In the Culture of One World Randy Gener

A Global Media Project | Arts Economy, Cultural Diplomacy and Critical Thinking

VIDEO | Monsieur Space on building theatre today

JEAN-GUY LECAT ON BUILDING THEATRE TODAY: “The difference between a true space and one that is not lies in the criteria that favours or disfavours life. That which favours this concentration is thus legitimate while that which shies away from it is not.

January 5, 2023 · Leave a comment

CONVERSATION | Jean-Guy Lecat talks about creating a Theatre for a New Audience in Brooklyn on Jan. 5th

Over the next year, TFANA will host a series of free public discussions, which will focus on each team member’s exploration of how theatrical design can support art. I am honored to kick off TFANA’s Humanities series “Part One: A Conversation with Jean-Guy Lecat,” an exploration on space, architecture and performance design. Our conversation talk is set for Sunday, January 5, 2023 at 5:30pm at the Theatre for a New Audience at Polonsky Shakespeare Center, 262 Ashland Place, Brooklyn.

January 1, 2023

CULTURE KLATCH | Indonesian government focuses on the nexus of culture and sustainable development in Bali forum

Everyone knows that by investing in the arts and incorporating arts and culture into their economic development plans, counties can reap numerous benefits — economic, social, civic, and cultural—that help generate a more stable, creative workforce; new tourism; and more livable communities. But as long as cultural sustainability is framed in terms of promotion, national image, tourism and economic advantage alone, there will never be a true paradigm shift.

November 20, 2022 · Leave a comment

DEADLINES | 2-minute videos sought for Arab Fund’s “Why Culture?” competition

AFAC is now tossing the question into the field of pictures in motion, videos and animation. AFAC has opened the call for the “Why Culture? Video Competition,” and the challenge is: Can you create a 2 minute video that delivers a concept on why culture matters? The competition is open to everyone.

November 16, 2022 · Leave a comment

BUT IS IT PERFORMANCE DESIGN? | A ghost train from Bulgaria, composed of sound and lights, speeds through Berlin’s city center

HR-Stamenov’s The Phenomenon of W24°58’59,43″ N42°07’55,29″ is very much a site-specific, media, sound and light installation. This time, he toys with the image of a ghost metro train which has traveled throughout Europe and suddenly appears in Berlin. It ignores physics, gaps between buildings, space and time.

November 11, 2022 · Leave a comment

BUT IS IT PERFORMANCE DESIGN? | Tino Sehgal’s “This situation” dreamily implicates the art experience, and quite likely elite academia itself

“The situation” is purely experiential, engaging viewers immediately in real time and space to implore a questioning of the art experience, and experience itself. If “This situation” is not a work of performance design, I don’t know what is. It is not surprising to learn that Sehgal is a trained choreographer; he composes what is then physically interpreted by non-actors, actors and dancers, and in the case of “This Situation,” intellectuals.

November 10, 2022 · Leave a comment

CULTURE KLATCH | Trans Europe Halles grapples with art for social change in Europe and the Arab world

Twenty-five artists and cultural operators from Egypt, Jordan, Iran, Palestine, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia and Turkey will be guests at Trans Europe Halles Meeting 76. They will offer inspiration and examples of how they work in independent culture under harsh conditions and to share their stories of how culture actions can lead to social change and a more open society.

November 8, 2022 · Leave a comment

FESTIVAL WATCH | Performance actions teem in Bulgaria’s festival for independent theater

Of particular interest would the November 9, Open Space Forum, which organizers say “will explore several key factors in the development of contemporary culture that we consider important. They are: the development of international partnerships, the establishment of independent art spaces, as well as the development of new audiences and international mobility of artists and creative products.”

November 7, 2022 · Leave a comment

IN EXHIBITION | “Fluxus as architecture” argues for the structural coherence of George Maciunas’s universal language

It’s a prefab vision, but the exhibition seems to be arguing for a Fluxcity vision. that allows a single module to form into clusters, communities and hives. The concept leans on Maciunas’s prefab design for Fluxhouse, which was completed in 1965. An architect, George Maciunas, educated in architecture at Cooper Union and Carnegie Institute of Technology, held several prestigious professional positions in firms including Skidmore, Owing and Merrill, Olin Mathieson Chemical Corporation and Knoll Associates. For sure, Fluxcity is not a fancy idea.

November 6, 2022 · Leave a comment

IN EXHIBITION | Photographic landscapes of sexual intimacy raise “Wonderlust’s” temperature

In “Wonderlust,” Canadian artist Sarah Anne Johnson’s work pushes the boundaries of photography by incorporating burning, scratching, gouging and glitter into her practice. These effects, she believes, “make visible the elation, beauty and self-consciousness of sex.” She photographed her subjects in their homes and then worked with the resulting prints in her studio

October 27, 2022 · Leave a comment

DISSENT VS. DIPLOMACY | Did the US exact revenge against Bulgarian-German writer Ilija Trojanov for his critique of America’s NSA surveillance powers?

