Ai Weiwei Documentary To Hit Theaters This Summer "Alison Klayman's documentary Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, an award-winning chronicle of that provocative Chinese artist who was detained by his country's government for three months last year, has been acquired for North American distribution by Sundance Selects and will receive a theatrical release this summer."

The New York Times 02/21/12

email this story | Posted 02/22/12@12:01AM

David Foster Wallace Would Have Been 50 This Week "It would be weak to take Wallace's tongue-in-cheek humility as definitive evidence of what he was or wasn't as a writer. Wallace was likely aware, even in his more self-doubting moments, that he was a skilled reporter (he certainly enjoyed it, at least)."

Salon 02/20/12

email this story | Posted 02/21/12@07:31AM

Soprano Elizabeth Connell Dead At 65 She began her four-decade career as a mezzo and became a widely-praised dramatic soprano, working frequently at Covent Garden and Opera Australia. Born in South Africa, she starred in the historic 2004 staging of Fidelio in honor of Nelson Mandela at Robben Island prison.

The Telegraph (UK) 02/20/12

email this story | Posted 02/21/12@12:05AM

Philip Seymour Hoffman On Acting And Directing At The Same Time (He Didn't Like It) "[If] you're directing and acting you're on both sides of that equation so everyone's just waiting on you completely which is ... it needs to be shared, that relationship. There needs to be an actor and a director and they should be sharing the responsibility of getting it right. ... I remember going, 'Phil, remember this, remember this feeling right now. Don't do this again'."

The Arts Desk (London) 02/18/12

email this story | Posted 02/20/12@11:57PM

Hand-Made Art With Content? Yep. A Q&A With British Artist Grayson Perry Perry: "The number of wishy-washy semi-abstract paintings I saw was incredible. It was as though they wanted to make art, but didn't want to say anything. I hate the aimless, apparently transcendent thing in sub-Rothkos: 'Oh, this is all about spirituality.' Fuck off."

The Art Newspaper 02/17/12

email this story | Posted 02/19/12@09:13PM

Judi Dench Fights Blindness, Learns To Adapt Oscar-winner Dench, 77, has macular degeneration. She said in an interview published Saturday that her eyesight was already so bad that she couldn't read her scripts. Instead, she relies on friends and family to help her with her lines.

Chicago Sun-Times (AP) 02/18/12

email this story | Posted 02/19/12@08:49AM

Cate Blanchett, Theatre Boss (Even When She Leaves Her Artistic Director Post) "'I was hoping you'd come later in the week.' It's a curious thing to hear from someone who has five Academy Award nominations, and who took an Oscar home for playing Katharine Hepburn in The Aviator. But this is theatre, and Blanchett, like any stage actor before press night, doesn't quite know how it will go."

Intelligent Life March/April 2012

email this story | Posted 02/19/12@08:26AM

The Backlash To Frank Gehry - And His Response "According to the art critic Hal Foster, Gehry's Walt Disney concert hall in Los Angeles is a 'media logo' and his style of architecture is a 'winning formula' for 'any corporate entity that desires to be perceived, through an instant icon, as a global player'. Someone started selling T-shirts saying 'Fuck Frank Gehry' (and he bought some)."

The Observer (UK) 02/19/12

email this story | Posted 02/19/12@08:12AM

Who Is Cindy Sherman? Don't Look At Her Self-Portraits To Find Out "Over the course of her remarkable 35-year career she has transformed herself into hundreds of different personas: the movie star, the valley girl, the angry housewife, the frustrated socialite, the Renaissance courtesan, the menacing clown, even the Roman god Bacchus. ... 'None of the characters are me,' she explained ... They're everything but me."

The New York Times 02/19/12

email this story | Posted 02/17/12@12:02AM

Met Opera's Longest-Serving Singer, Charles Anthony, Dead At 82 "The number seems almost impossible, but Mr. Anthony" - a comprimario tenor - "sang with the Met in 2,928 performances. He played 111 roles in 69 operas" over 57 seasons; his final performance, as the old Emperor in Turandot, was in January of 2010.

