Monday, June 13, 2011

!Women Art Revolution (plus Bonus Entirely Unrelated Update) (by res ipsa)

Two quick art-related notes.

First: today I saw a listing for a new documentary called !Women Art Revolution, which I will try to see pronto. It looks interesting and challenging. Here's a review.

Second: am I reading this right? Bono and The Edge underestimated the amount of work it would take to put on "Spiderman", but Julie Taymor got fired?

The NYT has been breathlessly covering the "Spiderman" implosion (an implosion they all but cheered on) for months now, and I'm waiting for them to use the phrase "that woman" to refer to Taymor. I don't know why the NYT and the Broadway community want to crap all over Julie Taymor. She pretty much turned Broadway on its head back in 1997, bringing a great deal of pleasure to a lot of theatergoers, earning a boat-load of money for a lot of people and corporations, and raising the standard for a good show in the process. Julie Taymor is an artist. While some of her work is highly accessible, not all of it is, and it's hard to believe that the producers and Taymor's collaborators didn't know what they were getting into when they hired her. And when the going got tough and the guys maneuvered to have Taymor fired. What gives?

The article says that Julie Taymor will discuss "Spiderman" at a conference later this week. I look forward to hearing her side of the story. Meanwhile, maybe I'll watch Frida and Across the Universe again.

Update: On an entirely unrelated note, commenter maggie pointed me to a Gothamist story that follows up on my Cycling While Female post below. I will repeat what I said in the post: the NYPD should investigate (which they can easily do) and make the results public.