1. Pardon the cliché, but the Meadows Prize is a gift that keeps on giving. Formerly awarded to notable artists – famous actors, acclaimed playwrights – the annual Southern Methodist University arts award was reinvented beginning in 2010 as a residency program. In 2011, two more artists on the cutting edge of the international scene will take-up residencies in Dallas, and both will leverage the Meadow Prize’s residencies with local collaborations. Playwright Will Power, whose work blends hip-hop, spoken word, and traditional theater, will produce a new play while at SMU, a piece that will likely make its way into the Dallas Theater Center’s 2012-2013 season. And dance choreographer Shen Wei will create new work that will debut at the Winspear in partnership with TITAS. Over on Art and Seek, Jerome Weeks speaks to Meadows School dean, Jose Bowen, about the prize.
2. Say what you want about John Viramontes and his always persistent Council for Artists Rights, they know how to spice up the stodgy art world with a little tabloid sensationalism. This Friday, Viramontes writes, Texas Art Historian Sam Blain will launch a new blog dedicated to Dallas art history. “This blog will pull no punches,” the release for the new project says. “So much is untold of Dallas’ art world that your observations will understandably have a hand in nudging the trajectory of Blain’s historical reporting.” Should be fun.
3. The Turner Prize, the annual award given to a British artist under the age of fifty for an exhibition deemed to be pushing the nouvelle vague of contemporary art, has been awarded to Susan Philipsz for her sound installation, “Artangel, Surround Me.” As the Guardian reports, the choice was unfortunate not because of the artist or the art, but because shouting student protesters who showed up at the Tate to protest cuts by the British government to the arts drowned out the sound of Phillipsz’s work.