The New York Times 02/15/12

email this story | Posted 02/16/12@12:08AM

Remembering Lucian Freud In His Studio David Dawson, for 20 years Freud's assistant, friend and occasional model: "He was sort of nimble and jumping around at the entrance to his flat. Very, very piercing blue eyes and wonderful manners that immediately sort of put you at ease, or put me at ease, anyway, and [he] was very intimate and caring about how I felt."

The Economist 02/14/12 (video)

email this story | Posted 02/16/12@12:02AM

Dancer-Choreographer Zina Bethune Killed In Road Accident "Bethune, 66, a former New York City Ballet soloist and the founder of a Los Angeles multimedia dance and theatrical company, was struck by two vehicles and killed shortly after midnight Sunday after she apparently stopped to help an injured animal along Forest Lawn Drive in L.A."

Los Angeles Times 02/14/12

email this story | Posted 02/14/12@11:59PM

Ricardo Legorreta, 1931-2011, Mexico's Essential Architect "No discussion of contemporary architecture in Mexico could pretend to completeness without a discussion of the work of the Legorretas and their firm. Part of Legorreta's legacy has been to show that there are many Modernisms, not solely a smooth narrative from LeCorbusier to Mies to Johnson."

Adobe Airstream 02/012/12

email this story | Posted 02/14/12@08:00AM

Lloyd Dykk, Admired And Feared Vancouver Critic, Dead At 67 "Dykk was one of the last of his breed, a classic old-style Critic, with a capital C. His reviews were impeccably written, incredibly witty, and often utterly withering."

Vancouver Sun 02/08/12

email this story | Posted 02/14/12@12:07AM

How Charles Dickens And America Fell In And Out Of Love "On his first visit to America in 1842, English novelist Charles Dickens was greeted like a modern rock star. ... But a visit which had started so well quickly turned into a bitter dispute, known as the 'Quarrel with America'." (It seems author and country loved each other not wisely, but too well.)

BBC 02/13/12

email this story | Posted 02/14/12@12:04AM

New Director Works On Funding - And Inspiration - At The California Arts Council Craig Watson: "In all of my early discussions around the state, it is clear the role the Arts Council played historically as a convener has been missed. We are getting back in that business where it makes sense."

Barry's Blog 02/12/12

email this story | Posted 02/13/12@07:44AM

Who Is Elizabeth McGovern? (Aside From Lady Grantham On 'Downton Abbey') "The English approach to show business and their work is more -- and this is a big generalization, I hasten to say -- but it's more, they work on it as a craft job. There's not the expectation that any minute they're going to take over the world, the way show business is set up in L.A., for instance. I feel comfortable with that."

Los Angeles Times 02/12/12

email this story | Posted 02/12/12@09:37AM

Jeffrey Zaslow, 53, Author Of 'The Last Lecture' "Zaslow, a columnist and best-selling author whose books included chronicles of a dying professor's last lecture, a pilot who landed a crippled commuter plane in the Hudson River and Representative Gabrielle Giffords's recovery from wounds in a horrific shooting in Arizona, died on Friday in a car accident in northern Michigan."

The New York Times 02/10/12

email this story | Posted 02/12/12@08:46AM

Robert E. Hecht, Jr., Controversial Dealer In Antiquities, Dead At 92 "His death comes less than three weeks after the ambiguous end of his criminal trial in Rome on charges of trafficking in looted antiquities. Since the 1990s, Hecht had been at the center of an Italian investigation that traced objects looted from tombs in Italy through a network of smugglers, dealers and private collectors to museums across the United States, Europe and beyond."

Los Angeles Times 02/09/12

email this story | Posted 02/10/12@12:07AM

Yuri Rasovsky, Who Rescued American Audio Drama, Dead At 67 "Radio drama was thought to be nearly extinct when Yuri Rasovsky launched the National Radio Theater of Chicago in the early 1970s, and he emerged as a major voice in its revival." In the 1990s, Rasovsky - nicknamed "El Fiendo" for his exacting standards and sharp temper - moved to Los Angeles and produced a string of award-winning recorded audio dramas.

