Tag: 12.16.19

America’s First Racially Integrated All-Girl Swing Band

“The International Sweethearts broke attendance records at places such as Washington DC’s Howard Theatre, Harlem’s Apollo Theater, Cincinnati’s Cotton Club and the Riviera in St Louis. They played in the same venues as Count Basie and Dizzy Gillespie, were considered some of the most talented musicians of their day and toured France and Germany as a USO act in 1945. Unfortunately, racism and sexism largely swept them from the public record; they became footnotes in other people’s stories.” – The Guardian

Paris Bets On Ambitious New Contemporary Art Complex To Activate Suburbs

Collectively, the dealers hope, Komunuma’s mix of programs will make it a destination, especially as the greater Paris region seeks to shore up activity in the capital’s suburbs. They foresee “a plurality of centers with multiple, distinct identities. The development of Grand Paris will lead to a redistribution of the geography of contemporary art.” – Artsy

Museums Ponder Virtual Reality As An Art Experience

Virtual reality and augmented reality (AR)—which overlays digital elements on the real world rather than creating a fully immersive alternative—are “unbelievably promising” for the future of communication, says Daniel Birnbaum, who left his post as the director of the Moderna Museet in Stockholm to lead the London-based VR and AR production startup Acute Art early this year. But he points out that major museums such as the Louvre have concentrated on the educational uses of the technology, neglecting its own potential as an artistic medium. – The Art Newspaper

How The Hallmark Channel Conquered Christmas TV And Became A Cable Powerhouse

“Since 2011, from late October to January, Hallmark has broadcast Christmas movies nearly twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. … During this year’s holiday season, the programming, called Countdown to Christmas, has made Hallmark the No. 1 cable network among women between the ages of twenty-five and fifty-four, and, in some prime-time slots, No. 1 in households and total viewers. Last year, seventy-two million people watched Countdown to Christmas.” Sarah Larson looks into the secrets of Hallmark’s success. – The New Yorker

How Toni Morrison Took Her Place In History

With Playing in the Dark, Morrison changed the rules of the game, effectively recasting what we see when we look back to figures like Woolf and to writers of the present and future like Colson Whitehead, Jesmyn Ward, and Angela Flournoy. “All of us are bereft,” Morrison writes, “when criticism remains too polite or too fearful to notice a disrupting darkness before its eyes.” – The Nation

Satirical Christmas Special Showing Jesus With A Boyfriend Sparks Backlash In Brazil

The satirical group Porta dos Fundos (“Back Door”) has made irreverent holiday satires about Jesus Christ before (2018’s was The Last Hangover), but this year’s Netflix special, The First Temptation of Christ, shows a pot-smoking Mary with a very visible (and lustful) God for a boyfriend and a haplessly jealous Joseph. But what’s angered the nearly 2 million people who’ve signed a petition is that Jesus comes home from 40 days in the desert with a new “close friend,” Orlando. – Variety