“Judas didn’t start out a monster. The earliest extant biblical writings don’t mention him at all (but then they don’t mention the resurrection either). Paul doesn’t even seem to have heard of him, writing only that Jesus ‘was betrayed’.” Yet over the course of 2000 years, Judas has been portrayed as “the anomalous apostle, the treacherous pariah, the ‘homophilic’ kisser of Christ, the rash Zealot and the unhappy fall guy for the salvation of mankind” – and, most harmfully, as “the monstrous, anti-Semitic totem figure of the Judas-Jew.”
Tag: 08.02.09
Tilda Swinton Drags Art Cinema – Literally – To The Scottish Highlands
“A year after she and [director Mark] Cousins staged a celebration of independent cinema in an old bingo hall in her home town of Nairn, near Inverness, on Saturday the pair launched their latest adventure. On their journey across the Highlands back to Nairn the pair will screen Iranian, Icelandic and Hollywood road movies, Akira Kurosawa’s samurai version of Macbeth – Throne of Blood – in Cawdor, and a drama-documentary on the battle of Culloden in 1746 at Culloden battlefield.”
Belfast Taxi Makes A Cramped But Mobile Stage
“Two Roads West is set in a most unusual theatrical setting – the inside of a Belfast black taxi cab. For just over an hour an audience of up to five people travel around in a theatre-on-wheels as the taxi criss-crosses the Falls and Shankill Roads and tells the story of one woman’s journey home after 40 years in exile outside Northern Ireland.”
Artists: Not So Crazy About Wall Street After All
“Before global finance crashed, Robert Jain, the head of Credit Suisse global proprietary trading, commissioned twelve artists through the private curator Kipton Cronkite to create works inspired by Wall Street terminology.” Bad timing, turns out. “There’s a painting of gathering clouds inspired by ‘hedge fund’ called Ominous … there’s a light-box of snarling red bulls….”
C’mon, PA Pols: Eliminating Arts Funding Makes No Sense
“[W]hen you’re balancing concerns about education or health against arts and culture, eliminating the latter seems like a no-brainer. … That’s because most of us think of the arts as Cinderella waltzing in her ball gown at the palace — fun, frivolous, pleasant but expensive and nonessential. A more apt image would be Rosie the Riveter, the female laborer with a scarf binding up her hair, a rolled-up sleeve displaying real muscle and a ‘We can do it’ attitude.”
TV Networks Look For More Ways To Screen Ads
“Many of the new TV ads will resemble online ads — interactive and often shaped for individual members of the audience. They’ll also be harder to ignore. Typically, you can’t opt out of seeing them.”
Miami Proposes Big Arts Funding Cuts
“Cultural groups are fighting back, bombarding commissioners with e-mails, phone calls and personal pleas to restore the money. But they will have to get in line behind police, firefighters, foster children, the elderly and every other interest group dealing with diminished resources because of plunging property values.”
If It’s Monday, It Must Be The Louvre
“Tourists now wander through museums, seeking to fulfill their lifetime’s art history requirement in a day, wondering whether it may now be the quantity of material they pass by rather than the quality of concentration they bring to what few things they choose to focus upon that determines whether they have “done” the Louvre. It’s self-improvement on the fly.”
A First Performance Of Mozart
“Technically demanding and at times furiously paced, two newly identified Mozart works unveiled Sunday are helping scholars complete their assessment of the maestro’s very early achievements.”
Just What Is It About Gilbert And Sullivan That Makes Them Live On?
“So, here was a quintessentially English operetta set in a make-believe Japan, being performed by Americans in Bangkok, 90 years after it was written. If being able to survive rough handling and transplantation into unfamiliar cultural territory is the sign of a masterpiece, then the operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan must rank among the greatest. And unlike some canonical works, these have never suffered a dip in their fortunes.”