Merce Cunningham at Shiraz Art Festival, 1972. Photo courtesy Cunningham Dance Foundation archive.
Throughout our broadcast season, American Masters tells the stories of cultural giants whose work has had a profound effect on American society. The American Masters team is pleased to share a curated selection of the latest discourse in arts and culture: here are seven articles and essays we enjoyed in September.
Let us know what you’re reading (below) or shoot us an email at AMMasters@thirteen.org!
Presence at the Creation: Catherine Damman on Judson Dance Theater Catherine Damman
Artforum International, September 2018
In honor of the current MoMA retrospective of Judson Dance Theater, author Catherine Damman guides the reader methodically through the history of Judson Dance Theater’s radical oeuvre and the birth of post-modern dance. Damman’s essay is centered on three questions: what does Judson Dance Theater signify in the contemporary cultural landscape? What do we — as viewers — want from Judson Dance Theater? And what do we — as the contemporary art world — owe Judson Dance Theater? For more on Judson Dance Theater, check out American Masters — Merce Cunningham: A Lifetime of Dance.
The Death of a Movie Theatre Thomas Beller
The New Yorker, September 6th 2018
Thomas Beller recounts his personal history with an independent art movie theatre on Manhattan’s Upper West Side that closed this past year. His essay raises the question: what is the future of independent film in the digital age?
The Prevalence of Ritual: On Romare Bearden’s Projections Mary Schmidt Campbell
The Paris Review, September 6th 2018
Despite spending the majority of his career working in abstraction, Romare Bearden (1911 – 1988) is most well-known for his later work: narrative collage murals depicting quotidian Black-American life. To his contemporaries, it seemed as if Bearden switched medium and theme almost overnight. In “The Prevalence of Ritual,” Mary Schmidt Campbell argues that the confluence of Bearden’s memories of childhood with the Civil Rights Movement catalyzed Bearden’s shift from apolitical abstract expressionism to racially-charged figure collage.
What We Know About Art and the Mind Paul Bloom
The New Yorker, September 6th 2018
Paul Bloom pulls from psychological studies, philosophy, and art criticism to examine how viewers engage with abstract and non-aesthetic art. Bloom concludes the article by stating that studying the relationship between the art and the mind in this way is a novel discipline but this article is an engaging read on the work that has been done so far.
The Consolation of Genre: On Reading Romance Novels Cailey Hall
LA Review of Books, Summer 2018
As a literary genre, romance is generally condemned as frivolous. In “The Consolation of Genre,” Cailey Hall argues that the belittling of romance is largely because romance novels are written by women for women. Hall explores the long history of romance literature — from ancient Greece to the present — and argues for more inclusion of romance novels in the western literary cannon.
Plunder My Songbook, Bob Dylan Said. So He Did. Rob Weinert-Kendt
New York Times, September 11th 2018
Opening at the Public Theater this October after a successful run on the West End, “Girl From the North Country” is a new play with music written by Connor McPherson about 1930s Minnesota that interweaves 20 Bob Dylan songs with the plot. The Times interviewed McPherson and a few of his collaborators about how they chose the songs included in the play and how the songs were utilized without being too on-the-nose. For more on Bob Dylan, check out American Masters — Bob Dylan: No Direction Home.
What Happens When a Single Art Project Becomes a Decades-Long Obsession? Nancy Haas
T Magazine, September 18th 2018
Nancy Haas remarks that the cliché “writer’s block” can be used to describe when a writer spends years to finish writing a book but that there is no equivalent phrase for visual artists. In “What Happens When a Single Art Project Becomes a Decades-Long Obsession?,” Haas explores the tension between the ever-evolving nature of visual art (there’s no clear way to know if a piece of art is complete) with the creative endurance — and occasional narcissism— that can drive an artist to work on a singular piece for decades.