It’s The Year Of The Posthumous Performance – Is That Good For The Artists Or The Art?

Michael Jackson performed at this year’s Billboard Music Awards. Rick James has a new memoir. Tupac Shakur had a Broadway musical. James Gandolfini, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and River Phoenix (!) are in new movies. “It’s not weird that we miss those artists who’ve died. But it is weird that, increasingly, we expect them to keep producing art. The afterlife has become just another career stage – one that’s as lucrative and, in some cases, as productive as the pre-death career ever was.”

Top Posts From AJBlogs 07.28.14

John Luther Adams’s outdoor music needs to come indoors
AJBlog: Condemned to Music | Published 2014-07-29

Parklandia: Stretching, Striving To What End?
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts | Published 2014-07-29

Performance measures, indices and rankings
AJBlog: For What it’s Worth | Published 2014-07-29

Osipova and Vasiliev Debut World Tour at California’s Segerstrom Center
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The Return of the the Clientele
AJBlog: CultureCrash | Published 2014-07-28

Monday Recommendation: Ahmed Abdul-Malik
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Yet Another Appraisal Of Detroit Institute Of Arts’ Collection (And It’s Big)

“The new appraisal, conducted by Victor Wiener Associates, a New York firm, was commissioned by the Financial Guaranty Insurance Company, a bond insurer that stands to lose hundred of millions of dollars in the bankruptcy. The insurer has called for the masterpieces from the museum to be sold or monetized in some other way, such as being used as collateral for a loan.”

Time For A New Leader At The Metropolitan Opera?

“What’s clear is that something needs to give and, after nearly thirty-five years of labor-management harmony, it’s apparent that the Met’s problems start at the top. The cleanest solution would be to appoint a new GM, preferably someone, unlike Gelb, with an actual background in opera, who unequivocally believes in the vibrant future of the art form, and who can work creatively within a budget.”