Electric Apostasy: The Day Bob Dylan Died

For the 1950s’ generation, “the day the music died” was February 3, 1959—the day when the plane carrying Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and “The Big Bopper” crashed. For the 1960s generation, however, “the day the music died” was July 25, 1965—the day when Bob Dylan crashed the 1965 Newport Folk Festival stage with an electric guitar in front of him and rock band behind him to rip into a loud, raucous version of his new hit, “Like a Rolling Stone.” Bob Dylan the folk figure of the early ‘60s was dead. Bob Dylan the rock voice of the late ‘60s generation was born.  “For many people the story of Newport 1965 is simple,” author-musician Elijah Wald writes in Dylan Goes Electric: Newport, Seeger, Dylan, and the Night that Split the Sixties, “Bob Dylan was busy being born, and anyone who did not welcome the change was busy dying.” In Dylan Goes Electric, Wald tells an electrifying story of just how complex the true story of that moment was—a cultural crossroads now mired in mythology but even more fascinating and significant when told with clear eyes and an understanding of both sides of the divide Dylan stood across. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Electric Apostasy: The Day Bob Dylan Died."

Better Late Than Never: Yoko Ono at the MoMA

John Lennon liked to joke that Yoko Ono was “the world’s most famous unknown artist.” Before she infamously “broke up the Beatles” (but not really), Ono built an internationally recognized career as an artist in the developing fields of Conceptual art, experimental film, and performance art. Unfairly famous then and now for all the wrong reasons, Ono’s long fought in her own humorously sly way for recognition, beginning with her self-staged 1971 “show” Museum of Modern (F)art, a performance piece in which she dreamed of a one-woman exhibition of her work at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Now, more than 40 years later, the MoMA makes that dream come true with the exhibition Yoko Ono: One Woman Show, 1960–1971. Better late than never, this exhibition of the pre-Lennon and early-Lennon Ono establishes her not just as the world’s most famous unknown artist, but the most unfairly unknown one, too. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Better Late Than Never: Yoko Ono at the MoMA."

Southern Gothic Punk: Reading Nell Zink’s 'Mislaid'

If Flannery O’Connor somehow birthed the love child of Sid Vicious, she might end up sounding like novelist Nell Zink. Equal parts Southern Gothic’s grotesquely twisted charm and punk and alternative music’s insiderish anti-establishmentism, Zink’s second novel Mislaid will disorient you until you let it delight you.  Zink’s mix — which I’ll call Southern Gothic Punk — might be an acquired taste, but a taste well worth experiencing if only to break out of the contemporary rut of MFA-programed, soundalike fiction that’s become the bubblegum pop of today’s literature. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Southern Gothic Punk: Reading Nell Zink’s 'Mislaid'."

Like a Rolling Stone: Was 1965 the Most Revolutionary Year in Music?

What do “Yesterday,” “Satisfaction,” “My Generation,” “The Sound of Silence,” “California Girls,” and “Like a Rolling Stone” all have in common? They were all hits in 1965, the year author Andrew Grant Jackson calls “the most revolutionary year in music.” In 1965: The Most Revolutionary Year in Music, Jackson weaves a fascinating narrative of how popular music and social change influenced one another to create a year memorable not only for great music, but also for great progress in American culture. In this whirlwind tour of multiple genres of music as well as multiple pressing political issues, Jackson states a compelling case for 1965 as a key turning point in American music and society as well as provides a mirror for how music and society interact today, 50 years later. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Like a Rolling Stone: Was 1965 the Most Revolutionary Year in Music?"

Repairing the World: The Road to The Rothko Chapel

Of the many concepts of Judaism artist Mark Rothko took to heart, the idea of tikkun olam, Hebrew for “repairing the world,” penetrated the deepest. In Mark Rothko: Toward the Light in the Chapel, academic and a cultural historian Annie Cohen-Solal cuts to the heart of Rothko’s life and art and sheds new light on how both seemingly had to end at The Rothko Chapel (shown above), the Houston home of Rothko’s final works that he tragically didn’t live long enough to see himself. In this tightly focused new biography, Cohen-Solal shows us both how The Rothko Chapel culminates Rothko’s life-long mission to repair his world and how it continues to serve as a light of hope in our darkening world. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Repairing the World: The Road to The Rothko Chapel."

