“Several artists featured in the exhibition have moved beyond the gallery confines and marked up walls and urban furniture in surrounding streets with their trusty spray-paint cans, and even posted videos online showing them tagging a wall in Hollywood. The police are accusing the gallery of glorifying vandalism, and forcing them to remove graffiti from the streets.”
Tag: 04.21.11
Does Documentary Theater Distort Its Material? How Could It Not?
“[A play’s] subjects agree to testify for one reason: to set the record straight. And somewhere during the process from recording to page to rehearsal to stage, that record is bound to get distorted.” The problem is more than just selective editing. “[J]ust as an actor can never give the same performance twice, so too is it impossible to remain completely faithful to the play’s original subjects.”
So Commercially Successful Writers Aren’t Subsidizing The Literary Writers. And So…
“In effect the industry has called a halt to taking the money it makes from commercial writers and pumping it into underwriting their more literary cousins (while sneering at the mass market in the process). There is no question that this change in tack has already had a huge effect and to some degree a bad one.”
Of Non-Fiction And Fictional Warning Labels
“Although novels routinely include a notice claiming that all their characters and incidents are fictional, non-fiction books carry no equivalent guarantees of accuracy. Unlike many newspaper or magazine articles, non-fiction is rarely checked for accuracy before publication – and when challenged, proponents often invoke more exalted definitions of truth.”
“Participation” In Online Culture In UK Up 10 Percent In 2010
“The research, commissioned by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, shows that the proportion of adults who had ‘participated digitally in culture’ in England increased from 25.1% in the year 2008/09 to 34.8% in 2010. More than 40% of those who had participated in 2010 said they had visited theatre and concert websites.”
Victoria & Albert Museum Gets A New Director
“Before he was director general of the Dresden collections, Mark Roth served as director of the German Hygiene-Museum. He was also president of the German Museums Association from 1996 to 2003.”
Mexico City’s Fancy New Soumaya Museum Disappoints
“The small shock is just how weak the museum’s collection is, and how poorly the paintings, sculptures and decorative arts have been installed in the open floor plan galleries. Six big floors of displays offer, at best, less than two floors of museum-worthy art.”
Artistic Director Of Seattle’s Troubled Intiman Theatre Resigns
“Kate Whoriskey, picked by Bartlett Sher to succeed him as artistic director of Intiman Theater in Seattle, is parting ways with that beleaguered institution, at least for now.”
What’s The Next Act For Intiman Theatre?
“[L]ast weekend [Intiman’s board] canceled the rest of the long-standing Seattle theater’s 2011 season because of ongoing financial troubles. Soon the board, with input from local theater artists, supporters and funders, must answer the big existential question: Should Intiman continue to exist? Or work to settle its remaining $500,000 debt and call it quits?”
Why David Foster Wallace Inspires Such Devotion In His Fans
“DFW never lacked an eager audience, but he cautioned against playing to the expectations of a literary following. In death, he’s been transformed into the kind of writer that, in life, he would have found deeply suspicious. It is not at once clear how Wallace’s work has reached this level of esteem.”