For the foreseeable, capitalist American future, full and equitable access to live, professional performing arts will depend on subsidy.
Commentary
Film Commentary: Three Amazing Movies Turn 50
A terrifically significant, and eccentric, trio of films are turning 50 this year: Marjoe, Pink Flamingos, and Silent Running.
Theater Commentary: Burnt Norton
What will guarantee obsolescence? If members of the BTCA continue to embrace a “whatever is, is right” attitude to Boston’s stage scene.
Music Commentary: The Gershwin Prize and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame — Selling Out Quality for Profit
Both the Gershwin Prize and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame exist to glorify popular song. Both, in fairly short order, relaxed their initial high artistic standards.
Book Review: “The Poetics of Cruising” — Imaginative Acts of Capture
By exploring the historical and artistic significance of cruising throughout poetry, photography, and visual culture, the book produces a rich and exciting topography of queer culture that posits a reflexive relationship of vicarious cruising between “cruising texts” and their consumers.
Visual Arts Review: BarabásiLab — Where Art and Technology Meet, Beautifully
This BarabásiLab exhibition is inspiring because it exemplifies a powerful integration of art and technology.
Film Commentary: “Everything Everywhere All at Once” — The Most Serene Movie in Years
This movie reminds us that — if there is any meaning to life at all — it’s what you bring to it, not what it brings to you.
Arts Remembrance: Homage to Gilbert Gottfried — One of America’s Most Original Stand-ups
Comedian Gilbert Gottfried’s passing has hit me harder than most deaths of my celebrity faves: it’s a deprivation I can feel in my stomach.
Film Feature: Favorite Fiction Features Directed by Women — An International Poll
The result of critics polled for their Ten Favorite Fiction Features Directed by Women — with the choices of Arts Fuse reviewers.
Music Commentary: Jazz, Ed Sullivan, and Television
These performances on The Ed Sullivan Show occurred almost exclusively between 1957 and 1964 and that’s not happenstance. They coincide with the only slice of time when different styles of jazz ever got a significant airing on television.