Category: AJBlogs

CultureGrrl Confidential: Leaks from La Salle President’s Student Forum on Art Sales
In explaining why the 46 artworks deaccessioned by La Salle University were spirited away from its museum by Christie’s during intersession (while the Philadelphia campus was mostly devoid of students and faculty), … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2018-01-22

Spotify, David Lowery, and the Future of Artists’ Rights
The conquest of the music industry by a small number of technology companies has continued on schedule, but there has been some resistance by musicians and their advocates. One of the most stalwart … read more
AJBlog: CultureCrash Published 2018-01-22

Monday Recommendation: Django, A Motion Picture
Director Étienne Comar’s Django portrays guitarist Django Reinhardt’s life during two years when it seemed that Europe might fall to Germany. His account emphasizes the greatness of Reinhardt’s music and the … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2018-01-22

 

Exalting Bruckner at Carnegie Hall
Bruckner’s symphonies are communal rites of spiritual passage. For maximum impact, they require a proper hall and appropriate congregants. In New York City, Lincoln Center’s Geffen Hall – formerly Fisher Hall, and Philharmonic Hall before … read more
AJBlog: Unanswered QuestionPublished 2018-01-19

What Makes a Body Seem New?
The Guggenheim Museum’s Works & Process series presents two works by Jodi Melnick on January 14th and 15th. Jodi Melnick in One of Sixty-Five Thousand Gestures, choreographed by Trisha Brown and Melnick. Photo: Robert Altman … read more
AJBlog: DancebeatPublished 2018-01-19

Judaica as “Curiosities”: Are Jewish Museum’s Reinstalled Collection Galleries Good for the Jews?
I had misgivings from the start about Claudia Gould‘s appointment to the directorship of the Jewish Museum, New York. Her personal and professional backgrounds seemed more suited to directing a contemporary art museum than an … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrlPublished 2018-01-19

Luciana Jury at WOMEX—Now THAT’s interpretation!
Luciana Jury was one of the day case acts at WOMEX 2017, and she started her solo show off-mic, entering from the audience area and walking and singing to the stage. This was the … read more
AJBlog: OtherWorldlyPublished 2018-01-19

Ken Burns, Collector, Gets An Exhibition
There’s nothing like a celebrity, even a person behind the camera instead of in front of it, to attract attention–sometimes even deservedly so. I think that is the case for an exhibition opening Friday, Jan. … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear ArtsPublished 2018-01-18

Women in jazz journalism on gender issues, in NYC MLK weekend
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. weekend ’18 was a big one for jazz in NYC with the first Jazz Congress at Jazz at Lincoln Center, a glorious Winter Jazz Fest, artists showcases at the conference … read more
AJBlog: Jazz Beyond JazzPublished 2018-01-18

Ken Burns, Collector, Gets An Exhibition
There’s nothing like a celebrity, even a person behind the camera instead of in front of it, to attract attention – sometimes even deservedly so. I think that is the case for an exhibition opening Friday, … read more
>AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2018-01-18

Women in jazz journalism on gender issues, in NYC MLK weekend
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. weekend ’18 was a big one for jazz in NYC, with the first Jazz Congress at Jazz at Lincoln Center, a glorious Winter Jazz Fest, artists showcases at the conference … read more
AJBlog: Jazz Beyond Jazz Published 2018-01-18

Acker Awards to Honor One-of-a Kind Artists
I don’t know what the late Kathy Acker, who died in 1997, would think of an award given in her name to non-conforming artists. I assume … read more
AJBlog: Straight|Up Published 2018-01-18

 

Recent Listening: Young/Promane Octet
Dave Young / Terry Promane Octet Volume 2 (MAPL) … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2018-01-17

 

Baby Steps
Over the last eighteen months I have begun to put greater emphasis on the need for (and advantages of) simplicity and gradualism in beginning community engagement efforts. … read more
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2018-01-16

Pay-to-Play? Maezawa Bankrolls Brooklyn Museum Show of His $110.5-Million Basquiat
Should a museum accept money from a private collector to show a work (or works) from his personal collection? Unless the work in question has been promised to the museum, such arrangements reek of pay-to-play, … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2018-01-16

America’s Most Exceptional Orchestra
Setting aside PostClassical Ensemble, the guerrilla DC chamber orchestra I co-founded fourteen years ago, the most exceptional American orchestra I know is the South Dakota Symphony. South Dakota’s “Copland and Mexico” festival, which concluded last … read more
AJBlog: Unanswered Question Published 2018-01-16