“Starf@#king”?: Björk at the MoMA

It’s hard to remember a major show at a major American museum generating so much angst as Björk at The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Some arts sites quickly began aggregating art critics’ aggravation over almost every detail of the show. What began as art criticism evolved into a media lynching of the MoMA, American museums, and pandering-to-the-public curators (in this case, Klaus Biesenbach). New York art world critics, and husband-and-wife team, Jerry Saltz and Roberta Smith hated the show in different ways, but both connected to their love of Björk and her music.  ArtNews’ M.H. Miller wins the poison pen prize, however, for coining the new critical term “starf@#king” to describe the MoMA’s treatment of Björk as much as its treatment of the viewing public. The question of whether Björk is good or not might really be a question of what Björk is really about. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "“Starf@#king”?: Björk at the MoMA."

JFK: The Opera?

Whereas European countries were once able to tap into their history for subjects for opera, America’s never succeeded in doing the same. That problem comes in part from the decline in opera as a popular, public art form, but also perhaps from the lack of operatically epic subjects to be found in American history. Now, composer David T. Little hopes to create a modern American opera with JFK, a 2-act, 2-hour opera focusing on the life of President John F. Kennedy, whose life and death became defining moments not only for the Baby Boom generation, but also, many would suggest, the hinge upon which all American history turns for the last half century. Set to premier in 2016, JFK as a work-in-progress already raises important questions about how opera (and art in general) can approach history. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "JFK: The Opera?"

Hearing (and Feeling) the Contemporary Art of Allora & Calzadilla

Imagine standing in a bare room in which a small, 4-billion-year-old rock hangs from the ceiling by a thin wire as three vocalists whistle and breathe on it to make it swing. For some people, such a scenario might be the nightmare version of contemporary art run amok, so far “out there” that it’s never coming back. However, standing there and watching the piece, titled Lifespan, part of the new exhibition Allora & Calzadilla: Intervals, I couldn’t help but find myself mentally urging the rock to move, as perhaps others in the crowd were, too. The art of collaborators Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla encourages this kind of chain-reaction collaboration by making you first hear the work and then feel it in your mind and body. For those who think contemporary art’s lost in space, Allora and Calzadilla bring it back to Earth. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Hearing (and Feeling) the Contemporary Art of Allora & Calzadilla."

Is Haruki Murakami the Thelonius Monk of Fiction?

From 1974 through 1981, Haruki Murakami ran a jazz club in Tokyo, Japan, and wondered what direction his life would run. After long soul searching, his life ran in the direction of becoming a novelist. He hasn’t stopped running since, producing 13 novels that not only have won international awards, but also have been translated into over 50 languages, thus making him the most well-known Japanese novelist in the world. His latest novel to be translated into English, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, adds to his oeuvre one more tale of dreamy, surreal, puzzling, yet oddly beautiful human existence. Despite his success, Murakami (shown above) still faces criticism for his writing style, which some see as overly simple and occasionally downright ugly—criticisms once aimed at the Murakami beloved bebop jazz, the style employed by the enigmatic, brilliant pianist Thelonious Monk. Is Haruki Murakami the Thelonius Monk of fiction? Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Is Haruki Murakami the Thelonius Monk of Fiction?"

Was the Romantic Beethoven Really a “Radical Evolutionary”?

Of all the standard myths and accepted truths of the life and music of Ludwig van Beethoven, the idea of the “Romantic” Beethoven—the embodiment of Germanic sturm und drang and 19^th century revolution—clings the most. In a massive new biography, Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph, Jan Swafford hopes to tear away that and many more myths to rediscover the real man and artist buried beneath. “Beethoven was not a Romantic, and he never called himself a revolutionary,” Swafford asserts. “He based much of what he did on tradition, models, and authorities, and he never intended to overthrow the past. He was an evolutionist more than a revolutionist. Call him a radical evolutionary, one with a unique voice.” Using his own unique voice as biographer of great composers, Swafford traces the life and art of Beethoven in eye-opening, rational detail and gives you a more human, more fascinating portrait of Beethoven the radical evolutionary than even the Beethoven the Romantic of legend. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Was the Romantic Beethoven Really a “Radical Evolutionary”?"

Paul McCartney’s Seventies Struggle to Escape the Beatles

During the 1960s, four of the most famous people on Earth were collectively known as The Beatles. Most people struggle to deal with the post-fame life, but how do you live as an ex-Beatle? In Man on the Run: Paul McCartney in the 1970s, Tom Doyle asks that very question of the life of the “cute Beatle,” Paul McCartney. For McCartney, the 1970s “was an edgy, liberating, sometimes frightening period of his life that has largely been forgotten,” Doyle writes in no small part because beneath the myth of the “Bambi-eyed soft-rock balladeer, [Paul] was actually a far more counterculturally  leaning individual (albeit one overshadowed by the light-sucking John Lennon) than he was ever given credit for.” Thanks to years of exclusive interviews with McCartney and people close to him during this era, Doyle paints a far more interesting portrait of the writer of “Silly Love Songs” as an eccentric, experimental, and even inspirational artist whose partnership with wife Linda McCartney (shown above together with Paul) showed him how to escape the shadow of the Beatles and find a new life and career. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Paul McCartney’s Seventies Struggle to Escape the Beatles."

