“Excellence is not in the object, and it’s not us. Where is it?” Artist and art critic Franklin Einspruch offers a few answers – including “Excellence is art’s reproductive drive.”
Tag: 10.21.11
Upcoming Wuthering Heights Film To Star Mixed-Race Heathcliff
“Heathcliff was described in the original book as a ‘dark-skinned gypsy’ and ‘a little lascar’ – a 19th-century term for Indian sailors. Among the many screen adaptations of Wuthering Heights … a dark-skinned actor has never been given the role” – until now.
Another Upstate New York Orchestra Runs Out Of Cash
“Debt, staff cuts and the resignation of longtime conductor Chuck Schneider have silenced the Utica Symphony Orchestra in its 100th year.” Neither maestro nor musicians have yet been paid for last season.
Two-Way PR Coup? Basketball Star Takes Up Ballet
Minnesota Timberwolves forward Michael Beasley has had public relations problems lately, what with a marijuana bust and shoving a fan. As part of an effort to improve both his physical condition and his image, he has begun attendng ballet classes regularly.
A Good Design Can Do A Lot, Especially To Alleviate Poverty’s Effects
Curator Cynthia E. Smith: “What the best designers illustrate is how to give form to sometimes very simple ideas. Good design involves bringing not just a fresh eye to problems but, most of all, listening to the people who live in those communities. We’re talking about a billion people living in informal settlements today.”
What Isherwood Reads When He Reads About Theatre
New York Times critic Charles Isherwood: “While reading about theater is also part of the job, it’s really a pleasure too. … Although theater has receded from the cultural front lines in the last couple of decades, new books about or by theater luminaries continued to be published with some regularity.”
Arts Fans + Social Media = Instant, And Valuable, Networking
Hey, entire city of N.Y.: Want to meet up for art and dinner? Please Tweet yes.
Don’t Like The Law (Or The Lawsuits)? Heck, Just Get It Changed
“Faced with a class-action suit over artists’ royalties that potentially would expose them to a huge cash verdict, Christie’s and Sotheby’s likely will challenge the constitutionality of the California law on which the claim is based.”
If You Understand That Symbol, Thank A Viennese Social Scientist
Otto Neurath’s “system of reductive images, which portrayed people through the use of clichéd characteristics (laborers holding hammers, office workers at typewriters, farmers with hoes), were so easy to recognize that words were superfluous.”
We Get The Movies We Deserve – Especially If They’re ‘Conspiratorial Bunk’
“Professors of Shakespeare — and I was one once upon a time — are blissfully unaware of the impending disaster that this film means for their professional lives. Thanks to ‘Anonymous,’ undergraduates will be confidently asserting that Shakespeare wasn’t Shakespeare for the next 10 years at least, and profs will have to waste countless hours explaining the obvious.”