The emergence of the practitioner-blogger has the highest potential significance for arts journalism. Many, perhaps most, of the greatest critics in history — George Bernard Shaw, Virgil Thomson, Edwin Denby and Fairfield Porter come immediately to mind — were also practicing artists. But with the growing tendency of mainstream-media journalists to think of themselves as members of an academically credentialed profession, the practitioner-critic has lately become a comparative rarity in the American print media. Not so on the Web, which is one of the reasons why readers in search of stimulating commentary on the arts are going online to find it.
Category: Art
Racine’s Artist Colony
IF Racine, Wis., is not yet the Hamptons of the Midwest, it’s not for lack of effort.
This formerly gritty industrial city roughly 70 miles north of Chicago and 30 miles south of Milwaukee on the shores of Lake Michigan has been trying for much of the last decade to reinvent itself as an artist’s colony and tourist destination.
The efforts have included the opening of the $11 million Racine Art Museum on Main Street in 2003 and the creation of a gallery district centering on nearby Sixth Street, currently home to about a dozen galleries.
Racine Map. Madison based Gorman & Company, developer of the Mitchell Wagon Factory Lofts is mentioned in Sharoff’s article.
Racine is considering county-wide WiFi. Perhaps they’ll have it in place before we Madisonians do?
Metro Logos Around the World
Via Paolo: Metro Bits.
Eva Zeisel Makes Beautiful Things at 98
A few months ago, designer Eva Zeisel was contacted by Swarovski, the Austrian cut-crystal manufacturer. They asked her to submit ideas for designs and said they’d send her a contract so she could get started.
“I hope it arrives soon,” Zeisel, who is 98, told her daughter matter-of- factly. “I am unemployed!”
She exaggerates. The irrepressible Zeisel — one of the 20th century’s first industrial designers, and a leading force, still, in American design — is, at nearly 100, busier, more productive and more celebrated than ever.
$20M for UW Art Museum
Jerome & Simona Chazen gave $20M to the Elvehjem Museum of Art – now renamed the Chazen Museum of Art. The funds will be used for a major expansion. Aaron Nathans has more. Background: clusty search.
The Walker Reopens
The Walker is one of the country’s liveliest and most personable museums. It has been collecting shrewdly and imaginatively for the better part of a century. Of the several hundred works from its permanent holdings that make up its reopening suite of seven inaugural shows, many are being shown for the first time, and very few strike me as expendable. And now there is room for more.
Arts & Education: Milwaukee Ballet, Degas & Milwaukee Art Museum
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I chanced upon a rather extraordinary afternoon recently at the Milwaukee Art Museum. The Museum is currently featuring a Degas sculpture exhibition, including Little Dancer. Interestingly, several ballerinas from the Milwaukee Ballet were present. Children could sketch and participate. I took a few photos and added some music. The result is this movie. Enjoy! |
Calatrava’s Milwaukee Art Musuem: Nocturnal Illumination?
As Calatrava projects go, this one is unusually subdued at night. His buildings and bridges in Spain, many of which I saw on a Calatrava-related odyssey in 2001, are beautifully lighted, sometimes theatrically so. His City of Arts and Sciences in Valencia, for example, becomes a charismatic town square at night, with an eyeball-shaped planetarium that gives off a lantern-like glow and a museum whose white ribcage looks even more dramatic than in the daytime. Calatrava himself designed the dramatic lighting for his cabled Alamillo Bridge in Seville (1992), its leaning-harp profile a forerunner of our own (well-lighted) 6th St. Viaduct, designed by Kahler Slater Architects.
The Gates (Central Park) VR Scenes
Elizabeth Gentile has posted some lovely VR scenes from Central Park, site of Christo & Jean-Claude’s The Gates. Scene 1, 2, 3, 4. Well worth checking out.
Kate adds:
In Central Park, there is a great work of art, called The Gates. There are many gates that have beautiful flags hanging from them. They are made by Christo & Jean-Claude. The works of art will be on display for two weeks.
The Gates: Christo & Jeanne-Claude Opens in Central Park
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The Gates opened Saturday. More on Christo & Jeanne-Claude.