Does Opera Have a Weight Problem (But Just for Women)?

“It ain’t over till the fat lady sings.” American sport fans have heard that Wagnerian opera allusion countless times when one team seems hopelessly behind but with plenty of time to come back. Unfortunately, the stereotype of overweight opera singers, specifically women opera singers, reared its ugly head once again in an incident involving 27-year-old, Irish mezzo-soprano Tara Eerraught (shown above) singing the part of Octavian in Richard Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier at this year's Glyndebourne Festival Opera in England. Early reviews from several major British newspapers all focused on Eerraught’s physical appearance and how they felt her weight detracted from the quality of the performance. Witnessing this young singer face age-old stereotypes about body image, the opera world took arms against the critics to bring the curtain down once and for all on opera and modern society’s female-specific weight problem. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Does Opera Have a Weight Problem (But Just for Women)?"

Andy Warhol, Digital Art Pioneer?

It all started with a video on YouTube. Sometime in 2011, artist Cory Arcangel watched a
video of Andy Warhol painting a digital portrait of singer Debbie Harry in 1985 on a Commodore Amiga 1000 as part of a promotional event for the computer’s release. What happened to that image and the others Warhol made on that computer nearly 30 years ago?, Arcangel wondered. When Arcangel traveled to Pittsburgh later that year for his upcoming exhibition at the Carnegie Museum of Art, he stopped off at the nearby Andy Warhol Museum and asked that very question of the curators. That YouTube video and Arcangel’s curiosity set off a chain of events that led to the recovery of those long-forgotten images from the depths of the digital archives and the tomb of obsolete technology. Compared to what artists such as Arcangel and others can do with modern computer technology today, Warhol’s images (such as his self-portrait, shown above) seem like quaint cave drawings. But there’s still something to be learned from looking at the first foray into a new medium for an already established artist such as Andy Warhol, who may now be seen perhaps as a digital art pioneer. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Andy Warhol, Digital Art Pioneer?"

Was Louis Armstrong the First Great American Modernist?

“Master of Modernism and Creator of His Own Song Style” read the posters for Jazz trumpeter and singer Louis Armstrong when he appeared in Memphis, Tennessee in late 1931 at the end of a decade of development that saw him take the raw talent spawned in his hometown of New Orleans and spread it across all of America, bringing not just jazz, but modernism itself to both black and white audiences. In Louis Armstrong, Master of Modernism, musicologist and Duke University professor Thomas Brothers traces the trajectory of Armstrong’s rise against the backdrop of the racial and cultural divisions of early 20^th century America. Brothers takes readers deep inside the art of Armstrong and dismisses both the myth of Louis’ naïve, unlearned talent and the criticism of Louis’ sellout to white tastes with the ease of the master hitting a high note. In Louis Armstrong, Master of Modernism, Louis Armstrong emerges not just as the founding father of jazz (and all American popular music that follows in its wake), but as the first true modernist of American art. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Was Louis Armstrong the First Great American Modernist?"

Richard Hamilton: The True King of Pop?

Michael Jackson proudly wore the crown as the “King of Pop” until his death in 2009. In the visual arts, at least for Americans, Andy Warhol’s ruled as the “King of Pop,” reigning as the prime example of Pop Art for the uninitiated as well as for connoisseurs. Most British (and more than a few American) art lovers, however, see Richard Hamilton as the true “King of Pop” and Warhol as just an upstart usurper to the throne. The Tate Modern’s new exhibition Richard Hamilton, which runs through May 26, 2014, provides not only a
survey of Hamilton’s greatest pop hits, but also a career-long survey that shows how he engaged with popular culture beyond just Warhol-esque celebrity and marketing gestures and got at the heart of what Pop Art should  and could be. Is Richard Hamilton the true “King of Pop”? Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Richard Hamilton: The True King of Pop?"

Why Rap Artists Still Hate Ronald Reagan

“I leave you with four words: I'm glad Reagan dead,” Mike “Killer Mike” Render rapped in his song “Reagan” off the 2012 album R.A.P. Music. His harsh, inflammatory statements drew attention from the press at the time that only increased when the video’s similarly hyperbolic imagery (one example shown above) drew fire from conservatives. In the January/February 2014 issue of Art Papers, Dr. Joycelyn A. Wilson interviews Render and gets at the heart not only of “Reagan,” but also at the rap world’s general distaste for the 40^th President of the United States, a man basically sainted by the right. Reagan’s presidency ended in 1989 and his life ended in 2004 after a long illness that kept him from the public eye, yet he remains a powerfully negative symbol for some decades later. Why do rap artists still hate Ronald Reagan? Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Why Rap Artists Still Hate Ronald Reagan."