Ilija Trojanov, a Bulgarian-German author, was on his way to a Denver conference of the German Studies Association, and had been issued an invitation to appear at the Goethe-Institut’s “New Literature From Europe” Festival in November. “Barring Mr. Trojanov, an outspoken critic of America’s controversial surveillance powers, from attending an academic conference in the United States will hardly calm the anxiety our colleagues around the world are feeling about America’s electronic spying,” said Suzanne Nossel, executive director of PEN American Center.

October 26, 2022 · Leave a comment

IN EXHIBITION | Last chance to see the secret history of postwar painter Alfonso Ossorio at Michael Rosenfeld Gallery

Alfonso Ossorio is a central figure of postwar American art, but he has been virtually absent from standard art history texts. Some people have claimed that Ossorio was just imitating Jackson Pollock. This exhibition shows that Ossorio had his own unique “wax-resist” painting technique that really no one else had used. He forged his own wild assemblages that he called “congregations.” It’s time to re-draft the history of postwar American art.

October 25, 2022 · Leave a comment

THEATER COMMENTARY | Viewing Jane Bowles and her “In the Summer House” through the prism of Tennessee Williams

You’ve likely not heard of Jane Bowles, but she wrote a cock-eyed, mesmerizing play that was one of the signal achievements of postwar American drama. It’s right up there with the classic works of Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Gertrude Stein, late Eugene O’Neill, Lillian Hellman, and Sam Shepard. This post is about Jane Bowles’s unjustly neglected play: “In the Summer House.”

October 16, 2022 · 1 Comment

CONFERENCE ON BREAKING BOUNDARIES | Looking back at the early marriage of Theater, Architecture and the Visual Arts

This conference, “Ephemeral and Permanent,” focuses on the interrelations of the visual arts and the dramatic arts in Rome broadly between 1300 and 1700. In this context, scenography and pageantry apparatus were as much the domain of visual artists as painting, sculpture, and architecture.

October 7, 2023 · 1 Comment

ART & POLITICS | Hope lingers in Sarajevo’s Festival MESS, one of the Balkan region’s most important festivals

Dino Mustafic, director of Festival MESS, describes this year’s Festival as conquest for happiness and hope. Mustafic, one of the most important theater directors in the region, adds that the theater in the Balkans is “struggling to survive.” Over the last five years, Festival MESS’s budget was slashed by 73 percent.

October 2, 2023 · Leave a comment

CRIT SNIT | Curators are the new enemy of the art world

The British art critic Waldemar Januszczak rails against curators in today’s Letters Page of the Guardian

September 24, 2023 · Leave a comment

IN EXHIBITION | Tyler Rollins Fine Art hosts Philippine artist Patricia Perez Eustaquio

The works in The Future That Was exhibitions in New York and Manila are reflections upon the structures and ideas that produce, frame and promote art and design. Philippine artist Patricia Perez Eustaquio weaves an open-ended narrative that examines notions of innovation and novelty, timeliness and timelessness, particularly as they relate to the language of design and fashion. She is interested in how material, fabrication, and intention combine to form an object that then takes on a life of its own.

September 11, 2023 · Leave a comment

IN EXHIBITION | Women as biomorphic abstractions in Ashley Bickerton’s fourth Neo-Geo solo show

Ashley Bickerton (b. 1959, Barbados, West Indies) graduated from the California Institute of the Arts in 1982 and continued his education in the Independent Studies Program (ISP) at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. A seminal figure in the East Village scene of the 1980s, Bickerton has been associated with the “Neo-Geo” approach to art making.

September 5, 2023 · Leave a comment

DEADLINES | Applications sought for National Dance Project Touring Awards

BOSTON | An initiative of the New England Foundation for the Arts, the National Dance Project Touring Awards program provides grants of up to $40,000 to dance companies to support … Continue reading

July 10, 2023 · Leave a comment

RECOMMENDATION | See film screening of American version of German “Trust” at Goethe Institut-Washington

WASHINGTON, D.C. |  Tonight, July 8, a young D.C. troupe will screen a film that documents that making of its new dance/theatre project Trust by the German writer/director Falk Richter. The … Continue reading

July 8, 2023 · Leave a comment

“From the Edge: Performance Design in the Divided States of America” at LaMaMa La Galleria

On Smart Power, International Cultural Exchange and Performance Design | An Interview by Amanda White Thietje

