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Listen to 8 songs from the bewitching Françoise Hardy
NEW YORK, NY.- When she first broke through in the early 1960s, the bewitching French pop star Françoise Hardy, who died on Tuesday at 80, was initially lumped in with the yé-yés, the commercially minded rocking and twisting French singers of the era. She later came to see many of her early recordings, including her first hit, “Tous les Garçons et les Filles,” as sappy and lightweight. Hardy went on to forge her own path, becoming one of the rare singer-songwriters of her generation (and even rarer women in that category) — an immediately identifiable performer who unleashed emotion by, counterintuitively, refusing to over-emote. Her brand of cool has continued to beguile new listeners. A new generation of arty-minded Americans was introduced to her when the Wes Anderson film “Moonrise Kingdom” (2012) prominently featured her hit ... More

A prodigy of jazz clubs explores other stages
NEW YORK, NY.- Sitting outside a bar in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn one recent Sunday afternoon, Julius Rodriguez spoke with characteristic straightforwardness describing music that is anything but. The composer and bandleader, who has played with the rapper ASAP Rocky and style-bending artists like Kassa Overall and Meshell Ndegeocello, articulated the central challenge of his work, an amorphous blend of jazz, funk, gospel and R&B he simply calls “the music.” It’s not about the notes, he explained, it’s about the emotions behind them. “How do you describe the color orange to someone?” Rodriguez said, his tone warm yet flat. “How do you describe the taste of salt to someone who’s never tasted salt? You don’t know that you’re there until you’re there. You don’t know what it feels like until you feel it.” Rodriguez, 25, has been lauded ... More

IMMA presents first major retrospective of groundbreaking artist Hilary Heron in over 60 years
DUBLIN.- IMMA presents Hilary Heron: A Retrospective, an exhibition of some 60 works celebrating the pioneering work of modernist sculptor Hilary Heron (1923 – 1977). As the first major retrospective exhibition of Heron’s work since 1964, this exhibition seeks to correct the ways that her work has been overlooked in Irish and international histories of modern sculpture. Hilary Heron was a Dublin born sculptor who co-represented Ireland at the 1956 Venice Biennale alongside painter Louis le Brocquy (1916 – 2012). The exhibition brings together work from national and international collections, including carvings, welding and castings. Heron was a master welder, a practice highly unusual for an Irish artist, let alone a woman in the 1950s. Her work tactfully and skilfully broaches themes of gender, relationships, deep histories and religion through impressive, varied mediums including stone, lead, steel and wood. Commenting on the exh ... More

Charles Schulz, John Steinbeck & Johann Sebastian Bach among art, literature, and classical music up for auction
BOSTON, MASS.- RR Auction announces its special June sale, focusing on art, literature, and classical music. This extraordinary auction features a remarkable collection of autograph material from some of history's most celebrated figures. Charles Schulz - The original 'Peanuts' designs for Tarzana's 'Snoopy Bridge' are a significant highlight. This complete set of original pen-and-ink 'Peanuts' drawings was gifted by Schulz in 1971 to decorate the newly erected overhead footbridge at the intersection of Wilbur Avenue and Collins Street in Los Angeles's suburban Tarzana neighborhood of San Fernando Valley. These drawings are genuine slice of American life, showcasing characters who have been a vital ... More

What is ballet in the 21st century? It's all over the place.
NEW YORK, NY.- Ballet may be ballet no matter the century, but it also needs relevance in the moment. Modern life, either in its horror or euphoria, isn’t separate from the art form. How could it be? A ballet is not just a pretty thing on a stage. It needs to have a reason for being, a pulse. But just what ballet is right now has become confusing. Its branches seem to be growing at different speeds with different textures. Some are thick and sturdy, while others are wispy, frizzled at the ends. It sometimes seems as if live performances are just extensions of TikTok. What the ballet strives for — what companies and choreographers should always be striving for — is the opposite: a work of art that can live only on a stage. That is ballet at its most untouchable. These thoughts were on my mind throughout New York City Ballet’s 75th anniversary, a three-season celebration that r ... More

A new opera mashes up Monteverdi and W.E.B. Du Bois
NEW YORK, NY.- Morality takes a hike in Claudio Monteverdi’s final opera, “L’Incoronazione di Poppea.” Bold in its satire and explicit in its sensuality, even more than 350 years after its creation, the work gives its ruthless lovers, Nero and Poppea, everything they desire. A decadent exploration of Nero’s Rome, “Poppea” might seem to share little with “The Comet,” a W.E.B. Du Bois short story from 1920. Using tropes of sci-fi catastrophe, Du Bois, the famous Black sociologist, asks what it would take for a racially equitable civilization to emerge. But, like Monteverdi’s opera, it has an amoral, ice-cold finish: After the merest possibility of interracial love, the status quo of segregation returns. On Friday, both the opera and the story will be brought together, united by their common denominator of jaundiced cynicism, in “The Comet/Poppea,” ... More

National Art School unveils 'undo the day' curated by Gina Mobayed
SYDNEY.- The National Art School has today unveiled undo the day, a new exhibition curated by Gina Mobayed, showcasing work by 10 contemporary artists including Karen Black, Nathan Hawkes, Irene Hanenbergh, Ruth Hutchinson, Nabilah Nordin, Mel O’Callaghan, Tom Polo, Ronan Pirozzi, Jodie Whalen and Coen Young. Presented across two floors of the NAS Gallery until 3 August 2024, the exhibition explores the human response to move towards the light when in darkness, and finding hope in times of doubt and change. Curator Gina Mobayed says: “In darkness there is less definition and more uncertainty, there is an instinctual urge to move forward through both vision and feeling. We rely on light for orientation to mark the distance between what we desire, what we are looking for, and sometimes what we know. A flicker or a spark ... More

New chapter for AGSA Assistant Director, Artistic Programs Dr Lisa Slade
ADELAIDE.- Art Gallery of South Australia Assistant Director, Artistic Programs Dr Lisa Slade has been appointed to the role of the Hugh Ramsay Chair in Australian Art History at The University of Melbourne, one of the most prestigious appointments of its kind in Australia. The Hugh Ramsay Chair was created by a visionary endowment from Faculty of Arts alumna Patricia Fullerton, the grand-niece of the famous Australian artist Hugh Ramsay (1877-1906) and is now memorialized in this important role. The position is based in the Art History Program in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne and will play an important leadership role in linking the academic program to the wider arts community and fostering public engagement. Dr Slade joined the team at AGSA as Project Curator in 2011, this role saw her ... More

Tony nominees on the shows that shaped them
NEW YORK, NY.- The Tony Awards are on Sunday at Lincoln Center in Manhattan, and will be broadcast on CBS starting at 8 p.m. Eastern time. Each year we photograph nominated actors and talk to them about their craft. This time we asked the nominees to share early theater memories, and their answers are reminders of the joys, and importance, of those formative experiences. “Janet McTeer in ‘A Doll’s House’ — that was a very early, if not the first, Broadway show that my mother took me to see. I was in the first row of the mezzanine, and I’ll never forget the energy with which she came onstage. It was like watching a lightning bolt.” “It wasn’t until I saw ‘Pippin,’ when I was 13, that I decided that I was going to be a dancer on Broadway and do that guy’s choreography. I didn’t know I was talking about god [Bob ... More