Sick of opinion polls and market research questionnaires? Well so were the artists Komar and Melamid, and a few years back they turned their annoyance into a humorous art project. They queried hundreds of people in different countries to discover what the best painting would look like, compiled the data, and then created paintings based on the information they collected. … [Read more...]
Archives for September 2008
Image capture
Tracy Winn (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow '08) passed along this image, the newly finalized cover design for her upcoming story collection, Mrs. Somebody Somebody. The book is due out from Southern Methodist University Press in Spring '09. (Read about what else our fellows/finalists are up to in the current Fellows Notes.) It's an intriguing image that points up the … [Read more...]
Laughing All the Way to the Bank
While Wall St. takes a nose dive, the pockets of British artist Damian Hirst have just been filled with newly minted greenbacks thanks to record shattering sales of his work at Sothebys. He has been sued on copyright infringement. Some see his work of animals submerged in vitrines of formaldehyde with revulsion, sadness and evidence of a lack of creativity. To others, Hirst … [Read more...]
Connection points: a roundup
Some potentially good news for playwrights: Huntington Theatre Co's new Artistic Director Peter DuBois said in a recent Boston Globe article that he's interested in upping their commitment to new play development and possibly collaborating with smaller theater companies. DuBois cited as an example of the Boston scene's inter-connectedness Company One's upcoming production of … [Read more...]
Dana Gioia to leave NEA
This morning, news broke that Dana Gioia will step down as chairperson of the National Endowment for the Arts this coming January. Why? Like many of us in arts administration, he's an artist himself (a poet), and he says he wants to get back to his writing. He's taking a half-time position at the Aspen Institute. At About Last Night, Terry Teachout salutes the outgoing … [Read more...]