Category: AJBlogs

Kurt Weill’s “Note Concerning Jazz”

Three Centennial Parties for Harold Norse
Harold Norse, the late poet and memoirist, desperately wanted his name in lights. Now he has it — thanks to Todd Swindell. Swindell’s assiduous effort to memorialize him goes beyond dedicated. He has not… … read more
AJBlog: Straight|UpPublished 2016-05-06

Contraction Action: Sotheby’s & Christie’s Confront New Market Reality (plus Koons &…
The operative words for the art market this season are “correction” and “contraction.” So Sotheby’s can be forgiven for seeking comfort in nostalgia, via this Monday tweet, recalling a past triumph: #OnThisDay in 2012,… … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrlPublished 2016-05-06

[ssba_hide]

Propwatch: the mop in The Flick
No one selects a mop for its glamour. The mop that appears in the second half of The Flick is dowdier than most – a disconsolate tangle that once a day swabs the stickier … read more
AJBlog: Performance Monkey Published 2016-05-05

When plays became movies
Fifty years ago, A Man for All Seasons and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? hit big at the box office and tore up the Oscars. Yet both films were screen versions of dead-serious Broadway plays that came out in the same year as the undemanding likes of Fantastic Voyage and Our Man Flint. How could so challenging a pair of movies possibly have gone over with the popcorn set? … read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2016-05-05

So you want to see a show?
Here’s my list of recommended Broadway, off-Broadway, and out-of-town shows, updated weekly. In all cases, I gave these shows favorable reviews (if sometimes qualifiedly so) in The Wall Street Journal when they opened. … read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2016-05-05

[ssba_hide]

Looking Back at Cuba
So much is being made of the U.S.-Cuba rapprochement and the arrival in Havana of cruise ships filled with tourists that I took a look at an old series of mine, part reportage and part … read more
AJBlog: Straight|Up Published 2016-05-04

Looking Back at Cuba (continued)
Now you can fly to Havana direct from the U.S. without having to be part of a licensed group. You can even use credit cards in places equipped to handle them. Of course… … read more
AJBlog: Straight|Up Published 2016-05-04

Weekend Listening: Bill Holman & The SRJO
Just three weeks after Bill Holman conducted the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra in three concerts of his works, this Sunday Jim Wilke’s Jazz Northwest will broadcast portions of the final concert. Here are details … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2016-05-04

The Most Under-Rated Composer?
Who is the most under-rated 20th century American composer? … read more
AJBlog: Unanswered Question Published 2016-05-04

[ssba_hide]

“The Work Will Do the Work” ??
“The work will do the work.”
Wait. Not so fast. … read more
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2016-05-04

SF MoMA and Museum Architecture: Killing A Meme
Have you seen the new Snøhetta-designed expansion of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art? I’ve seen only pictures, but it should in my opinion put to rest the line many museum directors have been using in recent years … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2016-05-03

Lookback: my personal clichés
From 2006: One of the travails of writing a biography of a great artist is that you find yourself returning repeatedly to certain words and phrases – especially superlatives. The nice thing about word processing is that … read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2016-05-03

[ssba_hide]

Five Notable Stories From Last Week’s ArtsJournal: Alternative Reality Edition
read more
AJBlog: diacritical/Douglas McLennan Published 2016-05-02

This Week In Audience 05.01.16
What are the boundaries in artist/audience relationships these days? Do you have a problem with inclusiveness if you can’t define what it is? … read more
AJBlog: AJ Arts Audience Published 2016-05-02

Bedford in Baltimore: Christopher is Third Contemporary Expert Recently Tapped to Lead a Major Art Museum
Are we seeing a trend here? Anne Pasternak at the Brooklyn Museum; James Rondeau at the Art Institute of Chicago; now Christopher Bedford at the Baltimore Museum of Art. In all three recent cases, … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2016-05-02

McNeill & Burroughs: Art Meets Occult
Hieronymous Bosch had nothing on Malcolm McNeill. And that’s not even counting the underlying theories McNeill has about time travel, biological mutation, and evolutionary transition … read more
AJBlog: Straight|Up Published 2016-05-02

[ssba_hide]

MoMA to Mount Tzara’s Magnum Opus

Museum Admissions: Better Than Free
Over the years, so many people have advocated for free admissions to art museums that one cannot keep track. I have almost always disagreed, with an  exception possibly being federally supported museums like the National Gallery … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2016-04-28

Brothels & Landscapes: MoMA Mines Degas’ Monotype Monomania–Part II
While most of Degas: A Strange New Beauty at the Museum of Modern Art (to July 24) assembles the artist’s usual cast of characters—dancers and singers, acquaintances and nudes (often in … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2016-04-28

Take me to your leader
What does leadership look like? We’re seeing an American election which has thrown up new models of presidential presentation: female politicrat, throwback socialist, celebrity blowhard. In Toneelgroep Amsterdam’s Kings of War, we see three … read more
AJBlog: Performance Monkey Published 2016-04-28

[ssba_hide]

My Q&A with President Daniel Weiss–Part II: Financial Impact of Met Breuer & Planned New Wing
While implicitly faulting the Metropolitan Museum’s administration for not having managed its operations “in a way that’s financially sustainable,” Daniel Weiss, who has been the Met’s president since July, diplomatically avoided … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2016-04-27

The Beyoncé challenge
We live in such a varied culture. Hard for anyone to keep track of more than a small part of it. But sometimes something comes along that you just can’t miss, and don’t want … read more
AJBlog: Sandow Published 2016-04-27

[ssba_hide]

Relationships and Public Policy
by Karen Gahl-Mills
I had an interesting conversation with a smart colleague today, on the topic of the role of cultural organizations in civic affairs. We were talking about the current, polarized state of public discourse and what role, if any, arts organizations should play by bringing residents together to celebrate differences and share views. He asked something simple yet profound – “Yeah, but what if I just want to run my ballet company and dance? Can’t I just do that?” … read more
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2016-04-26

Lookback: on being out of touch with pop culture
From 2006: I took a look yesterday at a list of the twelve top-grossing movies in North America. I’d heard of four of them: I read the novel on which Thank You for Smoking is … read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2016-04-26

[ssba_hide]

This Week In Audience 04.21.16
We’re Not Doing This Anymore: So we love libraries but we’re going to them less. Perhaps it’s because we have “library anxiety” (yes, that’s a thing)? When finding things online is as easy as … read more
AJBlog: AJ Arts Audience Published 2016-04-24

Trading Places: The Met Museum and–Not MoMA
The news late last week twinned the Metropolitan Museum of Art* and the Museum of Modern Art,* making them a study in contrasts: The Met had just announced programming cutbacks, buyouts and other financial woes, … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2016-04-24

My Q&A with President Daniel Weiss–Part I: How Did Metropolitan Museum Fall Into Financial Hole? How Will It Climb Out?
Last week’s revelations about the Metropolitan Museum’s disturbing financial reality check left a lot of unanswered questions, raising concerns about how prudently the museum has been managed under the seven-year leadership of its director and … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2016-04-25

‘The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft’
I’ve discovered that my recent blogpost, An Experiment in Reading, doesn’t work on mobile devices. The gizmo that embeds the book (to let you turn the pages) gets hung up. So here’s a static presentation … read more
AJBlog: Straight|Up Published 2016-04-25

[ssba_hide]