Tracking Everyday Mysteries
RoseAnne Spradlin’s X at New York Live Arts, January 13 and 14. … read more
AJBlog: Dancebeat Published 2018-01-16

Marlene VerPlanck Is Gone
From New York comes news that the singer Marlene VerPlanck died today at 84. She reportedly had pancreatic cancer but managed to keep the illness a secret from nearly everyone. … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2018-01-16

 

Museum Admissions, Deaccessions: Let’s Get Real
I have not waded into either of the debates that are raging across the art museum world at the moment. So far, I’ve avoided commenting on … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2018-01-15

Michael Gordon’s Acquanetta: Backstage carnage amid on-screen horror
Mystery is the canny substitute for substance. The less that is known, the more implication can spin grandeur out of the mundane. And that explains Acquanetta, the single-named Hollywood star of 1940s B-movies like Captive Wild Woman … read more
AJBlog: Condemned to Music Published 2018-01-15

Assailing the Sales: La Salle’s Art History Chair Says: “We Were Not Consulted”
With opposition continuing to growover La Salle University’s plan to sell 46 prime artworks from its collection through Christie’s to fund non-museum activities, Susan Dixon, chair of the Philadelphia institution’s art-history faculty, has circulated … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrlPublished 2018-01-12

Recent Listening: Kathrine Windfeld Big Band
Kathrine Windfeld Big Band, Latency (Stunt Records) Kathrine Winfeld’s second album further establishes the 30-year-old Dane in the vanguard of new arranger-composers and bandleaders. Her young, experienced, adventurous musicians from Denmark, Sweden … read more
AJBlog: RiffTidesPublished 2018-01-12

Unfit for New Year’s?
Strange thing I just realized. The Met Opera celebrated New Year’s Eve with a new production of Tosca. Made sense to me when I first heard about it. An opera people love, some grand singing, … read more
AJBlog: SandowPublished 2018-01-12

Replay: Miles Davis plays “So What”
The Miles Davis Quintet plays Davis’ “So What.” The band consists of Davis on trumpet, John Coltrane on tenor saxophone, Wynton Kelly on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, and Jimmy Cobb on drums. This performance … read more
AJBlog: About Last NightPublished 2018-01-12

Almanac: Yeats on genius and national character
“When a country produces a man of genius he is never what it wants or believes it wants; he is always unlike its idea of itself.” W.B. Yeats, The Death of Synge: Extracts from a … read more
AJBlog: About Last NightPublished 2018-01-12

Derision for Admission Revision: Parsing the Metropolitan Museum’s New Mandatory Fees
Although I share the dismay over the Metropolitan Museum’s new admissions policy (which, nevertheless, I grudgingly acknowledge may be necessary), I’ve been equally unsettled by the misconceptions and misinformation promulgated by many of the pundits … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrlPublished 2018-01-11

Derision for Admission Revision: Parsing the Metropolitan Museum’s New Mandatory Fees
Although I share the dismay over the Metropolitan Museum’s new admissions policy (which, nevertheless, I grudgingly acknowledge may be necessary), I’ve been equally unsettled by the misconceptions and misinformation promulgated by many of the pundits … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2018-01-11

 

McLuhan’s Notes on Finnegan’s Wake
When Gary Lee-Nova read a recent blogpost about a new posthumous collection of Mary Beach’s writings, Electric Bananas, it drew him to Marshall McLuhan’s notated copy of James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake. Gary was kind enough … read more
AJBlog: Straight|Up Published 2018-01-10

 

What You Need to Know
Community engagement and its potential for enhancing the viability of arts organizations is too often poorly understood or just plain misunderstood. It is conflated with other tasks and minimized by people who cannot envision its … read more
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2018-01-09

Should museums have free admission?
A common refrain is that the museum can “afford” to have free admission for all, either through better management of costs, or through increased donations from the very rich. I don’t doubt this. But is it a good idea? … read more
AJBlog: For What It’s Worth Published 2018-01-09

Maurice Peress, 1930-2018
Maurice Peress, a conductor who served as a link between jazz and classical music, died over the weekend at his home in New York. He was 87. Peress collaborated with Duke Ellington … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2018-01-09

Oprah, Donald Trump, and The Man Who Saw Them Coming
There has been, of course, an enormous amount of talk about Oprah Winfrey since her truly impressive speech at the Golden Globes Sunday night, and some have proposed her as the ideal candidate for … read more
AJBlog: CultureCrash Published 2018-01-09