october '04

the end of your experiment

joe melillo, the artistic director of bam was the guest speaker in my cultural affairs reporting class tonight. it's interesting hearing from people that are sort of top administrators of their fields, i.e., david a. ross, the former director of the whitney, now melillo. ross had a lot to say about the political workings of museums, whereas melillo was really about the ideas behind his institution and jet-setting around the world to see diamond-in-the-rough artists. i guess it makes sense: ross fled the whitney and was forced out of sfmoma, whereas melillo has been at the same place for 22 years.

paraphrased notes from melillo:

the citadel of perceived culture is manhattan

bam brings very specific cultural eents. it's a curated season of individual choices: dance, theater, opera, music.

i have gestapo files on art and culture in the world.

i have a greedy appetite for art.

industrial-strength travel

i try to understand what a younger artist is trying to do. bam is where you bring the end of your experiment ... smaller places are a breeding ground ... recognize that an aesthetic is being developed, and i want to monitor it.

once you put it up there, someone's gonna respond to it

specific cultures are supporting different kinds of art making ... the world is aggressively moving forward ... and it's affecting your generation and younger art makers.

i'm a very informal person who just takes his work very seriously.

posted October 12, 2004 in art, delivery, performance, print


last night i dreamt

that i was interviewing for my first newspaper job, but my interviewer was archie "snake" simpson, who teaches media immersion on degrassi: the next generation.

his question was: should online accounts and password security be protected by law, i.e., you're prohibited from sharing them. i actually had a good answer in the dream.

posted October 12, 2004 in delivery


but as good as tonight's class was,

i'm crushed that i missed hearing wonkette ridicule the rest of the j-school.

posted October 12, 2004 in delivery, politics