Los Angeles Times 02/06/12

email this story | Posted 02/10/12@12:00AM

Charles Dickens Was Obsessed With Theatre (Who Knew?) The novelist "originally wanted to be an actor. ... He was an avid theatregoer, joined the Garrick Club at the age of 25 and had many theatrical friends ... He visited circuses and melodrama houses; his periodical writings covered vents and 'grimacers', waxworks, freak shows, actors, gaslight fairies and clowns."

The Guardian (UK) 02/08/12

email this story | Posted 02/08/12@11:56PM

The Real Star Of The Artist - Uggie The Dog - Retires Due To Illness "Now it's been revealed that the 10-year-old Jack Russell, who will retire from feature film-making after the Academy Awards ceremony, is leaving the biz due to a mystery illness that has baffled experts and cost his trainer thousands of dollars in vets' bills."

The Guardian (UK) 02/07/12

email this story | Posted 02/08/12@11:54PM

Meryl Streep: How Opera Training Helped Me "I learned the importance of breath. There was a thing I learned in my lessons from Estelle -- to breathe from your back. She would always say, there's room in the back -- that you expand three dimensionally. ... I use it all."

Los Angeles Times 02/07/12

email this story | Posted 02/08/12@07:17AM

Antoni Tapies, 88, Painter And Sculptor "[He] came to prominence in the late 1940s with richly symbolic paintings strongly influenced by Surrealist painters like Miró and Klee, a style he abandoned by the mid-1950s as he turned to what became his signature work: the heavily built-up surfaces that were often scratched, pitted and gouged and incised with letters, numbers and signs."

The New York Times 02/07/12

email this story | Posted 02/08/12@12:02AM

Werner Herzog Insults All Chickendom From the 40-second video, Werner Herzog on Chickens: "Try to look a chicken in the eye with great intensity, and the intensity of stupidity that is looking back at you is just amazing."

Slate 02/07/12 (includes slanderous video)

email this story | Posted 02/07/12@11:52PM

Dickens Gets A Google Doodle For His Burthday The search engine redecorates its logo for the 200th anniversary of Charles Dickens' birth.

The Telegraph (UK) 02/07/12

email this story | Posted 02/07/12@06:42AM

Iranian Actress Barred From Homeland For Posing Topless; Supporters Start Topless Facebook Protest "A fleshy rebellion is spreading hot and fast across the cybersphere, as a growing number of activists are stripping down in support of Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani, who was reportedly banned from her homeland after posing topless for French magazine Madame Le Figaro."

The Wrap 01/30/12

email this story | Posted 02/07/12@12:00AM

The Artist Who Got Paid With Facebook Stock "The graffiti artist who took Facebook stock instead of cash for painting the walls of the social network's first headquarters made a smart bet. The shares owned by the artist, David Choe, are expected to be worth upward of $200 million when Facebook stock trades publicly later this year."

The New York Times 02/02/12

email this story | Posted 02/06/12@11:54PM

The Famous Bosnian Film Director Who Turned Serbian Emir Kusturica, who won the Palme d'Or at Cannes twice, for When Father Was Away On Business and Underground, renounced his Muslim roots in 1995, at the end of the Bosnian War, and was baptized Serbian Orthodox. (He hasn't returned to Sarajevo since.) He now lives part-time in Paris and part-time in a recreated 17th-century Serbian town where he has founded an international film festival.

Los Angeles Times 02/05/12

email this story | Posted 02/06/12@11:52PM

How Charlotte Gainsbourg Feels About Her Work (It Ain't Pretty) "The first time I performed live, I did a terrible show in Paris. It was a nightmare and I thought I'd never do it again. No, even my agent told me how dreadful it was. ... I'm not a professional actress like Meryl Streep: she knows where she's going. I never know where I'm going! If I'm good in a scene, it's a miracle."