How Charlie Parker Became "Bird!"

“How do you do that?” young Charlie Parker would ask older musicians. “Would you please do that again?” Those who know jazz, or who only know of jazz greats such as the man many have known simply as “Bird,” might have trouble imagining those questions coming from Parker. The standard mythology of Bird-ology holds that Charlie Parker discovered a whole new way of playing all by himself that changed the game of jazz instantly. Like a bolt from the blue, Parker struck like Kansas City lightning. Stanley Crouch’s Kansas City Lightning: The Rise and Times of Charlie Parker, the first of a proposed two-part biography of the saxophonist, brings the lightning and the thunder, but more importantly explains where the force of nature Parker became came from. Starting with the thriving Kansas City jazz scene of the first third of the 20^th century and concluding with Parker’s artistic arrival in New York City, Crouch paints a biographical portrait of the troubled artist against the larger musical, cultural, and historical landscapes of the times. In the end, you’ll find that Bird, the quintessentially original artist, grew from a set of long traditions that both kept him grounded and gave him the wings to fly. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "How Charlie Parker Became 'Bird!'"

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Making the “Divine” Bach Human Again

by Bob Duggan

November 2, 2013, 7:21 AM

“This is what I have to say about Bach’s life’s work,” Albert Einstein once remarked. “Listen, play, love, revere—and keep your trap shut.” But how can anyone listen to the “divine” music of Johann Sebastian Bach and not wonder about a man now synonymous with classical music and, in many ways, high-brow culture itself? In Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, not only one of the world’s leading conductors, but also a preeminent interpreter of Bach’s music, takes us inside the music—listening, playing, loving, and revering, as Einstein asks—to take us inside the man. Opposing the traditional view of Bach as almost God-like in his musical perfection, Gardiner unearths the imperfections of a very flawed artist who struggled with spiritual faith as well as secular authority. For anyone who’s ever felt intimidated by “BACH,” Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven will guide you into the world of Bach and allow you to experience the compelling humanity (foremost Bach’s own) embedded in every note. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Making the 'Divine' Bach Human Again."

Can Contemporary Art Become Too Popular?

Contemporary art, believe it or not, is hot. When comedian Stephen Colbert “begs” British graffiti artist Banksy not to make the walls of his studio’s building the next target in his Better Out Than In series (aka, “Banksy Takes Manhattan”) and instantly send property values skyrocketing, you know that contemporary art’s hit the mainstream. But is this popularity a good thing? In a preview of the London Frieze Art Fair, The Financial Times’ Peter Aspden weighs the pluses and minuses of contemporary art’s current status. Admittedly, the popularity of and financial investment in contemporary art beats the alternative, but, as Aspden points out, “it’s hard to deny that in its quest for instant accessibility, contemporary art has lost something of the sense of purpose that it enjoyed when it was genuinely pushing at the boundaries of moral and social consensus.” Aspen believes that the public more willingly swallows contemporary art because “it is so easily consumed and digested.” Should the contemporary art world be choking on its own success? Can contemporary art become too popular? Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Can Contemporary Art Become Too Popular?"

[Image: Banksy. This Is My New York Accent ... Normally I Write Like This, 2013. Part of the Better Out Than In series. Located at 508 West 25th Street, Westside, New York City, NY.]
[Follow me on Twitter (@BobDPictureThis) and Facebook (Art Blog By Bob).]

Is David Bowie the Picasso of Our Time?

 When David Bowie played Andy Warhol in the 1996 film Basquiat, he wore Warhol’s actual wig and glasses. Bowie met Warhol in his travels through the art world and even played the song he wrote about him to Warhol, which Andy, of course, didn’t like. In an interview leading up to the exhibition David Bowie is (at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Ontario, Canada, through November 27, 2013), artist Jeremy Deller compares Warhol’s influence on the 1960s to Bowie influence on the 1970s. “They both ruled the decade,” Deller claims. “They defined it and they changed it.” However, the artist that Bowie mirrors the most may be another of his favorites, Pablo Picasso. Like Picasso, the single constant in Bowie’s career has been being on the cutting edge of change. Over the years, Bowie’s been Ziggy Stardust, Tao Jones, Halloween Jack, Aladdin Sane, the Thin White Duke, and John Merrick, the “Elephant Man.” But Bowie’s always been Bowie through all those incarnations. David Bowie is shows you how he’s been all those things and more, but also what he “is” today—an influential force beyond any single art form, the Picasso of our time. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Is David Bowie the Picasso of Our Time?"