Metropolitan Museum of Art

Heartbeat Opera is a New York based company committed to making opera for the Now. Years before George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis, they adapted Fidelio, Beethoven’s sole opera, to prison life today. 

It comes as no surprise that the oldest piano in the world, created in 1720 by Bartolomeo Cristofori (1655–1731) of Padua, is now housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. An earlier instrument was recorded in the inventory of the Medici family in 1700, but the Met’s piano is the oldest to survive today.  It has hammers and dampers, two keyboards, and a range of four octaves, C–c”’ The instrument was on view for concertgoers, who enjoyed a talk by Leon Botstein om the development of the instrument. He focused on Beethoven's response to more notes with a wider dynamic range, The Orchestra Now performed the Emperor Concerto, Shai Wosner at the modern Steinway and Leon Botstein conducting.

The Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden has successfully completed the public consultation process for the revitalization of its Sculpture Garden. The Hirshhorn is the only Smithsonian museum directly integrated into the National Mall. The revitalization project will connect the 1.5-acre garden on the National Mall with the 4-acre plaza surrounding the museum, which welcomes 1 million visitors annually.

Remarkably, Museum of Fine Arts Boston , 1870 to 2020, by Charles Giuliano is only the second comprehensive history of the MFA. Much has transpired since the centennial publication some fifty years ago. Over those decades the author interviewed directors, curators, trustees and administrators. The museum's great collections as well as issues of elitist exclusion, racism and anti Semitism are conveyed in their own words. The Me Too and Black Lives Matter movements have impacted all of America's cultural institutions. Giuliano will discuss the book at the Williams Faculty Club on Friday, November 19 at 7 PM.

Our panel discussion will consider ways in which the practice of Indigenous curation enacts sovereignty. We will address the various challenges of doing Indigenous curation within and, at times, against art institutions. Our discussion will take into account the difficulties of collaborating across various differences—cultural, disciplinary, educational, etc.—that are specific to exhibiting Indigenous arts.

Arvo Pärt has celebrated birthdays at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His music is often performed at the Temple of Dendur where one wall dances with reflections from a pool of water, reflections that seem to move with the beat of the music. They soothe and elevate, a mood captured by the Nile River in the temple’s original Egyptian location.

Italian American Artists Grapple with Christopher Columbus's Legacy at MAD Museum. The Museum of Arts and Design will host 4 NYC artists of Italian heritage for a discussion about the colonial legacy of Christopher Columbus and his importance to the Italian American community. 

The National Academy of Design is pleased to announce the launch of the virtual Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné on July 29, in recognition of the anniversary of the artist’s birthday. In this first phase, the catalogue raisonné is focused on American artist Eastman Johnson’s paintings. Subsequent phases will include the artist’s drawings and prints.

The Al Hirschfeld Foundation's latest online exhibition focuses on canines. The show features drawings of some of the most famous dogs in 20th century media. The drawings of Al Hirschfeld stand as one of the most innovative efforts in establishing the visual language of modern art through caricature in the 20th century.

American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) at Harvard University announces today the ensemble of magicians to perform in the return engagement of The Conjurors’ Club created by Vinny DePonto and Geoff Kanick. Back by popular demand, the live interactive multi-magician experience runs online April 28 - May 16, 2021.  

American art scholar Patricia Hills has researched and published the work of genre painter Eastman Johnson (1824-1906). She is seeking funds to launch a Catalogue Raisonné website working with the National Academy of Design.

Artist Carrie Mae Weems will join students from Williams College, Bennington College, and Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts for an online public conversation at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, April 1. Some 500 individuals may register for the Zoom lecture which will later be available on YouTube.

The work of Benny Andrews (November 13, 1930 – November 10, 2006) is complex, compelling and problematic. The son of Georgia sharecroppers he matured to be a true polymath in the art world. Today he is regarded as a leader in the development of African American art. He was also a part of the movements of figurative expressionism and the Rhino Horn group. This is the third exhibition and an extensive catalogue from Michael Rosenfeld Gallery which represents the estate.

The exhibition comprises a mix of both studio paintings as well as self portraits dating to the 80s and 90s.  The studio paintings reflect Schwartz’s long history of using her space as her subject matter.

Artist, geographer and author Trevor Paglen will present a talk titled “Machine Visions” as this year’s Plonsker Family Lecture Series in Contemporary Art at the Williams College Museum of Art. The free talk will be held at 6 p.m. ET Friday, Nov. 6, online via Zoom.

Before covid and shut-downs, millions of viewers each year passed through the galleries at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art looking at Daniel Kershaw's stagings. He is a design star you’ve never heard of. As Senior Exhibition Designer at the largest museum in the United States, Kershaw’s job is to plan and build environments for up to a dozen shows annually.

When the British born Malcolm Rogers took over the Museum of Fine Arts in 1994 it had a $4.5 million annual deficit and was generally moribund. It was better than he found it when he departed in 2015. He left a bricks and mortar legacy of The American Wing designed by Lord Norman Foster. Under a mantra of One Museum, however, he dismantled the traditional departments, fired renowned curators, or forced them to leave. He created a structure of mega departments staffed by cooperative curators. The current director, Matthew Teitelbaum, inherited a debt of $140 million and is tasked with mending curatorial fences.

The Al Hirschfeld Foundation is proud to announce the first in a series of online exhibitions exploring the work of one of the most iconic artists of the last century. On May 11, the Foundation will open a special exhibition for these times: "SOCIALLY DISTANT THEATER: The Solo Show As Seen By Hirschfeld", a collection of 25 drawings, paintings, collages, and prints documenting a half century of one person shows. This special digital exhibit will be online for six weeks through June 20.

I look to a painting on my wall by the 17th century Dutch painter, Pieter de Hooch. It is a domestic scene of a mother calmly peeling turnips in a corner while a child enters the threshold carrying a flask and a plate, smiling down at a little dog looking up in anticipation. I am relieved.

Leon Botstein, the polymath conductor, has taken on a delightful series, Sight & Sound, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. With The Now Orchestra (TON) he offers a musical program which is related to a current exhibit at the Museum.

Representative works from the Rubell Family collection are on view at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. This is the 10th anniversary presentation of 30 Americans which has travelled the country, but have been seen only once before in the eastern United States. The Barnes presentation is striking. The art even more so.

Separately at Jewish Settlement houses Jack Levine and Hyman Bloom studied drawing with Harold Zimmerman. In 1929, when Levine was 14, they were instructed at the Fogg Art Museum by Harvard professor, Denman Ross. By the late 1930s, with Karl Zerbe, they gained national attention as Boston Expressionists. After a lapse of decades, through February, Bloom is featured in "Hyman Bloom Matters of Life and Death." The MFA has never given Levine the time of day. In 1986, while making a film with David and Nancy Sutherland, I interviewed Levine.

On Site Opera revived what one hopes will become an annual production of Gian Carlo Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors. In choosing settings for familiar and unfamiliar operas, On Site adds an intriguing dimension to the form. With Amahl, the location in the Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen returns the opera to its original meaning.

The Museum of Fine Arts last featured Boston Expressionist Hyman Bloom in a 1959 group show. The current exhibition Hyman Bloom Matters of Life and Death, curated by Erica E. Hirshler, attempts to make up for that lapse. The focus on cadaver paintings and drawings is bold and spectacular. The work is ghastly with haunting beauty. On a national level it is among the year's best museum exhibitions.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has mounted its first sound-based installation. British artist Oliver Beer selected 32 vessels from the Museum's vast collection. They form a 32 note chromatic scale which can performed on an electronic keyboard. The exhibit was a feast for eyes and ears.