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arts-criticism

Arts Commentary: “The New York Times” — Shouldn’t It Know the Purpose of Arts Criticism?

Based on Public Editor Arthur S. Brisbane’s recent New York Times column on arts criticism, he and others at the newspaper haven’t much of a clue regarding what a serious arts review is supposed to be.

By: Bill Marx Filed Under: Arts and Sciences, Commentary, Featured Tagged: Arthur S. Brisbane, arts writing, arts-criticism, criticism, culture editor, Jonathan Landman, Persona Non Grata, The New York Times

Book Review/Commentary: Why Lionel Trilling — and Serious Criticism — Matters

The essential task of the critic is not to like or dislike the arts or to push bromides, such as to celebrate the “power of reading.” Despite some troublesome modifications, Lionel Trilling carries on the mission of E.A. Poe and Henry James: he articulates the value of the serious act of judgment in a culture hostile to it.

By: Bill Marx Filed Under: Books, Featured Tagged: Adam Kirsch, American criticism, arts-criticism, criticism, Lionel Trilling, Literary criticism, Why Trilling Matters

Book Commentary: The Agony and the Ecstasy of Jonathan Lethem’s Influences

For all of his claims to being a subversive termite, Jonathan Lethem the puffy white elephant appears more often in this collection, trudging down a much safer, much happier road — leave the negativity to the snotty aristocrats.

By: Bill Marx Filed Under: Books, Featured Tagged: arts-criticism, James Wood, Jonathan Lethem, The Ecstasy of Influence

Fuse Commentary: The End (?) of Ignoring the Death of Arts Criticism

Essentially, Kaiser’s plaint about the vanishing critic is useless because he, and so many other cultural kingpins worried about the end of professional criticism, offer no solutions.

By: Bill Marx Filed Under: Books, Featured Tagged: arts, arts-criticism

Book Review: An Invaluable Testament to When Movies and Criticism Mattered

What drives serious writing about film? “When Movies Mattered” suggests an answer: it helps for a critic to take a side, not as consumer advocate, hipster crank, or box office predictor, but as a passionate advocate for standards, often taking on the role of separating overpraised films from the unfairly neglected.

By: Bill Marx Filed Under: Books, Featured, Film Tagged: arts-criticism, Dave Kehr, When Movies Mattered

Visual Arts Review: The Last Gesture Succeeds, Despite Cognitive Slurry

The ostensible theme of the exhibit “The Last Gesture” might be best regarded, then disregarded, as critic Charlie Finch’s attempt to channel his roiling cognitive slurry. The work itself doesn’t need it.

By: Franklin Einspruch Filed Under: Visual Arts Tagged: arts-criticism, Charlie Finch, David Hall, David Hall Fine Art, Emily Weiskopf, George Negroponte, Ilse Murdock, James Angel, Matt Magee, Melinda Hackett, Ralph Coburn, Robert Natkin, The Last Gesture, Virva Hinnemo

Welcome to the Newly Upholstered Arts Fuse!

The Arts Fuse began as my blog after the untimely end of NPR/WBUR Arts Online. But, as more writers and critics wanted to make their voices heard, the blog became a magazine. So, I decided to make it a New England focused magazine modeled on other pioneering efforts to cover the news online, such as […]

By: Bill Marx Filed Under: Coming Attractions, Featured, Judicial Review, Webmaster News Tagged: Arts Fuse, arts-criticism

The Judicial Review — What Is It?

There is now an eighth Judicial Review, with the panel deliberating on the Boston University College of Fine Arts production of the 1990 Stephen Sondheim/John Weidman musical “Assassins,” which looks at the lives and sensibilities of men and women who attempted (successfully or otherwise) to kill the President of the United States. Below: background on […]

By: Bill Marx Filed Under: Featured, Judicial Review Tagged: arts-criticism, critics, Culture, humanities, Mass Humanities

Great News For the ‘Fuse — Support for the Judicial Review

I am not sure that men at present think more profoundly than half a century ago, but beyond question they think with more rapidity, with more skill, with more tact, with more method and less of excrescence in the thought. Besides all this, they have a vast increase in the thinking material; they have more […]

By: Bill Marx Filed Under: Featured, Judicial Review, Webmaster News Tagged: arts-criticism, critics, Culture, humanities, Mass Humanities

Arts Commentary: “The Boston Globe” Has Nothing to Worry About …

Who cares how the chairs are arranged or even who sits on them on the deck of the Titanic-“Globe”? As the popularity of online publications and blogs grows, the “Globe”’s tepid cultural coverage has become increasingly superfluous.

By: Bill Marx Filed Under: Commentary, Featured Tagged: arts coverage, arts-criticism, boston-globe

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