3 Interviews by AMANDA WHITE THIETJE:
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RANDY GENER and I met in Prague this summer, where we were both attending the 2011 Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space (PQ). I was wandering through the exhibits, soaking up the inspiration and the beauty of the city; he was serving as both curatorial advisor of "From the Edge" (USITT’s USA National Pavilion) and Editor-In-Chief of this year’s PQ daily newspaper.
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Randy agreed to talk with me about the PQ, and there’s so much in this interview I want to share with you that I’m going to post it in three parts. Click on the titles of each article below so you can read each part of the interview:
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  • Interview – Part 1: "From the Edge"
  • Interview – Part 2: "Active Searching & The Value of the Prague Quadrennial"
  • Interview – Part 3: "A Ripple Effect."
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    “From the Edge: Performance Design in the Divided States of America,” the USA national pavilion at Prague National Gallery

    From the Edge: Performance Design in the Divided States of America

    Reflections on curating and creating national expositions in an international art-based mega-exhibition in Prague
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  • Curatorial essay: "Exhibiting a country on the edge: a U.S. approach to performance design"
  • USA exposition returns from Prague: "American performing garage under the sign of Obama"
  • Prague diaries: "Philadelphia theater-makers talk about how performance design affected their works and processes."
  • Interview with curators: "Curators speak about the thrills, challenges and obstacles of staging national expositions of design."
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    Praise and Commendations

    >> "A first-rate writer and editor. Randy Gener understands culture in the widest sense: as news, as art, as politics, as media," Margo Jefferson, Pulitzer Prize–winning writer.
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    >> "Mr. Randy Gener’s 'in the theater of One World,' a showcase of his own individual work, is taking up the slack that print journalism is leaving behind. You won’t find this in your local papers," Superfluities Redux.
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    >> "The visionary," Instinct Magazine.
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    >> "An internationalist, a champion of cultural exchange and dialogue," The New York Daily News.
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    >> "Randy Gener's command of theatrical subjects is unequalled among his contemporaries," American Theatre magazine/Theatre Communications Group.
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    >> "Randy Gener sheds light into censorship and repression of the arts," Judges of the Deadline Club Award, New York chapter of Society of Professional Journalists.
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    >> "Randy Gener is one of the most compelling voices of our era of globalization," Ioana Ieronim, author, poet and Fulbright Program Director of Fulbright Commission Romania.
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    >> "Gener draws our attention to largely ignored voices and visions on the international theatrical scene," Judges of the George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism.
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    >> "Mr. Gener holds himself to a high standard in his long-form journalism — perhaps a model for young journalists," Superfluities Redux.
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    >> "Gener’s writing on theater, especially as it interacts with LGBT lives, is beautifully done, knowledgeable and almost lyrical in its language,” Judges of NLGJA Journalist of the Year.
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    >> "Randy Gener demonstrates the ripple effect that spotlighting artistic passion can have," Judges of the Deadline Club Award, New York chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.
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    >> "Randy Gener's 'Love Seats for Virginia Woolf' is a meditative homage. Gener has staged his play with a subtle grace that complements the art objects' sedentary ingenuity. Never has Virginia's room of one's own been so suggestively furnished,” The Village Voice
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    >> "Gener's accumulation of words in his play 'Love Seats for Virginia Woolf' are the feathery evanescence of the butterfly's wings clamped together with the bolts of iron that are the four loveseat sculptures. The actors become words personified. I was left astonished,” The Virginia Woolf Miscellany of the International Virginia Woolf Society.
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    >> "His essays wed critical intelligence with a love of the telling and unruly fact," Judges of George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism.
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    >> "Gener went above and beyond with regard to enterprise, resourcefulness and overcoming of obstacles in the pursuit of the story," Judges of Deadline Club Award, New York chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.
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    >> "Randy Gener has been a tremendous asset to American Theatre ever since he was selected as a Jerome Foundation Affiliated Writer back in 1995-96, and especially since he joined the staff full-time in 2001," American Theatre magazine/Theatre Communications Group.
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    >> "One of the leaders of the Asian American community," The New York Daily News.
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    >> "In conferring the Pamana ng Pilipino (Legacy of the Filipino Nation) Presidential Award to Randy Gener, the President recognizes Gener's excellence in the field of theater arts and creativity, and diligence in promoting Filipino-American interests and accomplishments to mainstream audiences in Europe and the United States of America," His Excellency Benigno Simeon Aquino III, President of the Republic of the Philippines.
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    Categories

    Biography

    Randy Gener is the Nathan Award-winning editor, writer, critic, curator, playwright and visual artist in New York City.
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    His conceptual installation, "in the garden of One World," debuted at La MaMa La Galleria in New York. He is the author of "Love Seats for Virginia Woolf," and other plays.
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    For his editorial work and critical essays as the senior editor of American Theatre magazine, Gener has received the George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism, the highest accolade for excellence in dramatic criticism in the United States; the Deadline Club Award for Best Arts Reporting from the New York chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists; five media awards for excellence in travel-writing from the annual North American Travel Journalists Association Awards competition; and the NLGJA Journalist of the Year 2010.

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    by randy gener

    randy gener pictured at columbus circle in manhattan

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