Accessible or hospitable
We talk a lot in the arts about being “accessible” — which tends to mean open and available to many different people. The assumption (and often the experience) is that a lot of artistic work … read more
AJBlog: The Artful Manager Published 2017-04-06
Barratt’s Back: A Harbinger of the Met’s Administrative Readjustments?
Last July, it was reported that the Metropolitan Museum’s deputy director for collections and administration, Carrie Rebora Barratt, was one of those who had taken a voluntary buyout at the Met. Now, it appears, she’s … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2017-04-06
Doin’ It: Vocabulary
Last fall (in ABCD and Community Engagement) I floated a label – Community Based Artistic Development – for this work. CBAD implies, rightly, that participatory projects can be important to the health of the arts and to arts organizations. But in order to craft participatory experiences, it helps to have language that guides understanding of the options. … read more
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2017-04-04
A Trouble With Museum Boards
When I started writing that headline, above, I wrote “the” trouble with… But I quickly corrected myself, because … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2017-04-05
Celebrating Thirty Years, Moving On
Doug Varone and Dancers shows old and new works at the BAM Harvey Theater. … read more
AJBlog: Dancebeat Published 2017-04-05
The Complete Jazz Masters Concert
The Monday concert that paid tribute to the 2017 National Endowment For The Arts Jazz Masters is now online, all three hours of it. … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2017-04-05
More productive, less destructive
One of my favorite moments in any planning or strategy meeting is when someone looks suddenly resolute, and says something like: “You know what the problem is? The problem is that we don’t have a system … read more
AJBlog: The Artful Manager Published 2017-04-04
Acknowledging the Past, Moving On
The Stephen Petronio Company revives works by those who have influenced him and offers a world premiere. … read more
AJBlog: Dancebeat Published 2017-04-04
Guest Report: The NEA Jazz Masters Concert
At the invitation of the RiffTides staff, reader Michael Phillips sent a report about the NEA Jazz Masters Tribute Concert last night at the Kennedy Center. … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2017-04-04
Unfair at Vanity Fair: William Cohan Muddies the Met Mess
With the intense interest generated by Robin Pogrebin‘s shocking front-page revelations in yesterday’s NY Times about the Metropolitan Museum’s governance lapses, it’s likely that pundits will pile on with commentaries fueled more by indignation and sensationalism than by the deep knowledge … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2017-04-04
From a Secret Location
Once upon a time, hundreds of editors, mainly poets, and all manner of bohemian riffraff took to their mimeo machines. They produced an avalanche of little magazines, … read more
AJBlog: Straight|Up Published 2017-04-04
The Prado Goes To Santa Fe
In recent years, the Prado has gotten more and more ambitious, and good for it – especially with international activities, … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2017-04-03
“Inappropriate Relationship”: Tom Campbell Must Go; Metropolitan Museum’s Board Must Reform
Two weeks ago, I had suggested that the increasing barrage of negative assessments of Tom Campbell‘s leadership at the Metropolitan Museum might lead him to “decide jointly with the board that it could be best to end his tenure sooner than scheduled” … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2017-04-02
A Museum Exhibit That Keeps Moving
Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s Work/Travail/Arbeid at the Museum of Modern Art, March 29-April 2. Members of Rosas in Work/Travail/Arbeid/. Counter-clockwise from bottom left: Igor Shyshko, Carlos Garbin, Böstjan Antončič, Julien Monty, Samantha van Wissen, Marie … read more
AJBlog: DancebeatPublished 2017-04-01
Aretha Franklin’s got it at 75
I saw Aretha Franklin last night from the Chicago Theater’s nosebleed seats, unable to make out her features but sure from the moment she first raised her voice that she’s a national if not global treasure, … read more
AJBlog: Jazz Beyond JazzPublished 2017-04-01
A Man With Moxie Plus
When Asger Jorn heard that he’d been awarded a Guggie, he told them to fuck off. … read more
AJBlog: Straight|UpPublished 2017-03-31
Bonding with Bondil: Montreal MFA’s Head on Succeeding as a (Female) Museum Director
“In the end, I’d say that I’d hope I had been chosen for what I had between my two ears and not because of what I don’t have between my two legs,” Nathalie Bondil, director … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2017-03-30
Art, Censorship, and the Death of Emmett Till
Well, it’s really come to this, hasn’t it? … read more
AJBlog: CultureCrash Published 2017-03-30
Is classical music consolation?
Classical music … its role in our culture … that’s something I’ve pondered for a long time, and talked about often here. My usual answer hasn’t been very positive. … read more
AJBlog: Sandow Published 2017-03-30