The Observer (UK) 02/05/12

email this story | Posted 02/06/12@11:49PM

Actor Ben Gazzara Dead At 81 "In a 60-year career that began on stage, the gravel-voiced Ben Gazzara appeared in more than 100 films and TV movies. He also starred in the 1960s series Run for Your Life, enjoyed a renaissance in the '90s and won an Emmy in 2002."

Los Angeles Times 02/04/12

email this story | Posted 02/05/12@12:43PM

The Intensely Interior Philip Glass (Either You Get It Or You Don't) "That time-consuming transfiguration is at the core of the Glass mythology, but drugs work differently on different metabolisms, angels appear only to the elect, and I lack the gift of spinning Glassian tedium into bliss. In fact, I start to get his music at precisely the point where his first acolytes fall away."

New York Magazine 01/29/12

email this story | Posted 02/03/12@08:41AM

Dorothea Tanning, 101, Last Of The Surrealist Painters Though her own fame was overshadowed by that of her husband, Max Ernst, she had a successful career in her own right, moving from dreamlike portrayals of the female form to, by the 1950s, more abstract "prism paintings." In her 80s, she found new acclaim as a writer.

The Guardian (UK) 02/02/12

email this story | Posted 02/03/12@12:01AM

Caravaggio, Violent Hothead And Marketing Genius "In the seething cesspool of Caravaggio's Rome, violence was a form of advertisement; it let people know you were, so to speak, the wrong guy to f#@k with. Caravaggio's notorious life was good publicity, too for the new, gritty style of painting he created vivid, theatrically lit, psychologically realistic slices of life."

The Big Think 02/03/12 (video)

email this story | Posted 02/02/12@11:57PM

Artist Mike Kelley, 57 "An influential Los Angeles artist whose physically messy and psychologically complex projects laid the groundwork for present-day installation art, has died. He was 57. He was found dead Tuesday evening at his home in South Pasadena in what several friends described as a suicide following a serious depression."

Los Angeles Times 02/02/12

email this story | Posted 02/02/12@08:25AM

Wislawa Szymborska, 88, Nobel Prize-Winning Poet "She was popular in Poland, which tends to make romantic heroes of poets, but she was little known abroad. Her poems were clear in topic and language, but her playfulness and tendency to invent words made her work hard to translate."

The New York Times 02/02/12

email this story | Posted 02/02/12@12:08AM

Patricia Neway, 92, Soprano Star Of Opera And Broadway Stages For 15 years a principal at New York City Opera, Neway was particularly known for her work in contemporary operas. Her two most famous triumphs, both on Broadway, were as Magda Sorel in Menotti's opera The Consul and as the Mother Superior in the original run of The Sound of Music.

The New York Times 02/01/12

email this story | Posted 02/01/12@11:59PM

Revealed: Steve Jobs Was Vinyl Music Fan Neil Young shocked the D:Dive Into Media conference in Dana Point, Calif., on Tuesday with the news that Steve Jobs didn't listen to digital music around the house. The iconic musician and sound-fidelity fanatic told interviewers that the late Podfather was a pioneer of digital music whose legacy was tremendous, "but when he went home, he listened to vinyl."

The Globe & Mail (Canada) 02/01/12

email this story | Posted 02/01/12@05:11AM

A Philip Glass 75th Birthday Party The composer stops by for ice cream cake and conversation with his old friends at WNYC radio, where he talks about being parodied on South Park and how he beat the dreaded ninth-symphony curse.

WNYC 01/31/12 (audio)

email this story | Posted 01/31/12@11:58PM

Philip Glass On The Occupy Movement "We've haven't seen this since the Vietnam War years - there was a whole generation playing video games when we should have been on the streets. ... I think that what they're doing is the right thing - it was right when it was the 70s, it was right in the 60s, it's always right."

The Huffington Post 01/31/12 (includes video slide show)

email this story | Posted 01/31/12@11:57PM